TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CONFERENCE AND FREE-TRADE.
Snot:rim peace be concluded at Paris by the instrumentality of the Conference whose members are now assembling there, the de- liberations will mark a decided change in the polity of Europe, not only with reference to questions of territorial encroachment, but even with reference to many political and economical prin- ciples in the government of states. An impulse will be given to beneficial measures, although they may not be directly discussed, and ought not to be. Mr. Gladstone is quite right in repudiating for the Conference the business of agitating and making pro- selytes for Free-trade ; and his reply on the subject to the Man- chester Chamber of Commerce is marked by his keen sense and his just appreciation of policy. Mr. Gladstone went to the Board of Trade when Peel entered office for these of carrying out Free-trade; he most efficiently aided Meader in reforming our tariff, and in the endeavour to negotiate a reciprocal reduction of duties with the principal states of the civilized world. But, as he says, the whole operation placed us in a false position ; for it made ourselves and our doc- trine equally an object of jealousy. England was thought to aim at entrapping other states into a field where she could beat them. The very orations of our Free-traders, in surmounting the prejudices of the Protectionists, instigated that fear. " Re- ciprocity " thus proved an unremunerative course ; and Eng- land struck out alone in the course of commercial freedom, trusting to the effect of her example for the sequel. The con- sequence has been, that our own wealth has increased to an enormous extent ; we have had the means of sustaining one of the most expensive wars in which we ever engaged without op- pressive encroachment upon our resources ; and what is more, we have rendered England the emporium for the converging trade of other countries. When there has been dearth in corn else- where, we have commanded the first of the market, and we have had abundance in our ports even when there was not abundance in the land nor abundance in the neighbouring states. We have seen the effect of this example in other countries, but we have evidence that it has not been lost upon those countries which are more perfectly represented at the Conference assembled to decide in the case of Free-trade. Turkey on the law of Europe. We fitould scarcely take a more dramatic personification of risinkner declining principles than that meeting. Who is the enemy whom we 't to make terms ? It is Russia, the most exclusive country in the world out of Mongolia—if Russia is an- thropolo.,iettily quite out of Mongolia. It is a country which has sought to' make a trade for itself in a way to Rrevent any other Ociuntry from having a trade in it, and has Tinnimired its com- merce to an outgoing traffic. It is that country which, relying for its greatness upon the principle of territorial encroachment abroad and military slavery at home, now comes to accept a peace as the alternative of degradation.
-To whom does she come ? We are not vaunting when we say that France could not have stood in this great European contest without England. For although it is true that France has suc- ceeded on most occasions in taking the van, England could better have been without her than she without England. We need not recapitulate the reasons. The obvious fact has been exemplified by the feeling that even if France were to abandon us, we might find it expedient to continue the contest single-handed. But what is England, whose power thus stands contrasted with the beaten enemy ? It is the country whose absolute freedom of trade makes our island the centre for the ship traffic of the whole world, and carries our own shipping to extend its school of navi- gation likewise around the whole world. The consequence is, that although we must acknowledge a parallel capacity in the great Republic across the Atlantic, we know well enough that there is no navy on this side the ocean that can withstand ours ; and we, relying upon our own resources, our wealth and our marine, have been enabled to shut up our enemy in his ports, to annihilate his seagoing trade, and to terrify him into sinking his military ships. Even Russians have an eye to business, and they will be able to compare the circumstances that give us this naval strength with the circumstance that Peter the Great, for all his Gravesend pilgrimage, left Russia possessed of ships, but not of commerce nor shipping-power. France, whose military genius has not inclined her to trade, has of late been tentatively commencing an imitation of our free trade in a relaxation of her exclusive tariff. Her material means have been enlarged more than correspondingly. The power that she has obtained by alliance with us has been shown by the man- ner in which our marine was able to serve as the complement to her own when she required transport to the Euxine : and she stands with us as prosecutress, almost arbitress, in the war question. One great power has sought admission and has obtained it, but under terms which are remarkably modified. Austria has been compelled to accept the dictates of necessity, and to take her place tip& an.equality with a state whom she has regarded as her 'life- nor, her natural enemy, perhaps her destined victim. It is rather remarkable that Austria is that power in Europe which has most copied Russia in sacrificing the benefits of trade to an exclusive system as the accompaniment of an arbitrary power ; for, let us say in passing, that freedom of trade, like most other freedoms, is, in practice - if not in theory, nearly incompatible with despotic rule. Stern lessons of finance have taught Austria that no country can isolate itself commer- cially, and that she must look for her loans, her railways, her colonization of Hungary, her material growth, to reciprocal ex- changes with other countries. She has only begun the lesson
she cons it imperfectly, but she has be it ; and her pceition is better than that of Russia in almost a direct proportion with her homage to the regime of commercial freedom.
Prussia, that attempted a commercial combination with other countries in order to create not freedom but monopoly, carrying out that spirit in politics, stands excluded and impotent. The one other country whichis admitted to the Confereneeis Sar- dinia—that state which in less than a decade has copied our country as a model in constitutional freedom, ecclesiastical free- dom, and now in commercial freedom ; for the next task which avowedly and by common public consent awaits the statesmen of Sardinia, is to carry out those principles of free trade which she has already recogmzed and applied.
We have here strung together nothing but facts most familiar to the ordinary reader • and although the moral is new, it is dis- tinctly suggested by the facts of the day. We have no prosely- tizing either for political or commercial freedom, as in 1848 ; yet unquestionably the spirit of irresponsible arbitrary government has been in conflict with the spirit of responsible government and peaceful cooperation amongst the nations. The barbarous spirit has been rebuked and is in the decline ; the opposite spirit is in the ascendant. A few years back, Austria would have proudly refused to sit on an equality in the same assembly with Sardinia. Sardinia has identified herself with the most civilized countries on the Continent ; she exercises an influence largely exceeding her territorial magnitude or her military power ; she belongs to the regime of the future, as her great antagontstlibIll belonged to the regime of the past. And unless the ColiferAdebe juggled away by the most extraordinary incapacity or treucliery on the side of the West, it must have a material influence on the commercial and social progress of the Continent, as well, as on the narrower political question of the independence of states.
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