The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-05 00:00:00

r SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
) FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
STANDARD.—THE REVENITE.—The Reve-
nue for the Quarter and Financial Year, ending
to-day will be made up this evening, and we
rejoice in being able to state, that from the
accounts already received, it is likely to show
an increase on the quarter, as compared
with the corresponding quarter of last
year, and on the year a considerable
increase. In the important item of Excise
on the year there is, we believe, an increase
of about 400,0001. The Customs also, we under-
stand, will exhibit an increase on the year of
nearly half a million. In the Stamps there is a
small decrease on the quarter. The property
and income-tax remains much the same,
averaging something more than 1,260,000/. the
quarter. In the assessed taxes a slight decrease
is anticipated. The Post-office returns, it is ex-
pected, will not materially differ from former
quarters; and the returns from the other
branches of the revenue are considered to be
satisfactory. On the whole, the aspect of the
revenue for the last year is most gratifying. It
shows a gradual increase in the trade and com-
merce of the country, and will, we believe,
exhibit a surplus. The revenue for the year
ending to-day will, it is confidently expected,
exceed the expenditure of the country; but the
exact amount is not yet known, as some of the
returns from the public departments have not
yet been completed.
GLOBE.—It may relieve," says the Herald,
" the perturbation into which the excellent
article on " The Causes of Distress and Sys-
tematic Colonisation," in the Foreign and Colo-
nial Review, has thrown the Globe, if we state
at once that Mr. Gladstone has no claims to its
paternity. That the Globe, of all papers,
should have fallen into so patent an error will
amuse the initiated. Our Contemporary needs,
we fear, instruction on other subjects besides
Brazilian . politics." The Globe has an un-
lucky adhesiveness to its principles, which,
we don't doubt, " amuses the initiated ;"
and it follows naturally, that when one
' of its old friends gets into such shocking bad
i company as that of the Morning Herald and the
! Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review, the
)
) Globe is not the first quarter to which he announces
his deplorable condescension. For the rest, on
whatever subjects we may happen to require in-
) formation from the now official Herald, we shall
) no longer look for any satisfaction from that quar-
t ter as to anypractical results whatever from the pre.
tended " reciprocity " commercial policy of the
I present Government. We were led to expect
marvellous things not long back, in the way of
34 reciprocity. Prosperity Freddy was to be no-
thing to Reciprocity Bobby. Now behold the
upshot ! One nation alone has sent its repre-
sentatives to us to offer reciprocity. We
r would not take it—we would move no finger
to preserve, upon equitable terms, a commerce,
)34 the value of which has been estimated from
3 three to five millions annually. The envoy
of Brazil has gone back to study the part
4 of a Roland for our Oliver. We, on the other
3., hand, have gone about pressing something we
el called reciprocity on continental customers,
5N whom we had previously forced to become ma-
-4 nufacturing rivals. We have taken nothing by
R., , our motion—except dragging the name of Eng-
"l land through the dirt—incurring the moun-
-534 tebank shame of puffing to others nostrums
o we eschew • ourselves. We, examples of free
o trade to the world—we, whose present Admi-
t" nistration has taken up anew, with such
4 admired variations of absurdity, the old song
s of colonial all.sufficiency —the old Spanish
IN scorn of aliens! There is a want of honest and
4,4 single purpose in the commercial measures of
? this Ministry, which renders their vaunts of li-
1, beral example to all nations simply disgusting.
1 They had their organs everlastingly blowing hot
and cold with one breath. We have a right to
regard the Foreign and Colonial Quarterly on
these matters as their organ, whether Mr. Glad-
,ii stone or more recent recruits write their "excel-
' lent" lucubrations. Well, that organ, as we showed
yesterday, with wonderful assurance throws
the blame upon foreigners for the failure (hither-
!
1 to) of foreign commerce to supply the deficien-
cies of our home-growth of agricultural produce !
It talks of " the erroneous policy of the agricul-
' tural States," as the cause which " prevents the
1 increasing capital of the agricultural States
l'a from being employed in raising increased
quantities of raw produce, to be exchanged
'l4 against the increased quantity of manufac-
-1% tured goods brought to market by the more
'l% rapidly increasing capital of England." The
erroneous policy of the great agricultural States!
Ili At what period, past or present, have we given
r% " the great agricultural States" a chance of regu-
)% larly supplying us their staples of raw produce ?
Excepting the hemp and tallow of Russia (whose
policy in commerce, as elsewhere, is a thing
)
i sui generis), what great agricultural State have
) we suffered to engage in reciprocal commercial
r dealings with us? Has not the possibility of such
! reciprocity been the great bugbear of our land-
N
owners? Has not the express scope of our corn
) and timber laws been to keep out their raw pro-
) duce ? Has it not been by painful persuasion of
political leaders less insane than their rank and
, file of adherents, that even a sliding scale was at
P length substituted for total prohibition of the
most important raw produce till it reached starving
! prices? The other Foreign Quarterly Review (not
1 Mr. Gladstone's own) has an interesting article on
) M. Tegoborski's " Finances and Public Credit of
Austria." We find this official Austrian writer
i advocating the retention of some system of re-
striction on the very grounds which the English
) corn-laws have rendered too legitmate these
) , .thirty years ! "He quotes unhappy Poland,"
1 observes the Foreign Quarterly Reviewer, " and
1
3 with justice states that she had nothing to export
but corn, and could not cultivate that upon the
mere hazard of a bad harvestin England. Justly
i does the author ask to what end as agricultural
i% country is to go on producing corn without a
market, and whether creating a manufacturing
)1‘ population to consume is not a wise measure."
s
134 Good Heaven ! and here was our " manufac-
I wring population" ready created "to consume"
i%
; _ —and here is Mr. Gladstone's organ, if not Mr.
14 Gladstone himself, declaring that nothing but
% lack of raw produce as returns for its goods
is what causes its sufferings—here was a
bread-store provided for English operatives—a
14 market for Polish tillers—and why did not these
k markets—sufficient to each others' wants—find
'% each other out ? Because that party, with
s,
, which Mr. Gladstone and his new auxiliaries
l% act, without thinking with them, enacted laws
expressly to prevent the one surplus produce
1% being exchanged for the other. Because there
N was nothing our senators feared so intensely as
% the realisation-of-that abundant access to raw pro.
duce,which the Gladstone Quarterly now says was
:, of all things most to be wished. Truly the
g Gladstone satellite sees the right, while -he
seconds the wrong. He sees what would have
saved us our chronic malaise—but he won't see
before him. Accordingly, he throws the whole
blame, forsooth, upon foreign countries; as if our
conduct in refusing what we wanted, and they had
to give, had no share in perverting their policy.
And lie gives no hint of repairing that grand pri-
mary crime and blunder. As if our total refusal of
a regular trade in that vital article were not
enough to neutralise the whole effect of the 1
( mighty liberality of the Peel tariff on some seven
hundred minor points, which not a soul, here or
elsewhere, ever thought about. But we say, in
the face of the Peel parasites who conduct the
few journals faithful to the grand principle of the
34 See-saw, which is the only one discernible in their
L measures—that the language and conduct of these
men do not set foreigners any good example what-
ever. They are continually oscillating between
1% doctrines of free trade and colonial preference—
s holding out " reciprocity" with one hand, and
sacrificing it to monopoly with the other. The
last new nostrum is the all-sufficiency of colonial
t trade. We are in the fair way to teach all our colo-
nies the lesson we taught those we lost. We arc in
the fair way to teach them those peddling notions
i of this or that petty preference— of this or that
i% •
, privileged production—as preferable to tree com-
mercial interchange. We are setting up normal
schools of future restriction against ourselves.
We teach young colonies to lisp monopoly. Old
colonies improve the lesson against ourselves.
Indeed we need not wait colonial independence
to observe the application of that lesson. We
may soon experience Canadian gratitude for the
monopoly of our American corn trade.

F
4

STATE OF TRADE.

The opening of the present year affords a pleasing prospect
for the commercial interest ; there seems every probability of a
large business, and the chance of profit is greater than has been
afforded during the last few years. Yet we bavo no ground for
supposing that every difficulty is over ; and we, in great measure,
attribute the improved appearance of mercantile operations just
now rather to increased caution and diminished expenditure in
every branch of our import and expert trade, than to any actual
alteration in our relations with foreign countries. We have,
during the past twelve months, been enabled to ship manu-
factured goods at lower rates than at any previous period. The
expenses of manufacturing are reduced by the improvements
of machinery, and low prices have induced continued large orders
from those markets which are the principal recipients of our
exports ; but one factmust be borne in mind—it is notorious
that our shipments have consisted of a great proportion of
heavy goods, requiring but a small amount of labour from the
operative in comparison with finer fabrics, which used to form
the most conspicuous part of almost every invoice.
Some important alterations of the tariff are justly expecte
during the ensuing session. The great benefits that were to ac-
d
crue from last year's measures have not yet been experienced;
L but, is one instance, where a leading article in every house-

hold was attacked, and the duty placed on anew footing, great
indeed has been the advantage—we allude to coffee, the con-
sumption of which is rapidly increasing under the influence of
reduced prices. In this case, too, the West India interest is
still protected, at an enormous cost to the consumer, bnt the
system is not carried out to that absurd and abominable
length which precluded the possibility of admission to foreign
sugar until the consumer has to pay ninepence per pound
for the brownest description that the West Indies afford;
then, and not till then, under the present system, is any
relief affordedjand then only to prevent prices going higher.
Let slave-grown sugar be placed on the same footing as slave-
grown coffee ; and great will be the change ; but Vet us go
further, and treat it as we do slave-grown tobacco, and the re-
venue would receive an addition in the shape of duty of not
less than five millions sterling per annum. Let us have some
analogy in our fiscal regulations, and we shall immediately
have our commerce established on the best foundations.
During the week there has been again some excitement in
the cotton market; speculators will not leave business to its
natural level, and even in the face of an addition of 30,000 bales
to the supposed stock, arising from some miscalculation in the
weekly estimates, discovtired when the actual stock in the port
was collected, there has been a great business, at rather im-
proved prices. Money is cheap, and if it is to be thrown into
such channels as the cotton market, it will indeed be found too
plentiful, and may probably materially affect our manufacturing
trade. In all branches of business there is more disposition to get
into stock on the part of buyers ; a favourable view is taken
of produce generally, and prices are considered safe.
The Share Market continues lively, and most of the leading
stock is bought up at still improving prices. The advance
that has taken place in shares during the last few months is
very great, and, at present prices, it is difficult to obtain more
than 4 to 4i per cent. for money invested in these securities.—
Liverpool Mercury.