The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-19 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY, JULY 19, 1841.

ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

, (From tl-e New Ye-k Review.)
t Mitt' the gR4t and ,increasing superabundance of
American bread stilts', has but two choices,
and America, at present, waits hee ell
ther to
take our grain, upon a fixed and moderate duty, prin.
ciple already admitted in her temporary act of 1825,
which is the only condition on which a permanent
national trade can exist, and thus retain, with con-
stunt enlargement, the United States as a market for
they now stand, to close her itecottittg
her manufactures I or, persisting in her Corn-lidl aws as
as
may be with her best elistdiiier; and. to see in her
both at Ilene and
henceforward a rival rnanufacturef,
abroad. The alternative is a simple, eke,
sary one. Cheapness of bread is a bounty, allkt upon
foreign trade and upon home manufactures, and which
shall predominate depends upon the course adopted
abroad in relation to us. Our wheat will not, however,
as rapy
be long upon our hands, before it begins to sprout up
in the. form of cloth, hardware, china, and all other
shapes of comfort and luxury, for which, abroad, if
foreign markets admitted it, it would be the payment.
As the trade now stands with England, it is indeed
one of utter dependence. England is willing to sell to
us, but unwilling to buy .from us. America is willing,
now, at least, both to inv.:and sell. The only possible
form of trade, in the meantithe, between such parties ex-
changing unequally, must be one of large and increasing
credits, such as ours has long been with England, and
such as it must be again, if trade is ever widely re-
established under the existing state of things. But
of such enlarged restoration there is much room for
doubt. There is distrust and disinclination on both
sides. England now reasons, as she has lately acted,
most unwisely, with regard to the present crisis, of
which she herself was the moving cause. Even, there-
fore, should England now be willing to re-establish
thing; as they were, it is still a question whether her
ruined debtor can so easily forget and forgive ; or
rather, whether the American trader and agriculturist
will not prefer to seek their Market where they are not
exposed to such ruinous caprice ; and that is in the do-
mestic exchanges of their own country. It is idle to
suppose such feelings not to exist in the United States,
and that very
widely too ; and if so, then as likely to
display themselves, if matters continue as they arc, cer-
tainly in the determination of much individual capital
.
and enterprise, and it may be in some decided form of
national policy, a new tariff, perhaps,
or prohibitory
duties tending to hasten the chanee, by making profit-
able all such conversion of national industry. That such
coming change over our country is even now-" casting
its shadows before," no observant American can doubt.
For ourselves, we hail it not with pleasure ; for such
isolation between countries once named ." mother and
daughter," accords neither with our feelings nor our
iudgment. But still we witness it without surprise, as
being the natural, we might almost say the necessary re-
sult of the recent financial. course pursued by England,
and of her present determination to hold on to the ex-
clusion of American corn. Such policy, while at the
same time-she withholds her long-accustomed American
credits, not only awakens such inclination, but at the
same time renders, in our judgment, some countervailing
policy almost inevitable.
Again, therefore, we repeat, England has the alterna-
tive before her—American custom with American corn ;
or, America a rival instead of a customer : a rival, too,
not only in supplying her own home consumption, but as
meeting the English manufacturer in every port, antici-
pating him in every foreign demand, and in spite of infe-
riority of capital, contriving to undersell him in every
market, and in every form of manufacture, through su-
perior industry, enterprise, economy of labour, and, to
crown all, cheapness in bread. What would be the even-
tual result of such competition in foreign markets, En-
gland may even now judge, for she knows well that,
wherever the American capital and skill have already
taken firm hold of any manufacture, whether fostered in
it by our own laws, or fostered to it by those of England,
the American manufacturer has driven, or is driving, his
English rival out every open foreign market ; and we
doubt not, in many articles, at this present moment
could successfully drive him from his own. In the coarser
cottons, for instance, and some of the hardware, Ame-
rica is now able to undersell the manufacturers of Man-
chester and Birmingham at their own doors; and can put
up, as she is puttine, up, machinery in their mills, and
locomotives on their railways. cheaper, and not only
cheaper, but better, than the best English establishments
can now afford to do the same work, and that under all
the disadvantages of freight. If such, then, be the re-
sult of incidental competition between the two manu-
facturers, what will it be when awakened by na-
tional jealousy, sharpened by all the zeal of individual
rivalry, and aided by the acknowledged superiority of
American mechanical talent ? The result will be little
less, we think, in a few years after their establishment,
than a complete transfer of its present manufacturing
monopoly from England to America, and with it not a
small but a large share of that very surplus capital we
now husband so carefully. What political change must
accompany or follow such financial revolution in Eng-
land, no Englishman can contemplate, we think, without
dread ; and no philanthropist or Christian without sor-
row. For England to wane from her long acknowledged
supremacy will be trial enough for a proud people ; for her
to fall into anarchy would be, even to the mind of an Ameri-
can, like striking the sun from the moral firmament. Let
her, then, we say, be wise in time ; let her, by freedom
of exchange, prolong her date of present empire, and by
colonizing the \Vest, identify herself with coming great-
ness, by her surplus capital and labour, expended on
soils far more fertile than her own, let her increase the
joy of starving millions in Europe ; let her science guide
—let her arts adorn—let her religion bleSs the rising
wilderness ; and then, whatever be the date assigned to
the fortunes of Old England, the continent of the new
world will preserve her name—her lineage—her fame—
her language and her faith, and be to the comity, gene-
rations of men what her ancestral land has already been
to her—A Mother of many Nations.

A BOY SAVED FROM UNJUST
PUNISHMENT. •
At the adjourned sessions of the Cent& Criminal
Court, held in September, 1840, a lad named William
Butler, who was apprenticed to swatch-escape-movement-
maker, was tried upon four indictments, charging him
With having uttered forged checks for sums of money,
and convicted upon two of the charges, and sentenced by
Baron Gurney to fifteen years' transportation. Daniel
Forrester, the city officer, upon hearing of the convictions
and reading the particulars of the trial, believed it to be
very probable—coupling all the circumstances with the
operations of a gang of forgers who have been very active
about town—that the lad was the innocent victim of the
fellows who had already obtained a great deal of money
by employing unthinking boys to go on errands to
brewers and distillers, for cash for chicks, enclosed in
notes purporting to be from customers. The officer im-
mediately communicated his suspicions to Sir Chapman
Marshall, who was at the time Lord Mayor, and. who,
knowing the sagacity and excellent feeling of For-
rester, rejoiced in the hope of witnessing the success
of an inquiry of such description, and desired him
to proceed according- to his own judgment in the
business. Forrester ascertained that several boys
of good character had been- engaged in similar
matters in different parts of the metropolis, and that the
letters used upon all the occasions into which he inquired
had been detected, and most of them written in a similar
way. He had reason, as he proceeded in the investiga-
tion, to believe that' Butler had not conveyed a letter
except in the one instance (to the house of Messrs. Han-
bury and Co., the brewers), upon which occasion he was
detained, and that the witnesses in the other cases were
mistaken as to the boy's identity ; and confirmation of
that belief poured in with increased strength upon the
statements of the master and others who knew the poor
fellow's general conduct and habits, and swore without
hesitation to the fact that it was impossible for him to
have been the bearer of any other than the one communi-
cation alluded to. Forrester having prepared his docu-
mentary matter, and having received all the necessary
assistance from the City authorities, wrote a letter to
Baron Gurney on the subject, and was referred by
the Learned Judge to Lord Nbrinanby, to whom, without
delay, he sent in memorials' from the father and master
of the condemned, stating' the particulars •of the
information which had been received subsequently
to4lie trial and conviction, said praying for further in-
vestigation. By this time the lad was on board the Lady
Baffles ship, bound for Hobart Town, to which destina-
tion he had beep sentenced tbr 15 years. The memorial
was attended to, and an answer was returned on the llth
IWriiher last, stating that the boy had been ordered to
be- sent to the general Penitentiary. In June, after some
fitrther- communications tending more powerfully to show
the innocence of young -Butk!r, the. father sent in, by
.'orrestWs advice, another memorial- to the Secretary of
State, prayino• that the son might be handed over to: his
master in order to finish his apprenticeship; and on the
6th of the present month Lord Normanby transmitted a
letter to his memorialist, stating that her Majesty was
graCiouSly pleased to grant to W. Butler a free pardon.
In the course of Saturday the father and son appeared
at the Mansion-house for the purpose of returning thanks
to Sir Chapman Marshall and the other City Authorities
for the great services which had been rendered by the vi-
gorous inquiry into the circumstances.
Mr. HOBLER stated that he should convey to Sir C.
Marshall the thanks of the father and son, and men-
tioned to them, at the same time, that he knew the Al-
derman would desire than to be informed that they owed
everything that had turned out prosperously for them in
the case to the benevolent and able exertions of Daniel
Forrester. They both seemed oirerpowered with gratitude

EMIGRATION OF WORK MIEN.--A meeting o,
the rate-payers took place in this township on Friday
se'nnight, to consider the proposal of a working man
belonging to that township, who had been chargeable
thereto, and was again about to come on for permanent re-
lief, in consequence of the scarcity of work. He offered to
emigrate to New South Wales in one of the emigration
vessels chartered by Government for the passage of agri-
cultural labourers. The rate-payers agreed to advance
the sum of 141. to fit him and his family out, and to pay
the deposit required by the regulatiQns of the Coloniza-
tion Commissioners. For that small amount, which
would have supported that poor man and his family in
the workhouse about 20 weeks, he, his wife, and three
children, will be removed to England to a noble climate
and fertile soil, where he will be enabled to earn from
21. to 3/. a week. A great number of labourers from
Staveley and the neighbourhood have adopted the same
course, part of which will have sailed ere this, and others
will follow an the second of next month from Liverpool.
—Kendal Mercury. •
cotton-spinners of Bolton have a addressed a very aftlct-
MR. BOLLING'S SPINNERs.--The operative
,
ing appeal " To the friends of humanity and justice," on
behalf of fifteen of their fellow workmen who have be-
come the victims of Tory tyranny and oppression. They
have been discharged from the employment of Messrs.
Bolling for daring to vote according to their consciences
at the late election. We trust the appeal will be re
bponded to.—Manehester Guardian.