The demand for commercial freedom, the " European question," as

it was sarcastically called in the House of Commons, grows every day more unmanageable in France. Lyons, Havre, Roche- fort, have sent "adhesions" to the representation from Bordeaux. It is clear that however the supporters of the Corn-laws may re- joice under the shadow of foreign governments, they trust at most in a majority which may become a minority to morrow. Their con- fidence altogether is an exercise of unreason ; for they have no ground for supposing the English people weak enough to be per- suaded, that even though foreign governments should persevere to the utmost of their power in excluding English manufactures, this would form any reason why the English people should not be al- lowed to exchange their manufactures for corn where they find themselves able. But overlooking this, their ground of hope is rapidly slipping from under them, and they will soon see the governments in which they trust, forced into active league against them.

The following is the Declaration of the Trade of Bordeaux on the proposed law for the Customs; from the Memorial Bordelais of the 3d instant. There is a tone in it, which to most readers will appear significant.

" We the undersigned, Merchants, Shipowners, and Traders of the City of Bordeaux, after having taken cognizance of the explanation of the objects of the Minister of Commerce and the bill for a Customhouse law laid before the Chamber of Deputies ;—

" Considering that this bill, instead of laying down any enlarged and solid basis on which commerce, industry, and agriculture, might extend themselves in concert, leaves these three descriptions of labour in a state of entire misrule ;— " That this absence of all system and all principle, instead of leaving the sub- stantial interests in a state of freedom, subjects them to the most absolute and arbitrary control, and sets up the blindest quackery that can be devised in po- litical economy ;— " That a project of legislation, thus without principle and without plan, has no claim on public respect, inasmuch as it starts from no known point, proceeds by no fixed road, and aims at no definite object ;— " Considering that, in total neglect of the equable division of public burdens engaged for by the Constitution, and by which the Government is bound to give the same enconragement and the same freedom to every kind of industrious oc- cupation, this bill is openly in favour of one party and against another, is the creator of distinctions and the upholder of monopolies, by condemning some

descriptions of industry to work without reaping the fruits of their labour, and in Eta to ruin which nothing can avoid, in order to prop up the prosperity and what it calls the 'conquests' of certain other kinds of industry ;— " That in this manner in its systematic partiality, it invites as the inhabitants of the South of France, to pay all the expenses of the war that is to conquer foreign coals, iron, cotton, sugar, while it goes on mining up our wines in our cellars, prohibiting our foreign commerce, cutting oft the resources of our portion of the country, and throwing away all the advantages our geographical position has bestowed upon us ;—

" Considering that this bill, in the face of the most every-day justice, instead of trying to raise the quantity of articles in the country to what may be wanted for consumption, proceeds to keep down the consumption to the quantity permitted to be obtained, so that the more any particular kind of produce is unnatural to us, the more it is contrary to our soil and to our physical advantages, the more is the country to be loaded with sacrifices in its behalf ;— " That by this contrivance it sacrifices the rule to what ought to be the oppo- site of the rule, the general interest to private, and the well-being of many mil- lions of the French people to that of a few thousand individuals;—

" Considering that this bill, in abnegation of all principles of reasoning, re- jects the evidence of facts, and refuses to recognize the results of experiment, inasmuch as it makes inferences directly opposed to one another from causes that are one and the same,—as for instance when it states that our growth of wool and manufacture of woollen cloth during the wars of the Empire derived great advantage from our freedom of communication with Spain, which enabled us to rival the wool of the Electorate and the cloth of the best manu- factories in Europe,—and at the same time persists in refusing to admit the same consequences from the admission of raw materials at a lower price or of superior quality, to other branches of industry similarly situated ;— " That itself confesses the extravagance of the burdens and privations it lays upon the whole community for the sake of what it calls its ' conquests,' when it lets out the fact of its leading object being to protect the production, so con- tracted in comparison of what the country wants, of our home-found iron and coal; which is saying in other words, that for the sake of these doubtful ad-

vantages, it means to destroy our navigatiou, agriculture, and the greater part of our manufactures, which if they were only free, would produce a hundred- fold the value of the others ;—

" That a political economy like this is the more heart-breaking, rs it holds out no prospect of any time when the sacrifices it demands are to have an end ; for u its doctrine is, that the advance of industry is only to be got by prohibitions, it can never take them off till the protected articles have been brought to such perfection as to be able to meet the produce of other countries in the market ; and to expect to arrive at such a point with some kinds of produce, is next thing to the impossible, because the rival countries that we keep out r if the market now, will go on improving their natural advantages, while we ( an exert no- thing but artificial means, and so must necessatily always be behind;—

" Considering that this bill, by the principles it advances, goes to suppress our commerce with other nations, because it refuses to receive what they have to offer that we want, and hinders them from providing themselves lure wilt what we have plenty of and can produce for them with advantage ;— " That in this manner it is getting up again the old commercial war, and re- fusing to join in the alliance and peace of the different people of the earth, in bringing them together and effecting mutual community in their means of civi- lization. comfort, and enjoyments of all kinds, to tic them up in tl e narrowness of ustional prejudices, or set them to cut each others' throats on the field of battle ;- " Considering that this bill, by one of the most unfortunate of all unreason- ableiiesees, imposes differential duties in such a manner as to make the whole sea- coast of the kingdom pay two or three times the real value of must of the pro- tected articles, inasmuch as it triples the duties on foreign artieleweoming to the sea line, compared with the inland frontier ;— " That this unfair proceeding throws all the leirden of our legislators' politi- cal economy on these parts of the country exclusively, because they were al- ready cut off from the inland markets and that of the capita; by the defective state of the communications with the interior, and now they are to be cut off from Mreign countricsalso, by putting an cud to the chance they had for effecting a trade abroad ;- " That these differential duties arc as mischievous as they are impolitic ; mis- chievous, because they bring us under the certainty of reprisals from other countries; and impolitic, because they are acts of direct hoetility towards the two nations with whom in interest and politics we have the most community of feelime England and the United States, whose goods it is plain can only reach us by water-carriage ;— " suisidering, finally, that the improvements attempted by this bill are im- perfect and defective, inasmuch as by its own admiseion the reductions it makes in any duties are insensible;—that it takes every care of the monopoly interests of the proprietors of iron-works, coal, wood, and the rest ;—that it contrives a Fplendid field for the operations of the smeggler, in the duties it lays on cotton- thread, chain- cables, cigars, linens, and other articles ;—that it closes the foreign markets to our wines, brandies, &c. ;—that it puts a stop to our maritime com- merce by its prohibitions, its differential duties and protecting duties, and even goes the length of keeping up the absurdity of duties on the export of cream of tartar, turpentine, hides, dyed silks, essences, and other articles ;— " All these acts of injustice and miscalculation taken into account, - " We, Merchants, Shipowners, and Traders of the city of Bordeaux, " Give it to he understood, by this Declaration, that we persist with stronger convil lion than ever, in the principles set forth in our former Address to the Legislative Chambers ;- " To be understood, moreover, that in the event of the Government, which is hardly imaginable, supporting this bill and pushing its passage through the Chambers, we reserve to ourselves the entry into a more thorough examination of its contents ;— " To be understood, in conclusion, that if this bill should pass into a law, we undertake to prosecute its repeal, in the Chamber that is on the point of being elected, with the energy and perseverance which are given by the consci- ousness of a right cause. " The Members of the Commercial Committee

P. F. G UR STIER junior, President.

D. G. NI F:STREZAT, 17ee-President. IIENRt GALOS, Secretary. HENRI FONFRF;DE. J. VIOLET.

NATII. JOHNSTON.

C. KLIPSCH.

J. EXSHAW. LOUIS LAFFITTE.

D. BROWN.

at the Exchange, for signature.

All this is very strong. The Tories on both sides of the water want to keep up the power of war. They see that two nations who have got into the habit of dealing with each other for the supply of mutual wants, can no more be made to go to war with each other, than two parishes will go to war with each other since the unhorsing of their feudal chieftains. Here is the pinch.