The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-29 00:00:00

DUTIES ON BRITISH PRODUCE AND MANUFACTURES.

The first of a series of returns on the import tariff
levied on the produce and manufactures of the United
Kingdom furnishes some interesting facts relating to the
different rates in different countries. The duty laid on
woollen and worsted yarns, for instance, is highez
in the United States than in any continental country
except Portugal. The American duty ranges from
lls. to £ll 9s. per cwt. ; in Greece it varies from £1 Bs.
to £5 13s. ; in Russia it is uniformly £2 4s. ; in
France the tariffs run from 4s. to £2 (round numbers)
per cwt.; in Austria, from ls. Cd. to 12s. 2d.; in Switzerland,
from Is. 7d. to 2s. 10d.; in Belgium, from Bs. 2d. to 12s. 2d.
in the States of the Zollverein, from ls. Cd. to 12s. 2d.
The duties of silk threads are much higher, but those
levied in Greece, Portugal, Spain, and the United State:
are the highest. On cotton yarns the tariff in Greece it
moderate, but high in Russia. Portugal. and Snai•

COMMERCIAL IMMORALITY IN LONDON

AND NEIV YORK.

(From the Anglo-American 2 ime.s.)

The commercial immorality of New York and of
London might be taken as signifying such quanti-
ties as six of this and half a dozen of the same.
Nevertheless there is a marked difference, not in
! the degree, but in the quality of the article. Lon-
' don is essentially a society of wolves and sheep,
while in New York the wolf element more or less
prevails throughout the community. Some there
are of surpassing wolfishness—regular Philistines
who c in devour Philistines—men so well known in
New York as to be needless to name, but they fur-
nish us with excellent illustrations to show the
difference between commercial immorality in the
Empire City and in London. Throughout England
are scattered a vast number of families, each pos-
sessing a small realized competence. They consist
of profe&ional men ; sons who have inherited euffi-
cient for their wants, clergymen, widows, retired
officers of the Army, Ni.vy, and Civil Service, re-
turned colonists, and merchants established in
foreign countries; but more than all, those who
have succeeded to an income, often unexpectedly.
As a rule they arc ignorant of business to a degree
difLult for an American to comprehend, nor is tne
reas m hard to discover. Professional walks are
hedged in and narrowly circumscribed in Great
Britain. A man pursues a speciality, even sub-
d,vidin g his calling, S) as confine him to one particular
branch ; and though he may excel in that, it is at
the cost of his genera: knowledge. A doctor, an
officer, a clergyman, knows nothing of trade, either
theoreticallyof thelawsthatregulate it or practically-
of the probable action of mankind when with ill-con-
trived checks some are intrusted with other people's
money. Thos who havetried their hands at all things,
from peddling nutmegs up to building a Union Pacific
Railroad, from a revival to commanding a division
in the field, have no notion of the innocence and
gullibility of such English lambs. For ten years
they grow up and accumulate, when the periodical
slaughter of the innocentscommences. A new crop of
retired officers and clergymen, and professional
men and widows, occupy the houses of those im-
molated in the last battue, who with their sorrows
and experience lie buried in the old churchyards.
On the arrival of that 10th of September, the most
vulgar and least imaginative liar and blackguard
can riot in spoil. Offensive things, men with tainted
character, notoriously unprincipled, become sur-
feited with plunder, and to gorge each, the number
of stricken deer sent to weep, is enough to make
the heart bleed to calculate. The simple plan in
London, when the helpless multitude catch tile ma-
nia to increase their means by investing in good
things—be they South Sea Bubbles, Itailwayfurores,
or a Joint-stock Limited Liability saturnalia—is for
one cf these wretches who may be in waiting, out
at elbows up alleys, or keeping up a dignified ap-
pearance in a mysterious way, to catch a few of the
best-known victims as decoy ducks, coupled with
some ruffians as unscrupulous as themselves, with
whom Rotten Row is thronged, and the game
throughout is played with an ease and safety little
creditable to the laws of the country, or the under-
standing of the people. they thus plunder: Mixed
with pity one cannot, even when a victim oneself,
but feel a shade of contempt for the poor things
thus robbed as shamelenly, as mercilessly, for it is
both shameless and merciless from the issue of the
first lying prospectus to its last stage in Chancery—.
alike dishonourable and disastrous to the commu-
nity. But the scene is wholly different in New
York, where the fight is between strong men, and
the victor is a giant in ingenuity, in energy, in cou-
rage, iu rascality—aye, and he has defeated giants,
for even- the " lame ducks," after a hot contest in
'Wall-street, are found to betnen of no mean capacity,
but those who battled bravely against a Napoleon in
strategy. The bloated English thief is a sneaking
wretch, aping respectability and fashion, it may be
religion.; or else an outcast of society living luxu-
riously, but despised ass convicted blackguard, and
shunned and insulted wherever he goes, for lie is
recognized only as the thing he is, the man who
basely availed himself of a weak moment to plunder
the poor trusting victims who had confided in him.
In New York, however, he who has conducted to a
brilli int success a campaign of speculation while
heartily abused, while called every name by which
the gradations of blackguardism are defined in Eng-
lish, commands a certain sort and degree of admi-
ration and respect. Fortune is pitted against for-
tune ; combination meets combination. Doubtless,
the innocent are stricken down in the fight, but that
is by the bursting of stray shells and the explosions
of magazines where the people have been warned to
take care. In New York no Philistine approaches
the sheep clad in robes of respectability, with verses
of Scripture and cut and dried texa; of the moral
duties of man, to steal the widow's pittance, to ap-
propriate the hard earnings of a life, to send the
father to suicide, and the daughters to seek their
bread as housemaids and nurses. We grant the

unscrupulous character of the New Yorker as well,
and allow that circumstances only may have saved
him from being as detestable a thief ; he has none of
the.opportunities for such cheap fattening as his
Cockney prototype, and the qualities which make
him the animal he is may be developed by the cir-
cumstances in which he is placed. Though the
general run of English and American merchants are
the same, speculation enters more into the business
of the New York firm. This isin the nature of things,
for the American deals in a paper currency subject
to violent fluctuations, which means some such thing
as that his dry-goods may at random turn out to be
measured by a yard of four feet or of three, and his
possessions are greater or lesser on the chance. An
importing merchant may have to buy the gold
by which he clears the goods invoiced at a price
equal to half their foreign value—at 30 or 50 pre-
mium he can only guess at the cost. If he buys in ad-
vance he is neither more nor less than a "bull," for he
has made money by anticipating the rise; if he
waits, he is a " bear," for he speculates for a fall,
and delays his operations to avail himself of his
calculation. Thus he is placed in the position of
one having a time-bargain with the Government,
and being compelled to speculate whatever course
he takes for the fulfilment of his contract. A
European merchant can readily understand how it
may become an easy step from this involuntary act
to an habitual gambling in gold. Even a retailer
who buys his goods from the importer is materially
affected by the rise or fall of gold. If his store is
full of imported goods and gold rapidly rises these
goods appreciate in value, that is, he will get more
currency for them than he calculated on when
he made his purchases. Thus the element of chance
is largely increased by the paper currency, and
gambling becomes the usage, bringing in its train
all its demoralizing consequences. The root of all
speculation is the desire to gain speedily and with-
out labour, to take the honey and expel the hive ;
and nothing can be more fascinating to human kind ;
for, if the delusion really existed, it would be in-
deed a royal road to wealth, but it does nut exist ;
for wealth is the product only, of well applied, con-
tinuous, and successful labour, and the exceptions
but give point to the rule. When gambling be-
comes general its first effect is to check labour, for
many who otherwise would work and honestly em-
ploy their means, prefer to speculate for their
wealth, and therefore it draws to the large cities
both men and money at the expense of the rural
districts. Its next effect is to increase crime, in
what degree the recent criminal records of New
York can show ; and its sure end is a smash, for it
breeds an hallucination, an intoxicating atmosphere,
through which things are seen magnified, distorted,
or turned upside down. The tulip mania was in
appearance a greater absurdity than the Limited
Liability mania, though in reality not nearly so
great an absurdity, for, at worst, the tulip was
worth nothing, but the limited liability share ge-
nerally represented a heavy debt to its owner.
The speculator in the first had bought a palpably
worthless bulb, but the purchaser of the last had
bought a crushing liability and encumbrance, still
neither could for the moment see what was after-
wards so plain. The gambling atmosphere at the
time breathed by both classes of speculators had the
effect we describe, and so it will always be found,
but in young countries the general form is a real
estate or laud mania. Gambling exists then in a
chronic state in New York, based on the paper
currency, and as business is carried on by men who
better uuderst nd what they are doing, and are not
of the gullible nature to be found in England,
while the property whereon the operations are based
being of a more substantial character, the climax
takes longer to reach. But it is perhaps on this
account all the more injurious to the community,
and to the country ; for people, instead of being
soon " choked off" as in London, become confirmed
in this vicious mode of business, and the instances
of success have a demoralizing influence on the
inhabitants, persuading the young and inexperi-
enced that there is a royal road to wealth, which
they take, and find that instead of Jew:ling to the
White House, it conducts them straight to Sing
Sing. The main difference between commercial
immorality—meaning thereby a rage for specula-
tion—in London and New York is that, in the
former, it is intermittent, coming on iu fierce fits ;
in the Litter it is chronic—the fixed habit of the
patient, generated by peculiar circumstances, which
indeed may be said of both.