The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-05 00:00:00

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, V.

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1851,

Different countries, of course, indicate the amount
of their prosperity in a manner very diversified, ac-
cordingly as their inhabitants may be engaged in
labours of an agricultural or manufacturing character.
There is one index, however, which is invariably
capable of application, no matter how strange soever
the diversities of enterprise betrayed by the people of
Christendom, as a means of intimating the extent of
their respective development in civilization. Our al-
lusion must be at once comprehensible to those who
are gifted with even a moderate share of discernment.
It has reference to the roads intersecting the surface
of the earth, those channels of intercommunication
in proportion to the number and excellence of which
are the conveniences or luxuries of a community.
Science has, of late years, multiplied these lines of
intercourse in a way, such as our forefathers, saga-
cious men though they were in many particulars,
would infallibly have regarded as little less than
miraculous. This, moreover, not merely through
those mercantile aqueducts which may be said
to irrigate our inland towns with a merchan-
dise hitherto restricted to places situated on
the river bank, or the sea shore--THE CANALS—but
by that marvellous network of iron, threaded by the
fiery dragons of philosophy—THE RAILWAYS—that
wondrous system which is covering with a metallic
web the surface both of the new world and the old,
and accelerating the social pulse, so to speak, with
every throb of its steam-engines. It is to this extra-
ordinary multiplication of highways throughout the
world that the advancement of the present age is
principally attributable, affording as this circumstance
has done, such a very surprising impetus to the
energies of mankind, and binding together, as it has,
in such close proximity interests:,previously scattered
abroad in confusion. Hence, we repeat, the gigantic
improvements effected more or less among the most
strikingly contrasted populations.
Remarkable as these things are throughout the
whole of the principal territories of Europe, they are,
above all, and beyond all, especially remarkable
in r( ward to the islands of Great Britain.
A glance at a map of the eastern
hemisphere v 3 id evidence the force of our observa-
tion upon this head with sufficient distinctness.
While France, for example, is solely furnished with
trunk rail% ayF, while Germany has even these in
many parts only in a fragmentary condition, while
Lombardy has merely one restricted and broken line
crossing the northern part of *the peninsula from
Novara towards the Adriatic, while Tuscany pos-
sesses merely an insignificant branch con-
necting Florence with the Mediterranean, the
iron roads of Zogland have been con-
structed over various shires with extravagant
profusion, whether considered in regard to the wealth
or the energies necessary to their collective com-
pletion. Justified though we may be in exulting
over these evidences of a national intelligence
superior, in our regard, and, in this instance, to the
most distinguished among the contemporary ;races of
Christendom, there are reasons, nevertheless, why we
should abstain from such tokens of vainglory, if it
be only out of a very shame at the abuses which
even to this moment await removal. Conspicuous
above all the evils that might be enumerated
is one which we shall content ourselves with speci-
fying, as perhaps the most serious and disgraceful
obstacle yet remaining in the way of international
traffic. Anyone who has travelled across Channel
will comprehend on the instant that this obstacle is
none other than the system of Custom-house regu-
lations. Added to which, anyone not entirely
blinded by the prejudices engendered by agricultural
monopoly will perceive that those regulations furnish
additional and unanswerable arguments in favour of
Free-trade principles. However enthusiastic the
"Farmer's Friend" may be in behalf of the sophisms
of the Country Party, let him find himself hustled
about for half an hour among the Custom-house
officials, his wardrobe " towzled" about as indiffe-
rently as though it were the property of a pickpocket,
his portmanteau searched as rigorously as the box of
a servant suspected of larceny or embezzlement—
and we warrant him he will emerge from that
übiquitous temple of persecution somewhat flushed
and irritated in body, with a secret misgiving that
all is not exactly as it should be in regard to the
theme of his panegyrics and the object of his vane
ration.

Hitherto our Legislature has acted in reference to
such world-wide abuses with a daring and magnani-
mity which to the more timorous class of observers
have appeared nothing less than Quixotic. Aware
that a certain degree of reciprocity is absolutely es-
sential to render any such gigantic innovations as
those here intimated effectual, England has, never-
theless, conceived it to be advisable rather to jeopardize
something by temerity than to peril everything by a
course of indifference and procrastination. Her Go-
vernment has preferred to offer an example to sur-
rounding nations by a series of comprehensive re-
forms, rather than consent to participate with them in
the odium of an inflexible pertinacity in the mainte-
nance of error. Hence the courageous abandonment
of the corn-laws, even while the doctrines of mono-
poly remained incorporated with the fiscal code of the
other powers of Christendom. Hence, again, the
financial intrepidity displayed in other directions, as,
for example, in regard to the laws relating to inter-
national copyright, laws which cannot by possibility
prove efficacious until the coincident opinions of
the Parliaments of other countries have
enabled their influence to become reciprocal.
Quixotic, we have said, these movements
on the part of the British Legislation have
appeared to the more timorous section of the multitude
in the United Kingdom, and as Quixotic they have
been alternately derided and vilified. Very different,
indeed, are the sentiments with which these proceed-
ings have been regarded by the more liberal, and not
less patriotic, scrutineers of the reforms introduced
by the Imperial Parliament. Conscious that England,
from her wealth and her industrial energies, is pecu-

liarly qualified to act AS the pioneer of improvement
throughout Christendom, they have watched with
eager satisfaction, rather than with feelings of
anxiety,
the boldness with Which her statesmen have
directed her counsels along this broad and beneficient
pathway of exberiment. Applied to such vast and

comprehensive departments of the Administration the
Is 3 stem here intimated has proved up to the

present moment anything rather than disastrous

It has conferred advantages upon the commu-
nity, which without its interposition must have

reweiced altogether inaccessible. It has con-

;ratted the evil produced by insufficent har-

vests, and by
.the consequent scarcity of borne-

grown provisions. It has compensated the artisan for

diminished employment, by placing the necessaries
of existence more directly within his reach. It has

mitigated the horrors arising out of a thstructive

epidemic, by cheapening the means of nutrition.

From all which considerations it must be manifest

;hat good rather than ill has resulted from the opera-
tion of a scheme until now so egregiously misrepre-

sented by its opponents. What has been thus hap-
pily effected, therefore, in regard to larger and more
elaborated divisions cf the public Fervid, we would.
now see carried out in reference to the system of
Custom-house regulations. We would have no more
sops thrown to the, Cerberi of that inocorable insti-
tution. We would more willingly see them stran-
gled by that many-handed BRIAILEUS the Legislature,
rendering the record of their robberies by this means