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London, England, 1841-04-19 00:00:00

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HMO RNING EDITION-

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THE COMMERCIAL MINISTERS
OF ENGLAND.
"It never yet irjured any branch of industry" (we
quote an American Report on Commerce and Navi-
gation in 1830), "in any country, to lessen the cost of
supplying the wants of the people. The comfort and
happiness of no people were:ever hostile to the wealth
and security of the aristocracy." These are fundamen-
tal rules—rules which, we trust, continue to be re-
respected in America, and which have been, in times
Past, the foundation of the policy of some of the most
eminent of British statesmen.
The monarchy and the aristocracy can rest upon no
surer foundation than the broad basis of commercial
prosperity. But it has happened to every Minister who
has attempted to purify and eularge the channels of
trade, and however slightly to change their direction,
that he has been assailed with the grossest obloquy.
The sweepings of al parties, and of all prejudices,
have b ea brought into active opposition to his mea-
sures. The unfounded reproach, the empty declama-
tion, which was launched at those members of the
Import Duties Committee who elicited, just now, its
very inconvenient evidence and report, was a mere
Summer shower compared with the storm which has
been rahed in former times against some of the distin-
guished pioneers of the progress of Free Trade. Party
has always hitherto done its best to thwart, obstruct,
or dlroage every large awl beneficial measure of Com-
mercial Reform.
Amongst the St.tesmen, whose views of commercial
P°iicY have been the most liberal ; who have attached
!ne greatest importance to the encouragement of our
trade and maaufactures, to the extension of our foreign
commercial relations ; have been those, most renowned
for the wisdom of their administration, for their vigorous
maintenance of our institutions at home, and of our poll.
tied power abroad. But they have largely encountered
the factious and interested violence of their opponents.
Sir Robert Walpole's career furnishes an example. His
commercial policy was of the most comprehensive cha-
racter. The opposition he experienced was of the most
violent description. Interested partisans in the House
of Commons, acting upon ignorance without, convulsed
the country against a measure which was proposed to
commuteanute or repeal taxes on raw materials, for an Excise
duty on wine and tobacco. The foreign trade of the
country was to be extended, the manufacturers to be re-
'eyed ;—but the scheme which comprehended this be-
!racial purpose was represented as one not only dange-
rous to the trade and prosperity of the country, but to
tae liberty of the subject and the constitution itself!
„0a this occasion the University of Oxford and
"%est Shippen" coalesced, and rivalled each other
to the violence of their opposition to the measure and
the Minister, and succeeded in thwarting the principal
object Walpole had in view. The City illuminated the
monument on the occasion, to celebrate his defeat.
Since that time, however, many of Walpole's ideas
have been realised, and our liberties have neither been
injured nor narrowed. Our trade has prospered, our
Power increased, our aristocracy have been enriched,
and our Constitution placed on surer foundations. The
interests thus created, have identified the mass with the
Prosperity of the country.
Walpole's main objects, indeed, were precisely those
Which we have Co often pressed upon the attention of
the public, but which such small and variable statesmen
as Lord Ashburton think wild and visionary.
He declared that he desired to increase the foreign
trade of the country, by the adoption of the bonding
and warehousing system since adopted. He desired to
give a fresh impetus to our manufactures by repealing
the duties on taw materials, since partially adopted.
He advocated the increase of the revenue, and relief
from taxation at the same time, by a revision of the
tariff of the kingdom ; the very policy since adopted and
recommended by a renent Committee of the House of
Commons. And, filially, he drew up the following
King's Speech, in which he anticipated the Report of
the Import Duties Committee by a hundred and twenty
)'ears only !
ri In this situation of affairs we should be extremely
;venting to ourselves if we neglected to improve the
favourable opportunity which this general tranquillity
gives us of extending our commerce, upon which the
riches and grandeur of this nation chiefly depend. It
is very obvious that nothing would more conduce to the
Obtaining so public a good, than to make the exporta-
tleo of our own manufactures, and the importation of
the commodities used in the manufacturing of them, as
Practicable and easy as may be : by this means the be-
lance of trade may be preserved in our favour, our na-
vigation :ncreased, and greater numbers of our poor
employed.
" I must, therefore, recommend it to you, gentle-
Wen of the House of Commons, to consider how far the
duties upon these branches may be taken off, and re-
Placed, without any violation of public faith, or laying
any new burthen upon my people. And I promise my-
self that, by a due consideration of the matter, the pro-
duce of those duties, compared with the infinite advan-
tages that will accrue to the kingdom by their being
taken off, will be found so inconsiderable, as to leave
little room for difficulties or objections."
This speech was del vered on the 19th of October,
1721, and was followed by a permission to export 106
additional articles, whilst from 38 the import duty was
'entirely taken off.
•::, 'These were the earliest of Walpole's measures with
,„''''''VPect to trade, and which alone would entitle him to
considered one of the first commercial Ministers of
t-,°
1-Ingiancl. But his object was to simplify taxation,
Abolish numerous petty, complicated imposts, which
' theeked commerce and vexed the fair trader, and to
substitute in their stead a more equal and simple sys-
tem. This noble scheme for the welfare and grandeur
Of the nation was defeated by the Ultra Liberals and
I.l:tra Tories of the day, by the friends of " Protec-
tion," the " Farmer's friends," and the " friends of the
Church !"
The statute book, however, still retains ample memo-
tight of Walpole's labours in behalf of our commerce.
° When he came into administration," says Dean
trucker, " be found the English book of rates almost as
bad as any in Europe ; but he left it the very best.
eked were you to compare what he did for promoting
Reneral trade (and much more would he have done, had
it not been for the madness of some and the wickedness
of others)—you would find that he shone as much above
al other Ministers as England bath exceeded the rest
of the world in her late enormous expences in —"
This boast of no hired panegyrist of Walpole, we
trust may yet be the proud distinction of this reign.
That our book of rates may not only be made the best
in Europe, but the wisest for the interests of trade and
humanity, which, under enlightened auspices, are lose-
Parably united.
We may safely, therefore, rank Walpole, unques-
tionably one of the ablest of British statesmen, amongst
the friends of free trade. His principles and measures
have both been revived and adopted, and have proved
the foundations of our power.
We now pass on to the time of Mr. Pitt. His views
of commercial policy were as large and capacious as his
Mind. And but for that wild Quixotism which involved
this country in every quarrel in Europe, and so fearfully
Unmerited our debt and impeded our prosperity, lie
would have added to the wealth and prosperity of his
etuntry more than he added to the debt. Mr. Pitt,
Dot having the fear of Lord Ashburton before him,
avowed himself a disciple of Adam Smith, In a speech
Which Moore, in his life of Sheridan, tells us was cor-
rected by himself, he describes the work of this great
Writer as furnishing " the best solution of every ques-
tion connected with the history of commerce."
His treaty with France, his Irish commercial reso-
lotions, his Colonial Intercourse Bill, are all measures
!ilse Walpole's, containing principles which are now
only being slowly adopted, because there are still pow-
erful parties whose interests still only coincide with our
various deviations from the clear path of a just, honest,
and wise national policy.
In Sir Robert Walpole's time, and indeed in Mr.
Pitt's, the popular party, who raised an outcry against
'a more liberal policy, relied upon the ignorance of the
Public and the proportionate facility with which they
could evoke opposition. Mr. Pitt was not, however, a
Minister to bri intimidated, and he carried all his mea-
sures to the great advantage and security of the coun-
try, except his Colonial Intercourse Bill, which was
destroyed in Committee. Mr. Pitt also may hence be
considered publicly avowing, as he did, his reliance on
the principles of Adam Smith (which the Herries and
Goulburns of the present day would be slow to do), as
liberal commercial Minister in the highest sense of
the term.
The commercial history of the last century may
almost be comprised in the able and courageous asser-
tion of free trade principles by these Ministers, and
the undeavours to obstruct their practical adoption,
either by the mean parasites of the popular party of the
daY, or the sturdy upholders of monopoly and protec-
lion for the benefit of an individual or a class. Be-
tween Mr. Pitt, or rather between the liberal commer-
clol measures of Mr. Pitt, and the next advocate of sounder
views of trade, there is a long and dismal period, in
Which there is little to be fouud but a waste of treasure
and of blood, and noble energies of mind and body, for
the fiuitless purpose of restoring legitimacy to the
%rote of France. Trade was forced into unnatural
chattels ; and every species of production was over
'ti:tulated. Upon the return of peace every effort was
°We to maintain markets and prices, in the vain
I.lere of putting down the competition of rival nations
10 a state of peace, and of which the Corn-laws are the
Most prominent, as they are the most evil, example.
At the close of the war, however, Mr., after-
wards Lord Wallace, a Member of the Board of
Trade, with great ability, introduced the ware-
-11414 and bonding system, which Sir R. Walpole
"4(1 in va(n attempted to do, when he conceived the
cilognificent idea of making " London a free port and
the market of the world." Lord Wallace was followed
by Mr. Huskisson, who grappled with the prohibitions
°I our Tariff, and substituted a varying protective duty
in Place of them ; and whose policy is best vindicated
°Y a reference to official tables, which she,/ the vast
,extension of our trade wherever the invigorating in-
u.uenice of competition was allowed, in place of
two against it.
tr• protec-
Herries, in the last debate on the colonial reso-

lotions, who was then most anxious to identify himself '
with Mr. Huskisson's policy, but who never opened his
officical lips in its favour, and of whose official co-opera-
tion with Mr. Huskisson the Annual Register contains
a sufficiently authentic account, asserted that Mr. Hus-
kisson's reform in our commercial system consisted only
in the substitution of protection for prohibition. Lord
J. J. Russell corrected the ardent friend of Mr. Huskis-
sun's principles and policy, by stating that Mr. Huskis-
son never meant by protection to exclude foreign compe-
tition, and Lord John Russell was right.
Mr. Huskisson, in 1825, in an elaborate speech on
the foreign commercial policy of the country, gives an
account of an interview which he had had with depu-
ta.ions from the mining districts relative to his intended
reduction of the duties on meta's. He said he had
heard their representations, but had not been convinced
by them—
" All these special reasons," said Mr. Huskisson, " I
own, have only satisfied me, that the general rule of
free competition is the btst for all trades, as it is cer-
tainly the best for the public."
And again, in the same speech, in allusion to the
effort then made to put down smuggling, he said—
" The last thing we ought to countenance is the con-
tinuance of high duties, not for the benefit of the Ex-
chequer, but for the supposed protection of certain
branchee of manufacture."
Indeed, all Mr. Huskisson's reasoning was based
upon the principles of free. trade. And we must not
forget that he had to advocate the introduction of
sound commercial principles in the face of a powerful
opposition, from friends as well as foes., and that he
therefore had to adapt his arguments to the ignorance,
the selfishness, the prejudices, of the day. His pro-
tective duties varied on different articles. He never
even hinted that he considered the protection he then
gave as a permanent one. On the contrary, he always
pointed towards a time when protection would be no
longer necessary.
" Can anything," he said, " more forbibly illustrate
that general position to which I have already adverted,
and,which cannot be too strongly impressed on those who
legislate for the interests of commerce and industry—that
the means which lead to increased consumption, and
which are the foundation, as that consumption is the
proof of our prosperity, will be most effectually pro-
moted by an unrestrained competition, not only between
capital and industry, of different classes in the same
country, but also by extending that competition as much
as possible to all other countries ?"
We repeat, then, that when the colleague and
friend of Mr. Huskisson described his policy as one
of protection to British interests, to which he, for-
sooth, gave his assent, that this description only had re-
ference to the measures which Mr. Huskisson then

thought expedient, and that it failed to describe the
principle upon which all Mr. Huskisson's propositions,
and most successful propositions, were founded.
The difference, then, between Lord John Russell and
Mr. Herries was, as usual, one of principle. Lord John
Russell avowed, guardedly and advisedly, no doubt, the
principles of free trade ; Mr. Herries, the principle of
protection. That protection, however, is only safe
and permanent which is based upon superior knowledge,
capital, and skill. Let industry and sagacity have free
play, following out, unchecked, their own paths of remu-
neration, and the universal Code of Commerce will be
found a very simple one,—Le monde alors via de

luinzenze.
Thus, then, within the last century, England reckons
three distinguished Commercial Ministers ; each of
whom asserted great principles of Commercial Policy,
the principles in fact of Free Trade, and each of whom
had to endure opposition and obloquy only happily the
more strikingly to demonstrate the soundness of their
views and the " madness and wickedness" of many of
their adversaries.

Soon after Mr. Huskisson's policy was sanctioned
by Parliament, it attracted notice in America, and
as any testimony, from our friends and rivals on
the other side of the Atlantic, to our success in
commercial enterprise must be considered disinte-
rested, we shall extract from the Report already
quoted, some remarks in review of Mr. Huskisson's
measures.

" The alarmed capitalists of that country were as-
tonished to see silk, wool, iron—all raw materials and
manufactures—British and foreign indiscriminately—
exported and imported ; the consumption and exporta-
tion of foreign and British productions greater than
before ; new channels of trade opened ; old ones en-
larged and importations increased, and that all these
things should exist without making them bankrupts. The
shipowners denounced the Ministry ; British naviga-
tion, according to their sage predictions, would be ruined
if the colonies were permitted to enjoy the liberty
of trading with foreign nations. The most calamitous
consequences would result from brushing away their
ancient colonial restrictions, and the naval glory of
Great Britain would be extinguished for ever. Mi-
nisters were, however, inexorable ; the colonies were
emancipated ; and to their astonishment British navi-
gation increased in every branch which had been
liberated, notwithstanding the loud remonstrances and
melancholy predictions of the shipping interest."
Thus, then, we quote the authority of Walpole,
Pitt, and Huskisson, in favour of large and compre-
hensive measures of Commercial Reform. The present
Administration is identified with a like policy, and can
only be obstructed in its course, by selfishness, ignor-
ance, or mere party spirit. The choice, however,
which has to be made between a review of our Import
Duties, and thence an improved revenue, or the direct
and immediate increase of taxation, will tend greatly
to still the rage of party, and enlighten ignorance, and
even selfishness itself.—Examiner.

CLERICAL INTOLERANCE.
We have no reason to believe that one particle of
the proceedings, as detailed by us last week, are " co-
loured." They are narrated exactly as they occurred,
for the case is one of those in which the truth is more
powerful than fiction. No strong language, which it is
in our power to use, could add to the disgust which all
good men must feel, whatever their religious opinions,
at the conduct of the Rev. Dudley Ryder, which con-
duct was countenanced by the Archbishop of York, and
who therefore shares the disgrace of the unchristian and
intolerant act. We cannot certainly but lament that
the hitherto venerated name of Wilbeforce should now
be associated, as it unfortunately is, with religious ty-
ranny and persecution—that the memory of the man,
whose name will ever be associated with the emancipa-
tion of the slave, is sullied by his degenerate sons, who
labour to impose on the mind of their fellow-man the
shackles of a narrow and exclusive religious system.
Samuel Wilberforce exerted the energies of a noble
heart in freeing his fellow-men from bodily thraldom ;
his sons disgrace his name and damage his reputation by
striving with a bigot zeal to enslave the minds of their
countrymen—by attempting to impose on them, through
the power conferred ,by the British Inquisition—the
Ecclesiastical Courts—the religious opinions and prac-
tices of a sect only, not morally or legally binding on
those who disbelieve them. We spoke last week of
the inconsistency—to use the mildest word—of a por-
tion of the Winchester Dissenters, who support, at the
elections for this city, the avowed friend and virtual
nominee of the Duke of Buckingham, whose indirect
persecution of their brethren in the villages of Avington
and Easton we have before stated. It is always with
the deepest feelings of shame at the baseness of human
nature that we witness the support of Tory candidates
by Dissenters or Catholics. It is such a combination of
folly and ingratitude that it appears almost inconceivable
any temporary pecuniary benefit can induce it—nothing
can warrant it. When we recollect that for many a
long year the Catholic and Dissenter were trampled
under the iron hoof of a Tory despotism, and that
it is alone owing to the exertions of the Whigs and
Liberals, continued through a long course of time,
in spite of defeats and opposing obstacles, thatathey
were at last raised in the social scale to an equality
with their fellow•countrymen. When we reflect that
to a Liberal Government they owe the possession of
their political and religious rights—every thing which
distinguishes the free man from the slave—we cannot
but feel disgust at a debasing humilation, which licks
the hand that smote it, by supporting the party who
do not now rule them with a rod of iron only because
it has not the power—the will is apparent on too many
occasions. We trust the condnct of the Rev. Dudley
Ryder, of the Rev. R. J. Wilberforce. and the con-
duct of the Duke of Buckingham, implicated by that
of those who dispense his bounty to the poor of Aving.
ton and Easton, will not be forgotten by the Dissenters
of Winchester at the next election. They now know
the opinion entertained of them by their Tory perse-
cutors, and what they have to hope from their liberality
if their power was uncontrolled. " Who is not for us
is against us," appears to be the motto of the Ryder,
Wilberforce, and Buckingham school of Toryism, and
we recommend the Dissenters of Winchester to en-

grave the same sentence on their banner at the next
election. Surely in this case they are j:istified in
adopting the maxim " Vas est et ab hoste doccri."—
Hampshire Independent.

THE LIFE OF PETRARCH, BY THOMAS
CAMPBELL, Ese.—An eminent writer has observed, and
we entirely agree with him, that in order to attain a just
application, not merely of the merits, but also of the
personal character of a poet, it is requisite to possess the
mind and feelings of a poet. In this respect, " The
Life of Petrarcb," from the pen of Campbell, the first of
our living poets, will come before the public with peculiar
ad„ntages. The fruit of mature reflection—for it has oc-
cupied the author some y ears—this work, it is understood,
discusses the history and character of its celebrated subject,
poetical, literary, and moral, without partiality or preju-
dice, and in a tone of liberality that pervades all the works
of his no less celebrated biographer.
Sir Walter James, M.P., was married on Satur-
day, at the church of St. Margaret's, Westminster.
A very numerous and gay party attended the ceremonial.
They filled about twenty carriages,
and with the servants
and white favours made quite a " stir" in the quiet vicinity
of Westminster Hall.
A CAUSE WITHOUT EFFECTS, _cc What
would be the effects of a general break up of the banks ?"
asked a friend of ours of a shrewd New Yorkite the other
day. " Why, no effects," was the ready answer.—Ame-
man Paper,