The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-11 00:00:00

~~~ :~a~~

LONDON
TUESDAY MORNING. OCTOBER 11, 1842.

In another part of The Sun will be found the
Revenue Tables for the quarter ending the 10th
of October. The increase in the year is only
355,9811., though that includes a sum of 313,8441.
obtained by the Income-tax. In also includes
477,803/. from Miscellaneous sources, chiefly
made up from the Chinese booty. Of every
branch of old taxation, except the Customs—in
which. duties have been reduced, and some
articles are now included which were before
prohibited, and which include the whole sum
received on the corn imported—and, except the
Post-office, the produce is declining. In the
year the Excise has fallen off 733,4481., the
5tamp5,139,712/., and the Taxes, 62,2331. Deduct-
ing the decrease from the total increase of the year,
and deducting the produce of the Income-tax,
the revenue is just 42,1371. better this year than
last. Deducting the Miscellaneous, it is 435,606/.

worse.

We are much disappointed by the produce
of the quarter's revenue, We anticipated in July
that, in consequence of the .tariff' being settled
in the present quarter, there would have been a
great increase in the Customs' revenue;
it is only 206,760/. These tables do not
show us how much the Customs have lost by the
alteration in the Timber and Coffee duties, nor
how much they have gained by the Corn duties,
but we should conjecture that the latter must
much exceed the former, and we regard the
sluallincrease in the quarter as an indication that
our trade has had no revival.

The falling off in the Excise this quarter—
which is the worst index we have yet seen to the
diminished consumption by the people—is
not less than 434,8311. Most of the falling
Off in the Stamp duties, 107,224/., is occa-
sioned by the alterations made in them ; but
we can only account for the falling off in
the Taxes, 142,733/., by supposing
that it is
occasioned by reductions in expenditure -made
to prepare for the Income-tax. The whrile de-
crease on the quarter, notwithstanding, thc: addi-
tion of the Income-tax, and the increase of the
Customs' duties is 67,472/. Beinc, unable to ap-
preciate correctly the adverse effects in, the Cus-
toms of increased traffic and the reducv.ion in the
Timber duties, we g;ve no decided opinion. upon
these returns; but, on the whole, are disap-
pointed at the produce of th.e revew.ue for the
quarter'; while the falling off in th,: Excise con-
s the statement that the distress., of the people
has as yet undergone no mitigationb

If France or Germany, both of •which countries
possess a well orzinized syste J I of police, and
patronise the passport plan, a i ;as the plan for
ticketing and numbering the 7: uman race, were
to refuse a:free passage toEngV.samen ySpaniards,
or Italians, through its terr'!_ory, on the same
conditions of keeping the h!,ghways, exhibiting
their passports at the gates •
of the towns, as it
allows its Own subjects to t•J;e the privilege of lo-
comotion, or on any additianal conditions it may
hty down as necessary , r the preservation of
order, it would be justly stigmatised as a suspi-
eioos gad barbarous State . In truth, when these
and other States, from n apprehension of war,
or fearful of rebellion, have prohibited to pas-
sengers the free passa p ;e of their high roads, or
have prohibittd
= them, from entering and leaving
their territories, the qinduct of these States has

been considered unjust, and injurious to theq-
selves. Far from such being the general prac-
tice, all passports given to 'the natives of one
country going int% another, recommend them to
the care of the authorities, who are expected
to protect, not to molest them. At present there
is no inconsiderable influx of English into 'and
efflux from France, and while every man is aware
that the French Government has the power to
stop this ebb and flow whenever it pleases= and
to prevent a single Zriglishman from travelling
to Paris, yet every man is equally sensible that
the French Government, in the interest of its
own subjects, who would suffer much from such
a communication and free circulation of the Eng-
lish in France being even impeded, has no right
to stop it. We deduce from this—looking at the
interest of the people governed as the basis
of all the rights of the Government—the gene-
ral rule, that no State has the right, whatever
may be its power, to prevent or impede foreign-
ers from freely using, subject to all customary
tolls and conditions, the high roads of that State.
What is true as to the persons of foreigners is
equally true as to their goods and property.
Atter paying those Customs ditties which every
State—from what is; in most cases, to us a piece
of high and inscrutable wisdom—levies on goods
imported from abroad—those goods, whether in
the possession of the foreigner, and conveyed in
his own carriage, or in possession of the natives,
and conveyed by some of the carriers of the
country, are allowed to circulate on its highways,
on the same conditions as the property of the
natives. Every Government has the power of
prohibiting—and, but for the smuggler, might
prevent—the importation of all goods from abroad
on any conditions; but, looking to the interest
of its own people, no sane-minded man would say
that it had a right so to prohibit the importa-
tion. We have, by these remarks, we think,
established the general rule that Governments,
though they have the power, have no right to
prevent the free circulation of fcreigners and
foreign goods on the highways which those Go-
vernments form and maintain.
We believe that our readers will wonder why
we enter into such a discussion, and take so
much pains to demonstrate a received truth and
the common practice. We are about to apply
the doctrine to sweep away a heap of nonsense,
or what Lord ASHBURTON properly called " de-
vices and manoeuvres," the " supposed artful
tools of diplomacy," which some of our Con-
temporaries have vomited forth in relation to
England allowing the subjects of the United
States the free navigation of the St. John's. If
Governments have no right—whatever may be
their power—to prohibit to foreigners the use
of the high-roads which they have made and
maintain through their own territories, for
the free circulation of their persons and goods,
it is clear, a fortiori, that Governments can
have no right to prohibit to foreigners, for the
free conveyance of their persons and goods,
the use of those rivers which flow through
their territories, and which they did
not make, and perhaps are at no ex-
pense whatever in maintaining. Of course,
possessing both banks of such rivers, Govern-
ments may inhospitably refuse all succour and
assistance to the foreigners who seek to pass
along them, or they may throw a boom . and
chains across, and bar the passage where. the
river enters and leaves their territory. They
have the power to do that; they have the power
even to murder the boats' crews that might at-
tempt to pass down a stream, as Alususo PARK
is said to have been murdered. But they have no
right to murder them ; they have no right to
bar the passage ; they have no istbsitt to impede
foreigners in freely using, for the s''onveYance
both of their parsons and their goods, th.gse na-
tural and unexpensive highways. Of cout7sey
they may make such police regulations and im-
pose such duties on goods and persons entering
their territories by a river as if they came
from the sea, or across the frontier, from the
high road of another State; but their right to do
so is strictly circumscribed by the interest of
their own people. Whatever, therefore, may be
the opinions of old HUGO GROTIUS or Herr
Von MARTENS, both respectable and honourable
men in their way, we assert that a Government
has not the abstract right to interdict the navi-
gation of rivers which pass within its territory to
peaceful and friendly foreigners.
There may undoubtedly be a question
whether it be for the interest of the peo-
ple whose Government possesses both banks
of a river to prohibit its use to foreigners.
We have not' heard, however, a single
human being say, or surmise, that it would
be for the interest of New Brunswick or Great
Britain that the Americans should not convey as
many of themselves, and as much of their pro-
duce as they please, down the river to the town
of St. John's. if our country has no interest in
preventing them doing that ; if it would be for the
public advantage that they should bring their
goods to the people on the banks of the river, and
to the inhabitants of St. John's, to be there loaded
on board ship, enriching that town with their
traffic, we have no right whatever to prevent
their doing it. We doubt whether it ever can be
for the interest of a people possessing a river to
bar its use to those who dwell on it, above and
below them, any more than it can be the interest
of France to bar the use of its highways to the
Germans, the Italians, and the English. We
conclude, therefore, that Lord AsnIIIIIIITON.
promoted the interest of New Brunswick and of
Great Britain as much, by consenting that the
Americans should freely navigate the St. John's,
as France promotes its own interest by allowing
the tolerably free ingress and egress of English
into and from that country.
Herr Von MARTENS and HUGO GROTIUS,
who are quoted by some of our Contempo-
raries, as great authorities on this ques-
tion, borrowed their doctrines, like all writers on
international law, from the practices of States.
Sometimes, but not always, they attempt to cor-
rect those practices by the higher principles of
the moral law; but, in general, what they H the
law of nations is nothing' more than a transcript
of what Kings have done. They saw the prac-
tices of the Sovereigns of Germany, one of the
few European States of which the navigable
rivers flow through the territories of several po-
litical Powers—they saw the Sovereigns of those
States, with a hateful, dog-in-the-manger policy,
trying, by tolls and impediments, to prevent each
other from reaping all possible advantage from
the noble rivers which flow through their com-
mon country; • and GROTIUS and Herr Von
MARTENS deduce from their practices the right
of Sovereigns to the exclusive control and posses-
sion of rivers, and the right to bar their use to other
nations. But what was the consequence of this
exercise of selfish, ignorant power? The rivers
of Germany remained for centuries almost un-
navigated. While the streams of the United
States were covered with steam-ships, the
Elbe, the Weser, the Danube, and the
Rhine (now they have a few), remained un-
visited and unblessed by those miracles. of
human skill. Are we, then, because Herr Von
MARTENS and Huss° GROTIUS say we have the
right, to imitate the blind power of the petty
Sovereigns of Germany, and impede the free use
of the waters of our American colonies to our
peaceful brethren of the United States ? We
answer no ; we say that we have no right to do
so; that our own interest demands that our
rivers be as freely used as our roads by foreigners.
If this be a correct view of this important
question, Lord ASHBURTON made no concession
rotheeNoAvmericans. but promoted the welfare of
our
people—and happily for us pro-
, 'noted the welfare of the Americans at
the same time
by stipulating that the
river St. John's
navigation. should be free ,to their
These same writers lay it. down I
as a duty on
passage to peacefultattbes; • to allow a free
dominions ; and that can
eologtnpe ross s
bthrough e
ttheir
a duty when these foreigners pass on their
rivet's. Their
pagesthen, can no more afford
a
Lord ASHBURTON'S stipula-
irgearasen Tts hei
against
stipula-
tion, that the Atnericans shall use • the St.
John's, than the Laws of MENU, or the Carolina
Code. International law has yet to be formed,
and we would as soon take the practices of the

feudal Barons, as of the Sovereigns of Germany,
for its basis.
We deeply regret to see the journals of the
Liberal party—whose power is- reason, as con-
trasted with • prescription—the public good, as
distinguished from ancient usages—taking up
gross errors, the represelitation of ancient usages,
and of worn-out because unjust prescription, and
trying by them to misrepresent and disparage a
treaty which is of grea(public advantage. Those
journals will not inflict on the Liberal party all
the damage they perhaps desire, for we are
happy to know that there is scarcely a Whig
jourlial of any character, throughout the coun-
try, which shares the feelings of the late occu-
pants of the Foreign-office; and scarcely one
which. does not refuse to follow, on this occasion,
the mislead of the Globe and Chronicle.

The • accounts that reach this country from
China, India, and almost every part of the habit-
able globe, in such rapid suceession, cannot fait
to strike the most careless observer with wonder
at the vast extent of her doMinious, and the
activity and energy
.of.her people. The rank
which she holds at the present moment among
the nations of the earth, has no parallel in the
history of mankind. She has established colo-.
nies and independent States, some of which are
larger than the Roman empire was at the zenith
of its power, her ships traverse every ocean, and
her sons are found in every. clime. No country
ever equalled her iu trade, commerce, or coloni-
zation, nor in gigantic undertakings commenced
with such slender means. The rapid increase of
her power is not less, remarkable than its extent.
But two hundred years ago a few English mer-
chants established themselves on a small spot in
India, and that spot has increased to a mighty
empire. A little band of freemen fled from the
despotic rule and unjust exactions of an English
Sovereign, settled in the new world, carrying
with them the free spirit, the habits, the arts,
and the religion of their country, and their suc-
cessors now rank, with the most powerful States
of Europe. Another colony of equal size, and
endued with the same love of liberty, and the
same ardent desire for improvement, is increasing
daily in strength, and in process of time will
become a powerful rival to its independent
neighbour. From .the Falkland Islands at the
utmost verge of the Southern hemisphere to the
Polar Sea, she has possessions on the Continent
and islands almost without number, inhabited by
people speaking our language, cultivating the
same arts, and imitating the mother country in
trade, commerce, and all those acquirements and
pursuits which distinguish a civilized race from.
barbarians. In the East, England has under
her sway 100 millions of inhabitants, and while
these rest satisfied with her rule, is carrying on
war with a hardy and powerful people one thou-
sand miles distant from the seat of Government;
and at some 5,000 miles diStance on the other side
of the.vast continent of Asia a handful of British
soldiers is attacking successfully an ancient ent-
pire, containing countless millions of inhabitants.
It is a singular fact, too, that these possessions,
with a few exceptions, were obtained less by war
and conquest than by the arts of peace. Unlike
Rome, " when she laid a country waste, and
called desolation peace," England began by
peopling deserts, by assisting and protecting her
offspring till it grew to manhood, or by civilizing
barbarians, teaching them habits ofindustry, ruling
them generally by mild and equitable laws, and
attaching them to herself rather by voluntary
bonds than by *the violent and rude hand of a
conqueror. No country ever exhibited such a
rapid increase of power and wealth, and in the
development of her resources, one circumstance
gives rise to noble and cheering reflections,
honourable to the spirit of liberty and to the
thirst after free inquiry which distinguished the
„ beginning of the seventeenth century. From
ti,:t period to the present the progress of arts,
coon[: rce1 and civilization, has been gradual and
sure.the English territory appeared on
the snap
ll
qerthan a man's band. Now it
is spread over the w 0741,
not from any settled
retOit ;
plan, not from a regula7 system of aggression
like that pursued by the Ro-
mans, but by the
natural course of events. The genius of our Con-
stitution, the hatred of the people to slave 7, and
their attachment. to free institutions, must hac'''
had no small influence in producing results of
such magnitude. The nations of the earth
cannot fail to respect a country which in one
day emancipated 800,000 slaves, at an expense
exceeding the personal . revenues of mighty
Sovereigns, and which, by a magnanimous reso-
lution, declared that every human being, of what-
ever nation, or creed, or by whatever ties he may
be bound, becomes a freeman on touching the
sacred soil of England. It is an instructive fact,
too, that during the period to which we refer,
she sustained only one memorable defeat, and
that frOm her own sons, who rose as one man in
defence of that liberty and self-government for
which one English sovereign was sacrificed on
the scaffold, and his race for ever banished from
the country. But marked as the change has
been during the last century, it is still going on
at a rate hitherto unknown. By means of rail-
roads, steam-ships, improvements in machinery,
and important discoveries, the strength of the
country within the last fifteen years has been
raised to a height of which it wouldbe impOssible
to make anything like a proximate calcu-
lation, and no one can survey this wonderful
scene without entertaining the hope and the
conviction that all these great movements are
directed by more than human agency, and are
means in the hand of the Great Ruler for civi-
lizing and uniting in one great family the nations
of the earth.

Lord ABINGER, who was once a Whig, then
a Tory, and now bids fair to settle down into a
confirmed ultra-Tory; who spent the best years
of his life in advocating the Freedom of the Press,
and afterwards, in his capacity of Attorney-
General to the WELLINGTON Administration, did
all he could to strangle that Freedom, multiply-
ing ex-officio prosecutions to such a degree that
even his own party began to take the alarm and
discountenance his proceedings—Lord ABINGER,
who, like Sir JAMES GRAHAM, has boxed
the political compass, delivered a Charge
on Thursday last, on the opening of the
Cheshire Special Commission, in which much of
the intolerant spirit that might be expected from
such a man, is apparent—so apparent, indeed,
that none can fail to perceive it at the very first
glance.lted of
fe.
justnieserrampALcondfiidn,intgo Itihine-isell, asi
afwo Lofd
the
Nevilasye
ttohe
diLseeuasr
snedtheJelihdag:actNeVrenittndouptrinoefiphleiss
of Chartism ; and this not in a calm, equable
tone, but in the earnest spirit of a party
otiictiiecient. asked indignantly, h
these
ni s theare
of" WthehatC,"hia'reten:
seeking? Annual Parliaments, Universal Suf-
frage, and Vote by Ballot! Yet, gentlemen,
you will find by the evidence which will be
produced before you, that it has been incul-
cated on many misguided persons that the
sovereign remedy for all abuses, - and the
only means of putting themselves •in pos-
session of such a share of power as
would enable thein to vindicate their own
rights, and secure themselves against oppression,
is by the enactment of what they call the People's
Charter ?" Now we contend that in hazarding
these remark:, Lord ABINGER was travelling
beyond the mark. Like the • cobbler, he should
have stuck to his last. It was not expected from
him that he should enter into a political disqui-
sition upon Chartism, but that, in his capacity
of Judge, he should restrict himself to an ex-
position of the law. What business had
he with the points of the Charter ?
Where was the imperative necessity that com-
pelled him to launch his anathemas against'Uni-
venial Suffrage and Annual Parliaments? He
was not a political partisan, but a Judge. He was
not delivering his sentiments from the Tory side
of the House of Lords, but from the sacred
Bench of Justice. By far the greater portion of
the Learned Judge's Charge is taken up with a
denunciation of Chartism ; while the riotous
meetings, were the occasion of that
Charge, are disposed . of in a very summary,
ofd hand manner. We are told, indeed,
that such Meetings are illegal, and " should be