The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-02-06

heads were concerned were quiet while holders not
pressing Sales bags of Pernambucos were made at
7xc There doing in coffee, with sales OF the
cargo Of the Zngarra, comprising 500 bags Rio, at
1885, and los do. do OF the cargo Of the Ann G. Grant,
ship &c., and 400 bags Maracaibo also sold
private terms, with a small lot Java in mats ct 16c
Freights were firm, with moderate engagements.
The New Fiscal Policy or France-Its
Bearings ON the World Of Trade.
When Sir Robert Peel suddenly changed
front on the floor of the British Parliament, and,
taking the free traders by the hand, announced
to astonished England that the true secret of
her commercial greatness consisted in seeking
to produce cheaply rather than to sell dearly,
howl went up from the protected classes that
long resounded through the world. Time, the
never failing logician, swept away one after
another their fallacies, and contradicted
perity. The production and trade of England,
gathering new life from the new principles an
nounced in 1912, increased with ratio of pro-
gress that has surpassed the most sanguine cal
culations
similar result may be expected in France,
and not only in France but in all Europe, at
the breaking down of the barrier which has so
long prevented the benefcent axioms of free
trade from prevailing in the fiscal systems of the
continental nations. Yet Louis Napoleon has
set himself to the task. Confidently prophesying
that an era of peace had begun, he announces
that the time has arrived to give great stimu-
LUIS to the national wealth. The means for this
vast undertaking he finds in the abandonment
of all the old fiscal theories of France, and
adopting the same general policy that was
adopted by Sir Robert Peel for the fiscal 60.
vernment of England. Prohibitions are to be
suppressed, raw materials are to be introduced
free, and cheap production is to be the guiding
principle of the political economy of France,
and from France it must extend to all the
countries of Europe. He will encounter SIRE
nuous opposition from the vested interests of
the French manufacturers, who do not know
that that protection which increases the cost of
their productions is their worst competitor in
every foreign MARKET and their greatest in
cubus in those at home. Louis Napoleon shows
in his letter that he is aware of this opposition
and prepared to meet it. The change will be
conducted with the moderation that should
mark all great changes in the national habits
of life-too slow to give violent shock to
great existing interests, too steady and certain
to encourage vacillation and doubt.
The English jourp6k are already congratu-
lating their readerAx pa the commercial bene-
fits that must accrue to England from this
change in the politico-economical system of
France. The labor of England, which may be
said to lie in mines and manufactures, looks to
be great seller to France, and to buy from
her vast quantities Of wines, brandies, silks,
and articles of taste and luxury. A commerce
which shows to-day sixty millions of imports
and twenty of exports, they unhesitatingly be-
lieve will soon advance to the exchange of two
hundred millions of dollars in value from each
nation, and then, says one of the journals, there
will be an alliance between England and
France which nothing can break. The effect
which such an increase Of commerce between
England and France would have upon the trade
of each of those countries with the rest of the
world can be readily conceived. They would
each demand more raw material, more of the
thousand Ingredients that enter into the arts
and trades of each, and thus produce reci-
procal glow of healthy trade everywhere.
But it is the direct effects of this new fiscal
policy Of France upon its trade with other ma
tons, rather than its collateral operations that
will form the chief object of contemplation
everywhere. Upon our own trade the results
will be most palpable. We export chiefly cot
| ton and tobacco to the French markets. On
tobacco there is an absolute prohibition to
private enterprise, and government duty
of approximately $50 per cent to the consumer.
Cotton pays duty of two cents pound
nearly, Fer long years we have tried to OBJ
tain some reduction of these preventives to in
creased consumption. Mr.. Mason was laboring
to get, by treaty, the duty taken off of cotton
when he died. 1t forms the chief point of the
instructions to our new Minister who sailed on
Saturday for Paris. The new programme of
Louis Napoleon sweeps away the duty, and per-
haps the prohibition. Raw textiles are to be
admitted free. The cotton manufacturer in
France will have two cents pound taken of
the raw material he consumes, coal supplied
free of duty, tolls cheapened, and fair field
opened for the exercise Of his abilities. What
an opening for the taste and ingenuity of the
French What an increased demand on his part
on our Southern planters for cotton! What en-
ployment for our ships in the carrying trade!
What increased commissions and profits to mer-
chants What healthful impulse to labor and
science everywhere, increasing in turn their
ability to consume the products of French
Ingenuity, and thus beneftting all!
We might carry the same comparisons into
the trade of every nation with France and with
each other, and show like results; but we have
said enough to show the vast commercial results
that must flow from this revolution in the po-