The Sun.
London, England, 1842-09-07 00:00:00

• :
7..T;1114ht which has come over our industry
'Since 18.38. It forced upon us the glut of
--o,orix at one time, and cheapness gave a great
stimulus to consumption at home, and to produc-
tion for the foreign market. It constrained us
to put up with dearth at another time, which
.greatly diminished consumption, and the possi-
bility of manufaCturing fir other countries.
_lf it were not for the law -thus plainly inter-
,
&ring with the beneficent operations of com-
merce, and compelling merchants to. frame their
proceedings by an artificial and very often an
inapplicable rule, that over production, as it
called, or over-trading, to which our Too Con-
temporaries ascribe the prese..t distress, would
be one of he most curious and inexplicable phe-
nomena of man's moral nature. That one or two
sanguine men of business should commit errors
is not extraordinary, but -over-trading implies
that the whole race of merchants, in two or
more countries, shrewd and cool men, whose
business is calculation, and observing the
Wants of society, are as foolishly erratie, in their
conduct as a. love-sick girl. The plain fact is,
that all commerce is based on the wants of
man. It has, therefore, a natural foundation, as
broad, and permanent, and steady as those wants
and natural rules by which, it must be guided.
When the legislator interferes with trade, he
inakes the natural rules inapplicable, but mer-
chants must continue to follow them; hence their
errors, and hence that want of adjustment between
its supiply and demand at home and abroad, which
the object of their lives to promote. The
Merchants and manufacturers, by their proceed-
ings, are the immediate causes or agents both of
forced enterprise and adversity; but their errors
;are the consequences of the confusion which the
legislator, by meddling with a subject of which
he knows neither the beginning nor the end, has
introduced into trade. To ascertain the cause of
our present distress, then, the moral as well as
the material effects of legislation must be closely
scrutinised.

The letter signed " A STOKER," which we yes-
terday- transferred to our columni, on account of
the.great interest which we take in steam navi-
gation, was principally confined to showing Low
th 3 West India Steam Packet Company may
probably be successful. STOKER'S proposal is to
only one steamer from England with the
mail, and let the mails for the West Indies be
despatched via Halifax. It is impossible to cast
one's eye at a map, and see that Halifax is situated
alitiost as far to the westward as the West India
islands, and is nearer to them than England by
1,000 or 1,200 miles, and not at once to admit the
propriety of this suggestion. But after that con-
viction has flashed upon us, and we have agreed
with STOKER that the nation ought not to send two
1,200 ton steamers through fifty or sixty degrees
!of longitude to carry a few hundred-weights of
letters, when one would serve—after we have
come to that conclusion, mainly on account of
the expense of sending the two, we can scarcely
fail to ask ourselves why an English steam-
vessel should run along the whole sea board of
the United States, as STOKER proposes, to trans!.
port a few letters to and from Halifax and the
West Indies ? The same arguments which he
has so well put against sending steam packets
from Southampton to St. Thomas apply to his
own proposal to send them from St. Thomas to
Halifax, when they could obtain all that they
Would go to Halifax for at Savannah, in
Georgia, or Charlestown, or some other ports of '
the United States, seven or eight hundred miles
nearer the West Indies than Halifax.
At present a steam-vessel carries 'the mail to
and from Boston and Halifax, and when it
arrives at Boston the letters are taken charge
of at the American Post-office, and jclistributed
through the Union. Some of thoseietters go to
New Orleans, to Charlestown, to Savannah,
and to the ports and places at the extreme South
of the United States. Already there exist
the United States means for sending
letters, and forwarding passengers and luggage
to every part of the Union. The American

Post•office, therefore, and some American Com-
..

pany which already conveys passengers and par-
cels from Boston to Charlestown, could, and we
have no doubt would, without much additional
cost, convey letters, parcels, and passengers, in-
tended for the West Indies, to some port in the
extreme South. Our Government might, with-
out much difficulty, enter into an arrangement
with the Government of the United States, to
send its own courier if it liked from Boston to
Savannah, or some other port in the South, and
to that port a steam-packet, which need not be
half 1,200 tons, might repair, to carry them to
the West Indies, and so our steam-boats be saved
-t.voyage of seven or eight hundred miles. If,
• indeed, there be between our own North Ame-
lican colonies and the West Indies sufficient
'traffic to pay the chief expense of sending a
;.steam-boat from St. Thomas to Halifax, it would
be no use troubling ourselves about the United
States; but if not, it will be, as it appears to us,
extremely wasteful to send such a boat monthly,
' when nearly the half of the service might be
) )erfornied for us by the Americans at a very tri-
ing expense.
We do not enter into details; we are not de-
ded in our preference for any port; we only,
suggest, should one series of mail steam packets
be employed by the Government in conveying
e':.ters across the Atlantic, and that series is to
pple Halifax the port of arrival, that the con-
y eniences which already exist in the United
hatet; for conveying letters, &c., to the most
r loath:ern point of their territory should be bor-
rowe6l for an adequate consideration to convey
our. mails to the same point. By so doing we
shall be far better able to bear the cost of main-
taini'ng one series of steam packets to cross the
Atlantic. It will have . all the letters to carry
which are now sent by two. We shall save also
t4e expense of sending a steam-boat a voyage of
800 miles, from the southern part of the United
State; to Halifax. Moreover it is likely that a

great portion of the correspondence between the
United States and all the West India islands,
Which is now transmitted by casual ships, would
be tent by the English steam packets, which
Would be employed to convey the mails from
the United States to the West Indies. Nego-
tiations, if necessary, might be entered into with
the Government of the United States; but it is
3nlPossible to see steamers running from England

.
Ito Halifax, and not desire that the means of '
trans
„port, which already exist in the United
Mates for forwarding letters to the South,
.Should be made available for the purposes of
Znglish commerce, and saving the public money.
If it be s-tid that there might be delays in the
-United States, we reply that the Americans are
a hilliness, punctual people, who will steadfitstly
Perform what they undertake to perform for
money. Already it is not unusual for persons,
`coming to England from the West Indies, to
(*lie by way of Charlestown and New York.
Twice lately, we think, since the West India
hail-packet Company's vessels have been run-
ning) we have received important intelli-
gence from the West Indies, through the
United States. The account of the earth-
quake at St. Domingo, and of a riot at Jamaica,
Were first made known to us by American papers.
That_ intelligence was carried to the United
mutes by casual sailing vessels, and we must
'conclude, therefore, that, were a regular mail
tarried by a steam vessel, established between
the West Indies and a port in the south of the
United States, and forwarded thence to Halifax
by the speediest conveyance, intelligence
would be transmitted to and from the West
Indies... more speedily than by any other method.
interrupted by war, as it might be,
we should then have the same means as
as now to carry on the communication by our
°Urn resources; but, in the meantime, let us, if
We can, make those of the United States serve.
our purposes.
STOKER looks at this important question only
na some Companies are interested in it, but it in-
;Dives far higher considerations than their pro-
ts, and deserves to be taken up in the most en-
larged spirit of tatesmanship. To promote com-
munication easily and cheaply with all parts of