Observations on the late Presidential Veto......... The Great Secret.-Upham's Fourth of July Oration.......... Irving Institute..... Ewbank's Descriptive and Historical Account of Hydraulic and other Machines for 300 300 300 300 raising water, Ancient and Modern......... 394 Croker's Johnsoniana ; or Supplement to Boswell..... 394 Models of English Literature, for Colleges and Academies...... 394 James's History of the Life of Edward the Black Prince...... 394 Burnett's History of the Reformation of the Church of England.......... 395 Frost's Book of the Navy.-Young's Introduction to the Science of Government... 395 American Almanac for 1813.-United States Almanac for 1843... Laws of the States relative to Imprisonment for Debt.Self-Control.... 487 The Gift for 1843. Christian Souvenir for 1843. The Rose of Sharon for 1843.... 488 489 489 Burns's Poetical Works.-Stone's Uncas and Miantonomoh..... 490 490 Willard's History of the United States. Julia of Baia, or the Days of Nero........ 491 Elizabeth's Principalities and Powers. Duffield on the Prophecies....... 491 Appleton's Miniature Library.-Gems from the American Poets...... Parsons's Physician for Ships. Nichols's Solar System.... .... 571 Duffield's Claims of Episcopacy... .. 571 Renwick's Natural Philosophy.-Self-Devotion.-Nabob at Home, etc................ 572 Collins's Miscellanies.-Chapin's Discourses on Various Subjects........ Ursuline Manual.-Christian Observer.-Parley's Young American..... HUNT'S MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE. JULY, 1842. ART. I.-COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THE COMMERCE OF FRANCE, GREAT BRITAIN, AND THE UNITED STATES, FROM 1827 TO 1836.* THE destiny of those nations of the present day who have made the furthest advances in civilization is connected in the most intimate manner with their commercial prosperity. Commerce is the most fertile source of wealth, and, consequently, of power; but the great and important interests which have become the subjects of daily discussion, cannot be thoroughly and completely understood, unless the facts connected with the questions are clearly stated and exhibited under their various forms, so that all their relations may at once be perceived. The great task, that of collecting and arranging such facts, necessarily devolves upon government, by whom alone the necessary knowledge of them can be obtained. Having had occasion formerly to deplore the scantiness of such materials, and to complain of the reserve with which power dispensed the light of which it alone had possession, we have now the pleasure of lauding the facilities readily afforded in the present day in France, to any inquiries into the causes and progress of our national prosperity. In its relations to the public, the administration of the customhouse has emancipated itself from the trammels imposed upon it under the "Empire," and which were carefully preserved by the "Restoration;" it has ceased, to the great advantage of the state, to shut up from public view the important facts which it daily collects. Superintending one of the branches of the public revenue, it has the means of verifying and comparing the acts of commerce, the movements of which are submitted to its inspection. The system of which the customhouse is the agent, does not appertain to *For this able and interesting article, which we have translated from the French, we are indebted to the politeness of M. D. L. Rodet, its distinguished author, from whom we received a copy of it as originally published in the Revue des Deux Mondes. it. The system emanates from the political power; it is the expression of the economy of the state, at least so far as science has penetrated into its legislation. In this point of view, we acknowledge the administration of the customhouse entitled to additional gratitude for the extreme care which they have taken in the preparation of the documents emanating from them, which are to have such an influence in determining the modifications that our system demands. The able men who direct this administration, and superintend the preparation of the works it puts forth, do not stop short in their career of improvement; the documents that issue from their hands show themselves more and more complete, and they will become still more so in proportion as our legislators, feeling the want of additional light, are willing to meet the expense of obtaining it. After having, since 1824, supplanted the meager statements of the former directors, by annual tables, methodically arranged, the administration has just issued a resumé of its works in a fine volume entitled— "Tableau décennal du Commerce de la France avec ses Colonies, et les puissances étrangères de 1827 à 1836." Importations, exportations, navigation, transit entrepôts, fisheries, drawbacks, all are collected and grouped under divers points of view, so that not a question that the book can suggest need remain unanswered for want of the means for its solution. Not that we give an entire assent to all its subdivisions and classifications, some of which are useless and some founded upon error, but our perception of these imperfections need not prevent our acknowledging the high value of the work. During the peace that, for a quarter of a century, Europe, or rather, we should say, the world has enjoyed, the public fortunes of the nations have rapidly accumulated. Labor has produced capital, and as the terrible consummation of war has not been effected, this capital, instead of being destroyed, has increased and brought forth fruit, and has served as the basis of a commerce of exchange, the progress of which is very far from having reached its ultimate point. Political troubles, revolutions, and crises of credit occasioned by overtrading, have in some instances interrupted the movement, but as soon as these causes have ceased to act, the people hasten with renewed energy to regain the time which has been lost, and a period of redoubled activity soon compensates for the momentary interruption, and re-establishes the supremacy of the "law of progress.' Must we conclude from what we have said, that all nations called to take a part in this general commerce, preserve the relative positions from which they started? We do not think so. On the contrary, we believe that each day France cedes something of the ground which she had acquired, and which she ought to occupy. The demonstration of this unfortunate truth will no doubt be more interesting than a cold analysis of the decennial tables, in which, however, we find the elements of our conviction. In Europe, Portugal, hardly reduced to tranquillity, dreams not of reestablishing its commerce or industry. Spain has been consuming herself in a struggle, which the spectators have suffered to be prolonged for want of power to come to an understanding as to the means by which it should be prevented. In Italy the Sardinian states, each day becoming more and more fashioned to a uniform domination, find in the activity of their ancient Ligures the elements of commercial prosperity. The other states are following their example, while Lombardy and Venice, becoming more and more an integral part of the Austrian empire, content themselves with the wealth which a fertile soil offers as a certain reward to their labor. The Low Countries, since their separation, have struggled in emulation: Belgium for the development of her capital and the resources of her soil; Holland for the improvement of its colonies, which are rapidly increasing in importance, without exciting the notice of the world. Will not one or the other of these powers finish by ceding some port to the grand customhouse confederation of the German states? Prussia has united under its patronage twenty-five millions of Germans through the means of a uniform tariff, protective but not prohibitive, which has done more than all the diets and political confederations. This bond acquires a strength each day that will render it difficult to dissolve. Hanover, Brunswick, and the Hanse Towns, cramped in their relations to the confederated states, are evidently destined to accede to, and to complete this Germanic union. The Germans, as a commercial and producing people, will soon find themselves mixed up and confounded in one general direction. As to Austria, with her eyes turned towards the Adriatic and her Italian possessions, and pre-occupied with the navigation of the Danube, she has not much occasion to trouble herself with what passes on the Rhine or the Elbe. She renounces without difficulty any participation in a system from which it is so easy for her to live apart. În terminating this rapid glance at the condition of those states who are nearly all of them under forms of government which do not render publicity necessary, we may remark that it is very difficult to obtain, in relation to each of them, statements sufficiently detailed, or extending over a long enough period, to enable us to make a comparison with the commerce of France. But two other grand nations, Great Britain and the United States, put forth each year the most elaborate documents, containing the details of the divers branches of their social state, and which enable us to appreciate their simultaneous progress. These three nations, in their different positions, have placed themselves in the present day, by their power, their intelligence, and their activity, at the head of the civilized world. Our intention is not, as we have already said, to present a meager analysis of a work that is itself nothing, but a collection of interesting facts under divers heads,-but to make the best use we can of those facts, and to group them in such a way as to draw from them the conclusion that struck us as being the most remarkable. The date from which commences the decennial period adopted by the administration of the customhouse, is happily chosen, as then may be considered to have ceased the effects of the crisis in English affairs, which took place in the year 1825, and which pressed with considerable force upon part of the year 1826. In the beginning of 1827, the commercial movement commenced an ascent which each political or financial perturbation for the moment interrupts. The three nations whose commerce we are about to compare, are situated in many things very much alike, and no event can exert any disturbing influence upon the commerce of one, without its influence reacting upon the affairs of the others. Commerce does not move in a regular and periodic manner. If some obstacle interferes with it in some of its relations, its development is so much more lively when this obstacle is removed, and a reaction imme |