The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-09 00:00:00

STATE OF TRADE. •

FOREIGN WOOL TRADE, LEEDS, DEC. 6.—As usual
at this advanced season of the year, only a limited'
business has been done in Foreign Wools, but every
confidence is felt of a favourable reaction at the com-
mencement of the new year.
ENGLISH WOOL MARKET, LEEDS, DEC. 6.-. There
has been a steady demand for both combing and
clothing wools this week. Last week's prices are
firmly maintained; but the rates which have been
given to the farmers lately will not afford further
supplies at a profit, unless higher prices can be realised
in these markets.
WAKEFALD WOOL MARKET, DEC. 6.—There is
not the least variation in the prices or demand for
either long or short wool this week, and purchases
continue to be made with more confidence.
LEEDS.—The markets at both cloth halls this week
have been very dull. The season having now so far
advanced, and the winter having hitherto been so
mild, has had the effect, to a great extent, of prevent-
ing the sale of winter goods. The stocks are, how-
ever, by no means heavy in the hands of the manu-
facturers, and prices are steady. In the warehouses
business has been correspondingly dull ; few buyers
have been in the market, and there is little doing ex-
cept to order. The foreign houses are very quiet.
BRADFORD MARKET, Tnuasnay.--There is no
alteration in the demand for combing wools, and deep
grown hogs and wethers are in fair request to meet
the immediate wants of the consumer ; and as such
kinds are not abundant, the difficulty of getting a
supply from the growers, at prices to meet the buyers
here, is not abated. The quantity coming to market
is barely equal to the consumption. Hence comes
the conflict as to whether an increased price can be
realised, which the spinners now so strongly resist.
The exceedingly depressed state of the yarn trade
offers no encouragement to the spinners in any way to
augment their productions, which is now very mate-.
rially curtailed. Although yarns are somewhat
readier sale, and a general feeling prevailing that.,
they have seen their lowest point, yet there is no dis-
position on the part of the buyers, either for home
consumption or export, to buy, except at prices most
ruinous to the producer. There is a tolerably good
demand for piece goods made all from wool, such as
lastings, damasks, mereens, and merinos • but the
same improvement is not so apparent for Orleans, Co-.
bourghs, and fancy goods, which are only corn-
manding prices very unsatisfactory ; and as this- is not
the season when any material increase in the demand
is usual, the manufacturers are acting with great
caution, and limiting their production till they see a
chance of realising prices more commensurate with
the cost of manufacture.

MANCHESTER, THURSDAY EVENING.—We are again
rather more flat than on this day week in our cloth
market, but as the month of December is always one
of the dullest, not much importance is attached to the
fact. Prices are a little lower, but hardly quotable.
Yarns are much in the same state, though there is a
good business doing.
BARNSLEY.--The linen trade continues to improve,
and the prospect for the winter is very cheering, as
the general trade of the town is better than it has
been for a number of years. There are at present
more buildings in progress (including three steam-
loom factories) than there has been at one time since
the memorable year 1825.—Leeds Mercury.

COMMERCIAL RESTRICTIONS.
(From the Times.)
There is a very important distinction to be drawn
between the arguments with reference to the re-
moval of commercial restrictions, which are put
forward by the organs and adherents of the Anti-
Corn-law League or the partisans of free trade
a tout prix, and those views which We have uni-
formly entertained on these important subjects,
We yield to no party in this country in our
desire to procure for the public consumer the
various products which are imported to our shores,
encumbered with as few restrictions as the demands
of the revenue and the precautions imposed by a
long-established, though unwise, system of protec-
tion, will admit of. It is needless to discuss the
prncticability of measures which would at once
deprive the revenue of its most important items, or
expose various important interests, which have
been created under a system of protective duties, to
unlimited competition even in the home market.
But the interests of the public imperatively demand
that revenue, and not protection, should be made
the standard of our system of import duties ; and
that whenever a greater degree of protection ex-
ists, it should be gradually reduced to the limits
of this sound and equitable rule. Much of this spe-
cies of commercial reform remains to be accom-
plished ; many of the most :mportant articles of
consumption are still burdened with duties which
are some of them injurious to the revenue and to the
public, for the sake of certain local or class interests ;
whilst some, as, for instance, the high duties on to-
bacco and tea, are equally injurious to the na-
tional interests, without having even the pretext
of protection to support them. Nor can we
allow ourselves to doubt that if the Government
find themselves in possession of a permanent sur-
plus revenue, they will avail themselves of so
favourable an occasion to try these important experi-
ments in finance, although at the risk of a temporary
loss. We are not insensible to the importance of
this policy ; the people of this country expect it and
demand it; and as long as we are dealing with our
own interests under our own laws, we entertain no
doubt of a favourable result. But here the agree-
ment between ourselves and some other partisans of
the free-trade doctrines ceases, and the distinction
to which we just now alluded begins. They admit,
with us, that the primary advantage of a liberal
tariff on foreign commodities is the reduction of
prices to the home consumer ; but they arrogate to
themselves an absolute and indefeasible power of
obtaining, or extorting, by these reductions of our
own import duties, corresponding . reductions of
the duties levied on our productions by. foreign
Governments. Relying with unlimited confidence
on this assumption, they argue that the increase
or decrease of foreign duties is solely to be viewed
as the result of our own commercial measures ;
and thus, under a different form, they revive
the ancient and exploded theory of a direct balance
of trade. All experience has demonstrated that
no such balance exists between nations any more
than between private dealers. Trade is conducted
by a circuit of operations, not by direct exchange,
akin to barter; and the amount of purchase or
sale from or to any given state by another state,
is no proof whatever that corresponding inverse
transactions in commodities must take place between
them. England is the best customer of Russia,
though Russia prohibits to the utmost extent the
principal productions of England : and Brazil is one
of the best customers of England, although the Eng-
lish colonies are protected competitors, which exclude,
for the most part, the produce of Brazil from our ports.
We do not contest the obvious truth that a reduc-
tion of duties on the produce of any given country
tends generally to promote commerce with that
country, and may be the means of obtaining by treaty
some equivalent concession ; but it is egregiously
false to contend that such reductions, without
reference to treaty stipulations, force, or even
in-
duce, a foreign Government to act in the same spirit.
High or hostile tariffs have been adopted by fo-
reign states of late years, partly for the purposes of
revenue, partly for protection. Our iron and our
cottons are taxed by the Zollverein, not only because
German corn does not freely enter into British con-
sumption, but because there is a strong demand on
the part of the German iron-masters and the manu-
facturers for protection ; if we did admit German
corn, and if, in consequence, the rate of wages and
the cost of production fell in this country, our goods
would become cheaper, and consequently more
formidable to foreign competitors. The cheaper
they are, the more will they be excluded, and what-
ever tends to make them cheaper tends, of course, to
strengthen the party of protection abroad. If the
abrupt and unqualified measure of 1841 had been car-
ried, we do not entertain the slightest doubt that it
would either have been used by foreign countries as
a direct advantage, enabling them to lay on export
duties on their produce, or viewed as a danger de-
manding a stronger wall of defence; and that the
effect would have been a more rapid increase of du-
ties than that which has taken place. In fact, we
have seen in the last four years, that the more we
have tended to reduce our own duties, the greater
has been the tendency of foreign countries in the
opposite direction. In Brazil the question turns upon
the want of revenue, not upon the depand for pro-
tection ; but the same argument applies with equal
force. It is a gratuitous assumptioni to affi. rn that a mo-
dification of duties in Britain will nfalliby bring about
corresponding reductions in foreign states. The income-
tax may enable the British Government to remove
the burden of taxation from the food of the people to
tchoemire-ptuaxrs,easnd
;btuhteyßrmazuisltiamn
eGetovtehrnemdeenintsalindays7ofnothienir
increased -
Exchequer as they can. An export trade
to England would have no effect on their resources
unless it was encumbered with an export duty; and
in their present social and political condition, they
may defy us to point out any mode of raisingtheir
revenue more practicable and more analogous to our
own than that which they have adopted, provided
always revenue, and not retaliation or prohibition, is
the principle of their new tariff, as we believe it to be.
As for the threat of hostile differential duties, we are
not bound to presume that such powers will be exer-
cised, though they may have been sanctioned, by the
Legislature of that country; we have to deal, not
with the powers conferred on the Brazilian Executive,
but with the use it makes of them, and similar powers
have at various times been conferred by Parliament
on the British Crown, although they have remained,
as these will do, a dead letter.

Charles Bianconi, Esq., haa been eleoted Mayor of
Clenroel.—Cork .Exarniner,