The Sun.
London, England, 1817-04-16 00:00:00

ON Cii.NINIEIicE.

Edificat
" Mutat qtiadrata rotundis."
The commonwealth of the State is the Tree,
whose roots are its agriculture : its Industry is its
branches, and these beai all its fruits of susten-
ance ; foreign commerce and the. arts are its
leaves, under whose shade we find enjoyment,
ease, and delectation.

The great Emperor of the East, King CYRUS,
was used to say, "Aly subjects are the deposito-
ries of toy riches,"—an expression as just as it
was noble, as politic as generous.
Trade is the useful and necessary connexion of
every social being with his fellow-creature. We
have a moral intercourse of exchange, 'as well as
a material; all is barter and commerce among
mankind.

Commerce is so ancient, that as soon as there
were two men, there began a reciprocal trading
between them, of mutual useful services; there
never existed any human society, without the
commerce of exchanges.

Commerce made the families of men, from fa-
milies arose communities, the union of these
formed empires ; commerce, by the intercourse of
empires, embraces and connects thc whole of this
great globe.
In the present
_state of the world, how many
kinds of commerce arc there ?

'l'a•o principal—internal and external: the
come trade and foreign commerce. The first
connectst maintains, and benefits the inhabitunt
of each distinct state or continuity ; the other
connects and approximates nation with nation.
IVhat arc the branches and fruits of the inter-
nal commerce of a State ?

They are these :—Manners, customs, national
differences ; the politic laws which form the civil
rites of general obligation, of which the public
law of a people is formed ; the civil law, which
determines the lot and the duty of each indivi-
dual, and secures to him the possession and use
of their respective properties ; and their exchange
among them, which comprehends finance, con►-
merce, or trade,.properly so called, mantilactin es,
and all the various branches, and products of in-
dustry.

What then remains peculiar to foreign com-
merce ?

All the same objects, but considered more col-
lectively, and without this the haunts of tigers
and of lions would be. less dangerous neighbour-
hoods for human societies than the dwellings of
.hor cot— NIA a
‘Ve•should distinguish the foreign commerce of
different states into two kinds ; the trade of pro-
duction, or the exchange of the excess of one,
for the articles of similar abundance which each
may desire of the other; and a mercenary coin-•
coerce, which traflicks in the products of other
states, and finds subsistence, and often makes great
gains by being the carrier and go-between, the
broker et the exchanges of other nations: France
and Holland exemplify ibis distinction.
Those nations have been distinguished as com-
mercial who have addicted themselves to naviga-
tion or the carrying trade, to manufactures, or
specially, to the operations of banking and ex-
change. Some great kingdoms have neglected
these, content to exchange simply the superfitix
of a fine soil for the various exotics they have
desired of the produce or industy of other lands.
Commerce, strictly so called, is a spring of ab-
solute and great importance to all states.
Circulation is the life-blood of a nation ; to
this even taxation gives a stimulus ; what is col-
lected of the people circulates to. the heart of the
State and flows hack again; vivifying all its
members. In Hindostan, at this hour, a well
proportioned and well organised plan of internal
revenue, on that prolific and thick-peopled Con-
tinent, would in its reflux to a large Military Esta-
blishment, and in an infinity of useful channels
of improvement and activity, raise again that
fine country, and mild, moral, and plastic people,
to a point of civilization, intellects, case and
power, which could soon defy the barbarous pin-
clan ics, and all the other savage and greedy tribes
which hover round their confines, break in and
ravage their fair fields, despoil their villages, and
sweep away their gentle females and interesting
infant%.
A most ingenious and profound French author
said, above 80 years ago, that if the King of
France should confide to him tl.:e Administration
of the Finances—his study should he to "
nish his collections and.to increase his expend"--
to lessen taxation in Provinces which were poor,
and to increase in them the establishments of .ex-
pence for the means of improvement, reducing
expences in stations of more ease and greater
means : in the science of Government " benefits
are the right arm of authority." We cannot
long take money from a purse, whicb no means or
hand replenishes. R.
April, tall,
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