The Sun.
London, England, 1827-01-12 00:00:00

precise nature and extent of the conditions prescribed by the Act
of Parliament, is, that it furnishes no definition of the terms,
"the most favoured nation," which it employ. According to
one interpretation of these terms, they import the gratituous con-
cession of commercial privileges. According to another, they
imply the nation which enjoys the greatest amount of com-
mercial privilege, whether granted with or without equivalents.
That the first was not the sense in which the British Govern-
ment intended to use those terms, we conjectured ; because if it
were, nothing remained to be done by the American Government
to bring itself within the conditions of the Act of Parliament,
and we apprehend that the British Government required some
positive Act. Great Britain, in that sense of the terms, is, in
respect to the commerce and navigation, both of the parent coun-
try and its possessions abroad, on the footing of the most favoured
nation. Whatever commercial privileges are granted by the United
States, to any foreign nation, by Act of Congress, or by treaties,
are founded upon equivalents. Holding out the principle of fair
reciprocity to all nations, we neither ask, nor profess to bestow
comrnet cial boons. Thus, in respect to alien or discriminating
duties, we have not abolished them in behalf of any nation which
has not professed to abolish them as to us. If they are now levied
upon British vessels coming to the United States, from British
Colonies, countervailing duties are now also levied upon American
vessels entering British Colonies, and have been constantly, as
Mr. Canning declares, from 1823. If the amount of American
tonnage admitted to entry in British colonial ports, and of British
tonnage entering American ports from British colonies, were ex-
actly equal, the collection of duties on one side would neutralise
the collection on the other. But, as there is much more Ameri-
can than British tonnage employed in the colonial trade, we pay
a greater amount of those duties than Great Britain. And con-
sequently, if there were cause of complaint on either side, on ac-
count of their exietesce, it would be with us. It could not,
therefore, have been in the first, but must have been in the se-
cond, meaning of the terms that they are employed in the Act of
Parliament.

Great Britain is understood, then, to have demanded that the
United Kingdom, and its possessions abroad, should be allowed to
enjoy, in the ports of the United States, the greatest extent of
commercial privileges which we have granted, no matter upon
what ample equivalent, to any foreign nation whatever. In order
'to ascertain the latitude of concession thus required, it is neces-
sary to glance, and it shall be done as rapidly as possible, at the
state of our commercial relations with other foreign powers.
By the general law of navigation (see 6th vol. of the laws of
the United States, page 189), it is enacted, that after the 30th
day of September, 1818, "no goods, wares, or merchandise,
shall be imported into the United States, from any foreign port or
place, except in vessels of the United States, or in such foreign
vessels as wholly and truly belong to the citizens or subjects of
that country of which the goods are the growth, production, or
manufacture; or from which such goods, wares, or merchandise,
can only be, or most generally are, first shipped for transporta-
tion : —provided" nevertheless that this regulation shall not ex-
tend to the vessels of any foreign nation which has not adopted,
and which shall not adopt, a similar regulation."
Great Britain has, long prior to that Act, adopted, and con-
tinues to enforce, the restriction on which it is founded ; whilst
almost all other nations have abstained from incorporating it in
their navigation codes. A vessel, therefore, of the United States,
on entering a British port, being limited by British law to the
introduction of goods the produce of the United States, a British
vessel, on entering their ports, is limited to the introduction of
goods being of British produce; whilst the vessels of all other
nations, which have not adopted the restrictive regulations, are
allowed, on entering a port of the United States, to introduce
any foreign produce whatever, by paying the alien and discri-
minating duties, from which vessels of the United States are
exempted:

By particular arrangements with various Powers, some by
treaty, and others by separate but reciproca 1 Acts of the Govern-
ments of the United States and those Powers, the alien duties
of the United States are aholished as to them ; and their vessels
and those of the United States, are allowed the reciprocal liberty
of importation and exportation, at the same rate of duty, upon
both ship and cargo.

Thus, by the Act of Congress of January, 1824, " so much of
the several Acts imposing duties on the tonnage of vessels in the
ports of the United States, as imposes a discriminating duty be-
tween foreign vessels and vessels of the United States, is hereby
suspended, so far as respects vessels truly and wholly belonging to
subjects or citizens of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, of Prussia,
of the Imperial Hanseatic Cities of Hamburg, Lubec, and Bremen
of the Dukedom of Oldenburg, of the Kingdom of Sardinia, and
of the Empire of Russia." And it enacts a like suspension of the
discriminating duties on the cargo of any of the vessels of those
several countries.

But it further enacts, that the suspension of those duties shall
" continue in behalf of each of the above-mentioned nations, on
condition that, and so long as the vessels of the United States,
and truly and wholly belonging to the citizens thereof, and all
goods and merchandise of the produce and manufacture thereof,
laden therein, and imported into any of the said nations in Eu-
rope, respectively, shall be exempted from all and every discrimi-
nating duty of impost or tonnage, direct or indirect, whatsoever,
other or higher than is levied upon the vessels and merchandise
therein imported, belonging to the subjects or citizens of each of
the said nations respectively."
Thus, therefore, to comply with the conditions of the Act of
Parliament, we must, Ist, have allowed British vessels to import
into the United States the produce of any foreign country what-
ever, upon the payment of the alien duties, although vessels of
the United States are, and should have remained, prohibited to
import into British ports like produce upon any terms whatever,
And, 2dly, we must have abolished or suspended our diseriminat•
ing duties, placing Great Britain upon the footinc, of the most fa-
voured nation, in whose behalf we had abolished or suspended
them, although it now appears, from the averment of Mr. Can-
ning, that duties of at least an equal amount, have been, since
the adoption of the Order in Council, in the year 1828, and now
are, levied upon American vessels and their cargoes in British
colonial ports.

So stood our law, and such must have been our compliance
with the conditions of the Act of Parliament at the time of its
passage. But we suppose it to have been the understanding of
the British Government, that, if, subsequent t, that period, we
should grant to any foreign nation still greater privileges than
those above described, by treaty or otherwise, in consideration of
equivalents or not, such more extensive privileges must have im-
mediately accrued to the United Kingdom and its possessions
abroad, upon the male of the most favoured nation, or we most
have subjected ourselves to the forfeiture of the colonial trade, de-
twunced by the Act of Parliament.
Now, subsequently to the date of that Act, to wit, on the 6th
December last, we concluded a Treaty with the Republic of the
Federation of the Centre of America, which, having been after-
wards ratified by both parties, is now in full operation. By thus
Treaty it is stipulated, that whatever can be exported from, or
imported into either country, in its own vessels, to or from ny
foreign place whatever, may, in like manner, be exported or im-
ported in the vessels of the other country, the vessel and the
cargo paying, in both cases, the same and no higher duties, and
consequently neither paying the Alien Duties. If we had entit-
led ourselves, by the fulfilment of the required conditions, to an
intercourse with the British Colonies, we Would now be obliged;
in order to retain the light to that intercourse, to allow British
vessels, both of the parent country and its possessions abroad, a
liberty of exportation and importation co-extensive with that of
the vessels of the United States, although the interdict of the
British Law of Navigation should remain in full operation on the
vessels of the United States.

If wa are mistaken in the extent of the concessions required by
the British Government, to place the United Kingdom and its
possessions abroad, on the footing of the most favoured nation,
the beet and most friendly mode of correcting our error would
have been to have accompanied an official communication of the
Act of Parliament with a full and frank explanation of those
conditions, the performance of which, on our part, would have
satisfied that Government. By withholding all explanation, if
the. Congress of the United States had legislated on that subject
at its last Session, it must have acted either, Ist, upon the expo-
sition of the conditions of the Act of Parliament now given ; or
idly, upon the views of the British Government, as disclosed in
the negotiations of 1824. It could not have conformed to the
conditions of the Act of Parliament, as we understand them,
without a manifest sacrifice of the interests of the people of the
ITn;tcil States, and an abandonment of those principles of recipro-
city for which thy have ever contended in all their negotiations
with Foreign Powers. It now appears that it would have been
unavailing if Congress had legislated in compliance with the views
of the British Government, as presented in the negotiations of
1824. According to those views, that Government was then
Willing that the trade between the colonies and the United States
should continue restricted, as it then was, by the laws of the two
countries, to the direct intercourse; that is to say, that a British
vessel chiaring from the United States for a colonial port, should
he bound to land its cargo in that port; and an American vessel,
clearing from the colonies for the United States, should be bound
to land its cargo in them. But without any intimation to us,
through the regular diplomatic channels, of an alteration in her
views, Great Britain has now changed them, and on the 11th of
September, 1526, for the first time announced her determination
not ‘‘ to consent to enter into any renewed negotiation upon the
intercourse between the United States and the British Colonies,
so long as the pretensions (the above restriction as to the direct