The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-06 00:00:00

THE SLIDING SCALE.

The advocates of monopoly are beginning to meet the
free traders on something like fair ground. They pro-
mise to have recourse to facts and arguments ; and to
employ the press as an instrument for the dissemina-
tion of their views. This is manly and straight-
forward. It is all that we want—all that is requisite
for the speedy triumph of our principles. The mo-
nopolists take the field by accusing the Leaguers of
concealing from the people the duties levied by the.
Government upon the importation of cotton, woollen,
and silk manufactures, hardware and cutlery,
pottery and glass, and various other productions
of British skill and industry ; which duties
the said monopolists are pleased to describe as a
protection to commerce. Now, it is too bad to
charge the manufacturers with the enjoyment of a
protection which they do not want, and which they
have repeatedly declared to be injurious to them.
The import duties upon manufactures are levied' for
revenue, and not at all under the plea of protection.
Were they for protection and not for revenue they
would, of course, be based upon a sliding scale to
rise and fall according to the market price of manu-
factures in this country. But, as we have just said,
these duties are levied to enrich the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and not the manufacturer.
It can he easily shown that Parliament cannot pro
tect British manufactures, and, therefore, that the
plea of reciprocity of protection sheer nonsense.
The manufacturers are exporters of manufactures to
the amount of many millions annually, and for all
that they export they have to find markets in which
they can undersell every other nation. Parliament
cannot protect them in the markets of Franc?, Spain,
Austria, Prussia, Russia, the Netherland4, and North
and South America; and the Government repudiates
any exclusive advantage for British wares even in
China. Were protection necessary or even possible,
in the case of British manufactures, we could not ex-
port a single b.de of goods. To talk, therefore, of
protecting the British manufacturer in the British
market is clearly an absurdity. That market becomes
his own by his ability to sell cheaper than the fo-
reigner. Most of the manufactured goods known as
French, and therefore fashionable among certain
classes, are the products of British industry.
But in the article of. corn, protection is high price
and starvation. We arc not exporters, but importers
of food. Instead of growing corn for the rest of the

world as we manufacture cottons, we do not grow

corn enough for ourselves. There is, therefore, no
2nalogy between the assumed cases of the protection
of cotton and corn. We beg the attention of the
farmers to this point. There can be no protection of
what we produce in greater abundance than we re-
quire for our own use. Thus, the Chinese could not
protect, by means of import duties, the growth of tea
in their country, simply because no country could
undersell the native teas in the Canton market.
And were the Chinese Government to impose
import duties upon tea, as an equivalent to the
the tea-growers for an import duty upon camlets
demanded by the weavers of China, there is not a boy
of 12 years old, at a public school or merchant's
counting-house in this country, who would not be
able to expose the dishonesty of such a juggle.
The Chinese tea-growers would, as a matter of
course, tell the t;elestial Government that they
wanted nn protection that they could not en-
counter competition in their own market—and that
justice demanded that they should be allowed to
exchange their teas for the cheaper camlets of the
outside barbarians, instead of being compelled to
pay a high price for a worse article manufactured
at home. And were the Emperor to urge in answer
to remarks so well founded, that the rate of import
duty upon teas and . camlets being equal, the
protection was the same, who is there that could not
see that the understanding of the tea-growers would
be insulted by such a mode of reasoning ?
Now, the assumed case of the Chinese tea-growers is
precisely that of the British manufacturers. While
they are exporters of their products, and have to find
markets for them in other countries, they can receive
no protection from import duties. Mark the differ-
ence with respect to corn. As we said above, we ex-
port no corn. We do not grow enough to supply
ourselves. The landlord has, therefore, a home
market for the whole of his produce--a market greater
than he has the means of supplying. His
wheat has not to be carried St. Peters-
burgh; Vienna, Constantinople, Bombay, Can-
ton, New York, or New Orleans, like a bale of Bri-
tish merchandise before finding purchasers for it.
The consumers are all at his own door, ready to take
more than he can given them. Now, this is real pro-
tection, and better protection than is enjoyed by any
other class of producers in the world. With the
protection of an all-absorbing home-market for the
whole of his produce, it is most cruel, must unjust,
and most unreasonable on the part of the British
landlord to require the starvation protection of a
sliding-scale. But the landlords have ever been plun-
derers of the rest of the community for their own
immediate advantage. Seventy years ago, when
more corn was grown in England than was required
to feed the people, artificial scarcities were effected by
Parliament granting a bounty upon the exportation
of grain. This bounty was paid to the landlords out
of the taxes to find a market for a part of their pro-
duce, and to enhance the price of the rest. The pre-
text, then, of course, was the encouragement of agri-
culture. Were we to retaliate by a bounty upon the
importation of corn, we should be only paying the
landlords with their own dishonest coin. But we do
not want to retaliate wrong. We require justice and
nothing more ; and by discussing the question of the
corn-laws with us, the monopolists are arming us
with weapons with which to win it.—Hull Advertiser.

THE IRON TRADE.—The ironmasters' quarterly
meetings take place next week, when it is expected that the
recent improvement in the trade will be demonstrated in the
shape of a definitive advance. We have heard of advances
already made from various quarters, and we have no doubt
that, in the main, these accounts are correct, but prices,
though strongly tending upwards, have been unfixed and
regulated much more by the immediate wants of the buyer
and seller than by any certain charge. The ensuing
quarter-day, no doubt, will put an end to these uncer-
tainties.—Wolverhampton Chronicle.
NEW MARKET AT CROYDON.—A good deal of in-
terest was created at Croydon on Wednesday, by the opening
of a new and commodious stock market, at the back of the
Greyhound Inn, and adjoining the Fair Field. The old mar-
ket at the bottom of the town had long been found very in-
convenient, and, in fact, totally inadequate for the purposes
for which it was intended; and Mr. John Martin, an old in-
habitant of the town, very liberally resolved to supply the
deficiency, by erecting the new market in the centre of the
town, and close to the stations of the Brighton and South-
Eastern Railways, thereby giving very great facility to
graziers, from the lower parts of Surrey and Kent, to bring
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stock being sold -off very soon after the formal opening of
the market.
Tim HASH.-01 the numerous compounds con-
stantly announced for promoting the growth or reproduc-
tion of the hair, few survive, even in nama, beyond a.very
limited period; whilst " Rowland's Macassar Oil," with a
reputation unparalleled, is still on the increase in public es-
timation. The singular virtues of this successful invention
for restoring, preserving, and beautifying the human hair,
are too well known and appreciated to need much comment.
The very facts of the high and distinguished patronage it
enjoys,il ittess
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are 41:
thorities which stamp its superior excellence and title over all
attempts of a similar nature. Being universally preferred,
its consequent. great demand excites the cupidity of un-
principled shopkeepers, who vend the most spurious trash as
the " genum9 Macassar Oil: whereas the genuine article is
wholly the invention and property of A. Rowland and Son,
and the amalgamation of its costly exotic materials rende-s
abortive any attempt to discover its component parts—thus
i
proving the mposition of all other articles bearing the title
of " Macassar Oil." The genuine article has the words
t, Rowland's Macassar Oil" on the wrapper.—All others are
fraudulent counterfeits