WHAT THE WAR WILL HAVE DONE FOR COMMERCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 375, 7 June 1856, Page 5

WHAT THE WAR WILL HAVE DONE FOR COMMERCE.

Should peace be restored upon anything like the terms asserted to have been proposed to Russia, in what state would it leave us ? What would be the effect of the war upon the commerce of the world ? We believe that it would be far from null; that if Russia were made to give the guarantees indicated by the reported terms of peace, the commercial world would be in a much better position than it was three years ago, when the war commenced. The " blighting influence," which had been extending over new lands eventually, North and South, would be not only checked but driven back.

It will almost suffice for understanding the effect of checking Russia, to remember the effect of her influence. She has been described by her friends as a power encouraging commerce : and so she did^afier her fashion. Some years back, Mr. Cobden, in his England, Ireland, and America, quoted a table showing that British exports to Russia increased from £60,000 in 1700 to 2,300,000 in 1820, while the exports to Turkey had only increased from to £200,000 to £800.000. But this report, written in 1835, only came down to 1820; and Mr. Cobden might tven then have shown a considerably different case The exports to Russia "fell from £2.300,000 in 1820 to £1.489.000, while the exports to Turkey continued to advance from £800.000 to £1,259,000. The progress has subsequently presented a still stronger contrast. Our exports to Turkey, 3,438,000 in 1853, have more than equalled our exports to Russia and Austria put together. It has been said, indeed, that those exports are not to Turkey, but through Turkey to other places: which only proves that the interest of the Ottoman empire encourages a commerce that the empire itself is incapable of sustaining. With Russia the case is exactlyopposite. Early in the century, the Czar was exerting himself to foster the come merce of Taganrcg and 0-J.essaj they wui-

to be the great ports of departure for the produce of the Don and the Danube, as .Riga was to be the great port of departure for timber, tallow, and other raw produce of the North. The Czar saw the advantage of trade, but it was to be the trade that he dictated, flowing in the channels that he dictated. He had caught the rude idea that the wealth of a nation is exclusively or chiefly promoted by its exports; and' the maximum of export with the minimum of import was the object. The import trade of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azoff rose from 10,000,000 rouble? in 1824 to 19,000,000 in 1832 ; the export trade, from 18,327,000 iv 1824 to 30,934,000 in 1833. Russia was to give to the world such commerce as Cgesar pleased : but commerce will will not exist or grow on such terms. Turkey maintained the Danube free, while Russia suffered it to be choked up with mud; and the diplomacy exploded by the war aided Russia. As Lord Aberdeen observed on the settlement of 1829, the effect of the siipulations respecting the islands of the Danube " must be to place the control of navigation and commerce of that river exclusively in the hands of Liussia,'* who ■would allow the world such commerce as she pleased, but not such commerce as the •world desired to have. Take the case of a single part. Turkey would impose no obstacles to our seeking the commerce of JEiedout-Kaleh ; but Russia does. In consequence of complaints of Russian merchants, who urged that foieigners enjoyed undue advantages in importing goods at Redout-Kaleh, an ukase was issuedin 1831 to trammel the Transcaucasian trade, the effect of which was to ruin the commerce at Redout-Kaleh. It extended the Russian tariff of prohibitions and high duties on almost every article imported into Adingrelia and Georgia. At Souchum-Kaleh the Trebizond Turks had pushed an active barter, until they were arrested—if they were quite arrested—by the Russian gunboats cruising between the forts of Circassia and suppressing trade lest trade should strengthen their enemy. It was not the mud alone that arrested the commerce of the Danube; Russia imposed innumerable charges and consular fees at the port of shipment—charges for seals, coverings, &c, besides forty days' quarantine at the port of arrival. In short, the policy of Russia, with respect to commerce, as with respect to politics, was suppression.

The war has shaken off this blighting influence. It has abolished gun-boats from the coast of Circassia ; it has taken the mouth of the Danube from Russia ; it has put down her right of transit dues, consular charges, &.c.; it has emancipated the Black Sea. But the effect will not only be to place us where we were years ago, with simple emancipation ; there have been great alterations even within the last few years. Hungary, so large a portion of whose trade ought to have come down the Danube if it had not been arrested by Russia, has undergone many changes, two of which will suffice to show how much productive power now exists to be called forth : her villein tenures have been commuted, railways have been introduced. The Turkish provinces bordering on the Danube have displayed improvement, even to the eye, from the industry and enterprise of the inhabitants, before the highway was fully opened to them: it is henceforth opened, and the left bank is placed on a level commercially with the right bank. The Black Sea is emancipated from a piratical tyrant, at a time when war has brought with it a great amount of enterprise, of visiting, and of interest attaching to the whole seaboard of the Black Sea. Turkey, wbo has contracted her first loan, has been fairly introJuced into the European system, ami has l»ad her iree-trade tendencies confirmed. These changes have been in great part

completed in the interval since the Western Powers challenged the blighting- influence and undertook its removal. In the North, the favourable changes are not so great, but they are still "considerable ; and the interests with which we have to deal in that region are on a larger scale. Commerce and politics are as much mixed in the Baltic as in the Black Sea. Russia has managed her marine, her customs, and her encroachments, with a view to her one rude object —territorial aggrandisement. bhe has recently been detected, it is said, in a new scheme for obtaining possession of Finmark. with a port in the North Sea, and of a marine population. Sweden has long enjoyed a rude commerce ; its woods, mines, and fisheries, used until the last quarter of a century to be distinguished by energy, activity, and development. But many signs have recently been noticed that the Swedes aie degenerating under the overawing shadow which Russia casts across the Baltic. Her coastmen are indolent; they will strike work after a couple of days' exertion, and enjoy themselves on the wages which they can snatch hy a hasty employment, instead of labouring to get out of opportunity all that it can yield. Even already Russian supremacy in the Baltic has been checked. The other Baltic states can no longer fear to exercise their own energies and activity.

Perhaps, however, the most important results to the North will he the enduring influence of the check upon the proceedings of a body which is not Russian. The Zollverein of Prussia is quite as much political as commercial; its object was to consolidate the material interests of several German states, in order that Prussia might have them pledged to itself as their centre and sovereign. While Russia has been maintaining the anti-commercial influence in the Baltic, her grand commercial agent was Prussia, chief of the Zollverein. We have seen how Prussia has managed to use her intermediate position in order to make a profit out of a contraband trade. To a certain extent she has always done so, being the intermediary between the commerce of the West and anti-commercial Russia. Now, should the Baltic be thrown open— should

Denmark be induced to make a sale of her Sound dues, as probably she will—the position of the Prussian Zollverein would be turned; and a more active commerce would impart a practical lesson to the Northern States, that profit is to be made rather by pushing trade than by restraining it. And the most formidable because the most moderate of anti-free trade organizations would be neutralized. As the conflict has not been so positive in the Baltic, the results cannot be so positive; but we may certainly augment the probable result by the example of increasing profits which the Black Sea would show to the Baltic, and by the general impulse to commerce from the action of this country under free trade. It is not to be overlooked that railways hare

been introduced into the countries north of

' the Baltic, into Sweden and Norway, and the internal resources of these countries are likely to be drawn forth at an accelerated rate, There are, therefore, resident motives for stimulating the trade of the Baltic, ready

to act with the external motives. And it is at such a juncture that the blighting spirit

is thwarted in the Northern Sea, as it is removed in the Southern.