The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-06 00:00:00

earth. His time has come, and his system shall
be in the ascendant." And Mr. Bright illustrates
his position by references to the great mercantile
cities of other days. We own to having been sur-
prised. Of which is it that Mr. Bright is
ignorant ?—of the history of those times, or of the
condition of his own country ? Those cities, almost
without exception, were cities of depot rather than
centres of manufacture, and their riches were con-
stituted of the gains of merchants, not of the pro-
fits of manufacturers. Venice, and other Powers
like Venice, decayed till decay ended in extinction
partly from ill government, but mainly because
commerce took to a highway that did not lead
through her, just as a street, or one side of a
street, in London falling into desuetude involves
the ruin of those who keep shops in it. Venice
died away because she had no territorial system
to fall back upon. Circumstances diverted the stream
of trade, and she died of inanition ; as we should
have died when the cotton famine came upon us had
the spirit of Mr. Bright administered the affairs of
England from the time of Queen Elizabeth to the
days of Queen Victoria. How is it that we have
escaped such a fate? Why is it that, notwithstand-
ing the great disaster, notwithstanding the loss of
th raw material which sustained the staple indus-
try of Lancashire, we are wealthier and stronger,
and more completely armed for attack or defence,
than we have ever been since we took a place in the
system of nations ? It is because we are not mere
merchants, because the great bulk of our manufac-
tures are intimately connected with, originate in,
and are supported by our territorial produce. It is
because our land at home. and in our colonies pro-
duces not only corn and wool alone, but minerals
beneath the surface of the earth. We are a great
central depot for trade ; trade centres in us, and
radiates from us because we have, with the excep-
tion of cotton, all the materials for manufacture
within our Own boundaries. We are the market.
We are in addition the greatest manufacturers of
the world, not because our people congregate in
huge towns,, and that huge towns have political in-
fluence, but because our manufacturing system rests
upon our territorial system. Those great towns,
Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, and such like, are the
sons of the soil of England, and they flourish. Man-
chester had its roots in the soil of a foreign country,
and she has faded away. Lancashire has been sick
unto death, and if she recovers it can only be by
striking roots in new earth. Is it possible that a
man of such considerable intellect as Mr. Bright
can only see one side of this shield, and can only
look at this great subject from one narrowed point
of view ? There is no territorial class such as that
which he appears always to have before his eyes—
no class of nobles such as created and administered
the feudal system. Great manufacturers, wealthy
bankers, eminent engineers, successful lawyers, each
and all enter largely into the composition of the
existing territorial class of this country, and the in-
evitable consequence of this state of things is that it
has become impossible to constitute all these people
into separate sections with antagonistic, or even dis-
tinct interests ; and equally impossible, of course, to
build up a political system upon this imagined and
hoped-for basis. It is somewhat curious that Mr.
Bright should have put his ideal manufacturer upon
the stage just at the moment that all classes, of
whatever politics, are in accord upon this one point,
that they will entrust it to one man only to govern
the country under the Crown who is especially and
peculiarly a pure territorial noble. Curious too
that he should broach his theory that hero-worship
turns away from warriors and statesmen to kneel
before spinners and nailmakers, when we have
scarcely rested from devising tributes of honour and
regard to our Havelocks, our Clydes, our Law-
rences, our Elgins, and to the Consort of our Queen.
But if Mr. Bright is not satisfied with illustrations
taken from society at home, let him look abroad.
What has the supremacy of towns done for Federal
America ? Is America a free trader ? Is it the
manufacturer who is in the ascendant in the model
Republic, or the soldier ? Singular that the great
Republic, by whose light we were to -walk hence-
forth, is taking up all the worn-out devices that
-even the most extreme of our Protectionists dis-
carded long ago, is bent upon raising everything
within her own boundaries, and is endeavouring to
create revenue by duties upon raw produce ; singes
lar that Mr. Bright says nothing about these pheno-
mena to his friends in Birmingham.

COUNTRY MARKETS.


BIRMINGHAM-THURSDAY.