The Sun.
London, England, 1833-01-10 00:00:00

other word for the complete annihilation of all
her foreign commerce ; not even the carrying
trade could long survive a successful effort to
exclude the ships and goods of all surrounding
A general system of exclusive policy
s one which compels the subjects of the Go-
vernment enforcing it to buy at a dearer rate
from their own countrymen than they might
otherwise do from foreigners, such articles,
whether of raw material or manufacture, as are

nations.

elsewhere produced at an inferior cost. The
ships, therefore, of that nation which levies
such burdensome taxes upon its own industry
cannot be built or navigated at so small an ex-
pense as those of less improvident communities,
which are satisfied to give and take with their
neighbours, buying what nature withholds from
their soil or climate, and being thereby enabled
to find a market for their own superfluous pro-
ductions. With other branches of commerce,

hcrefore, the carrying trade and shipping i,i-
erest must, like the rest, decline. There is

variety of evidence to prove, that before Mr,
fitiukisson made any overt exertion towards

softening down of the rigour of the navigation

and prohibitory laws; of Great Britain, the over-
strained screws had begun to lose their gripe,
and the whole machinery of the " mercantile
system" to betray strong signs of approaching
dissolution. What, then, :id Mr. Huskisson
attempt? Why, for the sake of British com-
merce, and of that alone, he began to relax the
prohibitory and exclusive system. Some people
were silly enough to call the new policy " free
trade," and to expect, as a matter of right and
certainty, that every Government which had
been taught to act upon the restrictive maxims
exemplified in the conduct of this country
should at once retrace its steps, and, in token
of gratitude for what was newly effected here,
on the most selfish (though the truest) principle,:
of regard for our own national prosperity, that
these foreign Power:should exhibit in one moment
,he same wisdom which England hail arrived at
through the experience of a century of errors,
and remove at a word those obstacles to free in-

ercourse which we had so successfully, thong)
anconsciously, inculcated upon them the ()blip

don of establishing, to the assumed, hovvever
unreal, advantage of their native industry. This
was asking too much. There was no doubt,
indeed, that Mr. Huskisson would have pro-
ceeded further in his course of commercial and
maritime relaxation, had he entertained the
slightest hope of overcoming the resistance ex-
perienced from certain parties at home, alike
sordid, obstinate, blind, and unteachable. As

t was, he did wonders, but he gave no " free
rade," not even under the name of that

" reciprocity" which, as negotiated with the
Northern Powers, has been exclaimed against
Cor its ruinous consequences to the ship-owners
of Great Britain. We refer to the Prussian
,ariff for particulars, and as the subject is curi-
ous, no less than important,—and but imper-
t'ectly understood, or perhaps we ought to say
icknowledged, by the British shipowners, we here
reprint those few paragraphs of the former
statement which hear upon the question of
" reciprocity.
_" Thu, far we have considered what regards the tariff

of duties as such ; nut the Prussian cominerciJ and ship-
ping. interests experience a no less great and extensive
disadvantage, in comparison with those of England, from
the operation of the English navigation laws. In con
fortuity with these laws a Prussian vessel (or the vessel of
any other foreign country, respectively) can import only
Pt ussian produce or goods, and only from a Prussian port
direct. It is also to be remarked, that the English law
considers those vessels only as Prussian which were built in
Prussia,* and whose crews consist of at least 3-4ths Prus•
aian subjects.
" So rigorously is the observance of all these conditions
ind regulations exacted in England, that their neglect
is followed not only by the sending back of the vessel,
out by severe punishment—by fine, imprisonment, and
eon fiscation.
" While Prussia thus allows English vessels, be they
wilt where they may, to carry goods into Pi ussian ports,
-o that they be lint furnished with the proper English
4,ips' jaspers, without any inquiry as to the port, the
,ountry, or the quarter of the globe from which the last
ailed, or as to the origin of the produce or the war es they
ray ry, and simply under the same regulation as those to
vhich Prussian vessels must conform, the English law
pet mits a Pros ian vessel to land her cargo only when she
brings Prussian goods direct from a Prussian port. Thus,
while the commerce of the whole world lies open to the
English vessel on her way to the Prussian port, the Prus-
data vessel hound to England is shut out from all other
trade whatever, and confined to the direct voyage from
her own port to the English one.
" Even the Prussian and English reciprocity treaty,
which excited so much clamour and complaint in England,
has therefore introduced anything but real reciprocity
between the two countries : the whole advantage has re-
mained on the side of England, the whole disadvantage on
the side of Prussia."

With regard to other matters—Under this
" free-trade" system, so much compl-ined of,
while the only prohibited goods is Prussia are
" plafiing cards," there is a long list of the
staple articles of Prussian produce formally pro•
tlibited, and others practically so, by the enor-
mous duties attending their importation here.
All sorts of live stock, and most sorts of grain,
the great growths of Prussia,—are substan-
tially prohibited. At this moment the English
luty on corn exceeds the market price in
Prussia. Tobacco pays 1,000 per cent. on its
mime cost in Prussia ; hops Si. I ls. per
cwt.,—a prohibitory duty. Even pig's bristles
pay a large tax per pound ; such justice
is there in the complaints of the British
monopolist, and such the gratitude which he
has a right to claim from us consumers, as well as
from his competitors in Prussia ! As for timber,
it is well known what a grievous sacrifice has
heen wrung from this country, and what cor-
tesponding severity imposed upon the Baltic
trade, for the sole benefit (and it is more than
a doubtful benefit) of the Canadian grower.
Having already mentioned the document whence
these facts are drawn, and on which these obser-
vations are founded, the reader, by reference to
,ast Monday's Times, may satisfy himself as to
the moderation of the Prussian Government,
compared with that of England, in its fiscal
regulations, with regard to foreign goods, and
learn what honesty there is in the howlings of
our Conservative brethren against the free trade
innovations, which they seem to regret with
about the same pretence to decency and pa-
triotism as they do to the extinction of the
rotten boroughs. We can tell the gentlemen
that they will have more " free trade" before they
-ee a diminution of it.—Times.
We have already published some extracts
from the evidence produced before the Com-
mittee of the House of Commons in support of
the Factories Labour Regulation Bill. What
a picture of suffering and cruelty ! If there be
such a personage as a misanthrope in England
or in the civilized world, now is the time fur
him to triumph. Let him appeal to this evi-
dence, to this statement of facts—of nothing
o • With what excessive severity this law is enforced may
be gathered from this fact, among many others—that Prussian
vessels, built in Prussia, and which had sailed for from 20 to
30 years under the Prussian flag to England itself, have been
subsecpiently tried and condemned because 'it was alleged that
the district in which they were built (East Friesland) had been
taken away from Prussia, though it was not till long after they
were built,"