The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-20 00:00:00

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The British North American

(Prom the Times Special Correspondent.)
ST. JOHN, NEW BRUNSWICK, Sept. 25.
In the United States, as in England, there is a
class of people who insist that a large public debt is
a public benefit. There is a class also in the States
who are rather proud of their debt than otherwise,
and think it a striking proof of the greatness of the
country, the spirit of the population, and the im-
mensity of their resources, that they were enabled
to " roll up" in four years liabilities as large as
Great Britain incurred in a century. Perhaps when
the non-millionnaires, the professional classes, and
the small traders are somewhat more familiar than
at present with the visits of the tax-collector, the
views of this foolish minority will undergo a change,
and struggling families will look back sorrowfully
to the peaceful times before Southern secession,
when the only debt was that of State or county, and
nothing was due to the nation for the cost of bloodshed.
Aleady American capital begins to feel the burden of
taxation, and to overflow into the British Provinces,
in search of more profitable employment than it can
find in the States. Americans are purchasing lands
with water privileges in New Brunswick, for the pur-
pose of establishing paper-mills and woollen and cot-
ton factories, on the calculation that with cheap
labour and freedom from taxation they will, notwith-
standing the high American tariff on goods from the
British Provinces, be enabled to undersell their coun-
trymen in their own markets, either with'oF without
the aidof the smuggler. Within the last two weeks an
American manufacturer of sewing machines has re-
moved his factory from New England into New
Brunswick, and taken spacious premises in this city
to provide the European, Mexican, South American,
and colonial market with his patented article at a
lower rate than that at which he could supply it if he
manufactured in the States. A Yankee manufac-
turer of the patent medicines, for which above all
other people in the world the Northern Americans
seem to have a passion, has imitated the example,
and will for the future pretend to cure all the',
maladies to which unhappy human flesh is subject
by infallible specifics, produced on the unindebted
soil of a British colony, and unenhanced in price by
the inexorable demands of the Federal tax-collector.
It appears that some of these enterprising, but not
patriotic, Americans who have chosen to establish
themselves in New Brunswick have taken the oath
of allegiance to the British Crown, alleging that
wider and more permanent liberty is to be enjoyed
under the protection of the red cross of St. George
than under the Stars and Stripes. And it is not only
Southern, but Northern, men who reason and act
in this manner, and bring their capital and energy
into the British Provinces in the hope of abundant
returns for both. The great increase of smuggling,
which has been one consequence of the high tariff
imposed upon foreign manufactures to provide
means for carrying on the late war, has been already
mentioned in my correspondence from Canada.
The same results have become apparent in New
Brunswick, the wilds and forests of which are only
separated from the wilds and forests of Maine by a
non-geographical and often indistinguishable line,
and where many a frontier farmer's wain or cart,
which seems to be taken with nothing more valuable
than farm produce, conveys into the United States
large quantities of British and French dry goods
that have only paid 15 per cent. ad valorem to the
province of New Brunswick, but will be sold at
Portland, Boston, or New York, plus the Federal
duty of 50 per cent. in gold. Very large quantities
of excellent bitter beer, almost as good as that
of Messrs. Bass and Allsop, are brewed in
the city of St. John ; but so brisk is the
demand from St. Stephen's, on the St. Croix
River, immediately opposite to Calais, in Maine,
that scarcely a drop of the liquor is to be obtained
in the place of its manufacture. This also is sold in
New Brunswick at the rate of about Bc. a pint
bottle. The price in the hotels of Maine, where it
is palmed off upon the unsuspecting traveller as the
genuine British article, is 50e. a bottle, leaving a
margin of more than 500 per cent. profit to be
divided between the smuggler and the retailer, and
perhaps with the accommodating revenue officer, who
systematically shuts his eyes and open hisfalins to the
transactions. Calais and St. Stephen's are but small
towns, but their traders are much more prosperous
than the outward appearance of their shops and stores
would lead the traveller to suspect ; and in Calais,
where the Federal Government has the power to as-
certain a man's income, if not to know exactly
whence it is derived, the merchants pay a property-
tax that is largely out of proportion to their legiti-
mate business.
There is another mode by which the present heavy
taxation in the Federal States operates to the advan-
tage of the trade of the British Provinces, and with
which the smuggler has no concern. The silk dress
which costs an American father or husband who wishes
to see his daughter or wife fashionably attired from
$l5O to $2OO in greenbacks may be purchased at
Montreal or Quebec for $5O or $6O, or at St. John
or Halifax for $4O or $5O in gold, which, reckoning
the premium on gold at 43 per cent., the rate at
about which it vibrates in New York, is a difference
of more than one-half in favour of the purchaser in
the provinces. Shawls, velvets, laces, fringes, ribands,
linens, woollens, gloves, artificial flowers, and all the
multitudinous articles of female finery known under
the generic name of " dry goods," are obtainable in
British America at similarly reduced rates. The
American paterfamilias is thoroughly cognisant of
the fact, and, instead of taking his wife and
daughters to Saratoga, Newport, or Longbranch for
their annual holyday, takes them into Canada, or
the maritime provinces, where he replenishes their
wardrobes, and saves out of the cost of their " dry
goods" as much as pays the railway fares and the
hotel expenses of the party. As these goods can-
not be conveyed into the States unless they are
made up ready for wear, another advantage accrues
co the subjects of her Britannic Majesty in the pro-
vinces, and milliners and tailors are busily employed
during the travelling season in enabling the fair
daugb far. m v,-„4-1, v..ta. vag u Ely WI -
out contributing to the necessities of the Federal
Government.
The threat of the non-renewal of the Reciprocity
consul
Treaty, so unwisely put forward by Mr.
Potter, of Montreal, as a means of coercion, to pro-
cure the ultimate annexation of British America to
the United States, has created in New Brunswick as
much indignation as it did in Canada. The maritime
provinces, from the nature of their trade, as well as
from their geographical position, are more conver-
sant with free trade doctrines than their inland
Canadian neighbours, and the menace of Mr. Pot-
ter, believed to have been inspired at Washington,
and to foreshadow the policy of the Federal Govern-
ment, has had a strong effect, both in confirming
the free trade principles of the leading merchants
and of converting more thoroughly to those prin-
ciples a large number of persons who had not pre-
viously given them due consideration. The belief
has become all but general in the province that
the non-renewal of the treaty will not only do
no harm to New Brunswick, but will be pro-
ductiTe of good to all concerned except to the
Americans. The white pine lumber, which is
the principal produce of the colony, can only
be obtained there and in Canada in anything like
sufficient quantities .to meet the demands of
vurope and of lithe Federal States. Costwliaaftteirt
will. the Americans must have it, and all the duty
which the Federal government may impose
the abrogation of the treaty will have to be paid by
the consumer. And if the mere threat of the non-
renewal should have the effect, as seems probable,
of promoting the confederation of the provinces,
and forcing them to look elsewhere than to the
States for outlets for their infant manufactures and
their agricultural produce, the true solution of many
difficulties existent in the provinces, in consequence
of the high tariffs, which, in default of better,