New-York tribune., 1869-03-04
TIE YEW TARIFF IN Russia.

THE NEW TARIFF IN Russia,
The rapid strides which Russia has made
in manufacturing and all other industries,
and in national wealth and power, under the
Protective policy, are shown not only by the
obstinacv of her unaided resistance to the
combined power of Great Britain, France ana
Italy. costing them years of effort and nun
dreds Of millions of dollars to capture single
outlying and unimportant seaport in the
Crimean war; and by the superiority OF her
wares in the great Worlds Expositions in Lon
don and Paris, but more effectively by the ex-
| tension of her power and commerce III Eastern
| Central. and Southern Asia, where, despite the
difficulty of land transportation, Russian goods
are obtaining control of the markets. III con-
sequence of this fact herculean efforts have
been made, not only by the British Minister IN
Russia, but by emiSsaries from the BRITISH
manufacturers sent into Russia by the Drltlsh
Chambers of Commerce, to obtain from Russia
an abandonment of the Protective policy. "A
Mr. S. S. Lloyd, Chairman of the Associated
Chambers of Commerce of Great Britain, ac-
companied by Mr.. j. ID. Goodman of Birming-
ham and H. Mitchell of the British Embassy,
felt SO warm an interest in the welfare of Rus
sian consumers of protected goods as to pro-
ceed to Moscow, and, as The London Times
saws, there TO "throw down the gauntlet OF
free trade and tell them 1.-THE Moscow Pro-
"tectionistsl that their manufactures had
"attained such n remarkable degree Of pcrtec-
"tion that the time had apparently arrived for
al reduction Of the burden which seventy
millions of consumers had so long borne, and
"for an Improvement of the foreign trade aud
"revenue of Russia These valiant Brit
ish emissaries of free trade undertook
to persuade the Russians, first that
their manufactures were so advanced that
the British could not undenell them,
and that they could therefore defy competi-
ton and secondly, that their consumers were
paying so much more for their goods than
Brtons would supply them for, as to amount
TO the greatest oppression. This argument IN
volved the double propositions that British
manufacturers could and could not undersell
the Russians in Russia, and that Protection had
built up Russian industry so successfully that 1t
was time for the Russian people to kick from
under them the ladder on which they had risen.
Notwithstanding the desire of these ennis
saries to make a favorable report, through
The Times, of their success in Russia, it is
evident that the results of their labors thus
far are quite unsubstantial. They report
reduction of about one-third in the rates of
tariff on the coarser manufactures and raw
materials, and in 50 of the 253 classes Of i'm
ports named in the tariff there is a reduction
of fOur-tenths Of the previous tariff
But this reduction. it should be borne in
mind is only in comparison with the rates of
the vindictiye sea tariff of 1857, when Russia
established heavy determinations against
French and British trade with Russia, by
charging almost or quite double duties on inn
portatiOns by sea, as compared with impOrta-
tions by land. This cut off the FreBch and the
English, whose offenses in the Crimean war
could not be forgiven, and it favored Prussia
and Austria relatively. Under these severe
conditions, British exports to Russia absolutely
declined, becoming so early rs 1864 less than a
quarter of the imports into England from Rus
sia. And the transit trade in foreign products
by English vessels was but little more-that in
cotton, indigo and other free articles, making
up the most of it.
To show how severe this retaliation Of Rus
sia was on the tenderest heart of England, we
cite the following total values of trade between
the two countries from 1856 to 1854: