The Sun.
London, England, 1849-11-15 00:00:00

PROPOSED EXHIBITION OF THE

PRODUCE OF INDUSTRY IN 1851.
(From the Journal des Debuts.)

An exhibition of the produce of industry will take
place in London in the year 1851. This will not be a
purely English exhibition by any means—the pro
duce of the entire globe is invited to be present. Nor
will the exhibition be exclusively confined to manu-
factured articles, for raw material of all sorts will
figure thereat; all productions, in a word, which will
bear the carriage to London, so as to appear in good
condition.

To sum up the speech of one of the commissioners
sent to the Lord Mayor by Prince Albert, to whom
the initiative of this vast scheme is owing, a rendez-
vous is given to everything that man extracts from
the surface and the bowels of our planet—to every-
thing that he creates, by combining the materials
with which he is furnished by the working of the
earth. Africa will be represented at the exhibition
of 1851 by elephants' teeth and golddust ; Asia, by her
silks, which will be placed opposite those of Europe,
Italy, and the Levant. Near the cottons of Egypt will be
seen tbose of India and China, Brazil and the United
States of America; in juxtaposition with the hemp
and the flax of Europe will be observed the textile
materials of the equinoxial regions of the globe ; be-
side the precious metals of Mexico, Peru, Chili, and
California will glitter the gold of Siberia and Transyl-
vania, the iron and tin of Great Britain, the silver of
Germany, and the mineral produce of France; the
woollens of Hungary, Saxony, and Spain will be con-
trasted with those of Australia, and the furs of Siberia
with those of Canada ; and the spectacle will be ren-
dered complete by the addition of the spices of the
Levant, the olives of the borders of the Mediterranean,
the grapes or the vintages of all growths, grain of all
sort=, from the corn of Poland, Southern Russia, and
Sicily, to the rice of Carolina, Piedmont, China, and
India, to the maize of Mexico, Turkey, and the
United States of America.

In this gigantic exhibition will be included steam-
engines, from the locomotive to the exhausting ma-
chine of Cornounaille ; looms for the manufacture of
cloth, from those of Manchester and Lowell to the
rude apparatus of the Indian weaver; implements of
agriculture and trade, and the most delicately manu-
factured scientific instruments, both those of Gambey
and those of the successors of Ramsden.

Every sort of fabric, every kind of art, from the
rudest and most clumsy to the moat relined and
delicate specimen, from the most primitive contriv-
ance to one in which taste and imagination shall be
displayed in the highest degree ; everything will be
received and exhibited in the most favourable light,
from whatever country it may have been transmitted.
The hospitality of Great Britain is offered to all
that the industrious inhabitants of the planet are ca-
pable of producing.
The impulse has already been given in the British
empire. The directors of the powerful company
which rules the Indies have already dispatched to
their immense empire all the necessary orders for
the transmission from those remote regions—which
were the cradle of the arts—of their contingent to
this great and interesting solemnity.
It will certainly be no light honour to be distin-
guished in the midst of competitors so numerous by a
jury of independent and influential men. The medals
of the exhibition of London will be titles of which
the possessors will have every reason to be proud. But
there will be something more than mere medals. Great
prizes will be awarded to those who, by advancing
art, hare thereby rendered a service to civilization.
There will be a prize of 2,0001. and four of 1,0001.
for the four great divisions that appear to have been
already adopted ;—raw materials or agricultural
articles, machinery, manufactured artielea, and sculp-
tures, and works of art in general.
This exhibition, according to the idea of those who
are its promoters, will be renewed quinquennially, as
in France. The expense will not be charged to
the state. The Government will merely be asked
to grant a site, on which will be erected a temporary
edifice for the exhibition, as in our Champs Elysees;
but it may be imagined, from the particulars already
adduc!d, what its extent will be. The funds will be
raised by subscription, and it is estimated that
100,000/. will be sufficient. In this manner the
politeness shown to the other nations of the world
will be more spontaneous and cordial.
Prince Albert, and the exalted personages who
lead this movement, are persuaded that this general
exhibition will be very advantageous to English
industry, besides establishing relations of mutual
goodwill between the foreign and the native pro
ducers ; and that in this manner the prejudices
which perpetuated national animosities will be dis-
pelled. As for ourselves who pen these lines, it is
impossible for us not to feel a sentiment of bitterness
on the occasion. The honour of the splendid ini-
tiative taken by England, France, had it so chosen,
might hive reserved for itself some few months
ago. An exhibition of industry was opened
in the bosom of France, which piques itself
more than any other nation on being animated by a
sentiment of fraternity towards other countries,
which has talked so much about the holy alliance
of nations, which since the Revolution has included
fraternity amongst the national mottoes, and in-
scribed it on our monuments, and on the standards
which we show to our friends and our enemies.
We might then have attained for ourselves the honour
of this universal exhibition ; but we have failed
to do so • not because we did not think of it,
but deliberately and aforethought, because we did
not will it. The GoverntneLt was invited to declare
its sentiments on the subject. The affair was dis-
cussed in the Council of Ministers—the public was
3onsulted through the medium of the Chambers of
Commerce and the Consultative Chambers ; the press
argued and fought—the Government, in Cabinet
Councils, made one last effort ; and yet all this
movement ended in nothing—absolutely nothing. The
Prohibitionists, whose credit was already good before
the revolution of February, and who are now more than
ever masters of the situation,did not will that the French
nation, which (it is said) acquired all liberties in
February, 1848, should have the opportunity of com-
paring in the halls of the exhibition the produce of
its own industry with that of the English, the Prus-
sians, the Americans, and the Saxons. When they
declared their will they were obeyed.
It is not for us here to discuss the question of
free trade. We content ourselves with the belief
that a nation which possesses it is more free than one
which does not—that it disposes more advantageously
of the fruits of its labour, and even of that labour it-
self. We should have supposed, that since
France had to make a new constitution in 1848,
destined to serve as a model to civilization, and to
excite the envy of the whole world, it would have
been thought proper to insert in it, with reference to
Customs' duties, a few clauses conservative of the
liberty of the person, the sanctity of the domicile, the
freedom of labour, and the privilege of procuring the
raw materials of labour on the best possible terms.
In our days prohibitive duties, with the unpalatable
arrangements which accompany them, are to the
prosperity of trade what despotism is to the 'well-
being of society, to public security, and to
the stability of states. There are a hundred
examples at hand to prove that the industry
which the prohibitionists think thus to protect, and
which sometimes requires that protection as the very
condition of its existence, never flourishes so much as
when a successful effort has been made to liberate it
from that so called patronage. But this is not the
present question.
Neither is it in place now that the French exhibi-
tion is closed—only to be re-opened five years
hence—to dwell on the advantages presented by
the admission of foreigners to these solemnities. We
; believe that they are as manifest as the noon-day
sun. Those alone are unable to discern them who
. entertain the fixed idea of surrounding France with a
Chinese wall, at a period when the animosities which

once divided nations are disappearing, and when both
1 Governments and private individuals are expending
enormous stalls for the construction of complete
channels which must so much facilitate the interna-
tional communication. To the producer there would
be new models and new ideas—to the consumer the
opportunity of knowing the articles which the best
correspond with his necessities, and pointing them out
to his purveyors.
But one thing is quite opportune and perfectly in
place, and we broadly express it—that is, the regret
that correct propositions enunciated in France, and,
with moderation, by a large number of influential
persons, and supported by several journals, should
obtain no success ; and that, in order to succeed some-
where, they must needs cross the frontiers and seek
refuge sometimes in London, and sometimes in Brus-
sels. We name Brussels because the Belgian Govern-
ment, at its Exhibition of Industry, opened its doors to
foreign produce; but Brussels being a secondary theatre
compared with London, that appeal to foreign coun-
tries could not be heard as that from England will
be. We formerly exercised in the world a great and
noble initiative, which was manifested in an order of
facts far higher than a mere exhibition of the produce
of industry can be; that glorious prerogative, which
perhaps authorised us to assume a very proud name,
that of the great nation, is eluding our grasp
on all sides. Nought remains to us but the initiative
of revolutionary agitations. This is a painfulconfes-
sion, but such admissions are not without their use—
for it is good to know exactly how and where one
stands—and when we shall have ceased to attribute to
ourselves a false importance there is reason to believe
that, with the brilliant qualities which distinguish the
French nation, it will attain the real greatness which
appertains to it.