The Sun.
London, England, 1847-09-18 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 18, 1847.

So assured are the advocates of a commercial
emancipation throughout all civilized countries of the
ultimate recognition of the truth and excellence of
their principles, even. by their bitterest antagonists,
that the preliminary meeting of the Free-trade Con-
gress in the Hotel de Ville, at Brussels, on the fore-
noon of Thursday, was chiefly characterised by a
general tone of elation. That feeling of elation,
even at the inaugurative assembly of the Congress,
is both rational and conceiveable ; for the distin-
guished men there congregated together have already
had is foretaste of their final victory, in the trium-
phal progress of their ideas throughout Christendom,
and especially in their acceptance by the supreme
Legislatures of Tuscany and Great Britain. Any
amount of confidence in the integrity of the inter-
national cause is justified by the achievements even
now effected by the exponents of the fundamental
doctrines first proclaimed in modern times by
the VERULAM of political economy—ADAM SMITH.
Those achievements are more marvellous than
the military successes of HANNIBAL—for they
are the conquests, not of territory, but of prejudice;
the overleaping, not of mountains, but of adverse
interests ; the investment and capture, not of cities
or battlements, but of factions and statesmen. They
are achievements more gloiious, and less liable to
destruction, than the deeds of the Macedonians under
ALEXANDER, or the formation of the great empire
under CHARLEMAGNE—because they are the achieve-
ments of reason, and the consolidation of imperishable
truths. The eminent individuals who were, on
Thursday, assembled together at Brussels, for the
attendance:of a Free-trade Congress, destined to effect
for Europe, and ultimately for the two hemispheres,
what the ever- memorable League effected for Eng-
land, were impressed with a sense of the unconquer-
able soundness of their position, and were conse-
quently disposed to form the personal acquaint-
ance of each other in the best humour
imaginable. Most of the important principalities of
the earth—those principalities at least which have
experienced the blessings of civilization—were repre
sented in this important assemblage in the Belgian
capital. England sent thither as her free-trade emis-
saries, PEYRONNET THOMPSON, Joust BORING,
GEORGE WILSON, and WILLIAM EWART France
dispatched, as not among the least :distinguished of
her libre-echangistes, ANISSON Duruaos, M. le Due
D'HARCOURT, M. Jig, and M. BLANQUI : Germany,
possessed as her commercial delegates, JOHN PRINCE
SMITH, and ASHER ; America, or more strictly
speaking, the dwellers on the banks of the Ohio, had
a fitting mouthpiece in the person of ELunr BUR-_
RITT, commonly called The Learned Blacksmith ;
Italy spoke through the lips of NICHOLAS RIDOLFI,
and Count ARUVABENE ; and in the whole of
that brilliant concourse of orators, and authors, and
savants, and legislators; but one Protectionist was dis-
coverable—by name RISSINGHAUSEN, by birth a Ger-
man, by ignorance a hater of England, and by prin-
ciple one of the organs and upholders of the Zoll-
verein 1 Such were the more remarkable persons
present in the Hotel de Ville under the President-
ship of M. DE BROUCILERE. Notwithstanding that .
the meeting of 'Thursday was the one actually in-
augurative of the Free-trade Congress, its members
evinced throughout the proceedings the hilarity
which is more usually the attendant upon the cele-
bration of a victory than the commencement of an ar-
duous and gigantic campaign. They betrayed, more-
over, that familiarity with the routine of business
usual upon such occasions as to betoken the ex-
perience already acquired by prolonged practice in
their several countries.

To Englishmen and Tuscans—nations who have
but recently emerged from the agitations of opinion
consequent upon the strife between Free-traders and
Protectionists—it is scarcely possible that much no-
velty either in the illustration, or the enforcement
of either side of the question can he anticipated from
the discussions of the European Congress. " The
unadorned eloquence of IticuAßD COBDEN," as it was
most happily designated by the late Premier ; the
legislative testimonies adduced by Sir ROBERT PEEL ;
the effects of the late reductions of duty upon our
national revenues; the reiterated logic and impassioned
declamation of the League orators ; the Parlia-
mentary divisions upon the several readings of the
great measure of abolition ; the enthusiasm displayed
throughout the United Kingdoms on the discomfi-
ture of the Monopolists—everything demonstrates
that in these islands the merits of the commercial
system propounded by ADAM SMITH, and supported
by llossussols, has been thoroughly divulged and
earnestly appreciated. That glorious and humanising
system has been so analysed by arguments, both
written and spoken, that, as
,far as Englishmen are
concerned, no extraordinary novelty, in the way of a
further demonstration, can be expected from the deli-
berations of the Congress.
Under all the circumstances, however, the prO-
ceedings of that remarkable association must obtain
the sympathies of the multitudes of these islands,
and attract no moderate degree of attention, in the
dawning intelligence of the political economists of
the United States. Whatever may be enunciated in
the meetings of the Congress will resound in the
minds of very many millions, and it is principally
from this consideration that we are solicitous to ob-
serve in its arrangements an undiminished and even
increasing ardour, and a readiness to become clear at
the expense of being tautological. Let the aggre-
gated experience of England and Tuscany be enforced
in the discussions of the Congress ; let those argu-
ments which have been employed with such irresis-
tible energy by Counns, and BRIGHT, and Tuompsox,
and WILSON, and Fox, and MILNER GIBSON, and
CHARLES PELHAM %ILLIERS, be repeated again and
again. by their disciples on the
Continent —by DR BROUCRERE, by ANISSON DUPERON
by NICHOLAS ltrnorxr, by Professor WAS ow' SRI, by the Duc D'HAItcouRT, by KAMPLIAUSEN,

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