The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-18 00:00:00

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THE NEW GERMAN TARIFF.

(From the Leeds Mercury.)
The mercantile letterS from Hamburgh, Frank-
fort, Leipsic, and other towns in Germany, have
ere now fullyconvinced our friends at Bradford,
Halifax, Keighley, and. the whole worsted dis-
trict, that the resolutions of the Congress of the
German Commercial League, at Stuttgardt,
were correctly announced by us in the Mercury
of theist instant, and with fuller particulars in
that of the Bth instant.
And now we venture to offer a caution to ex-
' porters in this country, not to send large quanti-
ties of goods, of those kinds: on which the duty
is to be raised, in hopes of .getting them within
the German Custom-houses betbre the new duty
comes into operatien. The Ist of January next
is spoken of as the date at which the new tariff
of the League will come into operation. But,
though that may be the nominal date, yet we
fear that a muck earlier period may be fixed,
after which goods arriving will. be made subject
to•special control, and the extra duty may pos-
sibly be levied on them afterwards. This is de-
clared to be probable,in.:a mercantile letter from
a highly respectable house in Germany, which
we shall quote below; and our English. houses
might be great losers if they were not aware that
there is such a probability. Of course, in offer-
ing this caution, we merely wish our merchants
to make due inquiry before they commit them-
selves.

The advices received by the principal mer-
cantile firms in Yorkshire and Lancashire,
trading in worsted stuffs to Germany, concur,
we believe, in representing that all jiiptred (-roods,
of worsted, or of worsted.and cotton mixed, will
be subject to the augmented dhty, that is to 50
dollars per cwt. This is undoubtedly theinten-
tion ; and we are persuaded that this will be the
effect. But it will be seen from the subjoined.
letter that in the resolutions of the Congress a
word is used to express " figured" which is open
•to dispute. 4e word is " broeMrt" in its Ger-
man form, and " broche" in the French language,
from which it has been recently adopted; the
primary meaning of the word is " worked with
the needle ;" but it is believed to have been used
by the Congress to express the effiTt produced,
that-is,figureS or patterns on the cloth, whether
that effect be produced with the needle, or (by
modern improvements in weaving) in the loom.
On this point, as well as on the general subject,
the following letter, received a few days since
from a respectable mercantile house in one of
the first towns of Germany, will be read with
interest:—

(From a Mercantile House in Germany.)
" Our letters from Stuttgardt announce the follow-
ing changes in the tariff of the Zollverein :
" ' Duty on Cotton Twist, To remain unchanged
Worsted Yarns. as they are no*, with
Linen Yarns, t the exception only of a
All sorts of Cotton Goods, B.trifling addition to the
Mixed with Silk, - duty on prepared Cot-
and Silk Goods; ton warps.
_ __

" 6 Duty on Worsted, and Cotton and Worsted
PLAIN. goods to remain unchanged ; but, unmilled
Woollen (i. e. Worsted only) and Worsted Goods
mixed with 'Cotton, IF PRINTED, EMBROIDERED, Or
brOChe,' to pay 50 dollars a cwt. (equal to cotton
goods, and next to prohibition), instead of the present
duty of 30 dollars.
" The labours of the Conference are finished, the
thing is settled, and only a few formalities to be gone
through previous to the publication.
• " But what is or what will be understood by the
French-German term' brochirt' or 6 brocke r—There
is the rub 1 No doubt the intention is as vicious as
possible, and comprises all figured and damasked goods
of any description, and manufactured in any
way, and the blow is aimed at your worsted,
mohair, orleans, alpaca, parisians, figures, and conse-
quently at two-thirds, and perhaps more, of the busi-
ness doing now in your goods in this market for Ger-
man consumption. But, no, it is decidedly more than
two-thirds, because merinos and Thibets are entirely
done up, and plain orleans and lastings do not reach
to one-third of the worsted stuffs on which duty is
paid now;-the various descriptions of figures having
all the -sway. 'Brochirt,' or brocke (the for-
mer being the German, and the latter the French
term) is a most stupid and unfortunate term. In
a general sense all figured goods (where a design
is produced by weaving) may be called brochirt,'
but there is no authority for that either, and
the original and strictly technical meaning of the
French term broche' is only one certain description
of complicated. figure-weaving—viz., when, besides
the plain warp and weft, exra threads of warp or
weft are woven in to produce an effect that cannot be
produced by one single row of warp or weft threads.
All your various descriptions of figures are NOT',bro-
chirt.' Now all depends upon the question, whether
the wiseacres in Stuttgardt have made up their minds
as to the application of the word 'brochirt,' or whe-
ther it will remain undefined and open to all kinds of
fraud, making the importers dependent on the defini-
tion that our Custom-house officers will please to
adopt; till an end is put to all uncertainty by a new
and better framing of the clause.
" remains to be questioned whether, along with
the publication of the resolutions'of the Zollrerein
Congress, measures will not be taken to prevent any
extensive importation of such figured goods under
the old duty, perhaps making them liable to a special
control from that day, and the extra duty to be levied
on them . afterwards."
It will be seen that the writer of the letter es-
timates the kinds of goods that will be affected
by the new duties at two-thirds of all the worsted
goods that are exported from England to Ger-
many.