The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-06 00:00:00

French Government. It is not the French manu-
facturers but the French Government whom our
manufacturers say they are unwilling to meet as
a rival. They say so justly. It appears to us won-
derful that intelligent Free-traders do not see
through the sophism which represents Free-
traie as demanding that private manufacturers
should be required to compete against Go-
vernment bounties, as well as against
skill or natural advantages of their fellow-
trade" s. Were our Government to select a score
of names from the list of the papermakers in our
and declare that they would remit,
columns to ci..11")
in their favour, so much of the duty as would
balance the differencd between the price of rags in
France and their price in England—the immediate
effect would be that all the trade would go into the
hands of the favoured twenty, or that all the rest
would endeavour to unite themselves in vast joint-
stock partnerships with them; Yet i where, we
confidently ask, would the position of the select
twenty differ from that of the paper manufacturers
of France at this hour ? And, surely, we are not
about to allow the French Government to practise
on our papermakers, generally, with impunity, an
injustice which we would not hear of from our own.
But we are pointed to the treaty ; and we are
told that our honour is pledged by it to the repeal
of the Customs' Duty. We need not repeat, now,
that that treaty is diversely interpreted. We cannot
doubt that paper was not thought of when it was
made. The treaty itself does not say that all French
merchandise, but certain merchandise shall be ad-
mitted, either on payment of equal duties to what
is paid on the same articles here, or with an aup•
mentation only equalling the extra cost due to our
excise regulations ; it then enumerates the articles,
and amongst them paper is not mentioned. This
seems to shew, if anything can do so, that paper is
not fairly included in the treaty.
But there is another clause—the 21st—to which
we call the special attention of every member to-
night. It reserves to the contracting powers the
right "to introduce by common consent into this
treaty any modation which is not opposed to its
spirit and principles, and the utility of which shall
have been shown by experience." Now, is our Go-
ment in a position to show that it has done its best
with France on the basis of this clause. Has it,
first, brought all its influence to bear on the aboli-
tion of the export duty on rags. If .it has, which
we much doubt, can it show that it has represented
to the French Government the necessity, in that
case, of retaining the perny countervailing Cus-
toms' duty ? If it cannot, it hardly deserves a single
vote in its favour. We do not think so badly
of the French as to suppose them so utterly lost to
all sense of decency as to ask us to abolish our coun-
tervailing duty, while they retain the prohibition it
was intended to meet. Mr. COBDEN, indeed,
says of them, in a communication which has been
made public today, " the French are very little in
all their commercial notions, monstrously fond of
money, but all after a penurious fashion." Yet we
will not speak of our neighbours as so outrageously
selfish and " little in their notions" as the conduct
referred to would suppose.
If, therefore, the retention of the extra penny is
quite compatible with Free Trade principles ; if it be
not a violation of the Treaty ; if we may reasonably
believe that even little-notioned, Frenchmen them-
selves would not object to it; then, surely Mr.
PULLER'S resolution ought to be carried by an
overwhelming majority. For replies to other
objections, all of which have been however already
answered in The Sun, and for several important
aspects of the subject, we must refer our readers to
the able advertisement of the paper makers. We
have considered the subject without reference to po-
litical consequences at home; we have a very high
regard for Mr. GLADSTONE as a man, but we cannot
sacrifice our deliberate opinion to keep him in office.
Should he be defeated, however, we cannot think he
will be so ill-advised as to go out on such a ques-
tion; and to dissolve Parliament in favour of
French manufacturers, and of submitting to such a
trick as passing the Treaty under a promise, re-
ceived with cheers, to abolish the rag prohibition—
a promise not kept by .France would ensure a
new Parliament such as neither Lord PALMERSTON
nor Mr. GLADSTONE would meet, except to resign
their offices.

Second thoughts are not always best. There is a
case in point, illustrative of this not very generally
recognised truth, in the matter of the rival sub-
Atlantic telegraphs ! Six years ago the North
American route was suggested ; and two years
afterwards the Atlantic Company was organised for
the carrying of a direct line from Ireland to New-
foundland. The northern route, therefore, had the
priority—obviously and undeniably. It was in
1856, we repeat, that the Atlantic Company was
organised for the laying down of the cable from
Ireland to Newfoundland ; but it was in 1854 that
the northern route was propounded. Nay, not
only had Colonel SHAFFNER suggested this particu-
lar line of sub-Atlantic telegraph, but in that very
year, in 1854, that gallant officer had already ob-
tained the Danish concession to construct the;
telegraph from Europe to America, via the Feroe
Islands, and Iceland, and Greenland. From the
European side it was to start from Scotland. From
the American side, from Labrador. " The success
of this enterprise," Colonel SHAFFNER has himself
said, "was not promotive of the interest of some
New Yorkers, who were the owners of the monopoly
of telegraphy in Newfoundland, and it was by their
efforts that the Atlantic Company was organised
(in 1856) for the line from Ireland to Newfound-
land." Whatever the reason for the proposal thus
made, as by an after thought for the laying down
of the direct line of telegraph, in reference to the
one suggested for the western route, via Ireland
and Greenland—the facts are indisputable, of course,
that fully two years after the projector of the
northern line had obtained the Danish concession
for its construction, the Atlantic Company was first
organised for the:connection (if possible) by the elec-
tric cable of Ireland and Newfoundland. Everybody
remembers how magnificently the latter enterprise
was for one brief and glorious, but most illusory,
interval realised. The incident of its realisation is
one, in fact, not very easily to be forgotten. Never.
as we remarked ourselves at the time in these
columns, never surely were the deathless words
of the Royal Psalmist more sublimely realised
----De profundis clamavi ad to Domino !—than when
first thrilled under the waters of the great Atlantic
ocean, from shore to shore, from Europe to America
the earliest electric signal between the two hemi-
spheres, Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax
lton2inibus ! But the golden cord of this magic it -
tercourse between the nations was no sooner woven
than it was snapped asunder. How fatally we now
know for certain—now that the old submerged
cable has been found corroded and crumbling away
wherever it has been hauled up for exa-
mination. Recollecting the total and absolute
failure, so far, of the direct route of the
sub-Atlantic Telegraph the one propounded
two years sulmequent;; to the rnore circuitous line
(not yet tried) via Iceland dna Greenland, frgm the
Faroe Islands to Labrador, one not unnaturally
reverts with interest to a consideration of that
elder plan, as unfolded first of all six years ago