The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-31 00:00:00

dear, that it cannot well be purchased for planting. Ire-
lan which lived exclusively on potatoes, is threatened
next) ear with a repetition of the frightful seere s which
this winter has witnessed. With us, the public alimenta-
tion, without being anything like so varied as it might
and ought to be in the interest of the general security
and of health, is, however, far from consisting of one
single article. Cern enters into the consumption of
every one in France, and yet potatoes are consumed in
large quantities. France produces from .00 to 120
million hectolitres of potatoes, in quantity almost as much
as wheat. Let us admit that the million hectares de-
voted to the cultivation of this root will not be left un-
productive. But they will not yield anything like a
quantity of aliment equivalent to what they would have
produced in potatoes. In this case, then, the deficiency
is, one cannot say probable, but inevitable and certain.
It may, therefore, be announced from the present time,
that the harvest of 1847 will not be sufficient. Even if
the reaction downward in prices, which it is permitte d
to fofesee, during the next two months, should be
very great, we must not allow ourselves to entertain
deceitful hopes. The decline would prove nothing,
except it be that the speculation for high prices
had been excessive, and from it nothing should be
prejudged with regard to the future. Unless we
have an extraordinary production of corn, on which it
would be very imprudent to calculate, we shall be under
the necessity of receiving supplies from abroad up to, at
least, the harvest of the summer of 1848. Must it be
concluded from this that the next year will be calami-
tous, or only that the price of wheat will remain after
the next harvest almost as high as it is now? We do
not think it. The next season, even with the failure of
the potato crop, will be much less bard to pass through
than that of which we have almost reached the end.
But it will be on the express condition that the faults
committed in 1846 shall not be renewed in 1847. It is
clear to every impartial judge that wheat would not have
attained in Europe the high price at which we see it, if
a year ago, at the same period, or only to speak of what
was practicable, if, from the month of June or July, a
better account had been obtained of what the harvest
would really be. An extreme want of foresight has been
shown everywhere, in England as in France, not only
in June and July, but in September and October, when
the facts were known ; and we are now subjected to the
consequences of it. With more foresight measures
would have been taken of which the effect would have
been, not to prevent the high prices (we never flatter
ourselves, even retrospectively, with chimerical hopes),
but to restrain them in somewhat narrow limits ; the
hectolitre would not have remained at 30 francs ; but
instead of rising to 40f., to 50f., to 55f., as it has done,
it would, most probably, have remained below 30f."

The effect of this article was to produce a panic
on the Bourse; the Three per Cents. fell to 78f.
80c., and the Five per Cents. to 116 f. 75c., and the
prices of shares declined in a nearly equal proportion.
The Presse is exceedingly irate with the French
Consul at Canton for striking his flag " about a mat-
ter of money." The article is very amusing, and is
as follows :

" We received by the last mail from China a piece of
news which we hesitated to publish, so extraordinary
did it appear; but since we are not the only persons that
are acquainted with it, and since other journals speak of
it also, it cannot be considered strange that we lay be-
fore our readers the facts such as we have received them
from correspondents whose veracity is beyond all suspi-
cion. We announced towards the end of 1845 that the
French flag, which had for more than half a century
been floating in front of the factories of Canton on the
same line as those of England and America, was about
to disappear, thanks to the inconceivable meanness, if
not calculated malice, of our consul, M. Lefebvre de
Becour, who refused to pay about a hundred francs for
the ground in which the flag-staff was planted. The re-
flections which we then made had not been without fruit,
for we soon after learned that M. de Lagrenee had spon-
taneously paid the small sum necessary to ensure the
French flag to float at Canton during the year 1846. It
was the only apparent means of showing that we were
present in China, until a diplomatic agent should go
there to carry on the labours of eur extraordinary mis-
sion. Well, the year 1846 had not y• t finished, the
flag-staff was still standing, declaring to the Chinese
people that by the side of England and the United
States there was also a great nation which often decided
the destinies of the world, when the French flags
themselves were already exposed for public sale under
a shed, and were afterwards sold for three Spanish
piastres (about 16f.), with some articles of furni-
ture from the Consulate included. Once that the
tri-coloured flags had been sold, it was necessary,
in order to be consistent, to do away with the
staff thus rendered completely bare ; and this was
accordingly done. As soon as the period paid for by M.
de LagroLie had expired, the axe went to work, and
the sun of 1847 no longer shone in. China on any vestige
of our glory. We do not want to attach to this fact
more importance than it really possesses, for we are
convinced that on the arrival of the new Chargé
d'Affaires, M. North-Rouen, our relations with China
will resume that character of dignity and good intelli-
gence which our embassy had given them ; but it is nut
less deplorable that in a country where the power of
foreign nations is judged of by the brilliancy with which
tiny are surrounded, our agents should hold our display
so cheap. The Chinese, we are informed, were shocked
and grieved at beholding the friendly flag, which they
regarded as a pledge of peace for the future, taken
away from the commercial capital of their empire.
Amongst the foreign Powers, some bewailed the matter,
whilst others laughed at it ; the French Consul has been
the only person not to pay attention to the effect of his
acts, although, if the budget is to be believed, where
he is set down for a considerable sum, he is not paid for
advancing the affairs of England and ruining our own."

The Moniteur has the following announcement:—
" The Pauline merchantman, just arrived from Rio de
Janeiro at Havre, was the bearer of dispatches an-
nouncing that the ship Mutine had brought to Buenos
Ayres orders from the Governments of England and
France to Messrs. Gore Ouseley and Baron Deffaudis,
to sign the treaty concluded between the Argentine re-
public, President Oribe, and the Envoy, Mr. Hood."

The price of corn continues to fall, nevertheless
the price of bread will be raised on the Ist of April
in consequence of the high prices of corn during the
months of February and March. The price of bread
will not be affected by the present fall in the price of
corn until the commencement of the second fortnight
in April. So much for Government interference in
fixing the prices of commodities. Had the baking
trade been left free, competition would have brought
down the prices at once.

The Prince DE JOINVILLE has at Toulon six ships,
three of which are of the first class, under his orders.
The Governor of Senegal, Captain DE GRAMMONT,
opened on the sth ult. the Colonial Assembly, with a
speech, in which he announced that the Colonial
Minister had found it inexpedient to accede to the
wishes of the assembly for the maintenance of the
existing system of free labour by the blacks, as bear-
ing too great an analogy with the slave trade. The
Assembly, in its answer to the speech, intimated its
intention to renew the application, believing that it
would rather tend to favour emancipation.
La Semaine announces the arrival at Paris of one
of the directors of the Imperial Bank of St. Peters-
burgh. It is added that his presence in the French
capital is connected with the financial operations lately
concluded between the Bank of France and the Im-
perial Bank of Russia.
_ . _

The Three per Cents. closed at 78f. 90c.; the Five per
Cents., 116 f. 75c.; the Orleans Railroad Shares, 1,27 bf.;
Rouen, 867 f. 50c.; Havre, 672 f. 50c., Great Northern, 630 f. ;
Avignon, 810 f ; Vierzon, 565 f. ; Bordeaux, 5161. 25c. ;
Boulogne, 415 f. ; Troyes and Montereau, 290 f. ; Basle,
205 f. ; Dieppe, 325 f. ; Paris and Strasburg, 435 f.; Nantes,
4201.; Paris and Lyons, 4371. 50c. ; Lyons and Avignon,
4601. ; Spanish Three per Cents., 3414.

BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE, Iduicu 30. _ _

Boulogne and Amiens, 16%—Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Cette
(Constituted), I%,—.Namur and Liege, 4%—Northern of France. 13
—Orleans and 13orde:ux, 6%—Maria and Lyons, s%—West Flan-
ders, 4)1.