The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-09-16 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

" An Episcopalian,"

on Tuesday

(UP Eibrrpool otantiarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER IG, 1842

As members of a commercial community, to us the
most important news, brought by the last mail steamer
from the United States, is the enactment, after all, by
the American Government, of a new and highly restric-
tive tariff. Whilst Great Britain is relaxing her com-
mercial code, in favour of foreign nations, and sub-
mitting her domestic industry to foreign competition,
America is drawing the cordon of protection closer
round the industry of her people; and, except in arti-
cles, to the manufacture of which their skill is not as
Yet equal, and in products to which her climate is not
fitted, is withdrawing herself from competition with
foreign countries. In legislating for the creation of
revenue, too,, America and England proceed upon to-
tally opposite principles. America has a deficient
revenue—that revenue, be it remembered, derived en-
tirely from her customs—and to increase it to the level
of her expenditure, she raises her scale of duties. To
effect the same object, this country pursues a totally
°PPosite course. To produce increased revenue, we
lower import duties; and experience has proved to us
that any other course would fail in producing the de-
sired effect.

Can there, we are inclined to ask, with this contra-
dictory experience before us, be such a thing as a sys-
tem of political economy applicable to all nations alike,
—an infallible theory which ought to guide us in com-
mercial legislation ? Decidedly not. The code of
commercial laws which will enrich and promote the,
growth of one country is unfitted for another, differ-
ently-circumstanced. An old country abounding in
accumulated capital and in labour seeking to be em-
ployed, requires a treatment totally different to one in
which labour is scarce and high-priced and capital de•
ficient. Again, a country possessing a vast territory
requiring cultivation, and repaying the cost of that cul-
tivation, calls for a different treatment to one whose
soil is fully occupied, and no longer repays the outlay
required to bring it into production. Hence the oppo-
site legislature of America and Great Britain—the
arrival at the same results by opposite methods.
Hence, too, the utter impossibility, if nations be wis€,
of ever realizing the dream of our political philosophers
free interchange of commodities throughout the
world.

We shall be told that the government of the United
States, by the Tariff which it has just passed, is
retaliating upon Great Britain for her refusal to
concede a free trade in corn and provisions. We
have been threatened by those in this country, who
understood neither her policy nor her necessities, with
Tell a measure of reprisal. The government and
the mass of the population of the United States have
legislated in no such spirit. They would readily, we
doubt not, see such an alteration of our commercial
code as would enable them to pour into the British
markets their surplus agricultural produce; but they
cannot, and will not make such concessions in return
" would alone enable Great Britain to think of such a
step. They have a deficient revenue which can be made
up by no other measures, short of direct taxation,
except an increase of their import duties. They dread
to, above all other things that competition with the
Cheap labour of Europe into which our Liberal Free-
traders would gladly draw them. They demand pro-
tection for their infant manufactures—protection of
the industry of the people ;—and all the sophistry, all
the cunningly laid baits which we can offer will not
Induce them to come down from that position.

And who shall say that they are not justified in this
policy ? If the business of a government is to make
48 people happy and to keep them so, who shall say
that the government of the United States is not fully
warranted in refusing to plunge that people into the
beggary which must follow the enormously increased
llnports, contemplated by our free- traders, and the
displacement of native industry by which it must be
attended ? America can, no doubt, produce a vastly
increased amount of exportable commodities—chiefly,
however, provisions—to exchange for the large imports
of foreign productions which she is asked to take from
ourselves and other nations. But that beyond her own
territory,
or by any means other than the progressive
increase of her own population, she can find a profita-
ble Market for these commodities is what no one save
a madman can dream of. At this moment the result
of -

excessive importations is before her eyes—is felt
throughout her entire continent. Baukruptcy, almost
universal, has swept away the property of her mer-
ehaots,—has damaged her national credit, and para-
hzed her industry ; and tempt or taunt her as we may,
She will not again rush into the same headlong and
destructive course, from the effects of which she is
but just beginning to recover.

We must not however, in the above remarks, be set
down as recording our approval of the details of the
Tariff before us, or 'as expressing an opinion that it
will add to the stability of the American Republic.
We regard the duties imposed upon many of the
articles enumerated as extravagantly and absurdly
high; and we are convinced that America would act
More wisely, in directing her efforts to the develope-
Ment of the vast capabilities of her soil, than con-
tinuing to assert her pretensions to become a ma-
nufacturing nation. With a duty of 20 per cent.
it IS virtually admitted that she cannot compete
with the manufacturers of other nations ; and it
Inlist be borne in mind that her own manufactures
are now
advanced beyond the period of infancy.
She has had the advantage of the best machinery
and the best workmen of Great Britain ; and it
13 Plain that if, with the raw material within her
"'n hands, and all the advantages which other coun-
tries possess, she cannot maintain herself in the race
°f competition without protecting duties of 30, 40,
and even 50 per cent., it would be a wise policy to
resign at once the hopeless eflbrt,—before her manu-
facturing masses become like those of Great Britain,
'°o unwieldy to be interfered with,—and to direct her
industry into safer and more productive channels.
lIPon the very principle which we have noticed, as
being that which ought to influence the legislation of
countries differently circumstanced with respect to
their internal capabilities, the present Tariff of America
call never be a permanent one—can never increase her
strength as a nation—nay, must, if long persisted in,
involve her in convulsion, and lead to the violent
breaking up of her union. The Southern States are
Producing and exporting States. Their policy should
he that freedom of intercourse with other countries
which our 'liberal
" _______ o.llosorthei. O.IOQ
and which the Northern States dread as something
worse than a pestilence. And when the question of
‘'Slaveryß_ is again powerfully agitated against the
t7utithern
planters—and the treaty just signed be-
ween Great Britain and America may lead to such
a result—the separation of the Union into two, or
e'en three independent republics—perhaps king-
attles-will d
not be far off.

tiehe long-talked-of treaty between Great Britain and
in 'United States is at length concluded. The points
disl)ute, which so lately threatened to involve two
po
411, %%;erfld countries, allied together by the ties of blood
Nva' enlninon interests, in a devastating and ruinous
are settled, to the honour of our own country and
hat" Permanent advantage of America herself. We
ha'ie secured all that, as a reasonable people, we could
th:e ever hoped for from negotiation—more, certainly,
ha-tiwe could have gained as the issue of war; and we
di ye' therefore, a heavy debt of gratitude to pay to the
coBtiinguished nobleman—Lord Ashburton—by whose
ia °-
wh j Idment and firmness, added to the estimation
ich
er he is held by the American people and go-
tvinment, we have arrived at so satisfactory a termina-
se °l' an embroilment which lately bore an aspect of
4.°08 difficulty and danger.
of the give in another part of our paper the substance
judge,- "ifferent heads of the treaty; and, if we may
froman :: the tone in which it is remarked upon by
nio .inuential
Portion of the American press, our opi-
Anotie with
of its advantage to Great Britain is not a solitary
se' respect to the terms upon which the long-
our ted boundary question has been at length settled,
transatlantic contemporaries are loud in their corn-
wstated
to b
The concessions which we have made are
e merely nominal ones--concessions from
""a no substantial benefit is derivable by the Arne-