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

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 7, 1842.

equalise the effects of seasons, failed to distribute
them more equally over the two periods, is the
astounding and important question. It is,
however, easily answered. The law forbad
the equalisation. The law made it im-
possible for the merchant to export in
bounteous years, and impeded importation
in sterile years. The law did not cause
varying harvests, but it prevented commerce
from neutralizing their effects, and was therefore
the secondary cause of the heated and forced
enterprise of 1832-1836, and of that sad
blight which has come over our industry
since 1838. It forced upon us the glut of
corn 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 for other countries.
If it were not for the law thus plainly inter-
fering 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 Tory Con-
temporaries ascribe the present distress, would
be one of the 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 erratic 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
makes the natural rules inapplicable, but mer-
chants must continue to follow them; hence their
errors, and hence that want of adjustment between
supply and demand at home and abroad, which
it is 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 columns, on account of
the great interest which we take in steam navi-
gation, was principally confined to showing how
the West India Steam Packet Company may
probably be successful. STOKER'S proposal is to
send 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
almost 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 distributed
through the Union. Some of those letters 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
in 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
a voyage of seven or eight hundred miles. If,
indeed, there be between our own North Ame-
rican 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
performed for us by the Americans at a very tri-
fling expense.
We do not enter into details; we are not de-
cided in our preference for any port ; we only
suggest, should one series of mail steam packets
be employed by the Government in conveying
letters across the Atlantic, and that series is to
make Halifax the port of arrival, that the con-
veniences which already exist in the United
States for conveying letters, &C., to the most
southern point of their territory should be bor-
rowed 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-
taining 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
the expense of sending a steam-boat a voyage of
800 miles, from the southern part of the United
States 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 sent 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
impossible to see steamers running from England
to Halifax, and not desire that the means of
transport, which already exist in the United
States for forwarding letters to the South,
should be made available for the purposes of
English commerce, and saving the public money.
If it be said that there might be delays in the
United States, we reply that the Americans are
a business, punctual people, who will steadfastly
perform what they undertake to perform for
money. Already it is not unusual for persons,
coming to England from the West Indies, to
come by way of Charlestown and New York.
Twice lately, we think, since the West India
Mail-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
States by casual sailing vessels, and we must
conclude, therefore, that, were a regular mail
carried 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.
If interrupted by war, as it might be,

we should then have the same means as
as now to carry on the communication by our
own 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
as some Companies are interested in it, but it in-
volves far higher considerations than their pro-
fits, 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
our extended empire is the duty of Government.
So far as it can serve the purposes of the mer-
chant, without unduly taxing the rest of the com-
munity—for, highly as we prize commerce, we
would not tax the people to promote it—the Go-
vernment is bound to serve them. A line of
regular communication kept up steam-boats, via
Halifax, the United States, and all the Western
world, at as little cost as possible, would be of
advantage to commerce and to every part of the
empire. It would help, we believe, like every
extension of our relations with the kindred people
of the United States, to cement the brotherly
union that ought always to exist between that
country and England. On all these considera-

tions, as well as from a desire to keep up steam
navigation across the Atlantic, at present en-
dangered by its great cost, this subject ought to
be ttaken up by the Government. It devotes
the public money to convey the mails to Halifax
and the West Indies, and it is bound to perform
thatsorvice as effectually and cheaply as possible.

gress to Scone Palace. At a late meeting of the
Town Council, it was determined to present his Royal
Highness Prince Albert with the freedom of the city.
The presentation is expected to take place at the same
moment as the keys of the city are handed to her
Majesty. The civil authorities will then form part of
the procession, and accompany it as far as the bridge,
where it will be met by the Earl of Mansfield and suite.
Her Majesty is expected to arrive at the Royal
palace at Scone between two and three o'clock in the
afternoon, where the Royal party will remain till the
following day. At ten o'clock on Wednesday morn-
ing, the Queen will proceed to Taymouth Castle, the
seat of the Marquis of Breadalbane, where prepara-
tion 3 on the grandest scale have for some time past
being going on. The route which will be taken by
the cortege is through Dunkeld, Dalguise, Balna-
guard, to Aberfeldy. Her Majesty is expected to
reach Taymouth between one and two o'clock. The
whole of the noble Marquis's tenants are invited to
meet the Royal party, the ladies to be dressed in plain
white gowns, and the gentlemen in full Highland
costume. The 92d Regiment will form the guard of
honour during her Majesty's stay at Taymouth.
Between 300 and 400 Highlanders will give her Ma-
jesty and her illustrious consort a hearty Highland
welcome on their entrance to the town ; they will then
walk before the procession to the Castle to the
heart-thrilling aounds of their native pibroch, and
the whole of the nobility and gentry following
in the rear. Flag staffs crown every surrounding hill,
chieftain's cairn, and battlemented tower, from which
will be unfurled the Highland brataen, and Royal
salutes from batteries erected in all directions will
announce to the country around the Queen's happy
arrival. In the evening there will be a grand display
of fireworks, together with magnificent illuminations.
On the following morning (Thursday) her Majesty
will leave Taymouth Castle soon after 11 o'clock, to
proceed to Lord Willoughby's seat, Drummond Castle,
where it is expected she will remain until the follow-
ing Tuesday. Immediately on her arrival the guns
from the fort opposite the Castle will fire a Royal
salute. During the Royal visit, a series of the most
magnificent fetes will take place.
Upon her Majesty quitting Drummond Castle, she
will proceed to Stirling; but it is not known whether
the Royal party will inspect the. Castle : if not, they
will pass directly to Edinburgh.
The departure of her Majesty from Edinburgh is
positively fixed to take place on Thursday, the 16th
inst. The Royal George yacht, and the rest of the
Royal squadron, are ordered to be in readiness on
that day.