The Sun.
London, England, 1842-12-28 00:00:00

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THE FUNDS-(CI
BRITISH

USING PRICES
FUNDS.

Rank Stock
3 per Cent. Red.
3 per Cent. Cons
31 per Cent. Red 101 i
ew 31 per Cent —
Ntw 5 per Cen'
Long Annuities to expire
Jan. 1860 ...... 12i
Oct. 1859
Jan. 1860 —

India Stock
Ditto Bonds ....... 49 pm
Ditto Old Annuities
Ditto New Annuities —

Ex. Bills, 1,000/....2d 55 Dm
Ditto 5001 53 pm
Ditto Small 53 pm
Bank Stock for Acct.

India Stock for Opg...

70REIG

!Consols for Opg. ;,9.%
I FUNDS.
(Portuguese, 5. per cent.

Austrian, 5 per cent
Belgian, b per cent
Brazilian Bonds... 7l
Buenos Ayres 6 per cent. 25
Chilian, 6 per cent. 75
Colombian, 6 per cent —
, Ditto 1824 2l-1
Cuba Bonds, 6 per cent —
Danish, 3 per :ent
creek, 1825, 5 per cent —
Mexican, 5 per cent 32*
Ditto, 6 per cent. 1837
Peruvian, 1825, 6 per ct. 19i
SHARES.
Bristol and Exeter (70 paid) ...,..... 481
Great Western, (65. paid)
Ditto New Shares (50 paid)
London and Brighton„ (50 paid)
Ditto Loan Notes (10 paid) ... ...... 10 3
Manchester and Leeds (70 paid)
Midland Counties Railway ( lOU paid)
North Midland Railway (100)
Paris ard Rouen (20 paid)
South Eastern and Dover (50 paid)......... 22i
Ditto Scrip (20 naid )

cDitto,New

Prussian, 5 per cent. ... 40:
Russian, 5 pei cent .....

Ditto, ;Metallic...

Spanish, 5 per cent. 18/
Ditto, Deferred . 104
'French, 5 per cent 118 f. 75e.
!Exchange —f. —c
French, 3 per cent —f. —c.
Dutch, 2i per cent. 53
Ditto, 5 per cent. ... 101

SPIRIT Gl' the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM' THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—Lord John Manners knows what the peo-
ple want better than the people know themselves. Many
of them fancy they want work and bread; but this
young Lord has found out they want amusement :
they are dying, in fact, of ennui ; as Lord John
might, in Papa Rutland's halls of Belvoir ; and so
he beguiles his own ennui by prescribing for theirs,
and responds to the cry of " a fair day's wages
for a =fair day's work," by recommending—holidays.
This style of construction makes us strongly suspect
that,Lord John Manners, and the Morning Post on
this -subject, have isome connection with each other.
Two such commentators on the Statutes of Labourers
are hard to imagine co-existent. The whole !scope of
theme statutes was to keep down wages in husbandry ;
which the demand of the towns for labour was raising
to rates inconvenient to the landowners. The rate of
wages was so high compared with the price of provi-
sions (it would have been useless to legislate for prices
then—that is a " duty of Christian love" devised
since) —that labourers could afford to take holidays
and feed well on them. This was the effect of plenty
of the produce of land. compared with the consuming
population. When that plenty shall return—through
whatever process, or combination of processes—
through whatever aid of commerce ,''to agriculture,
when both are freed from the incubus of mono-
poly—when the old English plenty shall return,
the old English holidays may—not till then.
What power on earth can make men enjoy holi•
days, who are only too thankful for every day's
work they can possibly get ? Talk of holidays in
Paisley, or in Manchester—aye, or in Buckingham-
shire ! " Shall we observe the holidays of the
Church ?" asks Lord John Manners. Very willingly,
my Lord !—if you, or Papa Rutland, will furnish
roast beef and plum pudding, to observe them with.
In the mean time, Mother Church, and her disciple,
and the inane zeal for bread-taxed holidays, suggests
nothing to our minds at all apposite, but the old nur-
sery ditty—
" There was an old woman, who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children, she knew not what to do ;
She gave them some broth, without any bread ;
She whipped them all soundly, and sent them to bed."
So good night, Lord John. Manners, for a nice
young son of Mother Church ! Get the old lady to
spare whipping for our sins, till she helps us to
bread for our broth ; and impetrate from Papa Rut-
land, for the people of England, leave to buy better
bread for themselves than he thought good enough for
the workhouse.
STANDARD.—The difficulties that obstruct the
-collection of the poor-rates in Ireland present a some-
what new view of the anomalous state of the land
tenure in that island. The minute subdivision of land
in a country must render the collection of any im-
post difficult, because the impost will have to be
collected generally from paupers, or from persons
on the verge of pauperism ; but the difficulty is in
Ireland augmented by the extent to which land is
let upon the truck system. An immense proportion
of the Irish cottar tenantry hold land in this way,
and in consequence never see money--at least never
possess a piece of even the lowest denomination of
coin during their lives. The labour of a man and
his family is paid for by a scrap of ground, which
scantily
_main tains the wretched household with
potatoes, TEised from road dirt, or; on the coast, sea-
weed, collected by its infant members ; their cloth-
ing, if they have any, is obtained by the labour of
the females, who card and spin, and are paid in
kind. Now it is plain that they who never
possess money for purposes of their own can-
not be provided with coin to pay rates, or any other
impost. If we ascend a little higher in the scale, the
difficulty scarcely diminishes ; the larger proprietor,
who pays for his morsel of land in a money rent, is
generally as little master of any amount of current
coin ; he conveys his sack of grain, or drives his pig
to the market, sells it, and instantly transfers the pro-
duce to the collector,of his landlord's rents—the suste-
nance of his family being still:lepenc'eat upon the patch
of ground reserved for potatoes.. Practically, the great
numerical majority of Irish tenants are strangers to
the,possession of money, because, practically, labour of
any kind is not remunerated by money payments.
One of the witnesses before the Tithe Committee
of 1832, a clergyman of great talent and
of unbounded benevolence, the late Rev. Richard
Ryan, Vicar of Rathcone, denounced the absence
of money payments, as the principal among the
causes of the distress of the Irish poor. The
Rev. Gentleman, as we remember, produced the tithe
valuation book of his own parish, which exhibited
a great number of tithe debtors, whose debts varied
between sixpence and three half-pence each. As
these debts overran a great part of the parish, the
Vicar, a benevolent man, was, to their extent, de-
prived of his legal income. But it was not of this Mr.
Ryan complained; but of the condition of the poor
creatures the twentieth or thirtieth of whose whole
living—or their land was their whole living—
amounted to a sum between sixpence and three-half-
pence. Mr. Ityan proposed as his remedy a law pro-
hibitory of land trucig, and enforcing money payments
for labour. That such a law would prove beneficial
there can be no doubt; but ten years ago it was im •
possible to enforce it, and we fear that it is scarcely
yet possible. Something, however, must be done.

l'IlE COTTON TRADE OF SPAIN,
The Prussian State Gazette contains a
letter from
its Madrid Correspondent, upon the subject of the
Spanish cotton trade, and the proposed commercial
treaty between this country and Spain, from which
we extract the following remarks :
"The French papers mention that this Government
proposes to conclude a commercial treaty with Eng-
land, by virtue of which the import of English cotton
goods is to be permitted, whilst England on her part
is to guarantee a loan in favour of Spain to the amount
of 500,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 reals.
"That such a plan may be in contemplation I
doubt not, but that its execution will be attended
with very serious difficulties seems to me to be no
less clear.
" The result of such a treaty in the present state of
things would not merely have an effect upon the in-
dustry of this country, it would; in a political point of
view, be a matter of so much importance, that it may
be well worth the trouble to look well into all the cir-
cumstances bearing on the case.
" The import of foreign manufactured goods has
been hitherto strictly prohibited in Spain ; the ques-
tion for the decision of the Cortes is ,simply, under
what conditions their import shall now be permitted.
The last tariff purposely overlooked these articles,
and the Cortes have delegated to the Government the
office of bringing a project of law upon this subject
before the assembled Legislature.
" Amongst the members of the Commission named
by Government for this purpose, are the ex-Minister
Calatrava, the deputy for Cadiz, and Sagasti, the
deputy for Pampeluna, who are charged with the
duty of bringing forward this project.
"The views of these gentlemen are so well known
as to render it a matter of some doubt whether they
would offer any very extraordinary enlargement to
the freedom of import.
".It is well known that the cotton manufacture Of
San for the last twenty years has been a matter of
very minor importance. Lately, however, in spite of
desolatiug civil wars, it has recovered in an extraordi-
nary degrce, and at the present moment it is on the
increase.
" The seat of this branch of industry is confined to
Catalonia, to a small part of Valencia; and the Balearic
Islands._ From the statistical statements published by
the Spanish Government for the last two years, it
would appear that in the year 1839 there were in
Catalonia 18,204 looms, giving employment to 102,213
workmen, whose annual wages might amount to
190,000,000 reals (19 reals 5f.), and who :•pun and
manufactured 11,000,000 lbs. of cotton wool into or-
dinary and common goods, whilst in the Balearic Islands
there were 2,000 looms. The capital employed in this
trade was estimated at 25,000,000 piastres, and the
goods produced in each year were valued at 521,556,305
reads.
" In fact, 20,000,0001 b. of
.cotton are all that is
require I for the trade, which. has lately. been exten-
ded to tle production of mushns and finer sorts of
goods.

" It is perfectly notorious that the Catalonian ma-
nufactories cannot supply more than two-thirds of
the quantity required for consumption in Spain, ne-
vertheless they maintain that a protective duty of 80
to 85 per cent. is absolutely necessary to enable them
to exist, if the import of foreign cotton goods is to be
permitted.
"'They say that if the Government would favour
the native manufactures, these would increase to such
an extent that, in course of time, they would rival
the goods of other countries, both in price and in
quality. In the meantime, they consider that people
should pay a high price for their common home•made
goods, and that the foreign article, though infinitely
better and cheaper, should be excluded from their
market. And this is put forth in the face of proof
that the whole of Spain is deluged with English and
French cotton goods.
" France exported into Spain, according to her
official papers, various articles, to the amount of
104,679,141 f., of which 34,251,068 f. were cotton
goods.
" The value of English cotton goods brought into
Spain in 1839, according to the calculations of the
Spanish Consul at Bordeaux, was 416,500,000 reals
(at least 104,122,0000, of which three-quarters
came in from Gibraltar, the rest from Portugal ; so
that it would appear that the smuggling trade owed
its activity to the refusal of the Spanish Government
to enter into commercial relations upon the subject
with England.
" From goods so imported the Spanish Treasury
does not derive one farthing benefit. The whole of
the income which Spain, notwithstanding her enor-
mous duties, obtains from her customs, does not ex-
ceed annually 70,000,000 to 80,000,000 reals, whilst
her comparatively insignificant neighbour, Portugal,
receives 72,000,000 from the same source. Thus the
duties which Spain otherwise might receive go to
enrich the Portuguese Treasury.
" The Spanish consumer pays the Portuguese duty
as well as the expense and profit of the smuggler,
which in some cases may amount to 40 per cent., and
still the goods he sells are cheaper than those from
Catalonia. On the whole it is reckoned that the pro-
hibitive system of Spain costs her yearly more than
350,000,000 reals, which is, in fact, so much bounty
paid to the Catalonian, but lost to the country generally.
" It is, however, but natural that these should up-
hold the maintenance of the present system. On the
other hand, the inhabitants of that part of Spain who
would benefit the most by the free importation of fo-
reign goods, have used every means in their power
to break down the monopoly by which they conceive
themselves injured, Frequently since the death of
Ferdinand VII., popular commotions have broken
out in the south of Spain, and invariably on such
occasions the principal demand by the Junta was for
the free import of English cotton goods at a mode-
rate duty.
" In this consists mainly the difference between
the Catalonians and themselves, and hence arises
those constant bickerings between them and the An-
dalusian landed interest, which render the settlement
of this question so very desirable and necessary.
"Andalusia, as it is well known, exports the
greater portion of her wine to England; at the pre-
sent moment this is subject to so high an import duty
there, that little profit is to be obtained from it by
the Spanish wine-grower. The Andalusians enter-
tain the hope that England will, in the event of her
cotton goods being permitted to enter Spain, lower
her high duties upon wine.
" In the meanwhile, the Government says to the
Catalonian manufacturers, the smuggling occasioned
by your monopoly amounts yearly to 300,000,000
reals. If we allow the import of cotton goods at 25
per cent., we shall obtain 75,000,000 duty, and have,
besides, the prospect of a favourable market for our
wine, fruit, and other southern produce. Renounce,
therefore, your monopoly, and learn to supply your
goods at such a price as that, under the protection of
a moderate duty, you may have no need to fear the
freedom of import.
" On the other hand, the Catalonians answer, a pro-
tective duty of 20 to 25 per cent. will not diminish
smuggling, which affords a profit of 60 per cent.
Generally our industry supplies annually 30,000,000
to the Exchequer, and the South takes from us
about 60,000,000; from Andalusia we take 16,000,000
in oil, and large quantities of other goods ; and for
wool alone we pay Seville no less than 20,000,000.
It is true our goods, are dear, but they cost us dear.
The interest of capital with us is from 6 to 12 per
cent. ; in England it is only from 2to 2 per cent.
The price of coal is four times higher here than in
England. The necessary machinery is 70 per cent.
dearer here than in England, and 20 per cent. higher
than in France. But the hardest of all is, that we
cannot use such machines as we require, as the work-
men oppose us, and the Government affords us little
protection from their insolence, but rather supports
them in it. Since 1835 the large manufactory of
Benaplata in Barcelona, which worked with modern
machinery under the management of foreigners, has
been burnt by the workmen, and since that time the
manufacturers have been compelled to use exclusively
the old looms, so that at the present moment, out of a
number of 28,204 looms, there are now only 231
modern machines in use.
From these circumstances it will be seen that the
Catalonian manufacturer must always work at a dis-
advantage of 25 per cent. at the least as compared
with the Englishman. What, then, is the duty of
the Spanish Government under these circumstances ?
Ought they to choose a middle path, and by getting
up a fresh tariff allow the importation of foreign cot-
tons at a protective duty of 40 per cent. ? This would
be far from satisfying the Catalonian manufacturer,
neither would it annihilate smuggling. As little
would it answer the demands of England, or appease
the wishes of the Andalusians.
" England requires more than a tariff; with the
latter only the Spanish Government might increase
or lower the duties at pleasure. The French manu-
facturer, also, would require to be put upon an equal
footing. England, therefore, requires a treaty
by virtue of which Spain shall bind herself
to admit English (not French) goods for a
determinate series of years, at a moderate
duty. The Andalusian requires that in such
treaty, so far as it extends to him, England should
bind herself to make some corresponding concessions
in her own tariff in favour of Spanish industry.
Hitherto every Spanish Ministry, from Mendizabal
downwards, have declined to bind themselves irre

vocably to any alteration in their tariff, so as to afford
favour to one nation more than to another, or to leave
themselves without the power of making future re-
clamations. It seems, however, to be Espartero's
fortune to prepare the way for such relations, and to
bend all difficulties by the mere force of his own
powerful will.

" The difficulties to the carrying into effect such a
a treaty would seem to arise from three different

sources. The first of which consists in the opposition
of the Catalonians. These gentry, however, may be,
and most likely will be, left to the care of Zurbano,
who will under any circumstances, so soon as the
treaty comes into force, know how to make right
bend to might. In the second place, the Cortes
may refuse their consent to the measure. So
far as appearances at present go, there is nothing
to favour the supposition that this will be with-
held, and the Ministerial papers uphold this view of
the matter. The Government, moreover, claims the
right of closing such a treaty without the interference
of the Cortes, so that itis, believed that there must,
sooner or later, consent. The third difficulty is in
the opposition of France, and this would appear to be
the point wherein the greatest impediment is likely
to be found, as the French are in a great measure in-
terested in preventing the conclusion of such a treat,
and, as their papers already show, are not very nice in
the means they take to effect their object.
" Their objections are easily accounted for in the
fact that a general freedom to import cotton goods
into Spain would completely swamp French interests,
as the English could, on an average, afford to sell
their goods 25 per cent. cheaper than the French
merchant, and this would completely annihilate French
smuggling.

" Independently of this., a treaty such as that before
mentioned would place Spain in the closest state
of political dependence upon England, as it follows,
of course, that if the English Government under-
take, in consideration of such a treaty, to guarantee
the contractors of the loan, England would then
have, to a certain extent, both a right and inte-
rest to object to the participation of any third party in
the benefits to be derived from a treaty which she
has exclusively paid for, and she would also be in some

measure bound to prevent any embarrassment or op-
pressive measures to the prejudice of Spain on the
part of third Powers."

ROCHDALE FLANNEL MARKET, DEC. 26.
Though there was but a thin attendance of buyers in
the market, there has been a fair demand for flan-
nels, considering the time of the year. For some
months back, pieces have met with a ready sale; but
the manufacturers have not been able to obtain an
advance in price. In general, even when trade is
good, there is but little business transacted between
ChriAmas-day and the new market, which is always
held the first Monday after the 6th of January. The
wool market still remains heavy; the dealers expect-
ing a rise from an increased demand for goods, and
the manufacturers being unable to give an advance
until they are enabled to sell their pieces proportion-
ably higher.

CORN-LAWS.—We understand that Mr. Acland,
whose lectures produced so strong an impression in
Scotland at this time last year, is again about to visit
thisquarter of the kingdom on a mission from the
Anti-Corn-law League. Mr. Acland will, we believe,
commence by delivering lectures in this city, and is
afterwards to visit several towns throughout Scotland,
which he was formerly unable to overtake.— Glasgow
Argus?,