TREATIES OF COMMERCE: AUSTRIA.
"Do what we may, our commerce is susceptible of little extension as regards the nations of Europe." —Lord PALMERSTON.
IT is possible that in the course of the desultory reading in which Lord PALMERSTON appears to have indulged for the purpose of picking up maxims and phrases, which, whether true or false, might serve to lend a colour to the policy which circumstances and his own indolence had forced upon him for the time, he may have somewhere found a remark unfavourable to commercial treaties. It is also true that much mischief has been done by commercial treaties—as, for example, by the Methuen Treaty—based upon false principles of political economy. But it neither follows that nothing can be done for commerce by treaties nor that we have gained all that is to be gained by this means for British commerce in Europe.
The security of the merchant's property and person, in civilized countries, is the result of the numerous treaties which were re- quired to put down wreckers, and droits d'aubaine, and transit-tolls payable to feudal landowners. It has been by means of engage- ments at first contracted by two states and then adopted by many, and of explanatory and declaratory conventions added to them, that the mercantile law of Europe has been brought to the compara- tively rational and equitable footing on which we find it. Conven- tions between independent and sovereign nations are the only means by which an international code relative to the rights of com- merce or any thing else can be introduced and upheld. Treaties are the means by which the dangers which threaten the free intercourse of nations are to be combated in modern times, as were those which endangered them in former ages. If that free intercourse is not now obstructed by lawless violence and extortion, as it formerly was, it is endangered by false theories of national aggrandizement, which shut out the foreigner by what are called protective and restrictive duties. This nation's intercourse with the Continent of Europe is less than it might be but for the custom- house-regulations of many of the states which occupy it ; and those regulations are in many instances becoming continually more stringent. It is true that Britain has sinned against the true prin- ciples of commercial policy as much as any of her neighbours : nay, more, the unequalled development of British manufactures and
trade under a protective system supplies the most plausible argu- ment by which the advocates of restricted commerce on the Con- tinent defend their theory. As the champion of more enlightened views of commercial policy, Britain must set the example she recom- mends to other nations. But this is not enough. The throwing open the ports of this country will not repeal the tariffs of France and the Prussian Customs Union. It is the duty of Government, by negotiations with those countries, to urge upon them what is most for our common advantage, and by negotiations with other independent countries to make them feel the necessity of concession.
An opportunity of doing this offered at the time of the Belgian Revolution. Had Lord PALMERSTON then met the advances of the Ministers of Belgium, a treaty might have been concluded which would have established upon fair principles of reciprocity a free commercial intercourse between that country and this. The con- sequence of such a treaty would have been to give us a point d'appui on the Continent, from which neither France on the one hand nor Prussia on the other could have excluded us. The Berlin and Milan Decrees of NAPOLEON could not permanently injure our commerce, because the material interests of all Eu- rope except those of France were opposed to them. But the recent exclusive systems of France and Prussia have proceeded more cautiously, calling into existence material interests to sup- port prohibitions levelled against the importation of British goods. The existence of a free market for British merchandise in Belgium would have permanently narrowed the range of the French and Prussian customhouses. The opportunity was neglected, and Belgium has in respect to its customs-duties become a part of France : France and Belgium constitute as complete a Western " Zoll-verein " as the German states leagued with Prussia do an Eastern one ; and the Prussian League is constantly extending, and becoming at the same time more compact. A security that the Continent could not be hermetically sealed against our legitimate commerce, which could have been had for the taking, has been lost by Lord PALMERSTON'S negligence. Lord PALMERSTON having lost the opportunity of obtaining a guarantee against the extension of the French and Prussian re- strictive systems on the shores of the North Sea, it becomes the more incumbent upon his successor to look round him for some means of obviating, in whole or in part, the mischievous con- sequences of the omission. Even without such an inducement, measures ought to have been adopted for opening and giving se- curity to the navigation and commerce of the Danube. The treaty with Austria, of which Lord PALMERSTON boasts, is scarcely a beginning of what might be accomplished in that quarter. But the lesson taught us by the consequences of the delay in concluding a treaty with Belgium, is an additional reason for making haste to guard against the possibility of having that door to the Continent shut in our face also. Less restricted intercourse with the Austrian dominions might not be the only gain. The advantage which Wur- temberg and other states attached to the Prussian Customs Union derive from that connexion, is the wider home market and the less expensive customs-establishment. They might gain the same by a similar alliance with Austria; and a desire to participate in the benefits which Austria would derive from British commerce might lead them in time to a new Zoll-verein with her. It is only in this way that we can counteract the only objectionable feature of the Prussian League. And thp moment is favourable to the attempt. Austria and Prussia are rivals for ascendancy in Germany. Austria sees that the Customs Union is transforming the states included into one body acting with a common interest, and thus excluding her from the influence she has hitherto exercised over them. She feels that she has only this alternative—to regain the footing she has lost by the progress of the Prussian League, or to be content to be excluded from the Germanic body. In either event, the necessity of forming new or drawing closer old connexions, to strengthen herself in her new position, should induce a willingness to meet the English overtures towards establishing a more liberal commercial intercourse between the nations of Europe. If Austria is to continue a German power, she may by placing herself at the head of a Free-Trade Customs-Union maintain a successful rivalry with Prussia : if she is to cease to be a German power, the drawing closer of her friendly relations with England must be of conse- quence to her as a guarantee against the insidious attacks of France on her Italian frontier and Russia on the East.
Lord PALMERSTON was in error when he asserted that our Euro- pean commerce was not susceptible of much extension ; and be has shown, experimentally, that it is susceptible of diminution through Ministerial negligence. There are four predominating Cabinets in Continental Europe,—the Russian, Prussian, French, and Austrian. It is with these, and these alone, that we can now negotiate to any purpose ; and three of them are possessed by the fallacious theory of commercial protection. Lord PALMERSTON lost the opportunity of interposing a bulwark against the encroach- ments of Prussia and France : it is to be hoped that Lord ABER* DEER Will be on the alert to avoid losing Austria as his redecessor lost Belgium.
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