The Sun.
London, England, 1842-09-24 00:00:00

NEWSPAPER STAMPS.

Rxtract from a Return of the Number of Newspaper
Stamps, at One Penny and Ong Halfpenny, issued
to the several Newspapers in England, Scotland,
and Wales, from the Ist of April to 30th June,
1842., inclusive :

Number Amount of
of Advertisement
Stamps. Duty.
42,000 94 13 0
246,000 252 13 6
260,000 278 3 6
313,000 323 3 6

Courier .
;lobe .
Standard
SUN._ .

H!UH W ATER AT LONDON BRIDGE THIS DAY. ----
,riling 0 minutes after 4 1 Evening 19 minutes after 4

LONDON:
SATURDAY MORNING. SEPTEMBER 24, 1842.

The mutual cut-throat system proceeds rapidly.
To meet the American tariff, which is the result
of our Corn-laws, it is proposed, we see, to close
the ports of our West India islands against Ame•
Tican shipping, and to levy a duty of ld. or 2d.
l'er lb. on American cotton. The first mersure
-would subject the West Indians, already corn-
3""ing of decay,- to a great additional charge.
They must have the supplies of food and lumber,
-which -they
Their vessels be t:rathe United States; and if
prohibited from importing them,
The West Indians Must pay
The and a higher freight, and
charge of shipping
re-shipping, and pro-
-I)ably the expense of an additional voyage. So
These schemes to bring the Americans to their
venses will inflict a serious
injury on the West
Indians, to whom we must already pay some
-three or four millions a year for the injury we
iiave, as they say, under the advice of some such
:ii)eddling madmen, already inflicted on them.
Of the same kind of wisdom is the proposition,
tsanctioned by the Tories, to levy an additional
,hity un American cotton. We should like to
Inow whether the merchant who makes the
:suggestion has any interest in East India
'shipping or East India cotton ? One un-
proposed tax is to pro-
9,:isguised object of the
3:lote the cultivation of cotton in India, so that
'Our shipping may be employed in bringing the
-.necessary supply just as in the case of timber—
:l'l.oin a distance five times as great as the place
'whence it could be obtained. This proposal finds
:favour with the hardware interest, because it suf-
:,..ers from the Amerjcan tariff. Already our cot-
loti manufacture is struggling under many disad-
vantages: add to them this proposed increase of
Tile duty on the raw material it works up of ld.
-or 2d. per lb., and the lord of the manor of Man-
, ester may soon send his ploughs into Moseley-
btreet. Both these suicidal proposals are sucr-
zs
-crested
by men out of Parliament. Foolish and
-wicked,.therefore, as is our legislation, it would
-Tem that the folly of Parliament men is more
-than matched by the folly of some of the public.
'Two plans intended to injure another State, and
more certain than these to injure our own people,

we never by any chance heard of. Let them be
acted on, and the enemies of England will not
have any occasion to wish for her decay and de-
struction.

Though the West India Mail Packet Company
has our cordial good wishes, we are by no means
of opinion that it should be stimulated, by Go-
vernment support, to continue a ruinous specu-
lation. At the meeting on Wednesday, Captain
SWEENY, of the Royal Navy, plainly stated that
it was impossible that the Company could suc-
ceed; and it is rather too much for the public to
throw away 240,000/. a year, in order to enable
the Company effectually to ruin itself. We are
quite aware of the ungraciousness of making
objections to employing the public money, when
such a grand project is on foot as maintaining a
steam communication with the West Indies ;
but we are of opinion, that steam commercial
navigation can be as little profited as agriculture
by Government bounties, and, therefore, it be-
comes our duty to advert to the consequence of
so employing nearly a quarter of a million of the
public money per year.
If the decision on this question be left to the
Company itself, or to City Correspondents, it
will be settled only in one way. The money will
be supplied till the Company be insolvent, and
the Proprietors lose their property; and ulti-
mately the public, through its organ the Govern-
ment, will have to pay the whole expenses of
continuing the project. It is not right, however,
to leave the decision of such questions to the
parties interested. The public has suffered al-
ready very much from believing that corn-
growers and land-owners were the best judges of
the legislation which would most promote the
success of agriculture ; that ship-masters and
ship-owners could make the best laws fur navi-
gation ; that iron-founders and silk-weavers were
the only reasonable judges of legislation for ma-
nufactures; and that merchants alone could know
any thing of the laws which ought to be made
for trade. The public has confided in these se-
parate classes, and each of them has made, or
recommended, laws, which begin by fleecing or
injuring the consumer, and end by injuring the
producer whom they were intended to benefit.
The public, which pays the money, is deeply in-
terested in the question, and has a right to insist
that the Government shall not expend its pro.
perty except most economically and mostusefully.

Government has a duty to perform, and is no
more warranted, because a project looks showy,
to devote the public money to it than a woman
is warranted in wasting her husband's substance
in purchasing handsome but unnecessary dresses.
The Government must have no caprice. It must
act exclusively for the public good. Extrava-
gance brings families to ruin, and though nations
are not so easily ruined as families, they can but
be injured by a course which is fatal to indivi-
duals.

In this particular case, the Government has
not only to consider the merchants and West
India proprietors, who will be benefited by the
rapid transmission of letters, but it has also to
consider the other classes who contribute to pay
the money. Altogether, probably, nearly half a
million a year is expended in keeping up com-
munication with foreign countries, all the
advantages of which are reaped almost exclu-
sively by the mercantile classes. Some of them,
like Mr. IRVING, the Chairman of the Company,
may be so extensively connected with our colo-
nies that it is for their advantage even to lose
something as proprietors of such a Company,
provided they obtain by the loss the means of
rapidly conveying passengers, parcels, and letters
to the West Indies at the public expense. Such
considerations should make the Government and
the public extremely cautious how they apply
the public money to encourage or promote this
private speculation.
The duty of the Government is to provide the
means of communication with the West Indian
colonies in the cheapest and most effectual man-
ner. Now it has been proved that the plan pro-
posed and adopted by the Company and the Go-
vernment is not the cheapest nor most efficacious.
It has been proposed to send all the commu-
nication to the West Indies by the Halifax
steamers, instead of sending two lines of steamers
across the Atlantic ; and it has been proposed
that the mails shall be carried from Halifitx to
St Thomas's by another steamer. By this means
a voyage of '2,500 miles might be saved, and little
or no delay be caused. Supposing the sugges-
tion thrown out in this journal of transmitting
the mails through the United States be rejected
as impracticable, the plan of sending a steamer
between Halifax and St. Thomas's will be a
much less costly mode of distributing the let-
ters than by sending two great steamers instead
of one across the Atlantic. Our impression, in-
deed, continues to be, that it would be in all re-
spects wise—notwithstanding the American ta-
riff—as promoting commercial intercourse be-
tween England and the United States, and be-
tween our colonies and the United States—to use
the means already in existence in the United
States to convey our mails the whole distance
between Boston and some extreme southern
point of the Republic. We believe that a
steamer passing from Halifax to St. Thomas,
even calling, as is proposed in the Liverpool
Times, at some ports of the United States, would
not pay its expenses ; while the United States
offer us the means to send mails a large part of
the distance at a small expense.

England is already weighed down by public
charges. Her Government costs a great deal
more than it is worth, and he is the best friend
to its continuance in safety, who urges economy
upon it in every possible way. To keep up com-
munication with the whole Western world is un-
questionably a good thing; but it will be best
kept up by employing only one line of steamers
betwixt Halifax and England, and sending all
the mails on from Halifax. By adopting such a
means of communication the public money
might lie saved, and the West India Mail Packet
Company be kept from ruining itself.

The people of Birmingham like thou% of Leeds
and Glasgow, are beginning to complain bitterly
At first, like
of the tariff of the United States.
ourselves, when they saw the tariff in conjunc_
tion with Lord Asneunrox'samicable settlement
of the many disputed questions between Great
Britain and America, the Birmingham houses
were inclined to augur most favourably of our
future prospects, but a rigid examination of the
tariff has led them to a very different and a
much more melancholy conclusion. They have
found out that at present prices the new tariff
will raise the duty on bar iron from 4.21 to 95
per cent. Our exports of iron and steel, exclu-
sive of cutlery, constitute 1-15th of our trade with
the United States, and as we know that a similar
effect will be produced on our cotton and all
other trade, the prospect in the manufacturing
districts must become more dreary every day.
At Birmingham, we are told, several establish-
ments have already intimated their intention to
reduce their present complement of clerks and
servants, and from 150 to 200 additional hands
will cease to find employment in the course of
the week. The events from which we had
anticipated an increase of our traffic, will un-
fortunately operate the other way, and the
peace and security we have, as it were, bestowed
On the United States, will enable them to extend
their domestic industry without giving a corre-
sponding extension to our own. These unfortu-
nate circumstances are plainly the consequences,
not of our diplomacy, but of our own domestic
arrangements, and the community would be
much more benefited by our Contemporaries
turning their attention from abusing the late
treaty, to rectify our own faulty legislation.
We have laid befor
eour readers proofs from
and
inflicted the iron the woollen, the
cotton,lo
dis-
tricts, of a great injury
three branches of our trade bya on
foolishth lair
enacted in a foreign country in retaliation of a
foolish or wicked law enacted at home. Where
inflictingmode of making
war, and
this new
mutual injury by legislation, is to end we cannot
foresee, but we can inform the people of both
hemispheres that they must strangle the restric-

tive system, or it will suon strangle prosperity,
and put peace to flight.

We cannot imagine what object certain writers
have in view by denouncing, day after day, the
treaty concluded between this country and
America, and heaping abuse on Lord ASH-
BURTON, as if he had betrayed his country.
These articles are of no ordinary length, for
they extend occasionally to two or three columns,
and the authors, like great talkers, seem to for-
get at the end what they said at the beginning.
Is it their object to induce the Government to
reject the treaty, or have they recourse to
all this "sound and fury " with a view
to excite hostility to the Government, and
keep up a bad feeling between the two
countries? We fear the latter are the real
causes. They cannot imagine that a treaty in_
volving so many points, to which there cannot
be any reasonable objection, is to be annulled,
because Canada has obtained a smaller portion of
the disputed territory than was originally
claimed; or that the British Government could
with a good grace refuse the line which the
%Vhigs were willing to accept ten years ago.
Since that period the difficulties of settling the
dispute have been daily on the increase, the
American settlers in the neighbourhood have
become more numerous, and the value of
the districts to which they consider thenuelyes
entitled has consequently increased to a great
extent. If the American Government, therefore,
were not disposed to accept the offer made by
Lord GREY'S Government, it could not reason-
ably be expected to accept less favourable con-
ditions now, and the result would be, that this
dangerous question would remain open, England
would he forced to keep a large army in Canada,
and in a few years, probably, the two countries
would be involved in a destructive war.
England can afford to be generous. No
nation can accuse her of truckling to other
Powers, or of any want of courage when her
rights or character are concerned ; and
if by this treaty peace can be preserved, the
people of England and of America will alike
regard it as a blessing. While on this subject
we may refer to the correspondence published
in another part of the paper, in relation to the
American prisoners banished to Van Diemen's
Land. Mr. WEBSTER, in his reply to a letter
on the subject, signed by certain citizens, states
that he will communicate it to Lord ASHBURTON,
and that he has the strongest hope that it will
be effectual in obtaining the pardon of these
misguided men. We trust it will be successful,
and that the amnesty will also be extended to
the Canadian convicts.

The Madrid journals of the 14th instant state
that the prospects of the Ministry are brighten-
ing. The Junta of the Centralized Debt of
Madrid have offered to advance the Finance
Minister three millions of reals; the Bank Di-
rectors are to supply six millions more, so that
the clamorous officials will now receive their
arrears of salary.

Madrid Bourse on the 14th—Five per Cents.,
27,1 11-16 at 60 days. Nothing done for cash.

A pamphlet published by General BUGEAUD,
Governor-General of Algeria, on the coloniza-

tion of French Africa, is the subject of much
comment in the French journals of Wednesday.
According to the General's account, the war is
nut yet half over, for France cannot retain the
coast without taking possession of the interior of
the country, and covering it with military colo-
nies. To retain the country France must keep
in Africa a force of 80,000 men. Since 1831 the
army in Africa has been increased from 17,000
to 70,000 men. The General describes the
interior of the country as very fine, and ex-
ceedingly fertile. He considers that if his plan
of conquest be properly carried out, the colony
will inaintaie itself without any assistance from
France. We doubt this. The Regency, as it is
called, cannot be made to defray its own ex-
penses during the lifetime of the present genera-
tion. The revenue raised in Algeria, in 1837,
fell short of three millions of francs, and, notwi th.
standing the dreadful razzias of 1841, when
whole villages were nightly plundered and
burned by the French, and all the cattle carried
off, the produce from every source did not
amount to nine millions of francs. Where is the
prospect here of defraying the expenses of an
army of 80,000 men, independently of the
charges of the civil service ? The following are
the remarks of the National upon the subject :
M. Bugsaud's plan appears to us to want a good
foundation, and we are of opinion, that in order that
Africa may produce us something, it is necessary,
above all, to raise contributions from the Arabs. The
Governor-General, in fact, touches on this question,
and explains what men and means ought to be em-
ployed in the operations known by the name of
razzias. We are sorry, we confess, to• find such an
expression proceeding from the pen of a man who
has the honour of commanding a French army. The
razzias, which most frequently supplied a ground
work for the pompous bulletins of our staff in
Africa, are, in fact, most deplorable things, of
which, for the honour of France, we ought to hasten
to destroy all traces, if we do not wish to resemble
the English pilferers„ levying contributions on the
coasts of China. There is not, besides, a single officer
of sense and feeling who does not acknowledge that
the razzias are a cause of demoralisation for the army
and of weakness in its discipline, without being a source
of revenue worth speaking of for the Government.
In order that the colony should be sufficient for its
own wants, and give some compensation for the enor-
mous sacrifices which we are forced to make, other
means must be sought than those proposed by M.
Bugeaud. And will they be found? or, if found, will
they be put in execution? Will Africa cease to be
regarded as a camp, where favourite officers go to seek
a means of advancement? We do not think these
things will be witnessed, but at least we ought to be
obliged to M. Bugeaud for having endeavoured to find
them.

The allusion to the conduct of England in
China is coarse and ill-natured, but not happy.
It should have been intimated that before ac-
cepting the Canton ransom, our merchants were
illegally plundered of millions of pounds worth
of property. What did the Arabs take from the
French which could only be repaid by razzias?
Nor is the acceptance of the ransom of a city to
be placed in the category of crimes with the
midnight massacre of the inhabitants of sleeping
villages. The Coninzerce, in adverting to the
pamphlet of General BUGEAUD, says :
The Government and the public ought to hold
themselves carefully on their guard against the ima-
gination of the Governor-General; he is subject to
error, and unfortunately the experience of this fact
does not tend to diminish his excessive confidence, or
the impetuosity of his affirmation. General Bu-
geaud s pamphlet has only strengthened a conviction
which we have long entertained-Lthat by the
severity and rude energy of his command, he
might be serviceable in keeping down the Arabs
—no very difficult work, by the way, with the
immense means he has at his disposal—
but that he is not endowed with any of the qualities
of the organizer, the statesman, the political econo-
mist, and the cool observer, which are so necessary for
compassing the colonization, the civil, agricultural,
and manufacturing constitution of Africa. M.
Bugeaud, in fact, only sees a possibility of prosperity
for the colony in military rule. It is in the army that
he places the elements of government and coloniza-
tion; the colonists are but mere accessories. His
system may be found in the following extract from his
work—' An army of sufficient strength will govern
the country, receive the taxes, and favour commercial
speculation.'"

Letters from Algiers of the 10th inst. state that
the French in Africa are likely to have a trouble-
some winter of it. Many of the tribes who were
submissive while their crops were on the ground,
having now secured their harvest, are rising in
arms against the French. General BUGEAUD
will find plenty of employment during the winter
besides pamphleteering. But the General
fitneies himself a statesman as well as a warrior,
and that he wields the pen as potently as he
does the sword. We subjoin what other items of
news we find in the French journals :

AI. Dupuch, Bishop of Algiers, is expected very
shortly in France. The Prelate is then to return to
Pavia, to fetch the celebrated relic of St. Augustin,
granted by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of
the country. His Holiness Gregory XVI. has ad.
dressed a most encouraging and flattering brief on the
subject to M. Dupuch. The French Government
grants a man-of-war to convey this treasure to Algiers
with all military honours. The keeping of the pre-
cious relic will be entrusted to the Trappists.—Ga-
zette de France.

PARIS, SEPT. 21.—Letters from the frontiers of

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