The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1825-07-29 00:00:00

THE COMMERCE OF ENGL.4ND, FRANCE,
AND AMERICA.

[From the Journal du Commerce:l
Ata time when commerce, and the riches of which it is the
11111111.11, and which gives distinction to nations, has become more
auteoded than at any former period, it is most interesting to be
well acquainted with the commercial transactions of the divers
countries where manufacturing and agricultural industry Is most
developed. In the last pages of the fir,ne Encyclopodiewe are
some most Important observations, for which we are indebted to
the researches of M. Moreau de Jonnes, so well known by the
ileowledge he has evinced on similar subjects, and who is a member
Of the Institute, and several other learned societies. This statirtic
*ketch on the commerce of the United States, England, and France,
before given in the latter part of the .25th volume, is continued in
the 26th volume, in a comparative table of the commerce of these
times might( maritime powers.
The territory of the United States, 230 years since, was onlyin-
tiedby savages and wild betties; " a iew wandering and fa-
ptrple," says M. Moreau
de Jonnes. " then occupied a
Itladbleei butV 10.0001.0,1,N men."
alls
Is 1778, that is to say less than hail a century ago.
ramantry could spare from its coneumptica; lor the markethat
ts ofthi
st
wan q;
metropolis, and all which it received in exchani:: for Its
amounted only to 50 millions of France. At present the low. 910 s
importations is 403,991,000 francs, and the total of its commercial
transactions amounts to 3,279,W91,000 franca. Such is the mass of
etches which a free people who know how to profit by their re-
sources can produce in a single generation. The author has sought
foe the causes which have produced this result, in official docu-
Inents, which far the most part have not been published on this
tilde of the Atlantic.
Since the return of peace, the entire mass of the commercial
relations of France had not been fixed upon sufhciently authentic
bases, and the results to which 11. Moreau de Jonnes has come,
acre furnished by the most exact reeearches, and from the most
authentic documents. It appears that the total of the exportations
amounts to 461.050.000 francs, and the total of the commercial
relations to 7,323,610,000 francs. What, then, would have been
the prosperity of this empire, if its immense riches had not been
diverted and exhausted by twenty-five yeas of civil and foreign
war. two invasions, the loss of our Colonic', and the misfortune of
having so often forgotten, since the 31inistry of Colbert, that the
first interests of the State arc those of agriculture, industry, and
commerce !
As to Great Britain, she has attained still more important vs.
salts. Never did the arts if manufacturing, of busing and of
aching, give to a nation a more colossal influence. The total of
its exportations amounts to 4.140.450.060 francs, and that of its
commercial transactions to 10,496,123,0 W francs. " Behold."'
says our author, " the prodigious riches which the ascendancy of
its loans, the patronage of America, the possession of Asia, the
empire over the seas, and that European preponderance which
France has forced it to purchase by 2i years of war, and which
it now seems inclined to dispute with Russia, has given to Eng-
land !"
It will be seen, according to the remark of M. Moreau de Jonnes,
that the sum total of commercial transactions, interior as well as
exterior, of France is inferior to that of England, by a third, and
exceeds by nearly a half that of the United States. Exportation,
which may be considered as a proof of the prosperity of a state, is
not in our favour ; but our greatest inferiority is in our cotnmer-
cial warehousing and re-exportation. " This important branch is
from three to six times more considerable in the British Islands than
in France ; and that of America triples ours."
If we conetiler the exportation of indigenous products, which is
the standard of the agricultural prosperity of every nation, we find
that England exports annually a quantity, as well agricultural as
those emanating from industry, which equals, perhaps surpasses,
in value all the exportations of similar products by other great
commercial powers (France, America, and Russia); and a popu-
lation of twenty-two millions has the power, aided by its superior
industry, to produce every year a mass of wealth equal to that fur.
rilehed by countries peopled by 115 millions of inhabitants.
"Taken in a body, without distinguishing articles, the exports.
dons of France are superior by two millions of francs to those of
Russia ; inferior by II millions to those of England ; superior
by 60 millions to those of the United States; compared with Eng.
land they are 9to 2.3, and with America as 9to 8. There is then
no foundation for the assertion, that the commercial power of the
States equals or surpasses that of France; but it is not to
be doubted that it will be realised in a few years, if our commerce
remains stationary, instead of following the rapid march of other
commercial nations."