The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-01 00:00:00

COMMERCIAL TREATIES.

The delays and disappointments which have invariably
attended the commercial negotiations and commercial
treaties undertaken or concluded of late years between
the British Government and foreign Powers, have
thrown a good deal of unmerited distrust upon that
mode of extending the trade and manufactures of this
country. That distrust ought more properly to be
attached to the department by which these matters have
been so grievously mismanaged ; and the failure of our
previous attempts is so manifestly attributable to an
imperfect acquaintance with the subject, or gross volun-
tary neglect of the best opportunities, that these exam-
ples prove nothing against the advantages which a more
active and enlightened system might assuredly confer re-
ciprocally upon ourselves and our Allies.
The great basis upon which the whole fabric of
commercial intercourse rests, is the growing and ever-
unsatisfied wants of civilized men. The more the
globe is explored, occupied, and peopled, the more need
is there of those productions of nature and of art which
are indispensable to the life and happiness of mankind.
Great Britain is, of all the nations in the world, best
fitted to supply this demand, by the extent of her own
productive dominions, by the power of capital, which
is ever seeking for investment in every shape of enter-
prise abroad and at home, by the energy and skill of
her industrious population, and by the strength and
numbers of her maritime power.
Hence it follows, that Great Britain has a larger
share of commercial advantages to offer than any other
nation. She has it in her power to assist by the legiti-
timate influence of commerce the prosperity of every
other nation, to open wide markets for their internal
produce, to raise their revenues by increasing the de-
mand for colonial produce and cheap manufactured
goods—in a word, to apply her own mighty commercial
machinery to the development of resources in other
countries which are as yet unknown to themselves and
useless to the world.

It may be inferred from the in6ifferent success of our
negotiators, that they have seldom held this language.
We are looked upon in Europe as a nation
of merchants, supplicating for privileges we will
not grant to others, and seeking to reap :here
we have not sown. At other times reports
have been made by the commercial agents of
Downing-street, framed to suit some party purpose at
home, and intended to assail the defects of our own
commercial legislation, rather than to explain the real
condition of foreign countries. The result has been,
that the British Government, with an undoubted power
of conferring the greatest benefits by a fair system of
commercial intercourse, and able to outbid every other
nation in supplies, in capital, and in navigation, has been
baffled in the paltry attempts which have been ostenta-
tiJusLy announced from time to time as boons to British
industry.

The consequence has been, that the Austrian Treaty,
not having been combined (as had been intended by
the sagacious Minister of that empire) with the
negotiations then pending, but abruptly concluded
at Constantinople, and having been framed with
an entire oversight of some very important ele-
ments in the relations between the two countries,
has given no proofs of vitality except in the Bill of
indemnity which was brought into Parliament last
Session to rectify its illegality. The Turkish treaty,
as we showed to demonstration some months ago, had
the effect of creating insurmountable restrictions on
British commerce in some parts of the Ottoman em-
pire, whilst it professed to remove those restrictions in
all. The Neapolitan treaty, which was a fair specimen
of what might be done all over the world by the in-
fluence of common sense, was disavowed and smothered
by Lord Palmerston. The French treaty, after years of
fruitless negotiation, was at last brought to the eve of
completion, when it was frustrated by political occur-
rences, although we venture to affirm, on very good
French authority, that if the matter had been urged as
it might have been by Lord Palmerston, that treaty
would have been signed before our relations with France
had chanced to be put in jeopardy, and would conse-
quently have afforded an additional pledgo of peace to
the mercantile communities in both countries. 'The
inquiries made by Dr. Bowring as to the Garman
Customs Union appear to have been attended with no
result, and the periodical revision of that system is
allowed to pass without any improvement of our rela-
tions with the large communities which constitute the
League ; whilst, instead of making:the:most of the supe-
rior liberality of the tariff of Hanover and the northern
German States not belonging to the Prussian Union,
we raise objections to the Stade dues, which involve no
real principle or example of commercial legislation. If
it be an object with us to stand upon a better footing
with the great German League, the obvious method is to
confer advantages worth having on those States which
have refused to belong to it. Our present tariff, with
all its inconsistencies and injudicious duties, at least en-
ables us to cede with a good grace upon points which
are a positive restriction to other countries, although
they only act as a negative and unproductive restriction
to ourselves.

It appears from the evidence collected by the Com•
mittee of the House of Commons on import duties, that
there arc 516 articles in our tariff which produce on an
average 139/. each to the annual customs revenue.
Ten articles produce upwards of 100,0001. and below
500,000/. Nine produce upwards of 500,000/. each,
but these nine articles produce collectively 18,575,0711.
out of the "",100,095/,, which is the total amount of
duties collected. In short, those nine articles, being
all of primary necessity and vast consumption, are the
wand source of our national income : a slight propor.
tionate increase or falling-off in them is of more im-
portance than all that happens to the other 854 taxed
articles put together. The object of the imposts on the
former is revenue ; that of the imposts on the latter, a
costly and injudicious system of protection, frequently
amounting to virtual prohibition :
But although we admit that there is ample room for
the revision and improvement of our own tariff, we do
not adopt the sweeping measure of reform recommended
by the Import Duties Committee. Example may be
one mode of forcing open foreign markets, but negotia-
tion is another ; and in treating of these matters it is
not unworthy of consideration that we have a number
of points to concede, which it is even more important
for other nations to gain than for us to grant.
It is this duty of the Legislature and Administra-
tion to hold the balance evenly between those in-
terests which have acquired the importance of ma-
turity, and those which arc yet to be created and
nurtured in the various dependencies of England.
Without doubt there are elements of prosperity in the
world sufficient to meet the undiscovered wants of un-
born generations. One nation will be enriched by
producing them, another by exchanging for them its
own productions. Mankind will learn more and more
that commerce, like mercy," blesses him that gives and
him that takes ;" and the same power whose wealth
and energy in time of need equipped all Europe for
war, may employ the same gifts as generally and veaer-
nusly for the purpose of opening new channels of coin-
munication, promoting new plans of improvement, and
proving that the welfare of each derives its security
from, and contributes its share to, the welfare of all.—
Times.

---
COURSING.--.THE GAME vast
number of informations recently have been laid under the
Game-taws, to recover penallies from farmers and trades-
men for beingc, prevent at, an 4 assisting in, coursing.
t M. M. G. Dowling,—'Esq. was on Saturday
called to the bar by thy Honourable Society of Gray's Inn.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS,

FROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF SATURDAY.
(From the Courier.)_

According to notice, Lord John 'Russell last even-
ing brought before the Commons House his motion
for leeve to bring in " A Bill to Continue the Poor-law
Commission," not for one year, not for five years—to
which originally limited by Lord Althorp, with an in-
timation that machinery so expensive might thereafter
be dispensed with—but " for ten } ears," that is to say,
for ever. Supplementary to this announcement so con-
soling for the poor, the Bill professes to be also for the
"'further Amendment of the Laws relating to the Poor in
England." We might have been tempted to hope, even
against despair, for the concession of some boon to the
poor in these amendments, so called, to be proposed.
but reference to the speeches of the Noble Mover is
quite sufficient to extinguish whatever ray of comfort
might have glimmered in the far distance on that score.
The amendments will, in fact, be only in the way of ren•
dering the provisions of the new Poor-law more stringent,
and of enlarging the despotic powers of Somerset House.
Lord John pretends to justify the repeal of the more
wise and humane enactments of the law of Elizabeth,
on the ground of certain abuses which in the course of
nearly two centuries had grown in the working of that
law. Upon the same principle lie would be equally
right in vindicating the repeal of Magna Charts, the
Bill of Rights, or, to come to more modern times, Ca.
tholic Emancipation, because rebellious Nobles had
levied civil war, or reform agitators had broken out
into rebellion in South Wales, or Papists had
broken their oaths. The abuses of rights and privi-
leges by the rich and more powerful have been at least
equally salient with those on the part of the poor
under the old Poor-laws ; and where transgression
is equal the punishment should not be one-sided. But
the abuses were those of mal-administration merely,
and did not affect the principle of the old Poor-law.
Lord John assumes, indeed, that the principle of the
Elizabethan Act is left unscathed by its modern tra-
vestie, but we incline to believe that he is single in the
conceit which, as we cannot attribute it to ignorance,
we must challenge as of bad faith. The law of Eliza-
beth says the poor shall not starve, but it does not
make imprisonment in workhouse gaols, and dietary
worse than that of felonry, the conditions of such relief
as may keep soul and body from parting. It does
not enact the separation of wife from husband, and
both from children. " There were four workhouses
(said Mr. Wakley) in the Kensington Union : that for
fathers at Kensington, that for mothers at Chelsea,
that for daughters at Fulham, and that for sons at
Hammersmith." Will Lord John pretend this cruel
classification and division of families to be part and
parcel of the Elizabethan " principle ?" One of
his largest boasts in favour of the new system is,
its tendency to moralise the people. " The labourer
(says he) was raised by this change in the law."
*T We hold the veracity of these reports,
from frequent and public conviction of their notorious
perversion of truth, at a very cheap rate. The exist-
ence of the Commissioners may be said to hang upon
the supressio veri add asscrtiojillsi. As to the mons-
trously exaggerated abuses of old Poor-law administra-
tion—exaggerated with malice prepense and afore-
thought—they were slight and endurable evils, taking
them even as depicted, when compared with the fright-
ful barbarities perpetrated under the sanction of the
new system, and naturally flowing from it.
(From the Globe.)
c are happy to find that the Liberal electors of
East Surrey arc alive, not merely to the necessity of
union and energy in the cause of Mr. Alcock, as the
candidate in whom are found the qualities which merit
their unanimous approval and support, but that
many electors, who would support a Conservative
candidate under other circumstances, are deter-
mined to stand aloof from the present contest ; and
thus mark their sense of what is generally felt to be
an affront offered to the whole constituency, by the pro-
posal to convert the county of Surrey into a pocket
borough—to transfer it, with the ease of changing a
mere banking account, to the house of Coutts, Trotter,
and Co. One partner (Mr. Trotter) already repre-
sents the Western Div:slon of Surrey ; and now an
attempt is made to introduce a mere youth, the son of
Sir Edward Antrobus, another of the firm / The
young gentleman's pretensions to a scat in Parlia-
ment would not have been weakened in the esti-
mation of any constituency had he tarried a little lon-
ger before he aspired to the honour and responsibility
of a Legislator ; but when the County of Surrey is
affronted by having a mere youth, scarcely emancipated
from the restraints of pupilage, proposed for one of its
members, and this in order to place the county under
the domination and control of a banking firm, we are
trot surprised at the resentment high-minded men feel
at the indignity—the surprise would rather be ex-
cited if the indignity were not resented, and the
proposal spurned as it deserves. 'lle Liberals of
East Surrey, on the other hand, have reason to
congratulate themselves on their candidate. Mr. Al-
cock's respectability, independence, experience, and un-
compromising consistency, render him all that an en-
lightened constituency could wish for in a Representa-
tive. The enthusiasm with which be has been received
at the meetings he has attended; the activity evinced
by the Local Committees ; and the encouraging com-
munications received by the Central Committee from
the several districts, warrant a strong hope that the late-
ness of Mr. Alcock's appearance in the field will not
militate against his success at the poll.

( From the Slaw:turd. )
Lord John Russell proposes to continue the Poor-
law Commission for ten years morel in addition to the
seven years that it has been in existence. Is not this
without precedent? The Poor-law Commissioners are
legislators, and to a considerable extent they exercise
the power of levying taxes. When before did the Le-
gislature delegate its legislative and tax-imposing
functions for ten years ? And what is the necessity
for such an extraordinaey proceeding ? IVhen the
New Poor-law passed, it was distinctly stated, that
the Commission was to be but temporary, to put the
new law in motion ; and now, after the Commission
have ruled seven years, a prolongation of their reign
for ten years more is demanded. The country, we
think, has a right to demand an explanation of this ex-
traordinary project. Why should not the Poor-law
Commissioners annually submit to their re-appo'ntment
by Parliament us the army and navy do ? Is it that
they have given so much satisfaction to the country ?
We abstain, however, from this view of the subject, be-
cause we wish to hold attention to the constitutional
question—is Lord John Russell's project sanctioned by
precedent, by analogy, or by the principles and practice
of the Constitution?