The Sun.
London, England, 1849-08-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
CHRONICLE.—The great questions connected with
the working of free- trade are eminently questions of
fact. The whole of the argument resolves itself into one
laconic formula, viz.--What is the result? Is it true, or
is it not true, arithmetically, that we have more to do—
that cotton is in greater demand—that mills are in mcen
rapid motion—workmen better employed—ships- in
greater request—than they were before the late exten-
sive and momentous legislative changes? These are the
perpetual interrogatories of a man anxious to judge for
himself, and to judge truly. There is only one qualifi-
cation to this test of figures—but a qualification so ob-
vious, that to omit or overlook it would indicate a total
incompetence to pur.•ue the simplest train of reflection,
or to discriminate the moat obvious differences. In the
first place, there can be no fair comparison where the
conditions are mani'estly out qual. Nobody believes that
there can be any even competition between a man in full
health and spirits, and one who has just broken his leg
or lost his fortune. Nor would any one dream of accusing
of failure a man who is unable to move with as much
celerity under a load of three hundred weigtit, as under
a loaf of one. It is not only within the province of
Euclid that things which are equal to the same are t qu it
to each other. The law is univ, rsal, and no where is it
more palpably arplic ible than in the region of commer-
cial statistics. There, at least, the similarity of the
things ani seasons compared is always the primitive
element of any rational comparison. It you choose, :,ou
may make yourself at once miserable and ridiculous by
insisting upon the melancholy differences between a bad
year and a good one—between a time when wheat is 90s
a quarter and a time when it is only 40 -,—between a
year of war and a year of peace—between a season of
insurrection and a period of prosperous loyalty; but, for
all fair comparative purposes, the result will be about as
valuable as a parallel between a prizefighter and Tom
Thumb—between Niagara and the fountains in Trafal-
gar-square—or between Mont Blanc and Holborn-hill.
Plain, reasonable, and distinct as these canons of
criticism must appear to all rational people, they are
certainly beyond the comprehension of the Country
Party. Those most eccentric persons who endure
the daily task of defending the figments of Protec-
tionism have the advantage, or the misfortune, of
being remarkably singular in this respect. With
them a difference is a difference—and there's an end.
Certain figures are un'ike certain other figures—aud the
case is settled. The whole of the problem is contained
in two parallel columns, and they fancy that they can
read the solution in the totals—at least when these totals
suit their own views—a coincidence, by the way, which
occurs so seldom as to amount to a luxury. Now, at all
events, free-traders aspire- to something better than this.
The imposition which we reject is too gross to circulate
for an instant beyond the atmosphere of the nursery.
And it so happens that at this moment we can very ap-
positely illustrate, by the same arithmetical method, the
success of our free-trade legislation—while the proofs by
which that success is rendered obvious are entirely un-
tainted by those clumsy devices and those tricks -of ma-
nagement in which the statistical sterility of the country
Party condemns them to seek a precarious and transi-
tory refuge. Returns have just been published, showing
in detail the quantities and values of several descriptions
of manufactured articles exported to the various countries
of the world, during the halt-yearly periods respectively
ending on the 30th June, 1848, and the 30th Juue, 1849.
These returns, although not formally official, are com-
piled under such auspices, and are issued under such
authority, that they may be safely accepted as accurate
statements of the facts which they profess to contain.
It is nut the less, however, a reflection on the statis-
tical department of the Government, that information so
full of interest and importance cannot be collected under
its supervision and issued with the certificate of its im-
primatur. Now, with reference to these returns, the
facts are very striking. If we could permit ourselves to
adopt the horn-book practice of our opponents, and to
rest contented with a comparison of the strongest facts
in the strongest places—proclaiming incessantly that
we had achieved a triumph wherever we found a seem-
ing agreement with our own views—nothing could ex-
ceed the facility of our task. We should have simply to
compare the figures of 1848 with those of 1849
leaving the adherents of Mr. Disraeli to exhibit their
amazement. Ilea that would be a deceptive victory, to
which neither our taste inclines, nor our cause
compels us to resort. For the purpose in ques-
tion, the two years have little in common ;
and it would be as futile to employ the com-
mercial statistics of these two years as fair exponents of
the free-trade argument, as it would Le to deduce the
average heat of oar summers from the recorded tempera.
tures of June and -January. We shall proceed, there-
fore, upon a more fearless plan, and work upon a surer
foundation. We shall take the year 1846—that propi-
tious year, when, if we are to believe the rhetoric of the
Country Party, the land flewed, or rather overflswed,
with milk and honey—when farmers sold their cern at
60s.—manufacturers enjoyed protections—wages were
regulated by the price of food—and the leaders of the
Protectionists had not begun to feel the pressure of their
mortgages. Everything, we are assured, is to be dated
from 1846. That was the year before the flood—the
last point of solid land above the whirlpool. Then what
are the facts as regards this model year? We shall first
,are
all select three descriptions of manufactured articles
which are among the most important of our textile fabrics,
and in all of which the Protectionists allege that we are
daily succumbing before that lugubrious and universal
nightmare which they call the " untaxed foreigner."
The articles we speak of are plain calicoes, printed
calicoes, and woollen and worsted stuffs. Now, as re-
gards these three commodities, the exports of the first
six months of 1849 have been in the following propor-
tions more than those of the corresponding periods o
1846 and 1848—speaking in the only accurate languagi
of per centages:—

More than 1846.
Pe•r cent.
Printed calicoes 34
Plain calicoes
Stuffs

More than 1848
Per cent.
40

31
23

These facts certainly indicate none of those symptoms of
superseded industry of which we have been compelled
to hear so many prognostications from all sorts of pro-
phets. Nor must it be supposed that the above•namt d
branches of trade are, in any sense, insignificant. The
exports of plain calicoes are about 800 millions of yards
per annum—thosp of printed calicoes, about 500 millions
of yards—and tire value of the stuffs exported is not
less than three millions of pounds sterling. But this is
not all. The facts we have given refer to the
total export of these articles during the periods
specified. An examination of the details of
that export places us in possession of re-tilts
equally striking and equally satisfactory. If we collect
together the exports to the eight foreign countries upon
which we depend most largely fur the consumption of
our cotton fabrics, and if we compare tie
figures indicating the resp,ctive amount of these
exports in 1846 and in 1849, se shall arrive
at some moat instructive facts. From the
Ist of January to the 30th of June, 1846, for example,
we exported to Holland, Russia, Portugal, Gibralt,r,
Malta, the United States, Brazil, and the Levant,
96,600,000 yards of plain calico —and, in the corre,pond-
ing six months of 1849, no less than 125;700,000 yards.
To the same countries, in 1846, we exported of print, d
calico, 52,300,000 yards, and in 1849 as many as
89,300,000 yards. And again, reducing these quantities
to a pe r tentage comparizon, we have the following
figures. The exports of 1849 have been more than those
of 1846, in

Plain calicoes by 3O per cent.
Printed by 7l Si
But not only are we prepared to analyze the total
*xporis of these articles into groups of countries—
we are equally ready to decompose these groups
into separate states. We should like it to be gene-
rally known, that, so far are the Manchester people
from being ruined by free trade, they have sold to
the Levant alone, during the first six months
of the present year, 21,200,000 yards of plain calico, and
16,400,000 yards of printed calico, more than during the
same period of 1846—that to the United States the sale
of plain calico has increased 17 per cent., while the sale
of printed calico has increased tourfold—and that in the
Mediterranean markets of Gibraltar and Malta our trutde
in these cotton fabrics has been doubled. We have said
little, thus far, of 1848, nor have we said anything of
those countries which, during that year and the present,
have been devastated by foreign or domestic war. These
facts we reserve. But so far as we have gone we can
scarcely be accused of timidity, or of having selected the
topics and the time least favourable to those whose mis
chievous hallucinations we would expose. Let it be
borne in mind that 1849 has been, up to the present
period, a year of dbly partial revival—that the field open
to our enterprise and industry is still 'encumbered with
the huge and disorderly fragments of an epoch of almost
universal anarchy—and that we have not hesitated to
challenge comparison between even the incipient pros-
perity of a free•trade year and the perfect and mature
prosperity of a season which came as the climax of a
long series. Let these circumstances be remembered,
aad we can have no feeling butane of the utmost willing-
ness to leave the facts to make their ewn way, and the
argument to tell its own story.
TIMES.—If we return to the subject of the Peace
Congress, whose meeting at Paris has just terminated,
it is not that we are inclined to modify our opinion as to
the utter absurdity of its proceedings from a more inti-
mate acquaintance with the sentiments of the speakers.
The French press, we perceive—at least the more Mu -
ential and authoritative representative of public opinion
in that country—has taken precisely the same view of
the case as we have done in London. Their utmost en-
logy has been to damn the Congress with the faintest
praise that ever slipped from the pens of public writers.
Not one single Frenchman of any weight in political
affairs, with the single exception of M. Emile de Girar-
din, has by his presences countenanced the gathering. As
for MM. Coquerel and "Victor Hugo, it is the sacred pro-
fession of the first of these gentlemen to preach "Peace
on earth, and goodwill towards men,"—and we have not
a word to say against his appearance in public on such
an occasion; but with Victor Hugo, the poet acd the
novelist, it is a duff rent ,affair. How long ago is it since
that gentleman favoured the world with a political dis-
sertation at the cod of a work bearing for title Le Rhin
in which all the nations. of Europe were of ered up in a
holocaust on the altar of' Bellona, so that France should
be reinstated in what the, Author was pleased to describe
as her natural limits. We are certainly gratified at
finding M. Victor flpgv going mad rather on
the subject of peace than of war, but we sadly fear for
the stability of his impression,,. Breezes from the sweet
soutb, impregnated with faint odours of the tuberose,
the jessamine, and the orangeebloona to-day—to mor•
row a gale that would do oonour to the Bay of Biscay
or the Cape of Good Hor,e—such are the conditions of
the Poetic) temperament, We look upon M. Victor
Hugo's peace speech
.a 1 his last work—aad a very feeble
one it is—and there is an end of the matter. As for M.
Emile da Girardie he is a very clever man; his worst
enemy will not hiu;
!hat attribute; and the Peace
Notoriety 511i.tr4 his p_ose just 1.7. There is a famous
old passage, 'dear to purpose
Of 141:12414 :Uri° P°434l'