The state of the weather having not improved during this week, 
a rise of 6 shillings per sack took place in the value of town-made 
flour, at Mark Lane yesterday, and orders for the purchase of 
nearly 1,000,000 quarters of produce were at once forwarded to 
foreign ports. Importers share now pretty generally the opinion | 
advanced in a late letter* as to the inevitable further rise in the 
quotations of the grain market. The recent measures taken by 
France in regard to the corn trade bring that country into direct 
competition with the British corn merchant. You are aware that 
there exists in France a sliding scale, regulating the import and 
export duties on grain, and that this sliding scale varies for the 
eight different circles which the whole country is divided into with 
respect to the corn trade. Now, by a decree published in the 
Moniteur of the 23d inst.,? this sliding scale has been altogether 
suspended. The decree enacts that grain and flour imported by 
land or by sea, in French or foreign vessels, shall, wherever they 
may come from, only pay, up to the 30th of September, 1861, the 
minimum of duties fixed by the law of the 15th of April, 1832°; 
also, that vessels laden with grain and flour shall be exempt from 
tunnage dues; and finally, that vessels so laden leaving any foreign 
port at any date previous to the said 30th of September, 1861, 
shall only pay the said minimum, and shall be free from tunnage 

Moniteur universel, No. 109, April 18, 1832.— Ed. 

dues. The minimum referred to, is 25 cents the hectolitre (about 
2°/, bushels).> Consequently, while France in the years 1858 and 
1859 sent more wheat—?,014,923 quarters—and more flour— 
4,326,435 cwt. to England than any other country, it will now 
seriously compete with England in the purchase of grain in the 
foreign markets—the provisional suspension of the French sliding 
scale affording the wanted facilities for such competition. 

The two main markets of export which both England and 
France find themselves limited to are the United States and 
Southern Russia. In regard to the latter country, the news as to 
the state of the harvest is of the most contradictory character. On 
the one hand, it is asserted that the harvest is most plentiful; on 
the other, that heavy rains and high floods having damaged the 
crops in all parts of the Empire, the roads and corn-fields of the 
southern provinces had been greatly devastated by locusts, a 
scourge which made its first appearance in Bessarabia, and whose 
depredations it was vainly attempted to circumscribe within a 
limited area by an army of 20,000 men drawing a cordon around 
them. The ultimate extent of the disaster cannot, of course, be 
estimated, but at all events it must tend to accelerate the upward 
movement of food prices. Some London papers fancy that the 
drain of bullion inseparable from large and sudden corn imports 
may be counterbalanced in its usual effect upon the money market 
by the gold supplies from Australia. No notion could be more 
preposterous. We witnessed, during the crisis of 1857, a lower ebb 
of the bullion reserves than in any similar epoch before the 
discovery of Australia and California. On former occasions I have 
shown by incontrovertible facts and figures that the extraordinary 
gold imports into England since 1851 have been more than 
counterbalanced by extraordinary gold exports. There is, 
moreover, the fact that the bullion reserves in the Bank of 
England have, since 1857, not only not exceeded the average 
amount, but were continually falling off. While they amounted in 
August, 1858, to £17,654,506, they had declined to £16,877,255 
in August, 1859, and to £15,680,840 in August, 1860." As the gold 
drain has not yet set in, this phenomenon may be accounted for 
by the circumstance that the prospect of a failing harvest is only 
beginning to operate, while, till now, the rate of interest has 

a “Foreign correspondence”, The Economist, No. 887, August 25, 1860, 

continued to be higher at London than at the other principal 
exchanges of the Continent, viz.: Amsterdam, Frankfort, Ham- 
burg, and Paris. 

Continental Europe exhibits at this moment a very curious 
spectacle. France is known to labor under heavy financial 
difficulties, but she is creating armaments on a scale as gigantic, 
with an energy as untiring, as if she owned Aladdin’s lamp. 
Austria totters on the very brink of bankruptcy, but, somehow or 
other, the money is found for feeding an immense army, and 
crowding the fortresses of the Quadrilateral* with rifle cannon. 
And Russia, where all the monetary operations of the Government 
have failed, and the national bankruptcy is talked of as a probable 
event—where the army grumbles in consequence of arrears not 
paid, and even the loyalty of the Imperial Guard is put to a severe 
test, their pay having been withheld for the last five months— 
Russia, nevertheless, is pouring her troops down to the Black Sea, 
and holds 200 ships ready at Nicolaieff, in order to embark them 
for Turkey. The inability of the Russian Government to cope with 
the slave question, the money question, and the reviving Polish 
question, seems to have decided it to try war as a last resource of 
national soporification. The complaints arising from all parts of 
the Empire, and all ranks of Russian society, are consequently, by 
Government order, drowned in the fanatical cry of revenge for 
the poor, down-trodden Christians of Turkey. Day by day the 
Russian press teems with illustrations and demonstrations as to the 
necessity of an intervention in Turkey. The following extract from 
the Invalid’ may be considered a fair sample. 

“The Oriental question has reached a stage which is certain to keep it before 
the Powers for a long time to come, and, as it now engrosses the attention of all 
Europe, it would ill become us to leave it undiscussed in our columns. Those only 
who are indifferent to the interests of humanity can allow this topic to pass by 
unnoticed. We, however, are obliged not only to relate the details of Oriental 
occurrences, but also to allude to the eventualities of the future, especially as it 
behooves us to show the public what measures must be taken in order to do away 
with such an unnatural state of things, forming, as it does, the disgrace of our 
century and civilization. 

“Considering what acts of barbarism the Turks are allowed to commit, we are, 
in deference to truth and justice, compelled to acknowledge that Europe must be 
held accountable for the origin and consequences of Mussulman fanaticism. We will 

not hesitate to speak out frankly. What were the motives that prompted Europe to 
engage in an unjust war against Russia in 1853-4? Europe herself put forward two 

objects as the grounds of the Crimean campaign#: One was, to thwart the power 
and ambition of Russia; the other to prevent the oppression of Christians by the 
Turks. Europe, consequently, acknowledged the existence of such oppression, but 
in order to remove it, declared her determination to maintain the integrity of 
Turkey as a necessary condition of the balance of power. The war being at an end, 
diplomacy began to busy itself with the means for the attainment of this double 
object. The first step was to receive Turkey into the family of European Powers, 
and to protect her against the overweening interference of any one of their 
number. This being easy enough of accomplishment, one of the two objects was 
consequently secured. But how is it with the other? Have any guarantees been 
given for the protection of Christians against murder and every description of ill 
usage? Alas! Europe in this respect put her faith in words, papers, and documents, 
without any solid security being accorded for their fulfillment. As early as the 8th 
of August, 1854, when the cessation of hostilities was contemplated,» the Porte was 
called upon to grant an equal share of religious rights to its Christian and 
Mussulman subjects.© The same demand was raised by the St. Petersburg Cabinet in 
the memorials of the 28th December, 18544; and finally, the preliminary 
conditions of peace drawn up at Vienna on the Ist of February, 1856, and 
afterward embodied in the minutes of the first sitting of the Paris Congress, were 
made to include the following words: ‘The rights of the rayahs will be protected, 
without prejudice, however, to the independence and sovereign dignity of the 
Sultan. Austria, France, Great Britain, and the Porte, are of accord respecting the 
maintenance of the Turkish Christians in the enjoyment of their political and 
religious rights; and they will request the consent of Russia to this proposition in 
the instrument of peace.’ 

“The same object occupied the Congress in various other sittings, as may be 
seen from the minutes of the 28th of February, and of the 24th and 25th of 
March. In al] this, it was desirous of attaining two objects mutually destructive of 
each other—to preserve the sovereign rights of the Sultan, and to place those of 
his Christian subjects under the guardianship of Europe. The Congress altogether 
forgot that the same rights of the Christians, which it was so desirous of 
establishing, had been conceded over and over again by the Porte in its previous 
treaties with Europe—treaties which, moreover, had already abolished the 
sovereign power of that monarch, who, as Europe now said, ought to be assisted in 
its maintenance. To establish a little harmony between these two contradictory 
points, the Sultan, while induced to issue the celebrated Hatti-Humayouni, was 
acknowledged to have acted from his own free will and sovereign inclination. So he 
had to promise that he would respect and increase the rights of his Christian 
subjects, and this promise was received into the treaty of peace, by way of guaranty 
for its fulfillment as one of its constituent parts. On these conditions, the Congress, 
in the 9th clause of the treaty, resigned all further interference with the internal 
affairs of Turkey. 

“But has the Congress really obtained any guaranty for the carrying out of the 
Hatti-Humayouni? Have any effective obligations been entered into by the Sultan? 

Of this, nothing was provided. For, although the wisdom of the Hatti-Humayouni 
is much extolled in the treaty, that document, as all Europe predicted, has 
remained a dead letter. But, worse than this—Europe, in virtue of the new treaty, 
is deprived of all right of legal interference,“ even though the Hatti-Humayouni 
may never have been executed, and notwithstanding the perpetration of the most 
horrible atrocities only four years after its issue. [...] Quite recently, Russia warned 
all the Cabinets of Europe that the fanaticism of the Turks” had diminished 
neither in zeal nor fierceness; that new outbreaks were soon to be expected, 
although, indeed, there had never been any interval of relaxation. But even then 
Europe was satisfied with the promises of the Porte, and indulged herself in the 
hope that the guilty parties would be punished, and law and order speedily 
restored. It needed the wholesale slaughter at the hands of these savages to effect a 
change in her opinions. Then at length Europe resolved to interfere, though not 
without such delay and circumlocution as would justify the belief that she intended 
to let the guilty ones escape. Everything was made to depend on the letter of the 
treaty of the 30th March, 1856; and, just as in the case of Italy last year, the 
sufferings of a people weighed nothing against the text of a diplomatic document.4 

“But our opinion on all this is very different. The treaty of Europe with 
Turkey, in our eyes, guarantees the principles of humanity, religion, and 
civilization. If Turkey violates these principles, she alone brings upon herself the 
interference of Europe.¢ 

“Until the year 1856, the Powers of Europe, in virtue of several treaties 
concluded with the Porte, owned a legal right of remonstrance respecting the 
position of the Christian rayahs. To-day, however, it may be questioned whether or 
not this right has been abrogated by the treaty of the 30th March, 1856. Has 
Europe resigned the privileges of protecting its co-religionists? It has if it ever 
reckoned upon the execution of the Hatti-Humayouni, of the 18th February; if it 
ever believed that reforms promised are one and the same with reforms carried 
out; if it ever hoped that the customs, passions, and laws of the Mussulmans are 
capable of a change. But, of course, Europe never was, never could be, of that 
opinion. Carried away by the belief that the integrity of the Ottoman Empire is a 
sine qua non for the balance of power, she allowed the Sultan to enter into her 
family of States. But this was only accorded on the condition that Turkey, 
dissevering herself from Mussulman traditions, should become European in her 
institutions; that a sword should no longer be the only law-giver between believers 
and unbelievers; that the Christians should no longer be the slaves of their masters 
and the property of the royal rayahs cease to form the common plundering-ground 
of Mussulmans. This, indeed, was the leading idea of Europe in 1856. With all its 
wrath against Russia, the natural consequence of a sanguinary and unjust war, it 
did not release the Porte from its previous obligations; but, on the contrary, 
demanded a progressive improvement in the situation of the Christians. To secure 
the attainment of this object was the only purpose of the common protectorate of 
Europe over the Porte and for this price alone Europe guaranteed the integrity of 
the Sultan’s dominions. Without this, neither the war nor the peace would have been 
justifiable. Without this, Turkey would never have been received into the family of 

Powers, nor protected in the integrity of her possessions. The two conditions are so 
intimately connected that they cannot be separated; every one can see that, who 
wishes to see at all. 

“The form of the condition, it is true, might have been less effective than it is; if 
the letter of the treaty ruled supreme. Europe, in virtue of the 9th clause, has 
formally resigned her right of interference* in the internal affairs of Turkey; but 
even in this clause mention is made of the Hatti-Humayouni of the 18th February, 
in accordance with which the Christians are to be placed on an equal footing of 
right with the Mussulmans. It is but in harmony with the laws of sound logic to 
infer, that if the Hatti-Humayouni has been disregarded, the 9th clause falls to the 
ground. 

“In vain Turkey now affects to quell the latest outbreak” in Syria. That 
outbreak was unavoidable, considering that the situation of the Christians has not 
been ameliorated, but on the contrary, rendered worse than before. In vain 
England strives to prevent the interference* of Europe; it is just possible she has 
her own policy, and is swayed by political and commercial motives, the justice and 
importance of which we do not care to consider; but she cannot base her objections 
on the 9th clause of the Paris Treaty. [...] In vain Europe seeks to conceal the fact 
of her interference, under the plea that it has been undertaken in consequence of a 
wish of the Sultan. We say that all this is in vain; and although Hion did not believe 
in the prophecies of Cassandra, we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that 
Ilion was destroyed.”