The Sun.
London, England, 1856-03-29 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SktURDAY EVENING, MARCH 29, 1856.

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In high society amongst our neighbours in
France, striking contrasts are presented, of supe-
riority in science and in the clearness of doctrine,
in the face of prevalent inferiority and backward.
ness of practice. Thus, we have no book to be
compared with the exposition of the science and art
of agriculture, the Cours d'Agriculture, by the
Count Gasparin—no agricultural writers exceeding
the French writers, Leconteuse, Leonce de La-
vergne, and Passy, and others ; yet in France the
average produce, according to the statistical returns
is scarcely one-half of what it is in England. In
political economy and the science of affairs, they
are greatly in advance in the science. Not to
speak of Thruxe, Say, or Bastiat, from whom we
obtained some of the best expositions of the Protec-
tionist sophisms, the writings of Michael Chevalier,
a member of the present Government, a large pro-
proportion of the papers in the Journal des Eco-
nomists, conducted by Mr. Joseph Gamier, are
first-rate ; and, from the extent and excellence of
the literature in political economy, one would
fancy, while exploring the riches of M. Guillamin's
collection, that we were in the metropolis of free
trade and the most enlightened practice. Yet in
Paris we were where the people are subjected to
dear fuel, for the benefit of wood-growers ; to
dear iron, and to extensive deprivation of labour-
saving machines, and to the other popular priva-
tions for the profit of various narrow interests.
We are led to those remarks by a leading article
in the Assemblie Nationale, on an order to the
Bourse in Paris against the quotation of shares in
certain foreign enterprises, including in those en-
terprises a number which bad been examined by
the Emperor's officers and approved by them, the
intent of which order must surely be misrepre-
sented, for it imparts extension of the practice of
protectionism, which must eventually aggravate the
scarcities of capital, and to add to the burthens of
protectionism by which the industry of France is
depressed.
We have no doubt that on the Parisian, as on
our own Stock Exchange, there may be much
gambling in the enterprises purely French, as well
as in those for enterprises beyond the boundaries
of the empire. As neighbours, we venture to ob-
ject to their toleration of systematised gambling
by means of lotteries, which we have forbidden.
To all orders as against fraudulent delusions, as
matters of police, we give our applause. Our ob-
servations are upon the doctrines put forth in the
Assemblee Nationale for restraining French capi-
talists from entering into foreign enterprises, in
themselves sound in principle, and for objects un-
doubtedly beneficial.
Speaking of the objections which have arisen iu
Paris to the restraints proposed upon ad-
vances into foreign enterprises, the Assemblee
Nationale says :—" Our country has been con-
gratulated on the fact of its carrying out foreign
enterprises, and this has been viewed as a proof of
the elevated financial position which France has
assumed in Europa in the place of England. We
do not share the sentiment of pride. We believe
it to have led to abuse, and that our financial pre-
ponderance is only a mania for speculation more
strongly developed with us than anywhere else.
Doubtless it is useful in an economical point of
view to enrich our neighbours, to assist them in
constructing their railroads or developing their in-
dustry, but the favourable moment must be chosen
for so doing, without compromising our future in
order to assist our neighbours. This has been com-
prehended by the English, and for our own part
we are in no way jealous of the honour they have
left us of entering into foreign enterprise to the
prejudice of our owe."

We cannot help expressing our surprise that
a respectable writer in a respectable French joura,-
nal, notwithstanding the expositions of the
French economists whom we have named, should
write about "enriching our neighbours," as if they
alone, and no one else, were to be enriched, or use
terms importing exclusive sacrifices or benefits ou
one side or the other. Our tailor who supplies us
with a vest just now, we fear, looks solely to the
pound profit he will make by it, and has little of
benevolent care as to the protection he tray give
us against wind or weather—whilst we cannot con-
scientiously profess any care as to his enrichment
by the money we give him, or how it will benefit
his family, or whether he have a family. We ha I
hoped that by this time it had become well under-
stood that such social considerations might be
eliminated, from financial questions at all events
—it being demonstrated, and by none more
clearly than by French economists, that the
business of benevolence or patriotism is attained
by free trade without the labour of cons'dering
those virtues in each of the affairs of life. As it is
with individuals, so we believe it to be with nations.
As to England giving the assistance of her capital
to Franco for the formation of the railways, speak-
ing of England collectively, she knew and cared
little about the matter ; she merely allowed her
capitalists entire freedom of trade with their own
capital ; and these capitalists, instead of being ac-
actuated by a desire to enrich France, it must be
confessed, were intent only on enriching thewselve,
whilst France, or each of her individual travellers,
bestowed little thought on international policy or
gratitude to the undertakers of the new works—
but only of quicker and cheaper travelling for
himself.

We submit that the question for France in the
case is not about enriching Austria, or Spain, or
England, but a question'of free trade—whether the
trade in capital should be less free than it now is,
and whether France will not be the most enriched
by allowing her capitalists to enter freely into the
money market of the world, and do what they
deem the best honestly for enriching themselves.
The English capitalists who meved enterprises
and made advances.for the cons ruction of railways
in France, having seen their working in Englaad,
were confident in them ; the French capitalists had
not observed them, and were not conversant with

them ; and, not being confident of them, left them
to the English.
Suppose our Government had, during a strait-
ened period of our money market abroad—for there
have been such periods during the railway invest-
ineuts—restricted the freedom of trade in money, in
the mode now adopted in France, and had said,
" There is much gambling and a mania for foreign
speculation on. the Exchange. You may be well
informed in domestic enterprises, and your own
country needs your money ; in embarking in
foreign speculations you are going beyond
your knowledge, and such rashness must bo
prevented." In such a course, the English Go-
vernment would have simply done mischief to
England. It so happens that the domestic enter-
prises, the English railways, the data of which were
presumed to be the best known, were the most
disastrous ; whilst the foreign speculations, which
the Government would have assumed to be the
utterly wild and dangerous, were the most success-
ful. The returns on English railway speculations
have not been, on the average, more than about
3i per cent. ; the retnrns on the French and Ger-
man railways, in which English capital has been
embarked, may be sot down as double. We are
happy in the assurance that the railway enter-
prises have benefited France ; but returns from
them have certainly gone to enrich England, and
have gone in augmentation of that capital which
has been applied to the purchase of estates, and in
keeping up the price of land, and to land improve-
ment, which has been so well maintained since
freedom of trade has been secured. To have pre-
vented the English capitalist from taking seven
or eight per cent. from abroad, in the hope that
ho would lend it for five at home, would, if the
measure were effectual, have been equivalent to a
forced loan to the extent of two or three per cent.
but it is by no means certain, and highly impro-
bable, that the home market would have derived
the immediate relief to any such extent as might
be conceived intended, whilst it is very certain
that the restriction would have been eventually
and seriously injurious to its growing prosperity.
It would, moreover, have militated against those
growing international interests which are the best
security for peace and civilisation.

This which would have been the effect in relation
to England, wo apprehend will, notwithstanding
the present straitened condition of the French
money market, be, to a greater or less extent,
the effect of the measures now proposed on
France. But that the capital is already sub-
scribed, we would ask what would be the effect
of the proposed measure upon a French enterprise
in England, to which we refer by way of example?
An able French administrator, M. Foucauld, ob-
serving in the streets of Paris three omnibusses or
more competing and rendering badly the service,
which might, by consolidation, be better rendered
by two, conceived the idea that the benefit of the
third or wasted capital might be divided between
the public and the omnibus proprietors, giving to
the public increased accommodation, including a
system of correspondence at reduced rates, and to
the omnibus proprietors steadier if not better
payment: With the intervention of the Govern-
ment on behalf of the public this was accomplishei
with such complete success as to obtain the ap-
plause of one of our civil administrators, Mr.
Chadwick, as a successful piece of administrative
skill. M. Foucauld came over to London, and
here without any Government aid or intervention
he succeeded in convincing all the larger omnibus
proprietors, or the owners of six hundred and
thirty—out of eight hundred—to sell to himself and
others the goodwill of their respective establishments
to be worked by an amalgamated company, in
which the greater proportion of these pre-