Richmond daily Whig. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1842-1861, 1846-05-06
edmond DAILY WING.
BRITISH POLICY.

The sudden conversion Of Sir Robert Peel 10
the Free Trade policy, FALSELY SO called) is not
unfrequently referred to with an air of triumph,
an evidence Of the rapid diffusion and progress
of the doctrines of a school Of Political Eco
nomists, which, numbering among its teachers
of the most brilliant intellects Of the
world, has never,heless been unable heretofore
TO procure the adoption Of its plausible theories
by any one Of the great commercial nations of
Europe. II seems somewhat remarkable, too,
at the first blush of the subject. that the practi
cal rejection of these theories should have been
so universal, since the writings OF its apostles have
been so long the recognized textbooks in the
higher semnares OF leaI ming, and their opinions
must have been consequently extensively impress
ed upon the minds, when they were most due
tile, of those classes Of society, which, in Europe
particularly, not only exert such powerful inilu.
ence upon public opinion, but give shape and d.
rection to the policy of Cabinets and Paraments
How 'Ie we to account for the fact that the great
statesmen Of England have never carried into the
public councils the lessons taught them in the
schools-but, on the contrary, that they have uni.
formly discarded them as impractcable or mex
pedsntl There is but one rational answer 10
this inquiry. Their sagacity soon taught them.
that, however beautiful in theory, and however
seemingly advantageous might be an unrestricted
commerce between the nations of the world, il
conflicts with the primary and paramount duty of
each government to foster and protect the indus
try of its own people, and also with the obvious
fact that the most Judcous mode of affording this
protection, is by the fundamentally Of tariff of
duties upon imports. Hence, while the statesmen
OF Great Britain and France have read and on.
logizsd Adam Smith and Say they have without
ceremony discarded the principles of trade tauob,
and enforced by those eminent writer's, as vision.
AIRY and injurious. Nor do we conceive that the
changes now proposed to be made in the British
commercial system by Sir Robert Peel. is a con.
cession so much to the principles of free trade as
to great social necessity, which scarcely leaves
him the liberty Of choice. Protection to the az
ricultural class in England, does not mean. as in
this country, moderate discriminating duty.
which, while it fosters native industry, keeps open
the door to foreign competition. No; it means
prohibition, as general rule, which is relaxed
only when an unusual scarcity of bread.stuGs.
reducing the poorer classes TO the point of star.
walton, compels them to open their ports to the TO-
reign producer, until the demand is supplied and
public suffering relieved. The failure of the crops
IN Great Britain last year, not only of grain, but
OF potatoes, upon which so large portion of the
people OF Ireland are almost exclusively fed one.
rating as powerful auxiliary to the growing hos.
nifty to system which augmented, beyond the
ability of the people to pay the price of bread the
staff Of life, the Premier saw that the crisis had
arrived when this monopoly could no longer be
maintained without the hazard of popular com.
motion and to this State necessity, rather than to
any change of his convictions in relation to the
policy OF protection, he himself refers as the usti
hcaion and defence of his position on this
important question. But has he determined to
abolish the protective system? Very far from il.
as the subolned article, in which the British Pre-
mlcr's policy is briefly analysed, and which might
take much broader scope, concusvely shows.
But the instances selected by the writer are suffi
cient TO show the fact that protection to British
labor is to be hereafter, as il has ever been, the
cornerstone Of the policy of the British Govern
ment, and that in all the relaxatons proposed in
her commercial code, she has no idea of losing
sight OF this great and paramount object:
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