The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-13 00:00:00

THE TREATY OF COMMERCE.

In the Journal des Debats of yesterday M.
Michel Chevalier discusses at considerable length
the Treaty of Commerce between France and Eng-
land. ,We subjoin a full translation :
" The treaty of commerce between France and England
is a striking commentary on the letter of the Emperor to the
Minister of State. It attests that the programme contained
in the Imperial letter is not destined to end in measures of
minor importance, but that, on the contrary, it will be prac-
tically carried out on a large scale.
" As soon as it transpired that negotiations were on foot.
and the general features were iaade known, this
y of
Commerce caused a deep sensation, not only in the two
all
those which are directly concerned in it, but also in
those European States which felt from an unmistakeable
instinct that it touched them likewise most nearly. This is
because the idea which dictated the new treaty is different
from that which inspired former ones ; it is one of a su-
perior order ; it vibrates, in the spirit of nations, to a chord
which, always a good one, is now most sensitive.
" The new Treaty of Commerce is, in fact, intimately con-
nected with the great movement which, dating from the
French Revolution, develops its most fruitful inspirations,
and drags all Europe onwards towards a future still wrapt
in mystery, but which hold out a promise in every respect
to be better than the past. Nations draw closer together
for their mutual benefit ; they gradually shake off the nar-
row-minded views, the prejudices, the hatreds which divide
them, not to become amalgamated together so as to offer
only a monotonous and sterile uniformity, but, in the gene-
ral interests, to exchange their sentiments and their ideas
and the productions of their industrial labour, which, after
all, are much more than is usually owned, the manifesta-
tions of the human mind.
" This eminently beneficent, nay, let as say, eminently
Christian tendency, does not only transform the relations
between State and State, between Government and Govern-
ment, between people and people. Its action is also felt in
the breast of every nation, and everywhere it modifies in a
happy manner the relations between all classes of society,
whatever they may be,—between religious confessions
themselves, which it makes reciprocal toleration. It brings
individuals and classes nearer to each other without lower-
ing anyone, but rather by exalting the humble and by
raising that portion of the population which was formerly
disinherited to a participation in the moral and intellectual
dignity, as well as to the enjoyment of the comforts of life.
" Civilisation does not advance with the regularity of a
machine, and its advances are not like the chases which the
theoretician can calculate beforehand, or like the revolu-
tions of the planets, which may be followed in their course.
Mankind has passions which, in connexion with the general
movement decreed by Providence, are too often disturbing
causes. It thus happens that from time to time the stream
of civilisation is obstructed and impeded, and appears even
at times turned from its course. Every nation, every class,
every coterie, even every individual has his prejudices his
egotism, his preferences and his antipathies equally blind,
the conflict of which gives rise to accidents, to disorders, to
retrograde movements. But it is the merit and the glory
of our European civilisation that with it always, even after
the most violent debates and the most sanguinary collisions,
the civilising impulsion regains the upperhand. When
modern Europe is at peace, the genius of progress rules
there supreme. There is another fact which is most worthy
of observation to the honour of contemporaneous societies ;
it is, that all classee,even the least educated, have a greater or
lesser notion of what progress consists of, and that they are
inclined to accelerate its accomplishment by their efforts, or
to strengthen it by their adhesion.
"Thus the acts which are destined manifestly to favour
the concentration and the joint interests of the various fac-
tions of the European world excite general and real enthu-
siasm when they attain proportions beyond the common.
This is the secret of the success attained by the programme
in the Imperial letter, and of the happy sensation caused,
even beyond France and England, but more naturally so in
those two States, by the announcement of a treaty of com-
merce conceived on a broad basis between England and
Franca.
"This Treaty may justly be styled a victory gained by
the genius of progress, of that progress one of the essential
characteristics of which we have just mentioned. When the
great nationalities of Europe had freed themselves of the
theocratical organization which the Sovereign Pontiffs had
attempted to erect upon the ruins of the Roman Empire,
and which had temporarily rendered great services, each
nation had shrunk back upon its own territory, the better to
constitute its personality ; thus two movements co-existed
of which one emanated from the sentiments of a common
interest (solidarite) between the various peoples of Europe,
while the other carried the individuality of each of the
States to its uttermost limits. It was thus that, dating
from the middle of the 17th century, at the same time
that the different civilised nations exerted their common
efforts in the domain of literature and science, so as to form
in that respect a sort of European Republic, they endea-
voured to form for themselves an isolated existence in the
sphere of commerce and industry. The prohibitive system,
which the ancients never knew, of which barbarous tribes
at the present day are still ignorant, and which is directly
opposed to the spirit of civilization, thus burst upon
the civilised world, and usurped a sway in the councils and
laws of nations most proud of their enlightenment.
" The noble movement of 1789 inaugurated a reaction
against that exclusive system, and the idea of a commercial
rapprochement between the different States, aroused in
Prance by Turgot and his friends, in England by the cele-
brated author of " The Wealth of Nations," appeared on
the eve of becoming the law of the whole world, when the
scourge of war was unchained upon earth with a fury until
then unknown, and resuscitating the hateful prejudices of
nations against each other, restored to life the system of
commercial prohibitions.
" From the effects of the lamentable calamities of 1792
and 1793, France and England had customs' tariffs which
we need not fear to call monstrous. With us, especially, the
liberal tariff voted by the Constituent Assembly in 1790 was
replaced by the Draconian laws of the Convention which,
for instance, adjudged 20 years of hard labour in irons
against any person wearing a waistcoat of English manu-
facture, knowing it to be such ; again, by the law of the 10th
Brumaire year V., which in a few lines decreed absolute
prohibition of 19-20ths, at least of manufactured goods. But
when peace was restored, public opinion returned to the
charge on both sides of the Channel against those deplorable
exaggerations. Unhappily, be it said, equal success was
not achieved upon both sides of the Channel.
" In England the general interests successively defeated
the pretensions of private interests which profited by, or
better to express it, thought to profit by everything which
the restrictive system contained of prejudice to the commu-
nity. After a3O years' struggle, during which period the
moral ascendancy was nearly always on the side of the
partisans of progress, the English nation adopted as State
maxims regulations which common-sense had long before
pointed out and which it will suffice to enumerate
to obtain the admission that they ought universally to pre-
vail :—ln agriculture, manufactures, shipping or commer-
cial branches of industry, as also in every career open to
human activity, the real normal situation is that whero the
great law of personal responsibility receives its application,
and where, consequently every man expects profit only
from his intelligence and from his exertions. It could only
be by an abuse that manufacturers or proprietors could
pretend to increase their profits or their revenues by com-
pelling their fellow citizens, by the enaction of a customs'
duty, to pay for their produce more than its real value in
the general market of the world. The first interest to be
consulted is that of the consumer, which means everybody,
and it is a necessity of public order that the producer
should be incessantly stimulated by competition at home as
well as abroad to give his produce good and cheap. Any
branch of industry which cannot, does not know how, or
will not conform to these conditions, is, from this very
cause itself an onus on society, and for it to be maintained
by sacrifices imposed upon the community by means of a
Customs' duty or otherwise, it would be necessary for it to
be recommended by very exceptional considerations of
public interest. Branches of industry for which considera-
tions of private interest only can be advanced—and the
immense majority are such—have no right to ask anything
beyond the temporary relief (menagenzents) counselled by a
prudent policy.
" It was thus that a new commercial system was inaugu-
rated in Great Britain, characterised by the principle which
some call free universal competition in the national market,
and which others call by a name more familiar to French
ears and more adapted to arouse the sympathy of enlight-
ened men, that of free trade (libertt comnicrciale).
" This system, by the development which it gives to pro-
duction, by the cheapness it permanentlymaintains, spreads
its blessings over every class of society, but those benefits
are most evident in the working, labouring, and manu-
facturing classes. It would be easy to prove this logically,
but there is a method of demonstration more convincing
than the most correct or best-put arguments—it is that
provided by experience. Now, experience has pronounced
a solemn verdict on the other side of the Channel. Under
the system of free trade, even imperfectly applied, from the
highest step of the social ladder to the moat humble, every
class has beheld an increase, the first of their brilliant
opulence, the latter of their humble welfare ; the working
classes especially have derived unhoped for advantages ;
but what has gained more than all is the harmony of
society: England at the present day is of all States that
one which forms the most compact mass. Rich and poor
are there sincerely united, because the poor man is a wit-
ness of the honesty with which the rich man, as soon as
the principle of the new system was adopted by the Parlia-
ment, accepted it and associated himself to it heart and
soul. It is no exaggeration to say that of all countries of
Europe England is the least exposed to an internal revolu-
tion, and that sire is indebted for this to the reform which
has received the name of the illustrious statesman who was
its official promoter—Sir Robert Peel—after having been
prepared by other men, happily still full of life, talent, and
courage, at the moment we write.
" In France things went differently. On the restoration
of peace in 1814, the Government would have been glad to
modify the rigours of a Customs' system which had only
been adopted in a time of war in a revolutionary period.
That idea which constantly animated the Government of the
restoration and that of 1830, nevertheless, failed in making
its way, not only because it met with obstinate resist-
ance in the Legislative Chambers, but still more because it
did not find in public opinion that energetic support which
was displayed on the other side of the Channel. A certain
number of private interests, of which assuredly the majo-
rity were under a delusion, had persuaded themselves that
the prohibitive system was favourable to them. They coa-
lesced strongly. together to perpetuate it. They even suc-
ceeded in drawing into their coalition the majority of large
proprietors by exacting front the weakness or want of fore-
sight of the Covernment of the restoration of 1819 to 1896,
laves of a nature to keep up the high price of the most in-
dispensable articles of food, as bread, meat, and others, and
mostthe essential raw materials, as wool, combustibles,
and
iron under the pretext, scarcely credible, that it was
in the interest of the poor classes and for the encourage-
ment of labour,
exertions, they Multiplying themselves by indefatigable
tpiuo in
bceyi inter marts, ese,senetmed to form an invincible body while
Government,
at large, without any organise-
without effect. As
teir,,nment, made a few isolated appeals,
progressed, so did the ascendancy
of the Prohibitienist aiet ipiiiear to progress with it. The
brilliant success ~f tradefrieer:Great Britain had no effect
upon men who had taken a entermined resolution.
" Three months ago, even a very moderate reform in the
Customs' tariff, however much the public interest demanded
it, appeared more imp tactics:tole than ever, if only the usual
means were resorted to ; so strong were the positions taken
up by the Prohibitioni.ti; party.
" It is under these care amstancee that the Cr
of the two great nations f the west have met, both desirous
of increasing;increasing;
the prosperit y of their respective populations:,us
both resol red to cosiesit :the peace of Europe by drawing
their alliance closer by lb e bonds of the interests of the e
;people. Eng,land, who re ;the principle of free-trade Elle-
caeded so well in its rest rict ed application, was disposed to
put it into practice in a. complete manner, not only as re-
gards France, but tows rds all nations without distinction.
On the side of France, the Government thought that it was
its duty to free the coo: etry from the monopolies, obstacles,
and causes of poverty of every description created by the
prohibitive system, and which paralyse the spirit of enter-
prise and the intellectus I resources of a nation so eminently
ingenious and assiduous at work. After carefully studying
the question it came to t he conclusion that it was time to
put into practice that rul, tof political wisdom—that of the