The Sun.
London, England, 1845-02-18 00:00:00

INTERCHANGE OF COMMODITIES.

When the interchange of commodities, either raw or
manufactured, between the inhabitants of a town or district,
is subjected to no other restriction than its just Proportion
of the tax purely necessary to maintain its security, and its
municipal order, and to defray the expense of erecting and
supporting indispensable public buildings and institutions,
we find, in that case, practical free trade existing, within
such town or district, based upon a common interest, which
each individual will, from personal interest, struggle to main-
tain in its peaceful course.
A great nation is a great community, and all the nations
of the earth, if the intercourse and trade between them were
as free as between the individuals of a municipality, would
then actually enjoy a peaceful and profitable system of com-
mon intercourse, based upon common interests, which it
would be ruinous to any one of the nations concerned to disturb.
The greater the commercial relations between the nations,
the more disastrous would be the consequences of a war
which would interrupt their recipro9ty of interests. In pro-
portion as this commercial and reciprocal interest has been
of long standing, and of great extent, the greater would be
the securities for the maintenance of peace, and the more
disastrous would be the calamity of continuing a war between
two or more countries so circumstanced.

All wars are more or less detrimental to the production of
wealth, but a suspension of intercourse with a nation in which
England finds but a trifling demand for her manufactures,
would be of minor consequence, provided such war did not
interrupt our intercourse with countries whose trade was of
important value. A suspension of intercourse, for example,
between England and America, could, only with great loss to
both, from the long duration and enormous extent of the
intercourse, be possibly maintained.
The sound principle of unrestricted international trade,
although laid down long since by Adam Smith, in opposition
to the more specious theory of Colbert, has in British legis-
lation only been practically attempted by the Government,
during the first four years of Mr. Pitt's Administration, and
during the time Mr. Huskisson was in power, and, afterwards,
to a limited extent, by Lord Sydenham. The most extensive
and liberal reform in the British Customs duties, since Mr.
Pitt's tariff in 1787, is the tariff of 1842.
In France, neither the Government nor the Legislature
have admitted even the principle of free trade. Hence the
limited commerce of that country with other nations, which,
in regard to imports, is restricted, except by smuggling,
nearly altogether to raw materials of the first necessity to her
manufactures, as cotton, wool, raw silk, dye stuffs, &c. There
was one remarkable, but brief exception to the generally un-
sound commercial legislation of France. That exception con-
sisted of the moderate duties on imports into France from
England, as embodied in Mr. Pitt's celebrated treaty signed
at Versailles on the 26th of September, 1786.*
A war of material interests, or more properly speaking, of
material injuries—that is, a war of custom-houses or fiscal
forts, with their garrisons of revenue officers and servants,
has long been declared and carried on between most Euro-
pean nations. This warfare of interests, or injuries, has not
ceased with the wars of bloodshed, and if we may ever expect
security against a recurrence of the calamities attendant on,
and consequent to, the latter, it will be in destroying the ele-
ments of the former,—in short, by the extension of free trade
between all nations.

Prohibitions and high duties on imports were, as is well
known, from an early period common to most countries.
England and France, so often and so long at armed warfare,
were, however, the first, always excepting Spain, who, ion
a great scale, held up to Europe the example of a perni-
ciously maintained war of material injuries against the reci-
procal prosperity of both countries. England had her navi-
gation laws, prohibitions, and restrictions on importation,
and bounties, before France had extensively established
those pernicious regulations. In 1664, France, "in order to
engage builders and merchants to construct French vessels,
imposed a duty of 50 sous (25.) per ton on all foreign ves-
sels." In 1687, the war of material injuries—that directed
against the importation of foreign commodities, including all
manufactures, was, as a principle, fully established by France.
Austria, but not until 100 years afterwards, followed the ex-
ample, and on the same specious grounds—viz., to force the
creation and prosperity of home manufactures by excluding
those of foreign States.

In the history of Europe we cannot discover a sove-
war of material injuries against its neighbours, during the
ficant, that has not maintained its
ruesiuganitlyy,
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in armed hostilities. of peace, as well as when engaged
Germany, in her
early period until within the last few years, the ruinous
history, exhibits amply, from is most
modes of levying taxes. There is scarcely an old castle in
the empire that can be viewed, in the choice of its position,
otherwise than as a toll-house, and prison, as well as a place
of defence. _ _

The capital of Bavaria owes the origin of its detestable
situation, and worse climate, to a quarrel between a Duke of
Suabia and a neighbouring Prince-Bishop, respecting the toll
on, and monopoly of, salt claimed by the former. The Duke,
to put an end to the chief business of the Bishop—that of
smuggling salt—built a, strong castle on the banks of the
Isaar. This protection occasioned a town to grow up around
the castle ; and the consequence has been, that one of the
most classically built cities of Europe is cursed with a climate
and situation worse than that of St. Petersburgh.
Afterwards, each petty German sovereign established a line
of customs officers around his frontiers to levy taxes upon
commodities. Intercourse between one State and another
was consequently subjected to great expense and inconveni-
ence. industry was crippled, competition smothered, and the
revenue itself gained but little, owing to the expense and
the comption of collection.
The war of material injuries between one German State
and another has now, however, nearly ceased. "The great
Germanic Union of Customs," says Mr. Loehr, "which for
ten years appeared impracticable, was at last accomplished
by means of that constant persevering German spirit which
pervades and rules over our country—found as well in her
enlightened Ministers as in the known gratitude of her
faithful people. Thus, within themselves, free-trading in-
terest now unites 28,000,000 from the Baltic Sea to the
Alps." So much for the tariff and regulations of this ex-
traordinary union of material interests which has destroyed
all the barriers to commercial intercourse, from the fron-
tiers of France and Belgium to those of Russia and Austria.
There is no theory probably more flattering to Princes
and statesmen, or to a whole nation, than to institute mea-
sures which hold out independence of all other nations by pro-
ducing and manufacturing at home all that is considered
necessary and luxurious. It was easy to win a Prince and
people to adopirthe application of so very plausible a theory.
Louis XIV., by revoking the Edict of Nantes, nearly ruined
all leading manufactures in France, and at the same time
furnished England with the most skilful French artisans. To
revive the manufactures destroyed by Louis, M. Colbert, one
of the most honest and patriotic Ministers of whom France
can boast, directed his stedfast attention ; but unfortunately
for his country, he became dazzled with the fallacious priff-
ciple of forcing home manufactures by premiums, and by im-
posing duties on those of other countries. He encouraged, by
large bounties, manufacturers to settle in France ; he pro-
tected them by the most despotic laws, without ever consi-
dering that he was taxing the many for the benefit of the
few—that he was destroying that competition which creates
cheapness and perfection in manufactures, and that his
bounties and dutiest were taxes on the whole community,
and especially on the agriculturists. To encourage the
French West Indian trade he paid a premium out of the na-
tional treasury of 30 francs per ton upon goods exported,
and 50 per cent. upon every ton imported from these colonies.
He also established large bounties, which were imitated by
England, on the fisheries. His system became exceedingly
popular; its promised grandeur
.flattered national vanity;
and neither the Prince, nor the people, nor M. Colbert him-
self, understood its fallacy. We will hereafter show how
fully it has been persevered in down to this day, notwith-
standing the changes towards liberal principles of commer-
cial legislation which have been boasted of both by the French
and English press.
England had, under William 111., who carried over and
bequeathed to us the funding system, declared the French
trade a nuisance, and laid a discriminating duty of 331 s
per
cent higher duty on French silks and cambrics than the
duty imposed on those of Holland. This was naturally
pleaded by the French economists as a full justification of the
war of prohibition declared against English fabrics. The
latter, it is true, continued to thrive, and it soon became a
favourite argument, urged until this day, among the conti-
nental advocates of high duties on, or the prohibition of
foreign manufactures, that England, in manufactures, com-
merce, and wealth, owed her prosperity to her legislation
resticting or prohibiting
the importation of foreign manu-
factures.
They either did not understand, or would not admit, that
England attained her
prosperity, not by the aid, but in de-
fiance, of her illiberal commercial system ; that England
owed her wealth and power, and even her liberty, to her
geographical position ; to her many commanding harbours ;
to the vast power of production yielded by her mines of coal
and iron interstratified, and conveniently disposed for cheap
use and transport ; and to the enterprising and industrious
character of her people. England also escaped, on her own
soil, the perpetual wars which devastated and prevented the
manufacturing industry of the continental States of Europe ;
and although her taxation and her public debt have been
carried to an incredible height, and her people compelled to
pay far higher for maintaining existence than those of any
other country, yet her earlier invention of more perfect ma-
chinery, especially of the steam-engine and the spinning-
jenny, and other circumstances which existed daring war,
enabled her, in defiance of Napoleon's wars and decrees—
in spite of high taxation and dear food, to enrich herself so
far as to bear all her war burdens. Her people were enabled
to do all this, and to pay those high prices for bread and
butchers' meat, which wired to yield
high rents to the land-