The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-23 00:00:00

COMMERCIAL TREATIES.

It has long been the fashion upon the Continent to
laugh at English diplomacy. A great foreign statesman
once said that we made war like lions, but that we made
peace like lambs ; and certainly such a result as the treaty
of Paris could not have been anticipated from a battle like
Waterloo. The last few years, however, h..ve done some-
thing towards redeeming our national reputation in this
particular, our treaties with the South American repub-
lics, with Holland, &c., being based on the soundest
commercial principles, and prepared with a care and atten-
tion of which slender traces can be found in similar instru-
ments of former days. The recent treaties with Turkey
and Austria are entitled to at least equal praise, and the
negotiations out of which they spring do honour no less to
the ambassadors by whom they were conducted than the
Ministers by whom they were planned. Nor are the trea-
ties the only fruit of these negotiations : we must look
beyond their text, if we wish to have any adequate idea
of the commercial relations which it has been the object of
the Ministers to create. The Austrian treaty, for in-
stance, is a treaty of reciprocity, with the addition of some
very important provisions, giving English ships the navi-
gation and carrying trade direct from all countries to Aus-
trian ports, and essentially facilitating the passage of the
Danube ; but far the most important feature of the trans-
action is the improved spirit of the commercial policy df
Austria—the change that has been wrought in the opinion
of the Government and mercantile classes of that immense
empire—their growing disposition towards a commercial
alliance with Great Britain. The tariff which preceded
the treaty, and is its necessary companion, dealt a blow at
the prohibition system under which Austria has so lone
groaned that promises the fairest results. High as the
duties on our produce still are, and they are obviously
higher than it is for the interest of Austria to maintain
them, British enterprise is already exploring the channels
of trade thus opened or enlarged. As early as May and
June last considerable sales of British produce were made
at the Vienna fair, and large quantities of sugar, crushed
and raw, have since been imported by the Elbe into Bohe-
mia. At Trieste the immediate effect of the tariff was,
that nearly all the sugars held in bond were taken out for
interior consumption, and much larger orders than have
ever been known before were sent through British and
American houses ; and many vessels loaded with sugars
which had called for orders at Malta, Gibraltar, and even
Falmouth and Cowes, have since been directed for Trieste,
and large quantities of other commodities and merchandise
have also since been sold from the bonded warehouses. The
recent importations are rapidly increasing in proportion
with those of past years. These importations are under-
stood to have materially improved the public revenue, and
as the duties on our colonial produce were not protective
but fiscal, no doubt can be entertained that the Austrian
Government will soon profit by the experience which they
are every day acquiring to issue a more liberal tariff. It is
earnestly desired in the Milanese and other Italian pro-
vinces of Austria, where our colonial produce has always
been in request and would find a ready sale. Indeed there
is no country in which the impolicy of high duties for the
purposes of revenue is more forcibly demonstrated. It has
produced its usual fruits in a languishing commerce, a dis-
contented population, and a decreasing revenue. The pro-
tective duties on our manufactures stand on a different foot-
ing ; but they, too, have been raised to such an extravagant
point as to be beneficial only to the smuggler, and to
make the public call loudly for their modification. In Italy
and along the Adriatic a large population complain of their
interests being sacrificed to the groundless appfehensions
of a few manufacture's in a distant district, with whom
they have no connection or sympathy. They naturally
wish to open the English market to their hemp, silks, and
timber ; and besides, as all the exchangts and monied
operations of their merchants depend on Vienna and Lon-
don, they feel that whatever increases the commerce with
England will at the same time augment the prosperity of
Austria and the trade and navigation of the Adriatic gene-
rally. Indeed, the existence of Trieste, as a great. entre-
pot and seaport, must depend on the national trade direct
and indirect with England. But this is not all. The te-
duction of the Austrian tariff must re-act on the trade and
tariffs of surrounding nations, on the states of the Prussian
Commercial League, and the parts of Russia bordering on
Galitzia, from which an enormous contraband trade is
carried forward into Russi by the thousands of Jews scat-
tered along an extensive frontier. Russia will also find
Italy a formidable rival in the English market in the supply
of hemp ; for the Italians only require closer intercourse
with England to procure the necessary capital for bringing
the cultivation of the plant to perfection.
These remarks apply to our trade with the parts of the
Austrian dominions already partially accessible to us ; but,
the treaty contemplates the opening of channels as yet en-
tirely new to British industry : we allude to the commerce
which may be carried on with the interior of Germany and
the Turkish Principalities, by means of the Black Sea and
the Danube. The faculties of that mighty river have been
called forth by the invention of steam navigation, and it has
become a matter of the highest importance that all fiscal
impediments to the use of its waters should be removed.

This is done by tite-ti;;;;.--and when we reflect upon
the fair and productive districts through which the Danube
flows, and the road which it affords for reaching even the
northern states of Europe—if free access to them by the
rivers of the Baltic should be forbidden by the narrow
policy of their governments—we look with the most san-
guine expectation to the results of this great commercial
arrangement.

Of the measures which could be devised to deter the
northern states from using, injuriously to this country, the
powers they may possess by means of the Prussian C•)m-
mercial League, none could at present be more effective
than this treaty with Austria.

The heads of the Rhine and the Danube approach near
each other by nature, and their artificial junction has been
&ready accomplished.
The consequence will come to be, that the northern
states must consent to a fair and open trade by the Rhine,
or submit to an illicit trade by its naw competitor—the
Danube.—Morning Chronicle.

MILITARY MORA LITY.-On Monday, an incor-
r:gible girl, named Eliza Baker, and three others, were
brought before the Mayor and Magistrates, charged with
being disorderly in the street on Sunday night. Two of
them were sentenced to short periods of confinement, as
rogues and vagabonds. The police stated that they be..
lieved the prisoners had just been turned out of the Can-
teen, in the Barrack-yard, and it was frequently the case
that twenty or thirty of the most abandoned prostitutes were
to be found drinking with the soldiers at that place on Sun-
day evening.—Suiblk Chronicle.
Yesterday morning Mr. Slaughter, who has been
superintending the enlargement of a bridge on the Great
Western Railway at West Drayton, had a most miraculous
escape from being crushed to pieces, under the following cir-
cumstances :—The up-train from Maidenhead reached
Drayton at the usual hour, and had again proceeded on for
London, when Mr. Slaughter, who wanted to come to Pad-
dington, most imprudently ran after the train, and, in at-
tempting to jump up behind one of the close carriages,
which was next to the engn!e, his foot slipped, and, had not
the guard most providentially seized him by the arm,
he must have fallen in between the wheels, and been
crushed to death.
An inquest was held at Ilminster on Monday, on
the body of Charles Bevis, driver of the Defiance, London
and Exeter coach, who was killed oa Friday last, by the
upsetting
.of the coach. After the production of a va-
riety of evidence, the Jury found a verdict of Accidental
Death, and that the accident originated from the dense
fog. Besides the coachman, whose death was instantane-
ous, Mr. Bawdwen, one of the passengers, died from his se-
vere injuries on Sunday. night last. Mrs. Rayner, who
wa was
eseverely
her journey
rinne
yh
nr back,
to
day
or two. One of the horses
died the next mnrnmg, ; the others were but little hurt.
An inquest was held on the body of Mr. Bawdwen, aged
forty. The Jury returned a verdict also of Accidental
Death?