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

T 'HE ZOLLVEREIN - PROTEC-

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TION VERSUS FREE TRADE.

(Continued from The Sun of Monday.)
The promotion of German industry, by increasing
the exportations of German produce, has repeatedly
beet, designated as the chief object of the new system,
and in the memorial of the Department of Trade of
15461 this view was developed in the following
manner :—" International trade consists in the inter-
chang e among nations of the superfluous productions
of their 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
Ti efact tering industry does not progress in the same
rotio as their population, are accustomed to obtain
f:orn Europe. Notwithstanding this, the share
which Germany contributes to the supplies of those
countries, does not correspond to the develop-
ment of her industry ; or rather, German goods,
which formerly found customers there, are now more
end more excluded. The cause of this is the want of
direct regular communication between the transit-
lentic countries and Germany, while their direct trade
with other European countries, favoured by the laws
of the latter, is continually increasing. The exports
which take place from Germany to the transatlantic
countries are shipped from the Hanse Towns, and par-
ticularly from Bremen, where the exporting merchants
are 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 consumed in the states of the Zoll-
verein, is 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 he added the
further proposition contained therein, that the inter-
change of productions between two countries sepa-
rated by thg 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 allo-eed to doubt of the general
correctness of this reasoning, when we find that it,
7. ssuoiptions 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 pint
of great importance to the whole question, for when
we have to make a comparison between the
exports and the imports of Germany, the weight
ef the agricultural produce of the country may be
:hrown into the scale of the export trade, and then
-;.;ngland, for instance, cannot be designated as a
eountry which is of no importance as to the core
umption of the industrial produce of Germany. In
avestigations of this nature, the entire productive
eidustry of the country, the agricultural as well as
'lee manufacturing, roust be taken into account; and
urely no one can maintain that for Germany the
eotter is more important than the former.
Having premised thus much, we may meet the
eomplaints of the absence of a barter trade with die-
ant countries with the simple observation, that it
must, in Act, be a matter of little importance to native
industry in general whether the coffee which we
use has been obtained in exchange for German
woollen stuffs, in some country beyond the seas,
or ia exchange for German corn, in some country
or 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
be of much greater importance to Germany, as a
customer, than either the Brazils or Mexico. But
):ere it will be objected, and with justice, that while
reeking markets for the produce of the soil of Ger-
iriany, we must not neglect to seek markets for her
manufacturing 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 al vvays be sail 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 llanza, indeed, the merchant
trading with Flanders went on board his own ship in
Hamburgh or Lubeck, sailed thence to Bruges, where
be 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 ; inste.id of buying
and selling in person, we have now commission
trade, consignments, and agency business; in tin
place of payments in goods or in coins, we have pay-
anents in hills of exchange. The export business is nu
lenger necessarily connected with the import business.
:end both are no longer necessarily carried on by ship.
I, MI ers. A merchant may purchase thousands of bags
..f coffer in the Brazils with:,ut sending a single chest
4 t linen thither in return ; and he iney, on the other
I end, sand thousands of bales of linen to Mexico,
without purchasing an equivalent there. Payments
a .eed no longer be made on the spot; the circulation
c f bills facilitates their being made in a hundred 'lit'-
I rant ways ; nor need the ship when it has discharged
i -s cargo in a foreign port return home directly. The
a terchant wishes to make money, arid to carry on s
n refitable business, it is not sufficient to send a cargo '
t ' German goods to some country across the sea, ant
) order a cargo of coffee arid sugar to be sent hack
,return. To ensure success it is necessary to le
eieled by an intimate knowledge of the prices, the
e ateret of the stocks on hand, the exten
t'. production and consumption, the state of
t,e harvests, the number of shipments al
eeady made, the state of the money mar-
-1 at, and the rates of exchange in different
I 'aces. Not only the regular wants of trade must he
v Atcheee but also its caprices. It is only a favour-
:, ale chance, when matters can be arranged so
F'mply, that German goods sent to a commercial
p art in America can there be sold at profit,
aead at the Caine time American goods, shipped
je return from the same place for Germany, cal,
reolise a profit here. It much oftener happens
thee' the return cargo cannot be turned to account
Jere, and the payment must therefore be remitted in
tills on this place, or on some other place whence
cods sent hither will yield a profit. If this last-
iilentioned case takes place, the consignor very fre-
quently leaves it to a third person to send the goods
as every merchant does not do business in
of trade, and cannot be equally well in-
kft,ov ei
firmedtrhyerb,raasntc.oh
the state of every market. It' the con
signor, however, be
is obliged lliegaesdt
ntoe e
etelk e the return cargo
market he thinks
en his own hands, it h sarythat he should be
left free to direetthiist tcoawnhoatt,ever .
most profitable ;
.. however, in general,
owing to the fluctuations
farin the market, be
deter-
mined before the ship is advanced on itswa_
borne, and this is the :reason why cargoes coming
from countries out of Europe very often do not learn
i
their final destination until they arrive n the Chan-
nel, all of which circumstances stand in direct oppe.
aition to the theory mentioned above.
That which is applicable to a single merchant or a
single shipowner, is also generally applicable to the
commerce of a whole city. Hamburgh received last
year 68 cargoes from Cuba, and did not send
thither more than 33; the exports from this city to
Mexico amount to nearly 3,000,000 marks, while the
goods purchased en Hamburgh account in Mexico
d ) not even amount to 100,000 marks. So little is
i., in accordance with truth that the importations to a
c ,entry are regulated by the importations from that
a tme country. A glance at Table XVIII., which
e :lows the number of ships tradi we to the trans-Atlantic
countries, and at Table XIX., which shows the
L'nount of the exports to and imports from those
t tuntries, will serve to prove how little this is the case
e here there has been a long •established and lively corn-
-) ercial intercourse betweeo. two nations, and that
t . qual exchange of exports and imports only takes
i -•. where commerce is still' in the bud, and the
‘,..,ll.,lVsf),:siikeaico,ntnercial houses engeged in the pArtieu-
N
. 3 well as of the cargoes shipped ~....''
I.„..fitt t ' ce, is still very limited; such is, for in-
'..n. - , ado with the western coast of Africa, with
(e.". =;- =j7.:ri 1.,,,, ' iii Philippine Islands. and Cuba. With' the
v• .:t.,1314,37:e [..-
.i ::,. a few cases like these, the rule will
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