The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-12 00:00:00

THE BRAZILIAN QUESTION.

We regret to notice a degree of malicious satisfaction in
in the tone with which certai❑ of our whig contemporaries
communicate to their readers the somewhat unfavourable
news which. have recently been received from the Brazils
The approaChing termination of the commercial treaty, ex-
isting between that country and Great Britain, is certainly

not au event which, interestsd as we are in the prosperity of
our manufacturing and commercial classes, to whom it affords
a large source of employment, can he to us an object of gra-
tifying contemplation. And it is still more unfortunate to

that the period, at which it will b necessary to dis-

cuss between the two nations the terms of its renewal, shot
be one in which the pressure of financial difficulties may ve

irobably render it imperative upon the Brazilian government

to insist upon a re-modification of its system of duties, upon
terms less favourable than otherwise they might have been

It is, however, jumping a little too fast to conclusions, to

represent the possibility even that the government of the
Brazils, in seeking to repair the disorganized state of their

finances, will adopt those largely discriminating duties
against the manufactures and the merchandise of Great Bri-
tain, which are spoken of with such evident satisfaction by
our contemporaries, the Liverpool Times and the Manchester
Guardian. We nothing doubt that some increase of the

duties upon imports of British goods, and of the goods of
other countries as well, will be resorted to, as a measure of
revenue, by the Brazilian government. There may be too,
in the minds of some of the Brazilian people, the feeling
(which is mentioned by the Times and Guardian) to legislate
in a retaliatory spirit against Great Britain, " in return for
the virtual exclusion of the principal productions (?) of Bra-
zil;" yet.we cannot but express our belief that such feeling
is far from being either largely felt or entertained in very in-
fluential quarters ; for we are quite certain that its indul-
gence, to the extent pointed at by both these authorities, is
a thing which it is quite impossible for any prudent and sen-
sible government to contemplate.
But be it even as it is assorted. Let the Brazils, as is an-
ticipated by these very eminent free trade luminaries, lay 50
or GO per cent. duty upon British imports—upon the neces-
sary clothing of their now large population. Let their finan-
ciers fly in the face of the recorded opinions of all the free
trade and politico-economical authorities, from M'Culloch
downwards to Lord Althorp—from the Manchester Guardian
to Mr. Richard Cobden—and attempt to increase their reve-
❑ue by the imposition of prohibitory duties upon the neces-
saries of life and comfort. Is it therefore, we ask, at all a
necessary consequence that Great Britain will be seriously
damaged? Not at all. By such an insane and suicidal step
the people of the Brazils themselves would be the ultimate
sufferers—not in their revenue alone, but throughout every
department of their commerce—whilst Great Britain, al-
though for a time she might experience inconvenience from
the temporary derangement of existing connexions and ex-
isting channels of trade, would ultimately profit by the in-
creased activity and energy which the prostration of the Bra-
zils would infuse into the industry of other states, more ad-
vantageously circumstanced perhaps for becoming largo and
valuable consumers of our manufactures.

There can be no question, we apprehend, that the con-
sumption of those countries, whose population the slave class
constitutes the principal portion, is infinitely less valuable
than the consumption of Free States ; and though we are
quite disposed to accord to the trade with the Brazils its just
value, we are not disposed, as we are urged by the admirers
of the defunct budget of the late Whig Chancellor of the
Exchequer, to seek its retention by the sacrifice of a trade
with our own colonies, which we know to be so far more
important to the interests of our manufacturers to encourage,
and any check to the growing prosperity of which, would be
so fatal to the best interests of humanity, and if caused by
our own grasping selfishness so disgraceful to us as a nation.
The noble experiment to rear the products of the Tropics, by
the instrumentality of free labour, is at this moment in suc-
cessful progress in those colonies. The liberty and happiness
of millions of the human race is staked upon its success ; and
shame—deep and lasting—be upon our name, if for a merely
temporary outcry, and to appease a purely selfish and short-
sighted mania, entertained, in sincerity, by a mere fraction
amongst the manufacturing classes, we consent to arrest the
progress of this experiment—to rivet afresh the fetters which
bind down our fellow men to servitude, and to spread desola-
tion and misery over some of the fairest portions of the globe,
which we believe firmly are destined, by a perseverance in the
the noble course which British philanthropy and British
energy are now pursuing towards them, to become the in-
exhaustible gardens of the human race—seats of industry and
happiness, instead of so many dark blots upon the face of
nature

We know well the object with which these threats of re-
taliatory tariffs are held out by the organs of Liberalism"
in this country ; and we concede to them no more weight
from the fact that they are echoed by cliques and factions in
other countries. That object is to mislead the manufacturing
classes from their true interests. It is afactious object; and
the purpose of those, by whom it is pursued, is strengthened
by a rankling and bitter feeling against the interests of certain
of our West Indian colonists. But that object will not be at-
tained ;—the good sense of the people of England forbid that
-it-should f There is sio fear that we shall -be called upon to
choose between the alternatives of abandoning the experiment
—no longer a doubtful one, or, with proper appliances, a
losing one—of raising the products of the Tropics by free
labour, or of resigning altogether our commerce with the
Brazils ; for we are confident that the treaty with that country
—despite the prognostications "of our contemporaries to th,
contrary—will be renewed in good time, upon fair and reason-
able terms. There are other branches of industry amongst
the Brazilian people besides the cultivation of the sugar cane ;
and we cannot for a moment imagine that for a very question-
able prospect of advancing the interests of a few sugar culti-
vators in that country, its government will commit so enor-
mous a folly as would be the adoption, in passionate spirit,
of a policy which, without any adequate advantages of a
financial nature to recommend it, would consign to certain
and vast injury, whole classes, whose interests are bound up
inseperably in the connexion with Great Britain.