The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-05 00:00:00

ebiening

io\D+►N, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1847.

Every reasonable effort is being made by Senor
SALAMANCA to extricate Spain from her financial and
commercial involvements. Whether or not the course
adventured upon by that intelligent statesman tallies
with our own opinions as to what is most advisable,
we are compelled to acknowledge that he evinces
both integrity of purpose and the earnestness of prac-
tical patriotism. Not satisfied with the popularity
acquired by his Administration in consequence of the
generous amnesty granted immediately upon its esta-
blishment, and in consequence likewise of various
other acts of clemency—among which the restoration
of the illustrious Duke of VICTORY to wealth and
influence was not the least commendable—the new Go-
vernment of Madrid, under the guidance of SALA-
MANCA, is striving to restore to that division of
the Peninsula the prosperity so long denied to
its inhabitants by commotion and maladministration.
Naturally, Spain was capable of becoming one of the
wealthiest kingdoms in Christendom. Its geogra-
phical position was, if possible, more inestimable and
more calculated to pour riches into its coffers, than
its vast and magnificent possession in the western
hemisphere—or rather its geographical position ena-
bled it to turn those territorial acquisitions to the
best advantage. To appreciate the excellence of its
geographical situation, be it remembered that the coun-
try of the CID is placed immediately between the moat
civilised and enterprising nations of Europe and the
cc/a3G ur Africa ;
that it has ports advantageously commanding the
waters of the Mediterannean sea and the Atlantic
ocean ; that its western shores form the most natural
point towards which the current of American trade
should run ; that, being at the very entrance of the
Mediterranean, it has the capacity, with a properly
organized maritime force, to become the medium
through which the traffic of Europe, of Asia, of
Africa, and America might ebb and flow—arousing
the constitutional sluggishness of the Spanish popula-
tion into a health-giving and wealth-giving activity.
That is but a miserable and short-sighted policy
which teaches one country that its own affluence is in
any manner dependent upon the deteriorated manu-
factures or neglected agriculture, the abandoned enter-
prise or forgotten industry of adjacent principalities.
The true principles of political economy demonstrate,
in a beautiful and conclusive manner, that each
country should (even from motives of self-interest)
yearn for the extension of the commercial undertak-
ings of its neighbours. Free trade teaches us that
the greater the prosperity of the different kingdoms
of the earth the greater will be their reciprocal be-
nefit, and that the larger their exportations the larger
will their importations necessarily become, and that
the productions of Nature and the contrivances of
human ingenuity must be thereby rendered the more
plentiful. It is upon this enlarged and ennobling
principle that we should, with all the earnestness of a
national unanimity, strive to promote the efforts Of
SALAMANCA and his colleagues for the re-adjustment
of Spanish finance and the re-animation of Spanish
commerce. This sympathy has induced our Ambas-
ssador at the Court of ISABELLA 11. to concede to the
wishes of Senor SALAMANCA, and, although the
Ministerial project is in a great measure discounte-
nanced in Downing-street, to unite his voice with that
of the chief statesman of Madrid in recommend-
ing to the Government of Lord JOBN RUSSELL
the scheme of a commercial treaty between Spain
and Great Britain. ►SALAMANCA'S project in this
particular has at least one excellence, namely, ale

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