The chief thin g brought by the American steamer is a
speech delivered by Mr. WEBSTER at Baltimore. MT. WEBSTER is out Of office, and has arrived at one of those turns in life when men revise their opinions, mend them, and put them in new working condi- tion for the next season of activity. He has been cleaning and re- pairing his opinions on the commercial policy ; and he abandons high tariff notions. Instead of mere exclusion, and " protection " of native produce, he now commends a very close kind of recipro- city—a very precise interchange of concessions in commercial re- striction between nations, by treaty stipulation or " arrangement"— that is, concurrent legislation on a mutual understanding. He would limit the opening in the ports of either of the contracting parties strictly to the produce of the other conveyed in the vessels of that other, on a rigorous exaction of quid pro quo in the way of corresponding admissions. The change in Mr. WEBSTER'S opinion is important, not only because he is likely again to be some day a leading man in practical statesmanship, but because his avowal must influence the resolve of those who may be before him in office.
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