The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-16 00:00:00

COMIERCrAL TREATY BETWEEN
FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

(Rona the Times.)
There are moments when the freest people in the
world may admire and even envy the privileges of a
despotic Government. Slow, painful, and checkered
has been the progress by which, step by step, we
have achieved our present state of prosperity and
happiness. A nation which is content to place its
destinies in the hands of a single man may dispense
with these tardy preliminaries, may go to lied Pro-
tectionists and rise up Free-traders, and. exchange
at the very shortest notice the dominion of a power-
ful priesthood for the most unrestrained spiritual
liberty. The Emperor of the French has fairly sur-
passed himself, and of all the changes and chances
of his wonderful career that which we are about to
record is at once the strangest and the most worthy
of commendation.
Everybody knows the position which the Empe-
ror of the French occupies with reference to two
very important portions of his subjects—the clergy,
who are estranged by his determination to permit
no interference between the Pope and his revolted
subjects, and the Protectionists and Prohibitionists,
who dread that the Government will some day or
other emancipate itself from the miserable trammels
in which they seek to hind it. An ordinary man
would have sought to play one of these interests off
against the other—if a breach with the clergy was
inevitable, to have redoubled in seal for Protection.
If the quarrel with the Protectionists was unavoid-
able, he would have sought fora reconciliation with
the Church. But Louis Napoleon is no ordinary man,
and never did he show it more clearly than at this
moment. On the battle fields of Magenta and Solfe-
rino he appears to have conquered other and more
formidable enemies than the Emperor of Austria.
Henceforth, strong in the confidence of the increased
stability of his dynasty, he feels himself able to
deal with the bigots, ecclesiastical and temporal,
who would fetter the consciences and cramp the I
energies of his people. With one hand he sup-
presses the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the most
influential clerical association in France, and thus
fearlessly flings down his gauntlet at the feet of his
Ultramontane priesthood, and dares them to do their
worst ; with the other hand he shivers at one blow
the fetters of French commerce, and defies that Pro-
tectionist interest which has always supposed
itself a match for any Government, however
powerful.
The change indicated is too vast and the time too
short to allow us to do more than place our readers
in possession of the heads of this most astounding
communication. In a letter to M. Fould the Em-
peror announces that " the moment has:arrived," or,
as Sir Robert Peel used to say, " the time has now
come," " for applying ourselves to the means of
giving a greater development to national wealth.
Foreign commerce must be developed by the ex-
change of products. Agriculture must be first im-
proved, and industry freed from all impediments
that place it in a position of inferiority. A general
system of sound political economy alone can, by
increasing the national wealth, spread prosperity
among the working classes." The Emperor then
goes on to state his intention to exempt from all
duties primary articles indispensable for industry.
For these purposes the duties on wool and cotton
are to be suppressed, the duties on sugar and coffee
are to be progressively diminished, the means of
internal communication are to be improved, canal
dues are to be lowered, loans are to be granted to
agriculture and industry, the prohibitions of the
tariff are to be suppressed, and commercial treaties
with foreign countries are to be negotiated. A
hundred and sixty millions of francs, nearly six
millions and a half sterling, are to be applied to the
execution of great public works. The Emperor
concludes with the expression of his opinion that
the present difficulties in foreign affairs will obtain
a peaceful solution, that the Legislature will assist
him in giving effect to these views, and that he
thus hopes to found a new era of peace, and to in-
sure its blessings to France.
As to those parts of the plan which relate to in-
ternal improvements, we do not presume to offer any
opinion, nor are we disposed, as at present advised,
to regard with favour any proposition for a return
to the exploded practice of negotiating commercial
treaties ; but as to the general character of the
measure thus sketched out there can be no difference
of opinion, at least on this side of the Channel.
Were we, indeed, actuated by that narrow jealousy
of which we have so often been accused, we should
regret to see France entering on a course which
must inevitably make her in a few years, with her
splendid climate, her active and industrious popu-
lation, and her unrivalled taste and dexterity in
the practical application of scientific principles, a
rival far more formidable than England has ever
yet known. Instead or seeking to grasp at ready-
made prosperity, France has at last some prospect
of beginning fairly at the beginning, of obtaining
for herself cheap coal and cheap iron, the consti-
tuent elements of manufacturing success, of basing
commerce on increased production, a large mercan-
tile navy upon commerce, and a thoroughly effective
fleet upon her mercantile navy.
We gladly admit that in this proposition the
Emperor of the French gives to England and to
Europe the very best security for the continuance
of peace. Prohibition leads to war by building up
barriers between nations, while free trade spreads
the spirit of pence by overthrowing them. Never,
till a system like this be fairly inaugurated, will
England and France know how necessary they are
to each other, or appreciate the full extent of that
suicidal folly which would waste in mutual con-
flict resources designed for their own good and for
the benefit of the world. A few years of such
commercial intercourse as exists between. Eng-
land and the United States or our Australian or
American colonies would render war absolutely
impossible, and give to other nations a security
better than that of Treaties, and more durable than
the good will of Governments. All honour to the
Emperor of the French for the bold inauguration
of this social revolution ! Here is indeed " an idea"
that was worth fighting for,—au idea not barren
nor one-sided, but fruitful and cosmopolitan ; giving
confidence for the present and hope for the future,
and sure to realize an amount of good which it is
rarely granted to a ruler of mankind to dispense to
his fellow-creatures.

(From the Morning Post.)
The Emperor Napoleon 111., it is impossible to
deny, is a bold man. He has done many bold
things ; but perhaps the step of which we are in-
formed in last night's telegraM is the boldest of
them all. It was something to throw down the
gauntlet to the old Europe of Holy Alliance, to
rate Austria as one chides an ill-mannered school-
boy, to pour his troops into Italy, and to chase
Gyulai and Hesse to the banks of the Mincio. It
was something to snub an Ultramontane Arch-
bishop and a Papal Nuncio, and treat even his
Holiness, the successor of St. Peter himself, as a
mediaeval foggy; but to brave and defy the strong
phalanx of French protectionists—to propose the
removal of duties on wool and cotton, on sugar
and coffee; to enlarge, in a letter to the Minister of
State, on the importance of sound political eco-
nomy ; to proclaim its connection with the real
prosperity of the working classes in France—this,
we must repeat, exhibits far greater moral courage
than was required to direct the operations at
Magenta or Solferino. " You may kill a man's
children and ravish his wife," says the Florentine
Secretary, " but you had, better think twice before
you touch his pocket." The measures of the Em-
peror, if carried out, will go far to realise the be-
nevolent wish of Henry IV. ; but they will touch,
and that smartly, the pockets of many a great
French manufacturer, and they will frighten even
more than they will hurt.
There is the more reason for us emphatically to
proclaim, and frankly to acknowledge, that, in thus
initiating a commercial policy so vast and so en-
lightened, the Emperor of the French—though he
may provoke the opposition of native monopolists
and protectionists—will earn the gratitude of mil-
lions amongst his subjects, lay the foundations of
valuable alliances with all civilised nations, but
especially strengthen and cement the alliance be-
tween France and England. In politics, "if you
would build high you must (lig deep." It may be
a very common-place and prosaic view of human
nature, but it is one of unquestioned truth, which
suggests that the advancement of the ordinary-
material interests, and the gratification of the mate-
rial wants, of the population of two neighbouring
countries ; that the interdependence of those who
weave
iand spin in England with those who plough
and plant in Franco—that these are far better
guarantees of alliance and peace, and progress than
all sentimental sympathies,
or dynastic gratitude. 0 Inoms, or royal intermarriages,
It
economist
tas said of Sir Robert
P t!el by a German
not disposed to over-
rate end exaggerate his merits,
that the repeal of
tl4- core laws gave a greater blow to the still re-
maining ..noral power of English
feudalismiei than its
material power received at the
_Ehandsoi'm
motives
VII.;f
that it made _England cosmopolitan from
direct persm interest felt by her sons at home,Ne nos o
less than fro! n the extension of her colonial po,,s,s
slims abroad; and with no less truth may it be
said that the •xxeat day in the first French Itevo-
lution, when •all class privileges were abolished by
the National Assembly, were not half so
im-
portant as ti tat on which it was announced that
the industrial interests of all Frenchmen should
coAse to clash.; The home and foreign policy
of France wilt henceforth be in greater harmony
with 'each othicr than was ever before possible ; do-
mestic dovelopmen t..and foreign relations, will no
longer run cc,/alter, no longer involve the Sovereign
and the Sole in hopeless contradictions. Those
" economical harmonieft," which the genius of Bas-