The Sun.
London, England, 1827-10-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF I'HR PUBLIC JOURN'ALS.

There has been put into our hands the Pros- •
pectus of what we must call a wonderful Canal,
by which • first-rpte-men-of-war are to be led,
" nothing loth," by resolute little steam-boats,
from the King'-s_yard at Deptford, and Cherry-
garden-stairs, opposite the London-dock, in a
right fine to Portsmouth ! There will, .when
this canal shall be completed, be 'no danger of
being detained two months in the Downs. "The
" cause of humanity (as •is justly rtiMarked in
the, Prosrectus) will be essentially promoted,"
by enabling us to get at tiro French and knock
their brains out in a tea engagement, when their
ships' crews and'ours might have otherwise been
carousing happily in their respective ports. We
do•not, however, know that we arc opposed to
this.plan, or that it is impracticable; what we'
fear is this—that England will be so cut op and
interseqed by canals, that at last she will have
no terra firma remaining: she will become a
nominal island, as the awn by which she counts
her wealth (the pound sterling) is a nominal sum
of money having no real existence : thus, in the
same manner as her gold is converted into paper,
her land will be transformed to water.. This will
he an udd state of existence for. u 3
whenever we arrive at it.-1---Tinzes.

During the Duke of Wellington's visit to the
North, a curious circumstance occurred, which
evinces the distinction which was drawn between
the high respect justly shown io his Grace on
account of his professional merits, and the ap-
probatioa, which it was endeavoured to elicit in
favour of those opinions of which his Grace, in
eommoa with many others of less note, may he
thought the representative. At one of the din-
ners, at which the Bishop of Durham was pre-
sent, that Prelate was requested to give the
health of Lord Bathurst, then present ; to which
his Locdship immediately and decidedly ob-
jected, alleging that such a toast would impart to
the meeting a political character, and that the
honours paid to the Duke were paid to him only
as a ,e-re 4. warrior.—/bid.

A gentleman intimately acquainted with the
state of trade and manufactures in .this country,
who has recently visited Germany, France, Swit-
zerland, and Italy,. as far as Naples, his commu-
nicated to us several observations which he bad
occasion to make in the course of his tour. In
no couiltry did he .find the lower orders so
miserable and degraded as in England.. A cir-
cumstance stated by him will serve to illustrate
this i—The price of weaving silk, for instance, is
nearly the same per yard in England and in the
various countries through which he passed. At
Sienna,-in TuSeany, the price of provisions is so
low that it, is selected as a residence by several
English clergymen and other gentlemen from
this country, on account of its cheapness. As
near as tte could calculate, provisions might. be
there two-fifths of the price in England. But
then the severity of our climate renders many
objects indispensable to our existence with which
the Italian can dispense. But the silk-weaver of
Sienna has exactly the same sum for weaving his
yard which the weaver of Manchester or Glasgow
has. It is true, While the latter weaves fiVe yards
oh an average, the Italian only weaves two ; but
this is because he does net .love to undergo the
extraordinary exertion, the long confinement, and
the depiving himself of -a variety of enjoyments.
Though the average labour of an Italian weaver
may in general be oily two-fifths of that of • an
English weaver, he found, in an establishment
set on foot by the Government at Naples, a
-female who wove seven yards of silk a day,
which is considerably above the average of the
day's work of an 'Englishman. A circumstance
which he related respecting Tarras, in the South
of Frances the seat of the tine muslin manufac-
tory, will serve to illustrate the mischiefs of
restriction. For- this manufacture the English
fine yarns are indispensible ; and the Govern-
ment, aware of this, allows
.the Manufacturer to
leep any quantit,'y Of fine English yarn. But not-
withstanding this permission, every difficulty was
thrown it; the way of conveying to the town
that I;'.l.rn which was so indispensible, and which
Government allows theinanufacturer to keep,
o ;; that • the price of the article was thereby
greatly enhanced. In one branch of our maim-
• factures there is an incontestible superiority, that
of hardwares. Wherever goods were exposed at
the fairs or markets throughout Germany, for
instance, he ford. the finer carpenters' tools, and
sigiilar articles, uniformly English. Where me-
chanism and division of
_labour were of impor-
tance, the English had always the advantage ;
but from the low state of 'taste and ingenuity of
the mass,of the population in this country, we
were unable to do many things which were com-
mon en the Continent. Wherever mathemati-
cal precision was concerned, and the Englishman
could be employed like a piece of mechanism,
• we had a superiority. It was his opinion, that
. . our Silk IVlanufacture had derived great benefit
from the opening of the trade. Our manufactu-
rers were enabled to avail themselves thereby of
the
_superior taste of our neighbours, and the
' moment anything likely to take appeared abroad,
it was imitated here in abundance for our own
• market, The complaint, for instance, which
•
he hard from an extensive manufacturer of the
iilflictilty of dealing with Englishmen, on ac-
count of their bad faith, will serve to illustrate
what we have 'been stating. It is customary
with manufacturers to exhibit their patterns to
. the dealers, in order to obtain orders for the
favourable season,..and the manufacturer in
- question had been in London in time with his
patterns, and received a variety of orders •
,
but unfortunately, allowed the patterns to be a
short time out of his sight, when they were
copied, and the consequence was, that he was
forestalled in the market. The apprehension
among the silk manufacturers on the Continent
every where was; that- our silk manufacturers
.
.would ruin them. - Smuggling constantly
at-
taming - to greater and greater perfection every
'where ; and the conviction is now becoming
general on the Continent, that the only way to
. prevent it is to lower duties and remove restric-
tions. Nay, this view of things begins even to
be taken at Vienna, the last asylum for invete-
rate prejudices. The Boaid at Vienna, to which
the consideration 'of commercial subjects be-
longs, proposed lately the lowering the duty on
exports. The Ministry sent back the project
for re-consideration, and a further discussion
was to take place. At Naples the Revenue 'is
farmed out, and the army is placed at the disp9-
skim of the contractor with the G.overnment to
enforce thecollection; but though heavy addi-
tional duties were imposed on a variety of com-
modities, particularly colonial, they experienced
• no rise, from which our informant inferred that
the supply 'was -obtained through .smudli4 Ae
had every reason to believe, that all the efforts