We have at this moment evidence lying on our table sufficiently explanatory and decisive to our minds that such a spirit of combination is abroad against British commercial interests. We might indeed appeal to events of historical publicity, which would seem confirmatory of a tacitly understood combination, from the simultaneity of action apparent. We have, for example, France reducing the duties on Belgian iron, coal, linen, yarn, and cloths, whilst she raises those on similar British products; the German Customs' League imposing higher and prohibitory duties on British fabrics of mixed materials, such as wool, cotton, silk, &c.; puny Portugal interdicting woollens by exorbitant rates of impost, and scarcely tolerating the admission of cotton manufactures; the United States, with sweeping action, passing a whole tariff of prohibitory imposts; and, in several of these instances, this war of restrictions against British industry commenced, or immediately followed upon, those remarkable changes and reductions in the tariff of this country which signalized the very opening of Sir Robert Peel's administration. Conceding, however, this seeming concert of action to be merely fortuitous, what will the vice-president of the Board of Trade say to the long-laboured, but still unconsummated customs' union between France and Belgium? Was that in the nature of a combination against British commercial interests, or was it the reverse? It is no cabinet secret—it has been publicly proclaimed, both by the French and Belgian Governments and press, that the indispensable basis, the sine qua non of that union, must be, not a calculated amalgamation of, not a compromise between the differing and inconsistent tariffs of Belgium and France, but the adoption, the imposition, of the tariff of France for both countries in all its integrity, saving in some exceptional cases of very slight importance, in deference to municipal dues and octrois in Belgium. When, after previous parley and cajoleries at Brussels, commissioners were at length procured to be appointed by the French ministry, and proceeded to meet and discuss the conditions of the long-cherished project of the union, with the officials deputed on the part of France to assist in the conference, it is well known that the final cause of rupture was the dogged persistance of the French members of the joint commission in urging the tariff of France, in all its nakedness of prohibition, deformity, and fiscal rigour, as the one sole and exclusive régime for the union debated, without modification or mitigation. On this ground alone the Belgian deputies withdrew from their mission. How this result, this check, temporary only as it may prove, chagrined the Government, if not the people, and the mining and manufacturing interests of France, may be understood by the simple citation of a few short but pithy sentences from the Journal des Débats, certainly the most influential, as it is the most ably conducted, of Parisian journals:—

"Le 'ZOLLVEREIN,'" observes the Débats, "a prodigieusement rehaussé la Prusse; l'union douanière avec la Belgique aurait, à un degré moindre cependant, le même résultat pour nous.... Nous sommes, donc, les partisans de cette union, ses partisans prononcés, à deux conditions: la première, c'est qu'il ne faille pas payer ces beaux résultats par le bouleversement de l'industrie rationale; la seconde, c'est que la Belgique en accepte sincèrement es charges en même temps qu'elle en recuiellera les profits, et qu'en consequence elle se prête à tout ce qui sera nécessaire pour mettre NOTRE INDUSTRIE A L'ABRI DE L'INVASION DES PRODUITS ETRANGERS, et pour que les intérêts de notre Trésor soient à couvert."

This is plain speaking; the Government journal of France worthily disdains to practise mystery or attempt deception, for its mission is to contend for the interests, one-sided, exclusive, and egoistical, as they may be, and establish the supremacy of France—quand même; at whatever resulting prejudice to Belgium—at whatever total exclusion of Great Britain from commercial intercourse with, and commercial transit through Belgium, must inevitably flow from a customs' union, the absolute preliminary condition of which is to be, that Belgium "shall be ready to do every thing necessary to place our commerce beyond the reach of invasion by foreign products." Mr Gladstone may rest assured that the achievement of this Franco-Belgiac customs' union will still be pursued with all the indomitable perseverance, the exhaustless and ingenious devices, the little-scrupulous recources, for which the policy of the Tuileries in times present does not belie the transmitted traditions of the past. And it will be achieved, to the signal detriment of British interests, both commercial and political, unless all the energies and watchfulness of the distinguished statesmen who preside at the Foreign Office and the Board of Trade be not unceasingly on the alert.

Other and unmistakeable signs of the spirit of commercial combination, or confederation, abroad, and more or less explicitly avowed and directed against this country, are, and have been for some time past, only too patent, day by day, in most of those continental journals, the journals of confederated Germany, of France, with some of those of Spain and of Portugal, which exercise the largest measure of influence upon, and represent with most authority the voice of, public opinion. Nor are such demonstrations confined to journalism. Collaborateurs, in serial or monthly publications, are found as earnest auxiliaries in the same cause—as redacteurs and redactores; pamphleteers, like light irregulars, lead the skirmish in front, whilst the main battle is brought up with the heavy artillery of tome and works voluminous. Of these, as of brochures, filletas, and journals, we have various specimens now on our library table. All manner of customs, or commercial unions, between states are projected, proposed, and discussed, but from each and all of these proposed unions Great Britain is studiously isolated and excluded. We have the "Austrian union" planned out and advocated, comprising, with the hereditary states of that empire, Moldavia, Wallachia, Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia, as well as those provinces of ancient Greece, which, like Macedonia, remain subject to Turkey, with, perhaps, the modern kingdom of Greece. We have the "Italian union," to be composed of Sardinia, Lombardy, Lucca, Parma, and Modena, Tuscany, the two Sicilies, and the Papal States. There is the "Peninsular union" of Spain and Portugal. Then we have one "French union" sketched out, modestly projected for France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Savoy only. And we have another of more ambitious aspirations, which should unite Belgium, Switzerland, and Spain under the commercial standard of France. One of the works treating of projects of this kind was, we believe, crowned with a prize by some learned institution in France.

From this slight sketch of what is passing abroad—and we cannot afford the space at present for more ample development—the right honourable Vice President of the Board of Trade will perhaps see cause to revise the opinion too positively enounced, that "foreign countries neither have combined, nor ought to combine, nor can combine, against the commerce of Great Britain;" and that it is a "calumny" to conceive that they are "disposed to enter into such a combination."

With these preliminary remarks, we now proceed to the consideration of the commercial relations between Spain and Great Britain, and of the policy in the interest of both countries, but transcendently in that of Spain, by which those relations, now reposing on the narrowest basis, at least on the one side, on that of Spain herself, may be beneficially improved and enlarged. It may be safely asserted, that there are no two nations in the old world—nay more, no two nations in either, or both, the old world and the new—more desirably situated and circumstanced for an intimate union of industrial interests, for so direct and perfect an interchange of their respective products. The interchange would, indeed, under a wise combination of reciprocal dealing, resolve itself purely almost into the primitive system of barter; for the wants of Spain are such as can be best, sometimes only, supplied from England, whilst Spain is rich in products which ensure a large, sometimes an exclusive, command of British consumption. Spain is eminently agricultural, pastoral, and mining; Great Britain more eminently ascendant still in the arts and science of manufacture and commerce. With a diversity of soil and climate, in which almost spontaneously flourish the chief productions of the tropical as of the temperate zone; with mineral riches which may compete with, nay, which greatly surpass in their variety, and might, if well cultivated, in their value, those of the Americas which she has lost; with a territory vast and virgin in proportion to the population; with a sea-board extensively ranging along two of the great high-ways of nations—the Atlantic and the Mediterranean—and abundantly endowed with noble and capacious harbours; there is no conceivable limit to the boundless production and creation of exchangeable wealth, of which, with her immense natural resources, still so inadequately explored, Spain is susceptible, that can be imagined, save from that deficient supply of labour as compared with the territorial expanse which would gradually come to be redressed as industry was promoted, the field of employment extended, and labour remunerated. With an estimated area of 182,758 square miles, the population of Spain does not exceed, probably, thirteen millions and a half of souls, whilst Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 115,702 square miles, support a population of double the number. Production, however, squares still less with territorial extent than does population; for the stimulus to capital and industry is wanting when the facilities of exchanges are checked by fiscal prohibitions and restrictions. Agricultural produce, the growth of the vine and the olive, is not unfrequently known to run to waste, to be abandoned, as not worth the toil of gathering and preparation, because markets are closed and consumption checked in countries from which exchangeable commodities are prohibited. The extent of these prohibitions and restrictions, almost unparalleled even by the arbitrary tariff of Russia, may be estimated in part by the following extract from a pamphlet, published last year by Mr James Henderson, formerly consul-general to the Republic of New Granada, entitled "A Review of the Commercial Code and Tariffs of Spain;" a writer, by the way, guilty of much exaggeration of fact and opinion when not quoting from, or supported by, official documents.

"The 'Aranceles,' or Tariffs, are four in number; 1st, of foreign importations; 2d, of importations from America; 3d, from Asia; and, 4th, of exportations from Spain.

"The Tariff of foreign importations contains 1326 articles alphabetically arranged:—

800to pay a duty of15per cent in Spanish vessels,
230"20"
80"25"
55"10"
26"30"
3"36"
2"24"
2"45"

about 50 from 1 to 8 per cent, and the rest free of duty.