The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-21 00:00:00

STATE OP TRADE,

MANCHESTER, Dec. 20. We have had a better
market . to•day for shipping yarns, and, compared
with last week, a considerable amount of business
has been done. Buyers have had to pay an advance
of Id to id per lb. over last Friday's prices. Yarns.
are now very scarce, as spinners will only work to
order, refusing to go into stock. The consequence
is that any demand instantly sends up prices. The
market closes strong, with an upward tendency.
Toe market for home trade yarns has also been more
ac:ivc to-day, at an advance of 11 to ld per lb.siree
Friday. A fair amount of business is reported in
this description of yarn, although to sonic extent
extreme prices checked business. The cloth mar-
ket has been quite as firm, but less active than the

yarn market. Last week the noe•arrival Gf In-
dian telegrams prevented business. These have
since come to hand, but have given only a slight
stimulus to business. The latest telegrams, espe•
malty those from Calcutta, are considered rather-
more favourable, and these together with the news.
from America, have had the effect of imparting
more strength to prices. This was to be expected
from the action of the Liverpool cotton-market;
still, these accounts have not led to any general
improvement in the demand. Few offers have been
made, and scarcely any for largo quantities, so that
there is every probability we shall close the year
without the eXcitement expected to result from a
probable new lease of the war. Manufacturers
have raised their quotations in some cases consi-
derably, but these advanced rates have been but
little responded to to-day, and the market has
rather disappointed general expectation. Messrs..
John Slagg and Co. report to-day's cloth market as
follows :—" The India telegrams and recent news
from America have tended to strengthen and im-
prove our market. The amount of business result-
ing from these causes has, however, disappointed
general expectation, and, though we close with ad..
vanced quotations, the actual operations have not
been large. _

LEEDS, 20th.—These has been a thinly attended
market in the cloth halls this morning. The thick,
wet, murky atmosphere, combined with the ap•
preach of Christmas, has tended to keep purchasers
back,and the aggregate sales•have not been impor-
tant. Good tweeds, spring meltons, and ordinary
black cloths have been the kind of goods most sale-
able. There has been some inquiry for unions for
exportation, but not to any large amount. As to
prices, the market keeps firm, which may be taken
as an indication of the soundness of the trade.
Manufacturers, dressers, and finishers are well em-
ployed, rather more so than last week, in conse-
sequence of the preparation for keeping at least
next Monday as a Christmas holiday. There is no
change in the wool trade. A fair business is doing,

and prices are firm.
NOTTINGHAM, 20th.—At this Exchangc.hall to-
day the attendance was fair. The demand for lace
yarns was slow, but sellers generally held out for
the extreme rates of last week. There was little
passing in hosiery yarns, but recent rates were
well supported. In silks little or no alteration took
place. Brown nets were a heavy sale; prices, how•
ever, were much the same as heretofore.
ROCEEDALE, 19th.—Stocktaking by merchants
has its influence upon the flannel market, and tends
to keep sales at the hands of the manufacturers low.
To-day's market has been attended by only a small
number of buyers, and they have purchased but a
moderate amount of goods. The cheaper kinds of
flannels were in most request, but a few good fancies
were also sold. Prices keep firm, and manufac•
turers aro tolerably well employed. There is a
slackness in the demand for Yorkshire goods, and
the purchases to-day wore quite of a retail charac.
ter. Wools maintain late prices, but at present
naanufaturers are not buying freely. After Christ
mas more business may be anticipated.

ENORMOUS SURRLY OF POULTRY.—TLC supply
of poultry in Leadenhall and Newgate'markets
exceeds by far that of former years. Twenty vans laden
with crates containing turkeys and geese arrived by the
Great Eastern Railway yesterday morning, brought addi-
tional freights. The packages that throng the thorough.
fares in the markets are so numerous that there is scarcely
walking room. Amongst the turkeys from Norfolk are
some monster specimens, many of the birds weighing from
301 b to 341 b without the feathers. The geese from Norfolk
and Suffolk are exceedingly fine in quality. The supplies
brought by the Antwerp and Ostend steam vessels are also
enormous.

A Marseilles letter states that the Mediterranean
had been exceedingly rough for the last few days, and that
three vessels laden with timber were wrecked during the
tempest—one of them, from Mecklenburg, off the Tour St.
Louis, at the mouth of the Rhone; another, from Sweden,
at the mouth of the Herault ; and the third, belonging. to
French ewnere, at the entrance of the Porte of Cette.

In your recent speech at Rochdale, referring to what has
been done towards mollifying this absurd and mischievous
invention for impoverishing the people, and preventing ac-
cretions of national wealth beyond the powers of calculation,
you most truly observed that it all comes to a mere shifting
of the burden, which, ',quota Customs and Excise duties,
measured by their amount, is now heavier than it was when
the process of readjustment commenced.
But, in the face of the 40 millions still levied annually by
duties on commodities, a sum greatly augmented to the con-
sumers thereof by extra charges of the dealers, who collect
the duties from the pubic, and in face of the fact, which
we believe demonstrable, that every penny of the 40 millions
thus collected for the Government ceps the,.caprdry, in,
actual piyinentd and leases, at least 31, you are reported
by Me Times to have said that Mr Gladstone has "nearly
finished the career of manifolding the resources of revenue.
He has nearly completed his work. Any future services
that he can render must be in reducing the expenditure."
Holding that the principle of the Anti-Corn Law League
went the full length of enfranchising trade and labour from
all fiieal obstructions to their operations, and consequently,
to the entire abolition of the Customs and excise system, as
being the most costly, cumbrous, and prejudicial of all modes
of rising a revenue, we can hardly believe that these were
your words, or if they were that they were not accompanied
by some-qualifications not recorded,

Having imbibsd my Free-trade principles from you, and
carrying them to their full logical issue, I trouble you on
this point for my own comfort and satisfaction in a struggle
which is arduous enough with declared opponents, but is
rendered far more so by such aid to the enemy as is afforded
by statements of the nature alluded to, coming from those
who ought to be foremost and most thorough-going of all
the champions of real, genuine freedom of trade, which
never can be achieved so long as Customs and Excise exist.
Pray excuse any liberty that I have taken in thus con-
veying to you the opinions of the Council, and believe me
to be, with best wishes for your restored health and strength
for renewed labours,':and the acquirement cf additional
laurels in this great cause.—Yours truly,
C. E. NACQUEEN, Secretary.
Richard Cobden, Esq., M.P.

Dunsford, ➢iidhurst, Dec. 11, 1864.

Sir,—Mr Cobden, who is unwell, desires me to acknowM
ledge the receipt of your letter. He is unable at present to
attend to his correspondence.

He is very sorry that anything that fell from him at
Rochdale should have acted as a discouragement to you and
your colleagues. A word or two of explanation will, he
thinks, repave this feeling.
Mr Cobden has had his own work to do, which was from
the first nothing more than the abolition of protective du-
ties. It is a mistake on your part to suppose that the Anti-
Corn Law League ever declared war against Customs and
Excise duties. One thing at a time was always his maxim.
Now, if you bear this always in mind, it will prevent your
misapplying the remarks which he makes when dealing ex-,
elusively with his own subject. '
Mr Gladstone has for several years been engaged in the
laudable work cf completing the removal of protective du-
ties from our Customs. Ho acknowledges the necessity and
practicability of completing the work, but, while he has
been doing this, he has allowed the Government to increase
largely the expenditure, and thus to deprive the working
community of much of the advantage which they ought to
have derived from this great economical reform. Mr Cob-
den is obliged to remind Mr Gladstone of this—and, by way
of pressing his case, he states that this process of manipu-
lation (not m mifolding) by which the sources of revenue
are affected is, in a Free Traee or League sense of the
1 s o
question, nearly at tn. end ; and he makes this the graural
() f aneppe
expenditure.
ptoenikalirtu Grela.(. n
]n alle for
thisri
Mr reduction
Cobden
has the
not
vernmentthe
slightest idea cf d sparaging the wbrk 3ou have in hand,
which is a different one from that the League undertook.
Mr Cobden thinks that the real difficulty you have in
your assault upon indirect taxation is the immense pro-
sperity which has arisen out of the success of the free trade
measures.
With an export and import trade trebled in little more
than twenty years, it is difficult to make the public feel
aggrieved at the score or two of articles which still remain
subject to the Customs and Excise duties. In the eye of
reason and philosophy this ought to be only a motive for
aiding you in putting the crown upon the edifice of fiscal
reform; but mankind are
,not reasoners and philosophers,
and it is possible that your case may never have a proper
hearing until the country falls into a state of temporary
adversity. In the meantime there is all the more honour
due to those who, in the face of every discouragement, con.
tinue to direct public attention to the subject, and Mr Cob-
den begs to assure you that his sympathies are entirely with
your cause.—l am, sir, your obedient servant,
,R. C. FISHE.

Financial Reform Aesociation, Liverpool, Dec. 13, 1864.

Boar Sir,—Whilo lamenting the cause which necessitates
your employment of an amanuensis, and praying heartily
for its removal, I am delighted to find—what I supposed to
be the case all the while—that the difference between us, in
re freedom of trade,was more in appearance than in reality,.
and that in speaking of it as accomplished you only resorted
colloquially to that figure of speech which consists in put-
ting a part for the whole.
No doubt the grand, simple object of the League was the
abolition of the corn law, which, by the way, is not yet abo-
lished—but the principle which lay at the root of its glori-
ous movement involved nothing less than the entire libera-
tion of industry and free interchange of all commodities
between man and man, wherever situated ; and this fact was
admitted by some—at least by the Leaguers—for, when a
deputation from the Liverpool Anti-Monopoly Association
of which Mr Francis Boult was one, visited Manchester to
confer with the League, the deputies were asked, " flow far
do you go ?" The reply was, " For the total abolition of
Customs and Excise duties." And "So do we," was the
rejoinder.
As your letter will afford very great gratification to all
friends of the cause as well as to the council, I trust you
will have no objection to its publication, and, to save you
trouble, will take silence as consent.—With sincere wishes
for your recovery, I am, dear sir, yours truly,
C. E. MACQUEEN, Secretary.
Richard Cobden, Esq., M.P.

Circular of the Minister of the Interior.

TURIN, Sandal.

The following circular has been forwarded by the
Minister of the Interior to the prefects of the king-
dom :

Although the late insurrectionary movements in Venetia
have been completely suppressed, and the prognostics of the
wisest portion of the:nation have been realised, the Party of
Action, nevertheless, according to various reports which
have reached the Ministry, appears resolved to make a new
attempt in the coming spring.
T his party continues, therefore, to busy itself with col-
lecting money, arms, and ammunition, to agitate among
inexperienced youth to swell the ranks of its adherents, and
to prepare a sufficient force of volunteers—who are to make
an irruption into Venetia—to organise themselves in bands,
and to excite these populations to insurrection.
Desirous of preventing these dangerous practices in time,
and of sav irg the country from fresh misfortunes, the Minis-
try notifies to you that it is fully resolved to oppose itself
energetically tc such rash enterprises, and that it puts its
trust in your efficacious assistance to reduce them to nothing-
ness before serious dangers threaten the internal and exter-
nal safety of the State.
With this object the Ministry renews its recommenda-
tions to you to give notice to the judicial authority of
every act of the Party of Action overstepping the bounds
of legality, to watch the movements and conduct of the
principal chiefs of this party, their emissaries, the arrival
and departure of travellers, the transit of goods, and to re-
move all the most dangerous emigrants from the frontier.
By firmness and constant vigilance the Government hopes
to attain the object it proposes to itself.
The undersigned, therefore, requests you, signor, to
second his intentions as much as possible, and to keep him
informed of everything which may merit attention and re-
quire special raewures.
(Signed for the Minister) ATETA,

THE CONDEMNED CRIMINALS IN STAFFORD AND
WORCESTER GAOLS.—III the cases of the men now under
sentence of death in Stafford Gaol, the final sentence of the
law will be carried into execution on Tuesday morning next,
the 27th inst., at eight o'clock. The man Butler lying
under sentence of death in Worcester Gaol will undergo the
last sentence of the law on Thursday, the sth of January.
Not any application has been made to Um Secretary of State
cn beloAlf of eikbmc pi the wretched men,