FREE TRADE,

AS VIEWED BY AN ENGLISHMAN IN A LETTER TO HIS SON.

MY DEAR SON,-Some time has elapsed since I sent you a few suggestions which I thought might be useful in your new home in the United States. I doubt not you have made good use of my advice, and hope, ere long, to hear from you, and to learn your first impressions among a people so like ourselves, and yet, in many respects, so unlike those who have descended from the same ancestors, and carry the same blood in their veins. A different climate and different institutions have the effect, in the lapse of years, greatly to modify national traits, and hence you will find society in America quite unlike that which you left in England. You will trace the effect of climate upon the health and constitutions of the Americans, and the effect of their democratic institutions upon their habits, manners, their social and public life, and their strongly marked national char

acter.

You inform me that the subject of Free Trade has, of late, been attracting some attention in the United States. This is a subject which is always interesting to us in England, and more especially when it relates to a nation on which we rely so much as a market for our manufactures. The United States stand first on our list in commercial importance, taking from us, annually, an enormous amount of goods. It is of the greatest importance that we should keep on good terms with the American people, since we find them disposed to grant us commercial privileges, such as we cannot obtain from European nations, except such weak ones as we are enabled to intimidate or control. Hence it is that our government is willing to submit to almost any indignity rather than hazard a rupture with our best customers. Americans have bought their peace with England, though, between ourselves, on terms which I should suppose somewhat humiliating to a sensitive and high-minded people. Our object is, as you know, to turn the world into a market for our manufactures. This we effect in India and China by our fleets and armies, and in Europe, as far as we can, by diplomacy. We could not think of forcing the United States, so we approached them in the name of free trade, hardly supposing they would believe that such a thing as free trade could exist between an old country like ours and a new one like their own.

Fortunately for us, however, the Americans swallowed the bait, hook and all, and we can safely say that we have them now fast enough, and that they will find it no easy matter to get away, owing to the peculiar political condition in which they have placed themselves. The Southern portion of the Republic is willing to sacrifice its own interests to its jealousy of the Northern States, so that we apprehend no change in the American tariffs, except such as will be still further for our advantage. It is of course for our interest to foment and aggravate this family quarrel, now waging so fiercely between the two great sections of the country, since the wider the breach the better we shall be able to enter with our goods, wares and merchandise. What I write on this subject you must consider strictly confidential, for we have no wish that our good Brother Jonathan should think that he has been duped. On the contrary, we would allay any such suspicion in his mind, and hope it will be long before he finds it out. It is quite probable, however, that ten years' experience of free trade will have the effect to bring him to his senses.

We should not be so much surprised at the willingness of the United States to fall in with our views in regard to free trade, if such a course was necessary in order to secure a market for their cotton in return for our manufactures. It happens, however, that we

can get cotton nowhere else, and they would sell the same amount, whether manufactured by us or by themselves. Wherever we can introduce free trade the lion's share of the advantages of course accrues to us, as must always be the case between manufacturing nations and those who supply only the raw material to be worked up. A producing people can hardly expect much profit on their productions, whether they consist of grain, provisions, or cotton. A comfortable living is the most they can hope for. Such is the history of all producing nations. These productions of the soil we are glad to receive, for we can hardly raise enough to feed our great army of workmen. The grain and cotton which we import we export in the compact form of merchandise, and it is this process which has made us so wealthy and so powerful. This secret the Americans seem to be losing sight of, and we have great cause to congratulate ourselves that such is the case, since the flood of immigration, setting constantly westward, must build up a vast and growing market for our manufactures.

Without the help thus afforded us by the United States we should find it difficult to sustain such enormously expensive wars as that of the Crimea, and those we are now waging in India and China. Everything works favorably for us, however, and if we can keep the American Congress on our side we shall have little to fear.