The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-13 00:00:00

tical greatness, or even our Constitution, would come
out safely from such a struggle ?" •
" Our first act was to establish a Corn-law. We say
to establish a Corn-law ; for that which previously
existed had, from the altered value of money, become
nominal. By the memorable law' of 1815, the law to
which our subsequent calamities and our present dangers
may be traced, the importation of wheat was absolutely
prohibited when it was under the famine price of 80s.
a quarter. Butcher's meat we absolutely prohibited.
whatever might be its price. Next to meat and bread—
indeed, in as far as the majority of our population is con-
cerned, next to bread—the most important article of food
is sugar. We imposed on all foreign sugar prohibitory
duties. The north of Europe, then the. great market for
our manufactures, and within a week's sail from our
shores, sold to us the best timber and at the cheapest
rate ; the Commies, a distant, thinly peopled country,
offered us timber almost worthless for building purposes,
and at a much higher price: By imposing differential
duties, rising from 100 to 500 per cent. we forced the
community to resort to the bad customer instead of the
good one—to use the distant market instead of the near
one—to take the inferior instead of the superiOr com-
modity, and to pay for it a larger price. We repealed
in words most of our prohibitions, except where food was
concerned ; but still subjected foreign manufactures to
duties scarcely ever falling below 20 per cent. on their
value—that is, on their value here ; all expenses of com-
mission and conveyance being . added to their original
cost, and generally rising above that extravagant rate.
"It is difficult to say what would have been the whole
effects of these regulations. if foreign nations had sub-
mitted to them. That they must have been highly
mischievous, is indeed obvious. As every regular trade
is a trade of barter—as every thing that we regularly
import is, in fact, received in exchange for British manu-
factures which we export—every obstacle to importa-
tion must be an obstacle to exportation. Erery
diminution of demand for foreign commodities, must be
a diminution of demand for the British commodities
with which the foreign commodities would have been
purchased. They must, therefore, under any circum-
stances, have retarded the growth of our manufactures and
commerce. Still, if we had been able to force foreign
nations to take our commodities, and to pay for them in
the forms which we chose to approve, our condition,
though far less favourable than it would have been un-
der a system of free trade, would still have been safe.
But for this'purpose we must have been able to apply to
them the treatment which drove our North American
colonies to resistance and separation. We must have
been able to prohibit them from manufacturing for theM-
selves, or from trading with any manufacturing country
except ourselves. To do this was quite in the spirit of
our commercial policy ; but, luckily for the rest of the
world, we had not the power. The agriculturists whose
produce we rejected, of course turned their surplus labour
and their surplus capital towards manufactures. You
taxed us,' said a New-Englander, ' into independence,
you fought us into a maritime power, and you now enact
that we shall be manufacturers.'

" The new interests which our folly had created, fol
lowed our example where we were wrong more eagerly
than where we were right. They saw that our indwitry
had flourished in the midst of prohibitions and restric-
tions, and they believed that it had flourished in conse-
quence a them. To these fetters they gave the name of
protectiOn, and called on their Governments to imp6se
them. Their Governments, with the instinctive love
of regulation and restraint by which every Govern-
ment is infested, were ready enough to answer the call.
In one country indeed, whose staple produce, since it in-
terfered with no class interest of our own, we freely ad-
mitted, those who benefited by our commerce resisted
the alteration. The southern Anglo-American States,
whose cotton and tobacco we consent to receive, would
have separated from the Union if the Anti-British tariff
of 1828 had been persisted in ; and if we had continued
to receive the flour of the northern States, that tariff'
would never have been imposed. But we deserved no
such support from any European people. Foreign legis-
latures could lay no duties on our products, they could
impose no restrictions on our commerce, which they
could not justify, and more than justify, by our own ex.!
ample. A network of tariffs is gradually excluding us
from our nearest and natural customers, our European
neighbours ; and confining us to our own colonies and •
dependencies, to the semi-barbarians of Africa and Asia,
and to the young communities of America."

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.
LIVERPOOL JULY MEETING.
The following entries, made on Saturday afternoon,
complete the list:—
• --

WEDNESDAY.

The Croxteth Stakes of 15 sovs. each, 19 ft, 'and 30

added. Mile and half.

Cornuto, 4 yrs—Dr. Caius, 4 yrs—The Potentate,
aged—b fby Coiwick, out of Sister to Ainderbie, 3 yrs--
Bloomsbury, '5 yrs—Orton, 3 yrs—eh c
.by Zealot, out
of Zillah, 3 yrs.
The Maiden Plate of 701.; the second to receive 10 sorts.

out of the Plate. Heats once round and a distance.

Nightshade, 3 yrs—Gammon Box, 3 yrs—Georgana,
3 yrs—Dervigild, 4 yrs—Barelegs, 3 yrs—Hawksbury,
4 yrs—Myrtle, 3 yrs—ch c by Bsttledore or Peter Lely,
out of Augustina, 3 yn—Muleteer. 4 yrs.