The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-06 00:00:00

...,,

TH E ZOLLVEREIN - PROTEC-
TION VERSUS FREE TRADE.

(Continued from The Sun of Monday.)
Tlws promotion of German industry, by increasing
the exportations of German produce, has repeatedly
been designated as the chief object of the new system,
and in the memorial of the Department of Trade of
1845 this view was developed in the following
xnar.sner :—" International trade consists in the inter-
efian ge among nations of the superfluous productions
th eir soil and industry, to satisfy their mutual
wants ; whoever carries the produce of his own country
to a foreign market, and there finds goods which he
can advantageously dispose of at home, will buy them
there, and not first seek a third market. Germany
consumes large quantities of colonial produce, and,
on the other hand, manufactures a great amount of
such goods as the transatlantic countries, whose ma-
nufacturing industry does not progress in the same
ratio as their population, are accustomed to obtain
from Europe. Notwithstanding this, the share
'which Germany contributes to the supplies of those
countries, does not correspond to the develop-
raent of her industry ; or rather, German goods,
which formerly found customers there, are now more
r.i‘d more excluded. The cause of this is the want of
direct regular communication between the transat-
lrntic countries and Germany, while their direct trade
is ith other European countries, favoured by the laws
o? the latter, is continually increasing. The exports
hich take place from Germany to the transatlantic
countries are shipped from the Hanse Towns, and par-
ti.iularly from Bremen, where the exporting merchants
:Ire in general shipowners also. These exports and the
direct supplies of colonial goods stand in a reciprocal re-
lation to each other. Since German emigration has
begun to flow principally through Bremen, the great
tobacco market has gradually been removed thither.
Great quantities of sugar and coffee are imported
direct into Hamburgh, but mostly in English,
Danish, Swedish, and other ships, and thus are of
but little benefit to German industry. More than
the half of the coffee and one-third of the
sugar cons
rem .
consumed in the states of the Zoll-
ve
, imported through Holland from Java,
and the cotton and indigo is mostly brought by
way of England. All the goods thus imported cease
to be articles of barter for German manufactures ; the
Imports over England, on the contrary, benefit the
industry of that country, which is the most powerful
of our rivals. The most efficacious means of pro-
moting direct communication between Germany and
the non-European countries, would be the prohibition
of indirect importation by legal enactments ; but that
would, under existing circumstances, be dangerous,
therefore differential duties only," &c.
So far the memorial. If to this be added the
further proposition contained therein, that the inter-
change of productions between two countries sepa-
rated by the sea, can only be regularly carried on by
the ships of the respective countries, and that, there-
fore, privileges conferred upon the home shipping
by the introduction of the differential duties would,
at the same time, act as an encouragement to
native industry; and, further, that the protection
afforded by the differential duty to the return freight
would encourage the shipowner to send out his ships ;
everything that can be said in reference to the new
system, with reference to its effects upon industry,
has been stated.

But we may be allowed to doubt of the general
correctness of this reasoning, when we find that its
assumptions as to facts do not always agree with
experience.
It is very properly observed, in the commencement
of the memoir, that it is not only the interchange of
manufacturing produce, but also of natural produce,
which constitutes international trade. This is a point
of great importance to the whole question, for when
eve have to make a comparison between the
exports and the imports of Germany, the weight
of the agricultural produce of the country may he
thrown into the scale of the export trade, and then
England, for instance, cannot be designated as a
country which is of no importance as to the con-
: umption of the industrial produce of Germany. In
nvestigations of this nature, the entire productive
odustry of the country, the agricultural as well as
he manufacturing, must he taken into account ; and
arely no one can maintain that for Germany the
Ater is more important than the former.
Having premised thus much, we may meet the
omplaints of the absence of a barter trade with dis-
nit countries with the simple observation, that it
lust, in fact, be a matter of little importance to native
eidustry in general whether the coffee which we
se has been obtained in exchange for German
eeoollen stuffs, in some country beyond the seas,
et- in exchange for German corn, in some country
en this side of the Atlantic. One would even sup-
lose that for such barter of native produce for foreign
goods the nearest market would always be the
best, and that for this reason alone England must
lie of much greater importance to Germany, as a
customer, than either the Brazils or Mexico. But
here it will be objected, and with justice, that while
eeeking markets for the produce of the soil of Ger-
many, we must not neglect to seek Markets for her
men ufacturing produce also, and that these will be most
easily found in trans-Atlantic countries. But it
would be an error to suppose, in contemplating the
benefits of a direct traffic with these countries, that
the exchange of goods always takes place, cargo for
cargo, goods for goods, &c. Commerce is no longer
in so primitive a state that it can always be said that the
merchant who carries the produce of his own country
to distant lands, buys there in return wherewithal to
satisfy his own wants without seeking a third market.
In the times of the Hanza, indeed, the merchant
trading with Flanders went on board his own ship in
Ilamburgh or Lubeck, sailed thence to Bruges, where
he sold his cargo and bought a new one, with which he
hastened home before the winter set in. But since
then, great changes have taken place; those who before
traded exclusively with Flanders, or with England,
or with Scania, have now extended their business
to all these countries at once ; the seafaring mer-
chant trading in his own ship has given
way to great mercantile establishments, sending out
their ships to far distant countries; instead of buying
and selling in person, we have now commission
trade, consignments, and agency business; in the
place of payments in goods or in coins, we have pay-
ments in bills of exchange. The export business is no
longer necessarily connected with the import business,
and both are no longer necessarily carried on by ship.
owners. A merchant may purchase thousands of bags
of coffee in the Brazils without sending a single chest
of linen thither in return ; and he may, on the other
hand, send thousands of bales of linen to Mexico,
without purchasing an equivalent there. Payments
need no longer be made on the spot; the circulation
cl bills facilitates their beitee made in a hundred dif-
rent ways ; nor need the ship when it has discharged
s cargo in a fbreign port return home directly. Thy.
Jerch;int evishes to make money, and to carry on t,
litalite business, it is not sufficient to send a carg(
German. goods to some country across the sea, an,
(( order a cargo of coffee and sugar to be sent back
i t return. To ensure success it is necessary to be
aided by an intimate knowledge of the prices, the
e dent of the stocks on hand, the extent
e F production and consumption, the state of
t e harvests, the number of shipments al
iady made, the state of the money mar
1 A, and the rates of exchange in different
P aces. Not only the regular wants of trade must be
atehed, but also its caprices. It is only a favour-
e, chance when matters can be arranged so
1 114, that German goods sent to a commercial
krt in
America can there be sold at profit,
2 AO at the same time American goods, shipped
it return from the same place for Germany, can
e-ea Lise a profit here. It much oftener happens
iat the return cargo cannot be turned to account
,re, and the payment must therefore be remitted in
-oils on this place, or
on some other place whence
g xids sent hither will yield a profit. If this last-
ee,entioned case takes place, the consignor very fre-
q iently leaves it to a third person to send the goods
thither, as every merchant does not do business in
every branch of trade, and cannot be equally well in-
forir.ed as to the state of every market. If the con
signor, however, be obliged to take the return cargo
on his own hands, it is at least necessarythathe should be
left free to direct it to whatever market he thinks
general,
most profitable ; this cannot,
_however, in
owing to the fluctuation
is in the market, be deter-
mined before the ship far advanced on its wa
borne, and this is the :reason _ why car goes coming
from countries out of Europe very often do not learn
their final destination until they arrive in the Chan.
xiel, all of which circumstances stand in direct oppo-
aieion to the theory mentioned above.
That which is applicable to a single merchant or a
single shipowner, is also generally applicable to the
cot nmerce of a whole city. Hamburgh received last
ye: to 68 cargoes from Cuba, and did not send
thither more than 33; the exports from this city to
xico amount to nearly 3,000,000 marks, while the
goo ds purchased on Ilainburgh account in Mexico
do root even amount to 100,000 marks. So little is
it in accordance with truth that the importations to a
country are regulated by the importations from that
same country. A glance at Table XVIII., which
shows the number of ships trailing to the trans-Atlantic
countries, and at Table XIX., which shows the
a riount of the exports to and imports from those
C( untries, will serve to prove how little this is the case
es- here there has been a long •established and lively corn- 1
er ercial intercourse bet Ween two nations, and that
a, equal exchange of exports and imports only takes
pi eee where commerce is still in the bud, and the
~mher of commercial houses engaged in the particu-
r trade, As well as of the cargoes shipped to and
fi .en the place, is still very limited; such is, for ins
at •riCe, the trade with the western coast of Africa, with
,gap ire, the Phi li npi ne 1-lands. and Cuba. With the
a ,Cyr cases l.ke these, the • rule will
h'eld good -that a disproportion will always exist.

It would indeed be strange if it were otherwise, as •
that could only be in case the amount of the produce
of one particular country, required to supply the
wants of another given country, should always be
equal in bulk and value to that part of its own pro- l
duce which this country could dispose of to the foreign
country.
But there is another fact shown by the tables just
mentioned, which is, indeed, not immediately ap-
plicable to the question which we are discussing, but
which may nevertheless be quoted here as an example,
affording some insight into the wants of the nations
of the western hemisphere. It is proved by these
tables that, with the exception of the German immi-
grants into the United States of North America,
the nations of Spanish descent are the great-
est consumers of German manufactures. This
circumstance may partly be owing to the habits
which the Spaniards brought with them to
the New World—for, at one time, Spain was
our best customer as regards the produce of our
manufacturing industry—hut more especially to the
preponderating number of the free white labourers in
those countries. The states in which negro slaves
form the great majority of the working population,
scarcely take any German manufactures, whilst
Mexico and the countries south of the Brazils, and
on the west coast of America, purchase more from us
than they sell to us. On account of their superior
quality and higher price, German manufactures can
only find numerous customers among a free and
prosperous population. The working population
of Java is hardly superior to negro slaves ; here
German manufactures will not so soon find a
satisfactory market, not even when assisted by
differential duties, and it cannot be supposed that
the population of Germany, until such market
shall be found, will renounce the use of Java coffee,
which has now become an article of necessity for
them.
The great increase of emigration from Germany,
with the causes of which we have here as little to do
as with the injuries which the withdrawal of so
much capital and labour may eventually inflict upon
the country, will probably in future call forth an in-
creased demand for German manufactures on the
other side of the ocean ; for these emigrants wilt take
with them German habits, German manners and
customs, and German wants ; and wherever a com-
pact German population is established, the products
of German industry cannot fail in time to find a con-
stant market. Of more importance, at least for the
present, are however the German, and more particu-
larly Hanseatic commercial settlements effected in
the seaport towns of the United States of America,
at the period of the declaration of their independence,
and since then in the other parts of the globe also, and
which very frequently enter into connexion with the
retail dealers among the German immigrants in the
interior. Towards the end of the year 1845 there
were in the trans Atlantic countries 343 German
houses of business, 227 of which were Hanseatic; in
North America (Texas included) 137, in the West
Indies 34 (27 of which were Hanseatic), in Mexico
48 (40 Hanseatic), in South America 99, in the East
Indies and China 14, and in Africa 11.
Nothing has contributed more to the extension of
the markets for German industrial produce in these
distant regions than these establishments, founded
and directed by Germans, who, leaving their native
land in the flower of their manhood, and possessing
the necessary knowledge, habits of industry, and
capital, settle there and keep up a constant commer-
cial intercourse with their native place ; while, on the
other hand, when in later years they return home
they never break off their commercial relations with
their foreign establishments.
May we be allowed to remark on this occasion
how often we in Germany undervalue our own capa-
bilities ; how often we envy foreign countries that
which is in fact anythi, g but enviable, as, for in-
.tance, the excessive deveiopmect of their manufac-
turing power, or that which we have in reality already
ourselves attained, as, for instance, a prosperous
shipping trade, and flourishing commercial intercourse
with transatlantic countries. The statistical proofs of
the latter will be found in the tables which we have
often quAed.
But we must now, in a still more decisive manner,
lirect attention to the state of the trade of the two
most important ports in Germany. The estimates
relative to Bremen are publishi d in the April number
of thg naiads Archly, No. 350, and are here given
in Table XXIV., where, however, the sum total only
of the exports by sea, mentioned severally in the
Ilandels Archly, is noted. These regularly-increasing
exports amounted last year, according to an approxi
mate valuation, to a sum of more than 12,000,000 of
dollars of gold, or of more than 13,500,000 Prus-
sian dollars. The exportation from Hamburgh by
sea is still more important, for this amounted last
year, according to Table XXV., to the value of
10,000,000 marks banco, or 40,000,000 Prussian
dollars. This table, which is prepared by the Sta-
tistical Office, and is based on the customhouse
register, gives at the same time a general statement
of the value of the exports and imports by sea
and by land ; and Table XXVI. gives an ac-
count of the imported goods. It must be re-
marked, relative to the correctness of the nutn-
bers given, that those indicating the value of im-
ports from trans-Atlantic countries are most to be de-
pended on, because all the articles appertaining there-
unto are liable to duty, and their value, according to
the exchange prices, must in consequence he declared
on oath (even when they do not pay the duty, but
ire only declared for transit). The estimates of the
exports to trans-Atlantic countries are less to he de-
pended upon, because among the articles appertaining
hereunto there are several which are not liable to
duty, and which it is, therefore, unnecessary to sub-
ject to the burdensome control of the Custom house.
In many cases the value of these is probably stated
too low. In every inquiry concerning the compara•
tive value of exports and imports, there is, besides,
another important circumstance that must be taken
into account—namely, that in the statements of the
value of goods imported, the costs of freight and
insurance, and even the amount of eventual
profits, are added to the market price, while,
with regard to exports, no such addition takes
place; and, consequently, the value of exports
comparatively to tt;at of imports, seems in sta-
tistical tables less than it is in reality. In Hamburgh
.it least this is decidedly the case, and we might per-
haps even justly assert, that the real value of our
exports to trans-Atlantic countries is quite equal to
that of imports from those countries. In examining
statistical tables relative to Hamburgh's European
trade, it is still more necessary than with regard to
der trans-Atlantic trade, to take into account the
great number of duty-free articles, the value of which
is not subjected to control ; this is more particularly
applicable to the imports by land and by river in the
vear 1345, which are specified in Table XXVII. It is
in this table which principally affords a standard by
eihich to measure the ex,,orts of German produce
rum ilainburgh, for in the register of exportation
his produce could not be distinguished from goods of
;'reign origin. Whatever goods were imported into
Elamburgh by land and by river (consequently from
G,?rinany) were again, after deduction of the
comparatively small quantity consumed by this
city—which is in itself, moreover, to be reckoned
among tt.e customers—exported hence, and
amounted (according to Table XXVII.), in the
year 1845, to a value of 112,000,000 marks banco.
['hough they may be found on the list of goads
reaching us by land or river, some that are not of
German origin, such as Swiss manufactures, raw silk
from Italy, and the so called northern products
(brought from Russia by way of Lubeck), these may
on the other side be balanced by the lorses and cattle,
which we know form an important item in the ex-
ports, but which are not included in the list we have
alluded to, as are not either the minor products of our
country (such as poultry, eggs, fruit, and vegetables),
which are sent in large quantities to England. If the
sale of German goods effected through Hamburgh
could be balanced against the value of the foreign
goods which Hainburgh imports for the consumption
of Germany, it would no doubt be proved how un-
founded is the accusation so repeatedly made against
the Hanse Towns—that they inundate Germany with
foreign goods without caring for the sale of Ger-
man produce. This " inundation" is most frequently
alluded to relative to English manufactures. We will,
therefore, in reference to this subject, quote Table
XXVIII., which shows pretty accurately what are
the relative proportions as regards spun and woven
goods. Of these kinds of goods from the interior,
Hamburgh yearly effects a sale to the amount of about
35,000,000 to 38,000,000 marks banco, whilst she
imports by sea (vide Table XXV.) woollen, cotton,
silk, and other manufactured goods of the same kind
to the amount of 25,000,000 marks banco only, and
of these goods only a minor part are destined for
consumption in Germany. The whole of Hamburgh's
imports in coffee, sugar, and tobacco, do not amount
to the value of what we export in German tissues
alone. That we, on the contrary, import foreign yarn
to the amount of from 30,000,000 to 35,000,000
marks banco, will not, we trust, be made the subject
us, as long as this yarn is in-
of accusation against
dispensable for the German weaving trade.
tisf as
actor presented by these
tic
It cannot be denied that the picture of the com-
merce oa
fl
nthoteicHes,ariissemTosotwsans
y. But we must I
remember that this commerce is the result of a gra-
s
dual and natural development of commercial indus-
try, unaided, but also unchecked, by artificial mea-
sures, established and carried on independent of legal
regulations, owing nothing to patriotic suggestions,
but everything, as is quite in the nat re of trade, to
the well understood interests of the merchant, and to
his knowledge of the superfluities and of the wants of
the nations in both hemispheres.
But to return to our subject. The sale of goods is
regula*ed not by abstract principles as to the reel•
procal action of exports and imports, but by the actual ,
circumstances of the country ( and, as regards mane-