The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-13 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 13, 1563,

the game goes on for the benefit of party at the
expense of the people at large.

With reference to taxation, Sir MORTON pro-
poses to examine the principles on which it is based,
and supposes that we cannot have yet reached the
limits of human discovery as to the best mode of
dealing with the subject. He says that Sir ROBERT
PEEL during the last twenty years has inaugurated
a great improvement by espousing free-trade prin-
ciples, which he had hitherto strenuously opposed ;
he unshackled the trade of the country, by which
great results had been achieved, to the wonder of
many and the greater benefit of more. Prior to
1842 the commerce of the nation was clogged and
trammelled by more than a thousand different
duties. In 1841 there were 1,162 different articles
subject to Customs duties, the greater portion of
winch brought little revenue to the public treasury,
while they opposed formidable and vexatious ob-
stacles to the extension of trade. In 1862 there
were only 44 articles chargeable with Customs'
duties, and yet the revenue was wonderfully im-
proved by the repeal of the obnoxious imposts. The
amount of duties levied in 1841 on 1,162 articles
was £21,898,845; while in 1862 the 44 articles
produced £24,036,000 ; giving an increase of
£2,137,155. This has been the result of the policy
of free-trade, and proves its wisdom. The declared
value of exports of British and Irish produce from
the United Kingdom was in 1841 only £51,545,116, it
rose in 1860 to £135,842,000—a marvellous increase
indeed, as the soothsayers of monopoly must ac-
knowledge ! But this is only the first fruits of
the system of free-trade, which is yet in its in-
fancy; for oar exports to France and Switzerland
from 1850 to 1860 doubled, and are still increasing
since the late treaty with France. With Austria a
great trade may yet be expected, for her population
amounts to 38,000,000, her whole trade averag-
ing only 61d. par head per annum. While
that of Francs and Switzerland averaged 310. per
head. With China it is only 31d. per head on her
population of 400,000,000, and India with only

half that number, 191 d. ; while with the United
States it amounts to 163 d., and with South Ame-
rica to 141 id. With Russia the balance of trade is
decidedly against us, but when that immense coun-
try, with an area as great as her population is com-
paratively small, becomes penetrated with railways,
and her wilderness of steppes and forests come

within the pale of cultivation, and her people be-

come civilised, we may expect great results from
that eountry as well as from Austria, Spain, and
Italy. But it is not from improvement in the com-
merce of these countries that we may expect such
beneficial changes as, from the freedom and enlight-
ened character of their respective Governments,

enabling their people to live and breathe and have
their being in a quiet spirit of social liberty and
political independence. Witness what enterprise
achieves in Australia, with a population of scarcely
two millions, doing a trade of £21,500,000 a year.
Caking this as a sample of frce trade among a free
people, what must it attain with a population of
tour hundred millions in China and two hundred
and twenty millions in India, within the limits of
even the present generation ! But we must leave
Sir MORTON PETO for the present to the inspec-
tion of those who seek information of the past and
the more eager who are anxious for better doings
in the future of our national taxation and " bloated"
expenditure.

The festivities attending city ceremonials are not
often of great public interest, but the royal visit of
yesterday was an exceptional case. It is the
first occasion on which the Prince of WALES has
appeared publicly among his future subjects as the
chief actor in such a pageant, and it happily inau-
gurates that new and more proininent career on
which the youthful Heir to the Throne
is about to enter. The fact of his majority,
together with his approaching marriage, wouid
naturally have brought him henceforward
more before the public, but owing to the
lamented death of his illustrious father, and the
loss of her MAJESTY'S foremost and most confiden-

tial adviser, the responsibilities of his Royal High-
ness are very greatly increased. It is, therefore,
eminently gratifying to find the youthful Prince so
well qualified to take his due position ; and its being
the occasion of his first address to his subjects
invests the ceremony of yesterday with unusual
interest. His words, though brief, expressed in
fitting terms his sense of the courtesy of the
citizens, and of the expectations formed of him.
His allusion to his royal bride was conveyed in
language which happily linked the glad felicita-
tions regarding his future happiness to the sym-
pathies which have clung round his widowed
mother, as if to remind his hearers how deeply he
was sensible of his filial responsibilities, and of
his determination that the son should not be
forgotten in the bridegroom and the heir
apparent. The approaches to the Fishmongers'
Hall were of course thronged with eager com-
petitors for the honour of seeing the Prince, and it
will be a source of gratification to VICTORIA'S
loyal subjects to learn that on the recent arrival of
her MAJESTY at Windsor, the joyful welcome
of her people was again allowed to greet her.
We may, therefore, hope that a new era has be-
gun, and that the arrival of the young Princess
may inaugurate happier days even for that royal
Lidy, with whose grief the whole nation has
so deeply and fervently mourned. Bygone sor.
rows can never, it is true, be forgotten; but Time,
so merciless in some cases, may prove a healer
others, and the bright and pleasant visions of the
future may soften in some measure the bitter
recollections of the past.

TICKET-OF-LEAVE SYSTEM.—In the reports of
the county and borough inspectors for the year end-
ing Sept. 29, 1562, yesterday presented to Parliament,
Major-General Cartwright, her Mjesty's Inspector of
Constabulary, makes the following remarks, in reference
to the question of a register for the ticket-of.leave men,
which is absorbing the public interest at the present
time :—" As far as my experience as a magistrate and an
inspector of constabulary assists me, I do not scruple
to state that nothing can be more unsatisfactory than the
present system, both to the ticket-of-leave man and the
public. Now, when a man of that class appears in any
district he is the object of suspicion, aid becomes hunted
down until he is obliged to fly, or, driven to despair,forced
to return to his own evil habits to provide subsistence. If
a general register and periodical appearance were in force,
no coercion of this sort would be required ; but those who
were really worthy of employment would, I am satisfied,
have every reasonable chance of obtaining it. This ques-
tion, and that of discharged prisoners, are of the greatest
importance to the public, and not second even to the refor-
matory movement which has been so successfully Parried out
and held to bo so beneficial to the other criminals through-
out the country."

DEATH FROM STARVATION.—On Monday after-
noon an inquiry was held at the Grasshopper
Tavern, Charles-street, Whitechapel, by Mr. H. Raffles
\Valthew, the deputy-coroner, respecting the death of Chas.
Whitwell, aged 48 years, who died on Wednesday last.
it appeared that deceased had been for some time un-
able to obtain employment, and had fallen into a condition
of absolute starvation, and he had to wander about the
streets without shelter. On Saturday week he applied at
the Whitechapel Union, and was taken into the house.
Dr. Champneyg said that so broken down from destitution
was deceased upon his admission that he ordered him at
once into the infirmary. On the Wednesday following he
was found dead in a pool of blood between two beds. The
changeefrom f
comfort
of the infirmary habitual
anda
h
causedthe co d
mo f
tthe
rupture streets
to the
a blood vessel. The verdict was—Death from rupture of
a blood vessel, acelerated by destitution.

LIVING LIKE A PRINCE.—A certain rich noble-
man, who keeps a French cook, accustomed to call his
chef 46 Minister of the Interior,"