The Middlebury people's press. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1841-1843, 1843-05-10
A COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH
ENGLAND.

we know not how much credlt TO attach
to the current report that the administration
is meditating Commercial Treaty with
Great Britain, but il loses weight from the
appended rumor that Mr.. Webster will re.
main in the cabinet to negotiate it. Our
decided impression has been that Mr..
Webster will not much longer remain in the
Cabinet for any purpose least of all for
this. If he wishes to negotiate such Trea-
ty, he will be more likely to visit London
as Plenipotentary.
Our reader will not need to be informed
that we are immoveably averse 20 any such
Commercial Treaty with England as she
would be ut all likely to concede to us. We
see no necessity for it, nothing to be gain
ed by it, while very much must be put at
hazard. The purport of such Treaty
must of course be a reduction of ou duties
on British Manufactures her duties on our
Agricultural Staples. Under such an ar.
rangement, We should send more grain and
meat to England and take of her more
cloths, wares, &c. in return. Commerce
would for brief season be stimulated, but
our manufactures must be shaken and Grip
pied, if not Frustrated, and our Agriculture,
compelled to seek market across the ocean
the ocean for vast surplus product, would
be doomed to subsist on low prices forever.
Wheat and Pork might at times be higher
in New-York and New Orleans, but far
lower i n the interior than under the Home
Market policy.
We oppose Commercial Treaty with
England, believing it would be injurious to
the great Iaboring class OF both Countries
They could produce very little more food
and clothing than now, while they would
have to be taxed in wages and prices enor-
mously to defray the cost Of so much extra
transportation. In other words. the produ-
GERS of hundred thousand bushels of wheat
on the one hand and fifty thousand yards
Of Broadcloth on the other, must pay out of
their several earnings the cost of transpor
ting the wheat to England and bringing
back the cloth, over what they would pay
under an adequate and stable Protection,
which would soon plant them side by side
in our own country.
1t never yet was good policy for an Ag>
ricultural nation tnat could manufacture, to
send its grain four thousand miles and there
exchange il for cloth. The cost of trans.
portation eats up the product; and while the
cloth is obtained few cents cheaper, the
grain is sold ruinously lower. In exchan-
ging flour for cotton, or sugar or coffee, there
is real reciprocity in exchanging it with
distant country for fabrics there Is none.
The advantage is all on the side of the
producers ofthe fabric, whose transportation
costs next to nothing.
We object TO the 'entangling alliances
of commercial treaties with great manufac.
turing nations. A tariff, if mistaken, may
be modified; but treaty must be fulfilled
to the letter for the specified term of years
Meantime the advantages expected may
utterly vanish. through other treaties or
changes in the currents of trade, leaving the
evils greatly aggravated to be endured a.
lone.
We hope no such treaty is seriously in.
tended. Let our Tariff stand as it is few
years, and the country will have wrought
out for itself durable prosperity. We have
now around US the elements of better
state of things; industry and patience will
perfect it; rash experiments and hasty in.
novation will unsettle and probably ruin all.
Let us have the wisdom to let it alone.'-
N. Y. Tribune.