Southport Telegraph

THE ANTI-WAR TENDENCY OF COMMERCE.

We feel prepared to assume and maintain the position that the more extensive and important the commercial relations between different countries are, the less the probabilities of their making war upon each other. We had something to say on this subject in two or three numbers of the Telegraph during the course of last winter. But we deem this consideration of sufficient importance to be kept constantly before the public mind in this and every other civilized country.

We notice, in the first place, the anti-war tendencies of commerce, in the light of involving great pecuniary interests. Great Britain, ten years ago, imported from foreign countries the amount of $107,000,000. The yearly amount of her exports must have been at least equal to her imports, or nearly so, which would make the aggregate of her yearly commerce with other countries $214,000,000. Estimating her commerce to increase at a rate which would double its amount in forty years, its increase since the year 1837 will have been more than $200,000,000—making the present aggregate of her commerce with other countries between ten and eleven hundred millions: and this while her commerce is crippled with taxation at home to the amount of nearly $150,000,000 annually, and with taxation abroad to an extent sufficient to " keep the balance true."

At a moderate estimate the extent of commerce between this country and Great Britain is not less than $80,000,000. If it is not actually more than that, the time is not far distant when in all probability it will become two or three times that amount That our commercial relations with Great Britain have tended more than all other causes to repress and eradicate hostile feelings among the people of the two countries towards each other, there can be no doubt. We may fairly consider the two nations as under bonds in the above named amount to maintain peace with each other. Within the last twelve years, we have had as many as four formidable war blusters with Great Britain, viz: that growing out of the Canadian patriot war, the north-eastern boundary question, the Oregon question, and the case of the Creole, all, except the last, of a serious and somewhat formidable character, and either of which might have plunged the two countries in a war had not the commercial interests at stake been too great to admit of a resort to the war policy. If the extent of our commerce with Great Britain had been only one-fourth as great as it was, we think it not at all improbable that a war might have been the result in either of the cases above referred to. On the other hand, if we could double, or triple, or quadruple, the extent of the commerce of the two countries with each other, we should thereby increase the guaranties for maintaining peace between them to something like a corresponding extent. Let the market in Great Britain for American flour, pork, and other provisions become and continue what the market for raw cotton has been during the last thirty years, and a proposal to mar the friendly relations of the two countries would be received in about the same spirit as a proposal to kindle a conflagration in a great city. If the two countries were each to open their ports to the other, for the permanent admission, duty free, of whatever one can furnish for exportation and the wants of the other may require, it would not be easy to assign any limits to the increase of commercial operations between them. And the permanent maintenance of friendly relations would be felt to be more important than it is between neighboring States in the Union.

The partial opening of English and other European ports to American grain, flour, and other provisions, during the last and the present years, is regarded by the people of this country, and still more by the people of those countries, much as would be the restoration of peace and its thousand blessings and advantages after ages of unnatural hostility Let the policy of free trade in provisions be fully entered into as more permanent and secure and it would not be long before our middle and western states would be raising much more for exportation than for home consumption. No one can doubt for a moment that in extent of territory, character of soil and climate, number of laborers, and prevailing inclination to be and continue an agricultural people, we are capable of providing for exportation to the extent here stated. But let this order of things be established, let the entire yeomanry of the nation know that peace and a boundless market on the one hand, or war and a ruined market on the other hand, are necessarily and invariably conjoined, and it would be about as easy to make them vote for the prevalence of yellow fever, cholera, small pox and the like, as it would to induce them to yield their consent to war.

We notice, in the second place, the anti-war tendency of commerce in its influence upon the public sentiment of justice. The free laborer is more favorably circumstanced to appreciate good faith, uprightness and honorable principle (in their practical application to business affairs) than the slave: And the same principle applies in the case of those who trade under restrictions, and those who do not. Those who trade, under restrictions, as truly as those who labor under restrictions, are all the time conscious that wrong is done, that right is infringed that labor is robbed of what justly belongs to it, and that power is enforcing arbitrary and unrighteous exactions. As slavery is the very worst school in the world in which to acquire and cultivate virtuous character, and practice the amenities and courtesies of civilized life, so we maintain that the fettering of trade and business intercourse is fraught with influences of a similar character upon community. There is, of necessity, the perpetual consciousness that wrong is inflicted, that wrong is endured, that wrong is tolerated and justified; and where this is the case it cannot be otherwise than that great injury is done to the moral sentiment of the community, at least as respects its application to business transactions. That there are tricks, and deceptions and dishonesties in trade, is what none will attempt to deny, but it is equally evident that those who resort to and practice them are almost invariably those whose business operations are on a small scale, who feel that they have nothing to gain or lose on the score of character, and that their opportunities in this line, as a matter of course, are precarious, and likely to be of short continuance. Precisely this state of things is induced by the ever-varying, vascillating, shifting system of restrictions upon trade: While precisely the opposite state of things is induced by the safe, equitable, and permanent following out of the natural laws of trade Under the last named order of policy, the individual engaged in commerce is under no inducement to look out for and snatch up a casual and rare opportunity for a speculation, but knowing that the system of trade is to be according to the order of nature, uniform, permanent, and safe, he, and in a corresponding degree the community whose agent he is shape their business and their plans accordingly The influence of the two systems upon the public sentiment of justice must be obvious to every enlightened mind. Under the last named system of policy, commercial relations are entered into with a view to their permanent continuance. Individuals and communities feel that they have a character for uprightness, good faith, and honorable dealing to establish and maintain, and yielding obedience to these laws becomes a matter of the highest and most commendable self-interest. The natural laws of trade, when unperverted by silly and meddlesome legislation, enjoin this as imperatively as does the moral code of the New Testament. All political economists agree that the practice of smuggling, and the deceptions, frauds, and perjuries connected with it, are the natural and unavoidable results of restrictions upon trade, and increase or diminish in a direct ratio with such restrictions " The risk of being detected in a clandestine introduction of commodities under any given system of fiscal regulations may always be valued at a certain average rate; and whenever exactions upon commerce exceed this rate, smuggling immediately takes place, and as might be expected, it is uniformly found that the efforts of government to prevent it in a great majority of cases prove signally unsuccessful. A smuggler generally becomes a popular character, and it is ludicrous to expect that the mass of the community will ever be brought to think that those who furnish them with what they want at a cheap rate, (notwithstanding the illegality of the practice,) are guilty of any great offence. The bearing of this upon the public sentiment of justice and law-abiding character, it is manifest must be great and highly deleterious. We need not stop to argue the point, that whatever impairs or obscures the sentiment of justice in the public mind prepares that community to plunge itself into a quarrel with another community, and that under the inducement of a trifling provocation or misunderstanding. The removal of restrictions of trade therefore, is, as far as its influence extends, the removal of influences hostile to public virtue and the sentiment of right. It is undoubtedly as true of two communities as of two individuals, that the clearer and more delicate their sense of right, the farther they will be removed from a liability to engage in a hostile collision, or to allow themselves in anything which has a tendency that way.