The Sun.
London, England, 1842-09-20 00:00:00

Ott 2ult.

LONDON:
TUESDAY MORNING. SEPTEMBER 20, 1842.

The journals in the manufacturing districts
best info • rnied as to our trade, such as the Leeds
mercury, describe the new tariff of the United
States as calculated to inflict serious injury on
our woollen and cotton manufactures.
The duty on woollens (says that journal) is raised
from 29 per cent. to 40 per cent., and that on worsted
stuffs from 20 per cent. to 30 per cent., with the fur-
ther addition caused bY
including the commission in
the valuation ofoods. W
e fear the increase of duty
g
will eventually much diminish our
United States, and itour exports of woollen
cloths and kerseymeres. to• the
must act unfavourably on the trade_
ii_.n worsted stuffs,
.
and all other Woollen and Mixed g°°'•
The Cotton trade will, however, be more seriously.
affccted than the Woollen, though the duty does not
appear to be so high. Cottons are nominally
.ere are
subject to
-ati
an. valorem duty of. 30 per cent., but there
regulations nixing valuation upon many
kinds an arbitrary
kinds of goods, which prevent the nominal duty from
being any indication of the real duty. Prints, mole-
skins, velvets, and bleached goods, all pay enormously
—moleskins from boo to 200 per cent. ad valorem.
On some prints of the value of 4d. a yard, the duty
oamounts
per,
cent 9 cents, or 41d. a yard—making upwards
f 100.

That represents rather the ultimate than the
immediate effect, which is somewhat different.
For some months (says the Mercury) trade has beent
paralyzed by the uncertainty that hung Over both h
fiscal system and the financial state of America a de
anything that removes that uncertainty would be
felt
as a relief. Many of the accounts received in Eng
land, therefore, are highly favourable as to the fall
trade. Some considerable orders for goods have been
received,:and w agreeable impulse will be felt by oar
merchantt. But, on the other hand, we know mer,
ichmti who have received letters by this mail from
vveli-inforzned correspondents in New York, regret-
ting that woollen goods which they had ordered had
gone out, and that-it is too late to countermand them.
'The abiding effect of the new tariff must be very un-
favourable to the commerce of this country.

We learn from the Liverpool Albion that the
shipping interest at Liverpool is at present in a
state of great suffering, and full of complaint.
At the same time that journal gives this ome-
Nv!.at Melancholy description of the American
trade of Liverpool :

The whole quantity of manufactured goods sent
from this port to the United States, by all the
4hipping houses together, in a given period this year,
lines not equal the quantity sent by a single first-rate
shipping house in a similar period, but one of pros-
perity;
In this state of things, what are called tran-
sient snips get no freight, while even the packet-ships
get little or none. The large and splendid packet-
-ship Roscius, which sailed on Thursday for New
York, had considerably under 1001. of freight ;

the smallest sum, indeed, with one exception,
since the liners were established in the year 1818.
Up to this time, the passage-money received from
emigrants enabled the ships to pay the expenses of
their voyages, but, the season for emigrating being
nearly over, even that source of revenue is fast failing.
The uncertainty which has so long prevailed on the
subject of the tariff may have had the effect of dimi-
nishing shipments to the United States ; but the re-
moval of that uncertainty, by the actual passing of
a tariff unfavourable to English mEnufactures as com-
pared with the last, will not, it is feared, increase ship-
ments thither. On the contrary, while the increase
of the duties on English goods must discourage their
export, the necessity of paying the duties in cash on
import will, it is believed by the best informed mer-
chants, deter parties from consigning goods to the
American market. Goods will, however, if they are
wanted, find their way, directly or indirectly, into the
United States.

We read also that a great number of emi-
grants from England to the United States have
returned to their native country, to swell the
amount of those who arc seeking here, in vain,
for employment. Willing as we are to hope the
best, and ready as we have been to speak and
thi2k as favourably as possible of Sir R. PEEL'S
measures, these facts do not betoken the coming
of that prosperity which the nation expected
from his wisdom. Let it not for one moment be
thought or said that he is not to blame for the
American tariff. That measure was passed by the
smallest possible majorities; and, without doubt,
had our Corn-law been repealed, larger majori-
ties would have been on the other side. A free
trade in raw produce with England would have
procured a tariff favourable to us, or it would
have split the Union asunder. Had Sir R. PEEL
displayed half the sagacity, and demonstrated
half the respect for justice and honesty in dealing
With our own people that he has displayed in
dealing with the Government of the United
States, he would have been rewarded by a very
different tariff, and by seeing prosperity through-
out the manufacturing districts, where there is
now nothing but decay and complaint.
As for the shipping interest and the merchants
of Liverpool, from their support of the Tory inte-
rest and restrictions on trade, and from their
fatal indifference to the struggles of their Man-
chester brethren to procure the abolition of the
Corn-laws, they seem to us to deserve nothing
better than distress and decay. The majority of
them have contributed to deny freedom of trade
to the prayers of their suffering countrymen, and
if the calamities which they have contributed to
bring on others are now reflected on themselves,
it will be a just retribution. Nor can we con-
clude, when we reflect on the wealth and power
of the manufacturing districts, on the small
number of the mighty host of merchants and ma,
nufacturers interested in trade who were mem-
bers of the Anti-Corn-law League, and on the
feeble support that excellent body received
from the leading men of the manufacturing
districts—that the manufacturers are them-
selves blameless for the injury and ruin
which threaten them. Had they displayed
half the energy in resisting the spoilation of
their property, and the property of their indus-
trious and skilful workmen, by the law-making
landlords, which they have of late displayed,
and justly and properly displayed, in defending
that property against the spoilation of the Turn-
outs, they would not have had to deplore a
stinted trade and an infuriated populace. We
make such remarks much more in sorrow than
in anger, much more in a spirit of deep regret
than reproach, but we :cannot in justice censure
the Minister and spare the people.
In this country public opinion is more powerful
than statesmen ; and when the public councils
are for a long period misdirected on any great
question, the electoral body is more to blame
than the Ministers. Above all, when honesty
and justice are openly trampled under foot by a
class legislature, and the public acquiesce in the
gross outrage, the public is the party chiefly in
fault, and on it will, must, and does fall the suffer-
ing, the vexation, the decay, and the retribution.

Mr. GREG, at the conclusion of his letter on
farming in the Lothians, which we noticed yes-
terday, ascribes the superiority of the Scotch far-
mers to their superior education.

"I am inclined to think," he says, "the superior
and more practical education of the Scotch has been
at the bottom of the improved state of things. Edu-
cation has given the knowledge which has enabled
them to apply their capital with success, and to ex-
tract from the landowner the long lease which enables
them to invest their capital with safety as well as
success."

Considering the improvement of agriculture
to be of vital importance to the well-being of the
community, opinions relative to whatimpedes or
promotes its success ought not to be lightly
hazarded, and it is only, therefore, after some
reflection, that we venture to differ from Mr.
GREG. If education were a source of the supe-
riority of the Scotch farmers, as the same sort
of education is accessible to all classes in
Scotland,it should produce as marked a superiority
in the other classes as in the farmers ; but
though the Scotch make excellent merchants,
doctors, manufacturers, &c., &c., they cannot
boast of such an undisputed superiority for these
classes as for the farmers. Moreover, it should
be remembered that the country gentlemen
and noblemen of England are farmers, and their
education is equal to that of the Scotch. Fur-
ther, we must remind Mr. GREG that the Scotch
have possessed their superior education for two
centuries, while their agricultural improvements
are of a much more modern date. Down to a
comparatively recent period they were behind
the English, from whom they borrowed much
of the art. Their superiority is of very modern
origin indeed. Besides, the art of agriculture
can only be effectually learned in the fields, and
no scholastic or book education can make men
farmers. We dissent, therefore, from Mr.
GREG'S opinion, that the superiority of the
Scotch farmers is due to their education, and
would request him, as it is of importance to the
subsistence of the community that no mistake
be committed on this point, to re-examine his
opinion with some care.

Admitting that the education
are
of the Scotch
may have some influence, we
to
think, that the banking system of
had more. Our impression, too, is, that the
tenant-at-will system—the immediate offspring
le
Scotlandinclined
in England of feudal servitude—never took such
complete hold of Scotland as of England. Pay-
ments in kind were continued to a later period in
the former than in the latter country ; and when
they were abolished, the advantages of leases
being pretty well known to all parties, they were
generally adopted. Add to these circumstances,
that till the year 1834, tithes were not commuted
in England, and that in the bulk of the parishes,
the crops could not be carried till the tithe-
owner had taken his allotted share ; and it seems
to us that more stringent causes for the back-
ward state of English agriculture will be found
in our laws and institutions, than in any defect
in the education of the agricultural classes.
Remembering the immense advances which
England has made in manufacturing skill, the
question is much larger than it has been stated
by Mr. GREG. The comparison of the back-
wardness of the agriculture of Lancashire and
Cheshire and the Lothians, is only a particular
instance of a more general truth. We require to
know why the farmers of England should be not
only behind their brethren in Scotland, but
achy they should be so much behind their
brethren in the towns of
England, that they can-
noto live, as is said, unless they be allowed to tax
suc-
cessfully .her People -
world, English fd
and while the manufacturers suc-
the
competition
with, and even surpass, all the
destitute of
tools.
lire destitute
should o f
rulers must be protected against
ooffrotandes, Aamnderiteln backwoods-
man,poiisser6atllimisoesntWhy, of all men in
the farmers be so deficient in
energy, that they seem not to belong to the same
conquering, domineerinc, race, as the rest of the
community, and
always
ready to sink, without
la
the help of an unjust w,under the few diffi-
culties of their position?
T
That is the large in-
quiry which Corn-laws and agriculturein other
countries
countries suggest, and which Mr. GREG, who has
seen only a small part of it, has not
satisfied.
As the inferiority of the English to the Scotch
farmers is traced to our laws and instituti• • -
ons, so

ef 0.11 • 4,
41\ qc
' •
4,1 -
• 4. .
7,„ ono, ",„•