The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-08 00:00:00

been might be allowed) to give evidence before the Post-
office Committee of the House of Commons.
SUGAR DUTIES.
Mr. F. BARING said he wished to put a (Ines-
, don to the Right Honourable the President of the
Board of Trade which be had mentioned on a former oc-
casion. It was whether the sugar, of the Danish colo-
nies was to come .in under the lower duty in the Sugar
Bill.

Mr. GLADSTONE said there were established and
settled rules to govern our commercial intercourse with
Denmark, and those would be abided by. He did not
see any ease in which it was at all necessary to ask the
opinion of the law officers of the Crown.
ALGIERS.
Mr. SHELL said he wished to put three questions to
the Right Hon. Gentleman at the head of her. Majesty's
Government. The first question was, whether Lord
Aberdeen had received any answer from the French
Government to his dispatch of the 28th of January,
1842, and if' so would there be any objection to
lay that upon the table of the House; the second was,
had the British Government applied for an exequatur for
our Consul at Algiers ; and the third was, had England
done anything to allow France to entertain the opinion
that she was entitled to the possession of Algiers?
Sir R. PEEL thought it would be much better to
leave the matter entirely between the Executive Go-
vernments of the two countries. No answer
had as yet been received to the communic:ar
tion which had been forwarded by the Earl of
Aberdeento-the Minister in France. With respect to
the question regarding the Consul-General in Africa,
he could only say that he had acted under the same in-
structions which had been forwarded 'to him during
the tenure of office of the Government with which the
Right Hon. Gentleman was himself connected.
Sir CHARLES NAPIER, after alluding to the naval
strength in the Mediterranean and at home, said,
he wished to put three questions to the Right
Honourable Baronet. He wished to know, in the
first place, whether it was true, as had been stated in'
some of the Spanish papers that Spain had consented to.
allow France to send troops into Morocco through Ceuta.
His second question was whether the Emperor of Mo-
rocco had refused all mediation on the part of this
country ; and lastly, ho wished to ask whether it was the
intention of her Majesty's Government to increase the
naval force of the country.
Sir ROBERT PEEL said that there never was a
period at which this country could make a
greater naval demonstration within a short space
of time than at the present moment. With respect to
the second question of the Hon. and Gallant Officer, as
to the permissidn by the Spanish Government to France,
to allow troops to pass through Ceuta to Morocco,
he could only say that he had never beard of
such an arrangement having been entered into.
The next question oE.the Hon. and Gallant Member
was whether all:mediation-on the part of this country
had been refused by the Emperor of Morocco, and in
answer to that question, he (Sir R. Peel) had to state
that the British Consul-General at Algiers was now
with the Emperor of Morocco, acting under the
instructions of her Majesty's Government, and therefore
it could not be said that the Emperor of Morocco had re-
fused all mediation. In answer to the last question of the
Hon. and Gallant Officer, he had to state that her Ma-
jesty's Government had already
.taken measures to place
such an amount of naval force in the Mediterranean as
would be sufficient to protect British interests in that
part of the world should their interests be at all menaced.
[LEFT SITTING,)

DIFFICULTIES OF COMMERCIAL
REFORM.
(From the Sentinel.)
The rejection of Mr. Villiers's motion for a repeal of
the import duties on foreign corn, by a majority of
nearly three to one, must convince the most sanguine ad-
herent of the League that the present Parliament will
not abolish the tax on bread. Not even will the compro-
mise of a flied duty be listened to ; the sliding-scale
will continue m force, at least, till the next general
election. We are aware that many
.feel confident that
the law will be changed on the occasion of the first bad
harvest,—these speculators on probabilities having much
more reliance on the vicissitudes of the seasons than the
justice of legislation. Others, who possess that mixture
of enthusiasm and perseverance which hopes against
hope, and expect that ends may be obtained without
adequate means, imagine, that commercial emancipation
will spring up out of the disruption of political parties,
overlooking the fact of the personal interests of land 4
lords remaining unchanged, however they may vary
their Parliamentary leadership. We regret. Our inabi-
lity to share in any of these cheering prospects ; for, it
being notorious, that the object of the corn-Jaw is to
sustain rents and prevent the foreclosure &mortgages,
and it being equally notorious, that the receivers of rents
have possessed themselves of a monopoly of legisla-
tion, it appears to us perfectly clear, that no adverse
harvest, no internal political jealousies, no war to the
knife on minor points, will ever so far permit fear or
passion to control reason, or neutralise the argument
of the breeches-pocket, as toTinditce the actual holders of
acres to transfer them to their creditors, either
private or public,—to mortgagees or to fundholderk
Long years of legislative injustice and legislative blun-
ders have brought us into a state so artificial and
complex, that the slightest change in the hollow and
unsubstantial fabric of society threatens to bring
down the whole building. We - are in the con-
dition of the man who held the wolf by the ears
it is dangerous to continue the hold, and equally peri-
lous to relax the, grasp. Were we to venture in a single
sentence to assign a cause for the " difficulties of Com-
mercial Reform,' we should ascribe it to the fact of our
huge indebtedness, which prevents the application of the
sound principles of political economy to the production
and distribution of wealth. Let us, then, endeavour tos
point out specifically the nature and bearings of thos*
difficulties, and we shall be better able to judge how w
ought to assail monopoly with a fair prospect of succeii.
We shall take it for granted, that corn is the standard
of all value. Now, it has been demonstrated that the
natural, that is to say, the untaxed price of a quarter of
the finest wheat, both in this country and in most of the
Continental States, is equal to about 6i ounces of silver,
er 335. 6d. It has been further shown by Mr. John
Taylor, by evidence we have recently printed, and to
which we refer our readers, that for every million of
o wheat permanent debt, the
eat ought to rise
o taxesnpricee pi
ofme thesnpno3 d
to
on quarter
u a theprtl
place of
e e shapet h e
landowner in the
same position as he would have occupied had:
no tax existed. Now, if we take our National
Debt at 800 millions, then we must add 800 pence pet
quarter to the natural price of 335. 6d. ; 800 pence are
if we add 3/. 6s. Bd.,
ote
the
euuaanlrtttaitxfli
Ip6rosir.cBet, taxation
;ha
then
noo
Is
pee
rq
sellingiuc
;consequently,
to tly ,
pc
ed
ce of a quarter of'
135.-6 d., the natural
the-finest wheat, in our actual circumstances, would be
five pounds and twopence. Our readers may be startled
at such a statement as this ; we know it is not a pleasant
view of the subject, but if we really desire to ascertain
the nature of our difficulties, in order to conquer them,
we must not shrink from looking truth boldly in the face.
We have said, that corn is the standard of all value.
We have pointed out the ratio in which its price ought
to rise, with the rise of taxation. If we are unable to
give a scale equally graduated of other commodities, it
must nevertheless be obvious, that the same principle
must apply to all other products of human industry ; or,
in other words, there must, for all articles, be two prices,
the natural and the artificial—the latter being regu-
lated by the amount of taxation at any given time
in any given country. The consumers of artificially
priced corn cannot sell their gocds at their natural
prices, for, if they did, they would have to sustain all the
burdens of taxation, from which, on that hypothesis,
the growers of corn would be exempt. If, then, taxa-
tion necessitates high rents, so also does it necessitate
high profits to the capitalists, and in a proportionate de-
gree it also necessitates high wages. Cheap labour,
cheap commodities, cheap rents, under the pressure of
excessive taxation, are absurd and unjust, unless we are
prepared to say that the public creditor is to regard his
debtors as slaves, and compel them to work as slaves for
his special benefit. Here, then, we trust, the evidence is
plain, that our public indebtedness prevents the applica-
tion of sound principles of political economy to the ex-
isting condition of England, provided we are honest
enough to keep faith with the public creditor.
Now,-:how to keep that faith, is the problem to be
solved. It has been. said,
_that the more we pay to
classes for monopolies and differential duties, the less
able are we to pay the fundholder and the Queen's
taxes. This, of course, is most true. The receivers of
monopolies and differential duties know the fact as well
as their opponents, though they may be too cunning to
acknowledge it. They were evidently imposed by the
Legislature to shift the weight of the public debt from
property to industry, and for that purpose they are
maintained. If honour or honesty ruled the conduct of
our aristocracy, they would pay the debt they contracted,
either by selling their estates to redeem the principal
sum, or by raising as much per cent. on their incomes,
by direct taxes, as would discharge the annual dividends.
This, their cupidity and their necessities prevent them
from doing ; and,
consequently, they persist in levying
revenue through indirect taxation, which is so graduated
as to bear with the most unequal pressure possible on
commodities of general consumption ; so that the prac-
tical obligation to discharge the claims of the Queen's
Government and of the fundholder, chiefly2falls on the
working classes, being abstracted from
_their wages
through the machinery of customs and excise. It is in-
dustry that pays the taxes, not property ; though indus-
try, disfranchised and unrepresented, never gave a soli-
tary vote for the contraction of that very debt by which
industry is now ground down to the earth.
The object Of the corn-laws is to raise prices, but it
has defeated itself, since bread can never sustain a high
legislative price in the midst of an unemployed and
pennyless population. The object cf a metallic currency
is to lower prices. Both these systems have been in full
play for many years, of course counteracting each other
While the Legislature has done all in its power—how-
ever impotent that power may have proved—to
com-
pensate landlords for their share of the burdens of taxa-
tion, by givingthem a monopoly of the food markets,
they have, at the same time, lowered the prices of all
other commodities, by substituting a metallic for a paper
currency, and prohibiting gold to rise beyond an arbi-
trary Mint-price. All prices have tended to fall
to the low price of gold, which has been exempted
from the laws of sepply and demand by Act of Parlia-
ment. Whether the Bank of England possesses fifteen
millions of bullion in its coffers, as at present, or whether
it were so bare of the precious metals, as to be eom-
polled to borrow two-and.a-half millions from the Bank
of France, gold still remains at the Mint-price of 31. 17s
iold. per ounce—a contradiction so witless, that, if the
fact were not notorious, he who proclahnedit might be
suspected of denying common sense to the Legislature.
Here, then, we have another difficulty in the way of
Commercial Reform,—the conflict bet Ween the corn-
laws and a metallic currency ; the one raising, the other
lqivering prices ; both in action, at the same time, in the