The Sun.
London, England, 1833-10-30 00:00:00

some years ago they were considerably higher.
We have had workmen that have earned 20s. on

a Saturday morning before breakfast, when per-
haps they had not worked the previous part of
the week." An advance of prices took place in
1810, which has been kept up in the saw-trade
by combination ever since. Mr. Jackson gives
the prices of provisions at Molsheim ; " house-
hold bread costs Id. per pound ; wheat bread
4d. per pound ; beef 3d. per pound ; potatoes
2d. per peck ; beer ld. per pint." In the Duchy
of Berg in Prussia, with board, workmen re-
ceive from 2s. to 2s. 6d. a week ; without board,

_ .
ls. 2d. a day—the prices of provisions nearly as
at Strasburg, except that meat is one halfpenny
a pound dearer, and black bread only one half.
penny a pound. The present price of provisions
is nearly the same in France and England. At
Lyons the price of bread, pain de menage, is
three sous per pound ; the price of meat from 10
to 12 sous; a house for a workman and his family
from 51. to 6/. a year, as nearly as possible the
Sheffield prices. At Paris the prices would
he dearer.f The wages are from a franc and a
half to three francs a day. In the hardware
trade the wages in England are fully three times
that amount.Li Sheffield the razor forgers earn
from 264. to 30s. per week, the razor strikers
from 245. to 265., the hafters from 18s. to 405.,
the grinders from 18s. to 50s. The hours of
labour are ten a day. Mr. Jackson thinks it
impossible that, under any practicable diminution
of profits, the Sheffield manufacturers can ulti-
mately maintain a competition with the conti-
nent. The temptation to embark capital on the
continent, where wages are so much lower than
here, is of course irresistible. Our workmen
have the start ; the trade has been constantly
increasing; but the increase on the continent is
proportionably greater. The enormous increase
of trade in Liverpool may be judged from the
increase of dock dues. Mr. John Ewart says,
_ _ _ _

that when he first joined the house in 1818, the
dock dues, which are at the same rate now, were
under 80,0001. per annum—they are above
180,0001. now ; 1832 was a greater year than
1831. We shall revert to this interesting
subject.—Morning Chronicle.
The Ministerial Papers continue to cajole
the public respecting a forthcoming commercial
treaty with France, to reciprocate the advantages
of free trade which our pseudo-Liberals con-
ceded to that country some years ago, to the
manifest prejudice of our own manufacturers,
without stipulating for any facilities to English
commerce in return. The gross blunders of
Huskisson and his party—the political econo-
mists—in opening the markets of this country
to our foreign rivals, and in breaking down the
navigation laws to which Great Britain was
mainly indebted for her commercial and mari-
time superiority, inflicted upon the vital interests
of the nation a wound from which they have
never yet recovered, and, probably, never can::
In the exercise of a spurious liberality, the
manufacturers of France were enriched by the
impoverishment of our own. The French work-
men were put into full employment, while thou-
sands of our most skilful artisans were deprived
of the means of earning their daily bread, and
thrown upon the cold charity of the parish.
That France and England are in a situation to
enter fairly into the competition of free trade,
we deny. The former is a cheap and lightly
taxed country—the latter one of the dearest
and most heavily taxed in the world. The cost
of production is so much greater in the lat.
ter than in the former country, that the French
manufacturer is always able to undersell the
English, even in his own markets, with-
out high protecting duties. The political
economists talk egregious nonsense on this
subject. They, like all mere theorists, apply
abstract principles to a state of society which
does not admit of their application. They talk
of freedom of trade without perceiving that it is
impossible for English manufacturers to enjoy
that freedom as long as the industry of the
country is cramped and enslaved by a most op-
pressive system of taxation. If taxes were taken
off British industry, we would say let protection
be removed also, for in that case we feel confi-
dent the British manufacturer would beat every
foreign rival. But where there is the pressure
upon industry of heavy legislative burdens, there
should be the countervailing power of legislative
protection. The protection in some important
branches of our manufacture has been taken
away by the political economists, who induced a
shallow and ignorant Legislature to adopt their
theories and write them in its laws ; but the
burdens still remain, and while they do, even if
we were to have a reciprocal treaty with France,
the two countries would not be on equal terms.
But we have no reciprocal treaty. Never did
greater infatuation possess the minds of men
having the destinies of a vast empire in their
hands than that which induced the rulers of
this country, when the star of Huskisson
was in the zenith, to break down the pro-
tective legislation of our trade, and allow
the bread of the children of our own soil
to be snatched from him by the foreigner,
who had long viewed our commercial prosperity
with a jealous eye, and who still hopes to
establish his own mercantile system upon its
ruins. If, however, a reciprocal treaty could
be obtained with France, it might work some
alleviation of the injuries which our manufac-
turers have sustained by what is called the " free
trade" system, though it could not repair all the
evil which it has occasioned. Ever since the
Whigs came into power, we are told, from time
to time, that the negotiations for the treaty are
in progress and that it is about to be accom-
plished. Nearly three years have now elapsed,
and, like the settlement of the Belgic question,
it seems about as far off as ever. The other
day a Alinisterial Morning paper adverted again
to the subject, by publishing the following
statements of one of its private correspondents
at Paris :—" Mr. Poulett Thomson, who, as
you are aware, has been here some time engaged
in negotiations with the Minister of Commerce,
relative to a long contemplated commercial
treaty, is about to return to London. I am as-
sured that Mr. Thomson has reason to be satis-
fied with the progress of the negotiations, and
carries with him a hope, amounting almost to a
certainty, that a treaty of reciprocal and equal
advantage to both countries will be at length
entered into between the two Governments. The
French Ministers are, there is every reason
to believe, sincerely desirous that the
commercial relations between France and
England should be placed on a better foot-
ing than they have been till now. The King
himself is a warm advocate for the project of the
reaty now under discussion. The only difficulty
still to be apprehended is in the opposition of
certain influential Members of the Chamber of
Deputies, to whoseryrarnivcaete
oinfteßrersittissha treatyfor
the admission into
manufac-
tures might threaten to prove detrimental. How-
ever well fiisposed the Members of the Execu-

tive towards the projected improvement in the
commercial relations of France, they must once
more consult the feeling of the majority of the
Chamber, before they can venture to put their
names to a treaty." We are quite wearied of
hearing of those " never-ending, still-begin-
ning " negotiations of Mr. Poulett Thomson
with the French Doctrinaires, and of his " hopes,

amounting almost to a certainty." Unless some-
thing more definite can be stated, it would be
more prudent for our own Doctrinaires to be
silent on the subject. They but remind the
country of their fatal blundering, in throwing
open our trade to France first, and begging for
a commercial treaty afterwards. It is clear that
the majority of the Chamber of Deputies are
aware of the folly which our Statesmen have
committed. They know that that folly has been
productive of great advantages to the manufactu-
ring interests of France, at the expense of her
ancient rival, and they are resolved not to part
with them.--Morning Herald.

The liberal scheme of Government promises
to produce a rich harvest of advantage to the
interests of England, with respect alike to its
foreign and its domestic concerns. The em-
ployment of a combined army of horse, foot,
artillery, and police, the necessary presence of
the Sheriff of Middlesex in propriis persons,
the trembling conclave at Whitehall while the
process was in operation, that terrible process
being no other than to collect some few pounds
sterling of revenue from an individual or two in
the parish of Marylebone, might have afforded
symptoms sufficiently unequivocal of the happy
effect of the liberal scheme of Government in
relation to our domestic affairs, if the illustration
were not yet more striking, which is presented
to us when we see a proclamation placarded
through our streets offering free pardon and a
rich reward to any one of some thousands of
individuals who will impeach any one of his
colleagues in forcibly rescuing in the streets of
the metropolis, from the gripe of the officer of
the law, certain chairs and tables, forfeited,
or, at least, seized, on account of the refusal
or neglect of their owner to pay to the King
taxes granted by Parliament in the ordinary
exercise of its powers. The scene is new.
It is the result of a liberal scheme of Go-
vernment according to the new acceptation
of the term liberality. The effect of the same
scheme is not less happy in its operation upon
our foreign affairs. In conjunction with France,
and aided by the influence of her name and the
power of her arms, Great Britain is enabled to
force upon Portugal the blessing of a civil war.
Who, after this, can doubt that the true glory
and welfare of England depends upon the liberal
scheme of government which she has adopted ?
But this is not all. Great Britain, the liberalised
Government of Great Britain, can boast of a still
higher achievement. Holland, whose security
and independence has always, in illiberal aloes,
been supposed to constitute one of the very first
of the foreign interests of Great Britain, is placed
in collision with Belgium, and Belgium in the
strictest alliance with, and most absolute depen-
dence upon, France. The combination is perfect.
It is such as no other than a liberal Government
could ever have had the genius or courage to
conceive or adopt. Of Spain we speak not yet.
The Spaniards may perhaps be unreasonable
enough to think that they have some right to
manage their own affairs. But so far as Great
Britain may have anything to do with Spanish
affairs, the course of liberality is plain and
straightforward: it must be congenial with that
which has been pursued towards Portugal and
Holland—it must be that which is best calculated
to throw all political power into the hands of
those who will be most disposed to wield the
power they possess in subserviency to the Li-
beral Government of France. What is the use
of liberality if it cannot induce the Liberal Go-
vernment of England to do every thing in its
power to promote the objects and extend thein-
fluence of the Liberal Government of France ?
It does, however, happen, lamentable as it must
be considered, that in this world there is nothing
altogether perfect. The liberalism which seems
to have succeeded so well in Marylebone, in
Portugal, and in Holland, and with respect to the
success of which in Spain there is at present no
visible reason to despair, does not at present ap-
pear to be equally prosperous in the East. Li-
beralism has, however, done something even in

this untractable portion of the globe. It fought
the glorious battle of Navarin. It destroyed the
Turkish marine. It imparted strength, and
insured a certain degree of success to the revolt
of the liberal Pacha of Egypt. It enthroned
the liberal King Otho, and made him a present
of some millions of English money. It stepped
in at the critical moment to secure success to the
revolt of the liberal Greek chiefs, whom the libe-
ral King Otho finds to be such excellent and
trustworthy subjects. But liberalism, powerful as
it is, is still something less than omnipotent.
The Emperor of Russia, although he had his
full share of the glory of Navarin, contributed
to the liberal rescue of the liberal chieftains of
Greece, had a hand in the manufacture of the
liberal Greek King, is still not absolutely a
liberal. He likes Turkey. He imagines that
the command of the passage of the Dardanelles
may one day or other prove convenient to him.
And, by the aid of the liberalism of western
Europe, although to the mortification of its
professors, he has acquired, for eight years at
least, which means until it be wrested from him
by a superior Power, the command of the Dar-
danelles. Turkey is now by means of the efforts
of European liberalism united to Russia. A
treaty, offensive and defensive, subsists between
these Powers, which is to remain in force for
eight years, and by which the Ottoman Porte
engages to close, in case of need, the straits of
the Dardanelles ; " that is to say, it will not
permit the entrance of any foreign vessel, even
under any pretext whatever." Against this
treaty the French and English ambassadors
have remonstrated. It offends the liberal-
ism of the West. Those of our contempo-
raries who most applauded the battle of Navarin,
and the whole course of liberal policy of which
that achievement was the consummation and
theh e tglory,treaty,
y, they
are the
loudest
uisnt tahbesirolauetcellaymabteions
rr
re-
scinded. To be sure it must, when they can
rescind the battle of Navarin, and the settlement
of Greece, and the passage of the Balkan, and
the victories of the Egyptian Pacha. At pre-
sent the great Seignior, in spite of his national
gravity and of his individual losses and mortifi-
cations, laughs at the liberalism of Western
Europe, as it is represented by the ambassadors
of France and England, and by our still more
vehement contemporaries. We published on
Friday last the answer of the Porte to the protest
of the ambassadors of the two liberal Govern-
ments. It says that the treaty is not aggressive;
that the Porte is independent, and is not called
upon to justify its conduct; that it expected the
treaty would have had the applause of all the

Powers interested in the maintenance of tran-
quillity ; and that there are no grounds for the
observations of the two Ambassadors. This, of
course, will be satisfactory. Turkey in offensive
and defensive alliance with Russia is not weak.
Is there not Holland to attack and coerce ? Is
there not Portugal to injure and insult ? Is
there not Spain, promising an early field for
the less hazardous display of liberal inter-
vention ? Why then should the liberal Go-
vernments of England and France be so indis-
creet as to meddle with Turkey, powerful as
she now is, in her alliance, offensive and
defensive, with Russia? When Turkey was
unprotected the case was altogether different.
Modern liberalism could then afford to be as
brave against Turkey, as it now is against
Holland and Portugal.—Morning Post.
Thank Heaven the eyes of the supporters of
his Majesty's Government are at length begin-
ning to open to the real importance of the pre-
servation of the Turkish empire from the fangs
of Russian ambition, and to the pusillanimous
policy which dictated, on a recent occasion, a
non-interference in its behalf, to the prejudice
of all existing interests in Europe, and the
benefit of Russia only. We say that they are
beginning to open : because we find in the last
number of the Edinburgh Review, now specially
devoted to the support of the present Govern-
ment, an article of no inconsiderable merit, in
which the advantages which this country might
derive from Turkey are amply detailed—the
spirit of Russian ambition truly and boldly
portrayed—and the manner in which Russia
might be coerced, in case of her continuing to
manifest a determination to add Turkey to the
_ .

list of her provinces, clearly pointed out. It is
true that we have already, on more than one
occasion, gone over the same ground, and
inculcated that same course of policy, the
adoption of which is now so ardently urged
upoa the Government by the friendly writer
of the article in question ; sed fas est et ab
poste doceri—we spurn not aid from whatever
quarter it may proceed, and our readers will,
perhaps, excuse us if we now draw somewhat
largely upon our quarterly contemporary for a
confirmation of the opinions which we have
advanced. Speaking of the commercial advan-
tages held forth by Turkey to the enterprise of
our merchants and manufacturers, the writer
justly observes that—
" The raw silks of Roumelia, the wool of Dalmatia, the
cotton of Thessaly, the corn, flax, tallow, and hides of
Bulgaria, the fruit and drugs of the coast, and the copper
of Trebezonde,—the annual produce of whose mines has
been estimated at more than three thousand tons,—would
best buy and circulate our manufactured silk and cotton,
and hardware goods, with which we can everywhere
undersell the rest of the world. The demand for our
goods would rapidly improve the qua'ity, and increase the
quintity, of the raw material furnished by the natives of
Turkey ; indeed, the alread y increased call for silk at Salo-
nica has introduced the Piedmontese method of reeling and
preparing it, which bas not only essentially improved
the quality of the article, but reduced its remunerating
price from three shillings and sixpence to two shillings
per pound. A like stimulus would produce a like effect
on cotton, wool, and other articles.

" That some notion may be formed of the vast field
which a liberal policy might open to our manufactures,
we will merely state, that the average consumption of
coarse cotton stuffs in Turkey may be taken at 21b. per
head ; which, at the usu ii price paid there of ss. per
lb., will give, on a population of 12,000,000, the large
sum of 6,000,000/. This is entirely independent of the
annual outlay for the more fine and costly articles, to
which our exports were at first chiefly confined. Since
they have been directed to handkerchiefs, shirting, long
cloths, and more common stuffs, they have risen to above
1,000,0001. for cotton goods alone, exclusive of the
twist, the demand for which is also increasing. As we
can supply these articles cheaper and better than the natives
' can manufacture them, or than they can buy them from
other markets, there appears one reason only why these
exports should not gradually approximate to the total
consumption of Turkey; namely, her present inability to
purchase ; and this inability is created by our refusing to
receive and import her produce in exchange for our goods.
We thus lose a vent of perhaps several millions for our
cottons alone. From Turkey, too, the demand and
supply would spread tar and wide into the southern and
Asiatic provinces of Russia.
" In common equity we are called upon to adopt this
liberal policy towards Turkey ; for, since she imposes
slight or no duties upon our good., the sticklers for reci-
procity can have no plea for continuing our heavy restric-
tions upon the importation of her raw material."
All these advantages, so clear and so unan-
swerable, the present Government has placed in
jeopardy by its pusillanimity, or rather, we
should say, all but transferred to that arch
enemy of civilization, Russia; and the writer of
the article, though he does not own to the fact,
sees it to be the case :
" Will peace and tranquillity be insured ? 'Will the
sullen Turk submit to the innovations of French habits,
and the co-equality of Christian subjects ? And will the
ambitious and insidious neighbours of Turkey allow her
time and repose to consolidate her strength ? Will they
not be tempted to take advantage of her present state of
transition, and seek, under the cloak of fair pretences and
amicable intervention, to sow the seeds of discord, in
order that the crumbling and disjointed body which now
composes the empire, may, by the wear and tear of a bit-
by_bit encroachment, fall gradually under their influence,
till it silently, and without provoking the intervention of
Europe, shall merge in their dominions?
" This is much to be feared ; and of all enemies, Tur-
key has most reason to dread her new ally, Russia. The
inscription of Potemkin upon the southern gate of Cherson
yet remains the index of her views—' This is the road to
Constantinople.' From and before the day that inscrip-
tion was blazoned before the eyes of insulted Europe, the
constant object and practice of Russia has been encroach-
, ment on the territories of Turkey. The peace of Car-
lowitz gave her the first footing on the sea of Azoff ;
and though the disasters of Peter the Great on the Pruth,
and the Imperial dissensions which attended the factious
reigns of his early female successors retarded, yet they did
not quench the thirst for spoliation. This passion broke
forth in full vigour under Catherine the Second; and
from the re-possession of Azoff, and the acquisition of a
footing on the Crimea in 1774, the course has been rapid
and unblushing. At each successive peace Russia has
advanced from the Dnieper to the Bug, from the Bug to
the Dniester, from the Dniester to the Pruth, and latterly,
from the Pruth to the Danube. This last stride was
made at the treaty of Adrianople, when, as usual, she
declared that she required no extension of territory what-
ever ; but not the less secured the east coast of the Euxine,
with half of Georgia, and stipulated for privileges in the
principalities, and for the demolition of the Turkish fron-
tier fortresses as far as Belgrade, whereby her fron-
tier was virtually planted on the Danube. And lastly, by
her late amicable intervention, she has secured a command-
ing influence at Constantinople itself."
Aye "a commanding influence" indeed, and
through whose fault ? That of the Sultan ?
No. He had no other means of saving him-
self, even for a time, but through that of
England, which, however busily she might be
engaged in " important affairs," or however
lately " the Parliament might have sat"—lame
and impotent excuses—ought to have come
Russian
uunns
srebckseieliteni:
nyun,dsa
sanilatvadgtinotoghnrpiai
cut
nlieEtsdr
gza
aggrandizement.
endintrigue,
na to a strife
tn.
diechhehasct.
forwardeonridgeirdiatiinnagt
ownd
gh al
England da inlavtaterr
tehs te, betweenbaanc
wiAliomliuldainshdanvoeTt
k
of the latter, was a contest from which he
thesu l t
a golden o d opportunitysec uring
exclusive ofhad better retire. But, with a fatuity which
was perhaps never equalled, not to say excelled,
supporting
commercialthe
advantages, was lost--the Sultan was, in spite
of himself, thrown into the arms of Russia,
eagerly stretched forth to embrace him in
their serpent folds—and the virtual indepen-