The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-29 00:00:00

TEE FRENCH TREATY.

It is not a bargain. The French Treaty is not a
bargain. We have admitted this over and over
again. But it bears the outward and visible sem-
blance of a bargain. If a highwayman should meet
a peaceable citizen in a dark lane and should invite
him to change coats and watches with him and the
citizen surrendered his property and declined the
exchange, it would not be a bargain ; or, if an old
woman should beg you, for the love of Heaven, to
buy a pennyworth of nuts of her, and you gave
her the penny and refused the nuts, it would not
be a bargain ; but there would be the considera-
tion of a whole skin in the one case and of a
charitable act in the other. There is, however, no
consideration of fear or of charity in our dealings
with our very affluent and courteous friends on the
other side of the Channel. What, then, is the reason
that we are ostentatiously indifferent as to any
equivalent ? Why do we surrender our coat and
watch without even looking at the fustian jacket
offered in exchange ? Why do we pay our penny
and disdain to hold out our hands for the nuts ?
We are a very rich nation and a very grand nation,
and we have a history interlaced with glorious
traditions, and a rule which extends. as far as there
is land or water for the sun to shine upon ; but
that is no reason -why we should give ourselves
such tremendously weak Grand Seigneur airs in
dealings with our friends the French. They are
not a nation of paupers. We are not tossing them
a dole. They come to us with an offer to deal on
equal terms. M. Thouvenel takes care to tell us
that " gratitude and sentiment are not the basis
of the relations of States." In the cases we put,
when you give the highwayman your coat and
watch there is an implied agreement that he will
allow you to go quietly on your way home; when you
give the old woman the penny she is bound to
follow you with blessings. But France does not
promise to cease her aggressions. or to render you
a good word for all that you give her by this Com-
mercial Treaty. She invites you to make your
own bargain, and if she gets the best of it she
laughs at you for a blockhead.
To-night the sealing of this "merry bond" is
to be proceeded with. The papermakers are to be
offered up as a sacrifice to that entente cordiale
which proceeds so pleasantly. Now, there is, as
we have already intimated, no interest in this coun-
try with which we have less community of pecuniary
interest than the papermakers. To us the one great
virtue of the reduction of the paper duties is that
it shall give us cheap paper. When the duties
cease we have promised to give the public the bene-
fit of the change, and if the price of paper should
not fall when the duty is removed we shall be most
obviously losers by the alteration. To us cheap
paper is to be desired—cheap paper made of rags.
We cannot use paper made of straw. 'We must
have such paper as the public expect at our hands.
It is clearly, therefore, our interest to throw over
every consideration of English or foreign produc-
duction ; and, if we can only see our way clear to
get. '
a lasting supply of cheaper paper from abroad
than we can get at home, to advocate the course of
legislation b
recogniseev the facter,that w
public to
We think, zow which that supply can be procured.
tlltmiatyhaasppneeavler to
been the
our custom to intrude our mercantile interests into
the discussions in which •it is our duty to take
part ; nor in t -
g our line upon this question
of the papermakers have we for
con-
sidered how it would affect ourselveas. seemsmiotmen
t to
us that a great injustice is about to be done to
a class of traders, and that this injustice is not
only uncalled for by any public interests or
true commercial principles, but that it is volun-
tarily inflicted in the mere officiousness of subser-
viency, or in the merely pedantic affection for the
integrity of a particular scheme. We are told that
the sacrifice must be at
it, because we once consummated. It is
premature to object to do not yet
know what great good the
Emperor of the French
has in store for us. -We must begin by shutting
•
our eyes before we open out mouths to take in that
rich niorceau which the Emperor holds between his
finger and thumb. Surely we have bad enough of
this nonsense ? With recent examples before them,
the House of Commons will scarcely listen pa-
tiently to the Chancellor of the Exchequer exhort-
ing them to give up all security against being
tricked, and to trust to the magnanimity of the
Emperor of the French. Again, we are told, that
we already import a great many rags from Zollve•
rein, in spite of a high export duty. So we do.
We pay so high a price for our paper here that we
can afford to buy the German rags, even with a
burden of ClO or £l2 per ton upon them. But,
when the Germans can send us their paper free,
does any sane man suppose that they will send us
rags burdened with an export duty ? Strong ex-
periments are made upon the House of Commons
just now, but we can scarcely believe that it will
he called upon to give effect to argumerts such as
these.

We have been unable to resist the appeal o
the
papermaliers, because it seems to us to unite in its
favour every consideration which generallyin-
fluences men in making bargains. In the first
place, we do not like to be so manife'stly
and openly " done." It is wounding to our amour
propre and. to our mercantile instincts. It is an
exception in favour of France to the whole system
of our legislation with respect to other countries,
for, whereas we always put en an import duty
where we have an Excise duty, here we keep up
an Excise duty and take off the import duty. A