The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1861-03-25
THE MORRILL, TARIFF IN EUROPE-ITS EFF
Feet UPON ENGLISH TRADE.

From tie London Times Of 5th.l
At moment when the destinies of the great
American Union are trembling in the balance and
the Republic is nenaced with the worst catastro-
phea of civil war, its Legislature is engaged upon
measure which seems calculated at once, to alien
ate foreign nations, to embtter domestic strife, and
to provide an inexhaustibe aliment for the antag-
onism unhappily subSisting between the two sec
tiOns of the Confederacy. The bill called Morrill,
Tariff Bill is an act for the establishment of pro.
tectlye duties on most eXtravagant scale. If it
were designed to condemn the very principles of
Free Trade and to introduce those of Protection
as forming the only true theory of international
commerce, it could not be more strongly framed
The duties imposed by the bill are not only immod-
erately high, but they are leviod upon imports of
the first necessity. The articles taxed are not mere
luxuries, commodities entering into the con
cumption of the Opulent alone. 1t is upon cotton
goods, wooen goods and hardware, that the i'm.
posts will fall, and enormous are the duties pro-
posed, that the result can be little short of abso-
lutte prohibition.
Cutlery is to be taxed upwards of 80 per cent in
the lowest instance, in the highest nearly $50 In
addition to this, the bill enacts so many complica-
ted arrangements, and throws such interminabe
distractions in the way of business, that commerce
will be next to impossible under conditions SO diff
cult We need not enter into the particulars of the
Act which is said to be scarcely ineligible even
to Americans themselves, but we can convey very
good idea of its character and purpose by observ-
ing, thatifit should be passed II oW almost prohibit
all imports into the United States from England
feet anticipated from the measure in New York
itself. of our own position under such circum-
stances we shall presently speak; but, as the con
sequences OF the measure would be felt most deeply
by the Americans themselves, we may give them
the precedence in remarks upon the subject.
1t has been asserted in some quarters with con
siderable emphasis that Europe has entirely misap-
pretended the controversy between the Northern
and Southern Sta:es OF the Union. We are as
sured that the slavery question does not constitute
the of the quarrel; that it has been merely
introduced as blind or as an instrument OF prov
ocaon, and that the real point of contention lies
in the national Tariff We do not believe in this
explanation. We are convinced that the contest
for territory is the real contest between North and
South, but at the same time it would be impossible
to deny that the South has always conceived its
interests in the matter Of tariffs to be opposed to
those Of the North, and that its desire to regulate
its Customs duties for itself has had strong in
| fuence in determining its recent movements. The
| Southern States are agricultural and exporting
| countries. Free trade is their natural system and
| vsibly so. The cotton planters perfectly under
| stand that the commerce between the manuactur-
| ing States of Europe and the exporting States of
| America cannot be too free. They have ALWAYS
consistently objected to the Tariffs and Navigation
| Laws of the North. They do not wish to protect
Pennsylvania ironmasters or favor the factories of
| Lowell. They comprehend the views of the North
| In these respects, but do not share them. They
have only one object which is to get the highest
price for the greatest quantity of cotton and they
wish accordingly for cheap freights and free trade.
n
| ern COnfederacy addressed his constituents in an
inaugural speech, and after touching upon thep per-
lis of the crisis, and the possible obligations of the
seceders, he proceeded to declare that the separa-
| tion Just consummated was, in reality, political
necessity, arising from the natural dscordance be-
| tween Northern and Southern interests. lie ar
! gued deliberately and dispassionately that there
| was not enough congruty of interest to keep North
| and South together, that an antagonism had been
unavoidably created between them by the very ma
ture of things and that dissolution of the Union
was not only a necessary, but an advantageous re-
| suit We shall not attempt any analysis of these
| arguments. 1t will be sufficient for our purpose
| to remark that they are, at any rate, founded to
| some extent on fact, and they will receive an enor-
nous accession Of force from the tariff bill now be-
fore Congress. That bill would be far more detri-
mental to the interests of America than to those of
| Europe. The blow would do little damage to this
country, but such proposal at such moment
would look like new sacrifice of the Southern
States to the exgencies of the Northern, and will
intensity the quarrel between them by iealousies
winch VIII survive after the political tempest
| has rolled away.
1t has now become perfectly known that protec-
! ton IN these matters is only another word for
| suicide, and that when a State establishes pro-
hibitory tariff it is itself the sufferer from its own
ordinances. If the backwoodsmen of America are
to be deprived of good axes, and settlers OF cheap
| clothing, the penalty will be paid by them' AZ
| the same time however, though we shall not lhihh
the worse of America for this measure, except as
regards her financial wisdom, we must needs re-
mark that as amity follows free trade, SO is
arrangement or indifference likely to follow COM
| mercial seclusion. 1t is rather an extraordinary
reflection that what we have just been endeavoring
to do at some cost as regards France, America
friendship follows in the wake of trade it must
needs be exposed to decay when trade is pro-
hibted. The Americans are at present not only
our nearest kinsfolk, but our best customers and
whenever there mas peen difference between us we
have always remembered with peculiar gratifca-
tion that commercial interest bound as indissolu-