Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
* * * * *
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCCXXXIV. DECEMBER, 1851. VOL. LXX.
CONTENTS.
TO THE SHOPKEEPERS OF GREAT BRITAIN, 629
THE JEW'S LEGACY. A TALE OF THE SIEGE OF GIBRALTAR, 648
LIFE AMONGST THE LOGGERS, 669
MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. PART XVI., 681
JOHNSTON'S NOTES ON NORTH AMERICA, 699
THE ANSAYRII, 719
THE CHAMPIONS OF THE RAIL, 739
INDEX, 751
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET;
AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
_To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._
SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCCXXXIV. DECEMBER, 1851. VOL. LXX.
TO THE SHOPKEEPERS OF GREAT BRITAIN.
GENTLEMEN,--As it is customary for most men about this season of
the year, when accounts are balanced and squared, to take a serious
survey of the posture of their affairs, and to examine into their
business prospects, perhaps you may not consider a few observations,
touching the welfare and position of that important class of the
community to which you belong, either impertinent or ill-timed. You
are aware that, for the last year or two, Her Majesty's Ministers
have been in the habit of opening Parliament with a congratulatory
assurance of the continued, and even augmented, prosperity of the
country. The reason why such statements were made, altogether
irrespective of their truth or falsehood, is obvious enough. In a
political point of view, they were necessary for the vindication
of the measures which Government either originated or adopted. To
have admitted that the country was not prospering under the new
commercial system, would have been considered by the public as
tantamount to an acknowledgment that the policy which dictated
those measures was vicious; and that the Whig ministry, if not
deficient in duty, had at least erred sorely in judgment. In private
life, we rarely meet with that degree of candour which amounts to
an unequivocal admission of error in point of judgment--in public
life, such an admission is altogether unknown. Failure may indeed
be acknowledged when the fact becomes too evident to admit of
further denial; but the causes of that failure are never attributed
to their real source. Not only the purity of the motive, but the
wisdom of the conception, is vindicated to the last. In this case,
however, failure is totally denied. So far from being put upon their
defence, the Whigs maintain that they have achieved a triumph. Their
averment is, that, with the exception of the agricultural producers,
among whom they allow that a certain degree of distress prevails,
all other classes of the community are prosperous. Even for the
agriculturists there is balm in store. The prosperity of the other
classes is to react upon them; so that, within some indefinite
period of time, we shall all find ourselves in circumstances of ease
and comfort which have hitherto been unknown in our land.
With you the benefit is represented, not as prospective, but as
present. The agriculturist may have to wait a little longer, but you
are already provided for. Your cake is baked; and we are assured
that you are eating it in thankfulness and joy. If this is really
the case, there is no more to be said on the subject. If the harvest
of Free Trade has actually yielded you such a large measure of
profit, it would be madness in anyone to decry that line of policy
in your hearing. You constitute the class which, from its peculiar
position and vocation, is better qualified than any other to judge
accurately, and from experience, of the degree of prosperity which
is actually known in the country. The verdict of twelve shopkeepers,
given after an inspection of their books for an average of years,
ought to be of more weight, in settling the merits of any disputed
commercial question, than the random assurances of a dozen cabinet
ministers whose reputation and official existence are bound up in
the vindication of their own policy. The reason of this is perfectly
obvious. Your profit is simply a commission upon your sales. You
do not produce or manufacture articles of consumption--you simply
retail them. Your profit depends upon the briskness of trade, that
is, the amount of demand. It rises or falls according to the general
circumstances of your customers. In good times you make large
profits; in bad times those profits decrease. One while your stock
sells off rapidly; at another, it remains upon your hands. Your
interest is inseparable from that of the great body of consumers by
whom you live. You have little or nothing to do with the foreign
trade; for, whatever be the nature, of the articles in which you
deal, you sell them in the home market. You have, therefore, the
best opportunity of estimating the real condition of your customers.
The state of your own books, and the comparative degree of ease or
difficulty which you experience in the collection of your accounts,
furnish you with a sure index of the purchasing power of the
community. Compared with this criterion, which is common to every
man among you, tables of exports and imports, statements of bank
bullion, and such like artificial implements as have been invented
by the political impostors and economists, are absolutely worthless.
When our sapient Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Mr Labouchere,
tell you, with an air of unbounded triumph, that the exportation
of calicoes to China or Peru has mightily increased--and therefore
argue, without condescending to inquire whether such exportation
has been attended with any profit at all to the manufacturers, that
the prosperity of the country is advancing at a railway pace--you
may indeed be gratified by the statistical information, but you
will fail to discover in what way the public are benefited thereby.
It is pleasant to know that there are fifteen millions of gold in
the vaults of the Bank of England, and that, so long as this hoard
remains undiminished, there is little chance of a commercial crisis,
or a violent contraction of credit. But we take it you would be
infinitely better pleased to know that sovereigns were circulating
freely from hand to hand amongst the people, and that your customers
had their pockets so well filled as to enable them to purchase
largely, and to pay their accounts when due. To you any depression
whatever is a serious matter--a depression which assumes a permanent
appearance cannot be much short of ruin. Therefore you ought most
especially to take care that no false representation is made
regarding your circumstances, which may be the means of perpetuating
a system that has already proved detrimental to a large body of your
customers.
Were we to take for granted the ministerial statement of
prosperity--which no doubt will be repeated next February--your Whig
minister being an incorrigible cuckoo--this paper would certainly
not have been written. But, having had occasion early to doubt the
truthfulness of this vernal note, and having taken some pains to
examine the statements which from time to time are issued by the
great houses engaged in commercial and manufacturing industry, as
also the accounts of the present condition of the poor, which have
excited so much public interest, we have really been unable to
discover any one influential class, beyond the money-lenders and
creditors, or any one large and important branch of industry, which
can, with truth, be described as prospering, or will confess to the
existence of such prosperity. Shipmasters, manufacturers, merchants,
iron-masters, and agriculturists, all tell the same tale. This is
very strange. You may possibly remember that Mr M'Gregor, once
Secretary to the Board of Trade, and now member for Glasgow, the
great commercial city of Scotland, estimated the additional amount
of wealth which was to accrue to Great Britain, in consequence of
the repeal of the Corn Laws, at two millions sterling per week! Upon
what data that profound gentleman, who thus enunciated the prophecy
and assumed the mask of Midas, proceeded in his calculation, we know
not, and perhaps it would be superfluous to inquire. It certainly
was a good round sum; for, by this time, without insisting upon
compound, or even simple interest, it should have amounted to
rather more than one-half of the national debt; but unfortunately
nobody will own to having fingered a farthing of the money. In
recalling to your memory this little circumstance, it is by no
means our intention to offer any disrespect to the intellectual
powers of M'Gregor, for whom, indeed, we entertain a high degree of
veneration, similar to that which is manifested by the Mussulman
when he finds himself in the company of a howling derveesh. We
merely wish to reproduce to you one phantom of the golden dream,
which, five or six years ago, when the fever of gain was epidemical,
possessed the slumbers of so many; and having done so, to ask you,
now that the fever is gone, whether it was not indeed a phantom? We
are wiser now--at all events, we have had more experience--and the
producing classes tell us very distinctly, and quite unanimously,
that they have derived no benefit whatever from the commercial
changes which have taken place. Capital, whether invested in ships,
factories, mines, or land, is less profitable, and therefore less
valuable, than it was before; and in some instances, where the
depression has been most heavy, it has been almost annihilated.
These are not our statements, but the statements of the several
interests, as put forward by their own representatives. They
are statements which emanate alike from the Free-Trader and the
Protectionist. Men may differ as to the cause, but they all agree
as to the grand fact of the depression. So that, when we hear
ministers congratulating themselves and the country upon its general
prosperity, and, _pari passu_ with this congratulation, find the
accredited organs of each of the great branches of productive
industry vehemently asserting that they are exceptions from the
general rule, an anxious believer in the probity of all parties has
his faith somewhat rudely shaken.
We believe that, collectively, you are the best judges as to this
disputed matter. As the real wealth of the country depends upon
the amount and value of its yearly produce--as from that annual
creation, when measured by the monetary standard, and circulated
through a thousand channels, all our incomes are derived--you,
who supply the whole population with the necessaries and luxuries
of life, (fabricated by others, but passing through your hands,)
must necessarily have the best means of knowing whether the
circumstances of that population have, on the aggregate, been
bettered or made worse. When Napoleon in the bitterness of his heart
declared that we were a nation of shopkeepers, he uttered no terms
of reproach, though he intended to convey a taunt. Your position
in the community is such that you cannot flourish independent of
its general prosperity. The exporting manufacturer, and even the
foreign merchant, may multiply their gains, and realise fortunes,
whilst other classes, whose wellbeing is far more important to the
stability of the empire, are hastening to decay. Such phenomena are
common in old states, when the process of dissolution has begun.
The parasite lives and thrives, while the tree round which it has
wound its tendrils is crumbling into rottenness. But such is not
your case. Your interests are identical with those of the productive
classes, for without them you could not exist. Ill-remunerated
labour--unproductive capital--lessened means--deteriorated
property--are things which affect you as deeply as though you were
the direct sufferers or losers. Upon the wealth of your customers
depends your own. And therefore, in such an important crisis as
the present, when the existing commercial system of the country is
vigorously assailed by one party, and as obstinately defended by
another--when facts and statements apparently of much weight are
adduced on either side, to serve as arguments for the overthrow or
the maintenance of that system--when some cite statistical tables to
prove that the country must be prosperous, and others adduce real
evidence to show that the reverse is the case--you cannot afford
to sit idly by, without throwing the weight of your testimony and
experience into one or other of the scales. You have had admirable
opportunities of noticing the working of the Free-Trade system. It
matters not what were the original prepossessions of any of you,
or what might have been your opinion with regard to the merits of
this or that scheme, while it was still in embryo and untried. A
more complex question than that of Free Trade, as affecting the
importation of corn, probably never was presented to the public
consideration. Many excellent, judicious, and thoroughly patriotic
men, relying upon the truth of statements which were regarded by
others as mere plausible theories, were willing to submit to the
experiment. And when, by the grossest act of political perfidy
that was ever perpetrated--an act which future times, if not the
present, will stigmatise with deserved opprobrium--the last and most
important change, save that which subsequently assailed our maritime
interest, was suddenly effected, it was the declared opinion of the
majority that the new system must at least have a trial, until its
real results were developed, and until it became apparent to the
nation whether or not Free Trade would operate for the advantage of
the people, as its advocates and promoters had predicted.
Here we must, for a moment or two, however unwillingly, digress. The
later measures of Free Trade have assailed interests so important
and so strong, that its former and earlier advances, stealthily and
cautiously made, have almost faded from the public view. Free Trade,
as a political system, did not alone strike at the agricultural or
the shipping interest. Since the days of Mr Huskisson, who brought
with him into active life the principles which he had imbibed in
youth from his associates in French Jacobinism, the principles of
Free Trade have been gradually but cautiously applied to various
branches of British industry. The slow and insidious nature of the
movement on the part of the statesmen, who, even then, were yielding
to the influence of the modern economical school, showed their
distrust of the system, which, if true, ought at once to have been
openly promulgated. Like the late Sir Robert Peel, Huskisson was
destitute of that manly courage which scorns concealment or deceit,
and walks steadfastly to its goal. Cunning was an ingredient of
his nature: whatever he did was accomplished by tortuous methods,
and vindicated upon false pretences. The tendency of that policy
which he commenced was to maintain by all means, at all hazards,
and at the sacrifice, if needful, of every other interest, the
manufacturing supremacy, of England in the foreign market--an object
for which we still are striving, though at the imminent risk of the
dismemberment of the British empire. It is due, however, to the
memory of Mr Huskisson, to remark, that, although the originator
of this policy, he does not seem to have contemplated the extent
to which it would be carried out by his successors. His opinions
upon the subject of protection to agriculture were clear and
decided: "There is no effectual security, either in peace or war,
against the frequent return of scarcity, but in making ourselves
independent of foreign supply. Let the bread we eat be the produce
of corn grown among ourselves; and, for one, I care not how cheap
it is--the cheaper the better. It is cheap now, and I rejoice at
it, because it is altogether owing to a sufficiency of corn of our
own growth; but, to insure a continuance of that cheapness, and
that sufficiency, we must insure to our own growers _protection
against foreign importation_, which has produced those blessings,
and by which alone they can be permanently maintained." The time,
however, was fast approaching when the reins of government were to
fall into the hands of a scion of the manufacturing body, in whose
eyes the momentary supremacy of party was of more importance than
any principle of national policy. There is no more curious page in
history than that which records the rise of British manufactures
towards the close of last century. Invention after invention,
whereby manual labour was superseded by machinery, and the power of
production almost indefinitely multiplied, paved the way for that
monopoly which our manufacturers enjoyed for at least a quarter of
a century, during which time every other country in Europe except
our own was devastated by war, and the peaceful arts forgotten or
overthrown. It was during that period that the gigantic fortunes of
the Arkwrights and the Peels were made, and that influence secured
to the manufacturing body in the British House of Commons which it
never possessed before. But with the return of peace the monopoly
disappeared. By invention in mechanical appliances, Britain had
the start of other nations in the creation of manufactures; by
war, she was enabled long to enjoy the undivided benefits. But
inventions are not the property of a single nation; they pass from
one to another with the rapidity of lightning; they are available
by the foreign, even more easily than by the domestic, rival. Hence
it very soon became apparent that other states were preparing to
compete with us in those branches of industry which had proved
so exceedingly profitable. France, Belgium, Germany, Russia,
Switzerland, and America, all entered keenly into the contest; and
then commenced that decline of prices which has continued, almost
without intermission, to the present hour. Reciprocity treaties were
tried, but were in fact of little avail; for the great bulk of the
English exports consisted of those very textile fabrics which it
was the object of each country to produce for its own consumption,
if not to export to others. During the war, both the expenses of
government and the interest of the National Debt had doubled in
amount, and the monetary changes effected in 1819 added at least
one-third to the weight of that augmented burden. In order to make
this taxation bearable, the industry of the people was protected in
their own market by a scale of customs duties, which prevented the
influx of foreign produce at rates which must have annihilated the
British workman. Protection is a clear necessity which arises out
of taxation. If the tobacco, tea, coffee, sugar, beer, soap, and
other articles of the labourer's consumption, are taxed in order
to maintain an expensive establishment, and to defray the interest
of an enormous debt, he must have a compensation of some kind. The
only kind of compensation which can be granted, and which the wit of
man can devise, is to be found in an equitable scale of duties, by
means of which all produce imported into Britain shall be taxed as
heavily as though it had been reared, grown, or made up on British
ground by British labourers. Unless this be done, there is no fair
competition. The less burdened foreigner must ultimately carry the
day against the heavily-taxed Englishman. And when we consider that
all taxes must be paid out of produce, there being no other source
whatever from which they can be drawn, the importance of maintaining
the market value of our produce at a point equal to the pressure of
our taxation will at once become apparent.
There are, however, plausible, though in reality most fallacious
grounds, upon which the Protective System may be assailed. In this,
as in every other country, the first and most important branch
of industry is that which provides food for the population. To
that all others are subordinate. It is impossible to estimate the
amount of capital which has been laid out upon the soil of Britain,
first in reclaiming it from a state of nature, and, since then,
in maturing and increasing its fruitfulness. But some idea may be
formed of its magnitude from the fact that, in 1846, the annual
agricultural produce of the United Kingdom was valued, according
to the prices then current, at £250,000,000. Whatever imperial
taxation is imposed on other classes of the community is shared
equally by the agriculturists; and they are, moreover, exposed to
heavy local rates, from which the others are comparatively free.
It is a received maxim in political economy--we ought rather to
say a rule of common sense--that all taxes and charges paid by the
producer, over and above his necessary profit, fail ultimately to
be defrayed by the consumer--that is, that such taxes and charges
form a component part of the selling price of the article. There is
no specialty whatever in the case of corn or provisions to exempt
them from the general rule. But all restrictions which tend to
enhance the price of the first necessaries of life are obnoxious
to that section of the people who, from ignorance or incapacity,
cannot understand why bread should be dear in one country and
cheap in another. They, too, are subjected to their share of
indirect taxation, and the knowledge that they are so taxed in
the consumption of articles which constitute their only luxuries,
renders them doubly impatient of a system which, on the authority
of wicked and designing demagogues, they are led to believe was
invented by the landlords solely for their own benefit. Thus heavy
taxation, however engendered, must always be fraught with great
peril to the permanency of a state. The burden of such taxation
falls most heavily upon the land, and yet the agriculturist is
expected to provide food for the people as cheaply as though he were
altogether exempt from the burden.
The reason why the exporting manufacturers, and those politicians
who entered thoroughly into their views, were so bent upon the
destruction of the Corn Laws, was twofold. In the first place, the
competition in foreign markets threatened to become so strong, owing
to the rapid development of textile industry on the Continent, that
it was necessary to lower prices. England had given machinery and
models to the Continent, and the Continent was now fighting her
with her own weapons, and at a cheaper cost, as labour abroad is
less expensive than it is here. In order to bring down the value
of labour in England, for the purpose of protracting this grand
manufacturing contest, it was necessary to lower, in some way
or other, the price of food in England, and this could only be
accomplished by free admission of foreign supplies. In short, their
object was to bring down wages. On this point we have the testimony
of Mr Muntz, M.P. for Birmingham, as early as February 1842. He
wrote as follows:--"Say what you will, the _object_ of the measure
is _to reduce wages_, and the _intention_ is to reduce them to
the Continental level. I repeat it, the Corn Laws very materially
support labour in this country.... Why, the professed object of
the repeal is to enable the English merchant to compete with the
foreigner, and how can he do that _unless by a reduction of wages_,
which reduction will be upon all trade, home and foreign?" Mr John
Bright was not less clear as to the necessity of such reduction of
wages in order to maintain our exports: "If the tariff in Russia
imposed a heavy duty on English yarn, and if English yarn went there
and had to be sold at the same rate as the yarn of the Russian
spinner, he (that is, the Russian spinner) not paying the heavy
duty, it followed that we must, _by some means or other_, make our
goods cheaper by the amount of duty which we paid, and to do that
_it was absolutely necessary that the wages of the operatives in
this country should be reduced_." And Mr Greg of Manchester, a
leading member of the Anti-Corn Law League, wrote as follows:--"In
the only remaining item of the cost of production--that is, the
wages of labour--foreign nations have a decided advantage; and
although a free trade in provisions, by lowering them here, and
raising them abroad, might regulate the difference, I doubt if it
ever could be entirely removed. Better education, more sober habits,
more frugality, and general forethought, together with cheaper food,
will no doubt enable our people to live in much greater comfort
than at present UPON CONSIDERABLY SMALLER EARNINGS." These extracts
sufficiently disclose the designs of the Free-Traders against the
wages of the workman. In the second place, it was believed by many
of them, that, by sacrificing the agriculturists, they would be
able to turn the attention of other countries, especially America,
from the prosecution of their rising manufactures. They argued,
that if we were to surrender and secure our provision market to
foreign states, they would return the compliment by allowing us
to manufacture for them--in other words, that the foreigners were
to feed England, and England was to clothe the foreigners! This
precious scheme has since been avowed, seriously and gravely, by men
who have seats in the present House of Commons; and, so far as we
can understand their language, the philosophers of the _Edinburgh
Review_ consider this a most sensible arrangement!
The agricultural interest, however, was of too great magnitude to
be attacked at once. Several outworks were to be gained before
the citadel was summoned to surrender. Accordingly Mr Huskisson
began, and Sir Robert Peel continued, that system of commercial
relaxations, (which, some five-and-twenty years ago, was exposed
and denounced in this Magazine,) annihilating some branches of
industry and depressing others--pauperising whole districts, as in
the Highlands, and merging the villages in the towns--until the time
seemed ripe, and the opportunity propitious, for the accomplishment
of the grand design. It is not now necessary to dwell upon the
circumstances which attended the change in the Corn and Navigation
Laws--these are still fresh in the memory of all of us, and will
not soon be forgotten. Our object in this digression was simply to
remind you that Free Trade, in its insidious and stealthy progress,
has warred with other interests than those which belong to the
agricultural and the maritime classes.
Neither is it necessary at present to advert to the gross
inconsistencies of the system--to the restrictions which it still
continues upon that very branch of industry which it has laid bare
to foreign competition. Let us take the system as it is, of which
you have had now nearly three years' experience, dating from the
time when the ports were opened.
Three years constitute a long period for the endurance of a
commercial experiment. During that time you have had ample
opportunity of observing how the system has worked. Are you richer
or poorer than you were before the experiment began? If the former,
Free Trade has worked well; if the latter, it is a mischievous
delusion.
This is a question which you alone can answer--or rather, every man
must answer it for himself. But this much we may be allowed to say,
that, from what information we can gather regarding the state of
general trade--from the sentiments which we have heard expressed by
many of the most respectable of your own body--the experiences of
the last year have not been such as to give you much encouragement
for the future. If it is so, then you will do well to consider
whether or not you ought to lend that great political influence
which you undoubtedly possess, in support of a system which has not
only failed to realise the anticipations of its founders, but has
actually diminished in a great degree the power of purchase of the
community.
This is no trivial matter to any of us, least of all is it trivial
to you. The next general election will be, in its results, by far
the most important of any which has taken place for centuries. If,
in the new Parliament, all idea of a return to the Protective System
is abandoned, we may prepare ourselves for that most dismal conflict
which can convulse a country--a war against taxation, and ultimately
against property. For--rely upon this--heavy taxation and cheap
produce are things which never can be reconciled. You may, if you
please, hand over the home market of Britain to the foreigner, and
allow him, without toll or custom, to supply our wants with produce
of his own rearing; but, if you do so, what is to become of our
own population, and their labour?--and how are you to levy those
taxes which labour alone can supply? That manufacturing interest,
for which such desperate sacrifices have been made, is daily losing
ground in the markets of the world. The fact will brook no denial,
and it is admitted even by its own members. America has refused
the bait offered to her by the Free-Traders, and is engaged heart
and soul in the cotton manufacture, for which she possesses within
herself the command of the raw material. _To those countries which
supply us with corn, our exports of manufactures have alarmingly
decreased._ We may continue to glut (for that is what we are doing
at present) the markets of India and China, and our export tables
may exhibit a cheering increase in the amount of yards of calico
sent out; but, unless the trade circulars are utterly mendacious,
the speculation has been, and will continue to be for a long tract
of time, unprofitable. The fact is, that the extent and value of
our foreign trade in manufactures is little understood by most
of us, and grossly exaggerated by others. It constitutes, after
all, a mere fraction of the national production. The consumption
of manufactures at home is, or was, before the late changes were
made, twice as great as the whole amount of our annual exports. The
prosperity of this country does not depend upon the amount of wares
which it sends or forces abroad, though that is the doctrine which
is constantly clamoured in our ears by the political economists--a
generation of ridiculous pretenders, of whom it is only necessary
to know one, in order to form an accurate estimate of the mental
capabilities of his tribe. It depends on our own labour, on our
own internal arrangements, and on that reciprocity between man and
man, and between class and class of our fellow-subjects, which is
the only real security for the peace and tranquillity of a kingdom.
Those exporting manufacturers, who rummage foreign markets, are
no better than so many buccaneers. Their object is to evade the
burden of taxation at home, and, wherever they can with advantage
to themselves, to bring in foreign labour, untaxed and untolled, to
supersede that of the British workman.
You cannot have failed to remark that the arguments which are now
put forward by the Free-Traders, in support of their system, are
totally different from those which they advanced while recommending
it for the adoption of the country. How often were we told, during
the struggle which preceded the repeal of the Corn Laws, that all
the apprehensions expressed of a permanent fall in the value of
produce, and of overwhelming importations from abroad, were purely
visionary! Learned statists undertook to prove by figures that the
whole quantity of grain which could be brought into this country was
absolutely insignificant, and that it could not disturb prices. Mr
James Wilson of the _Economist_, in his valuable tractate entitled
_Influences of the Corn Laws_, which was published eleven years ago,
thus favoured the public with _his_ anticipations for the future, in
the event of the repeal of the Corn Laws:--
"Our belief is," says the sage of Westbury, "that the whole of
these generally received opinions are erroneous; that if we had had
a free trade in corn since 1815, the average price of the whole
period, actually received by the British grower, would have been
higher than it has been; that little or no more foreign grain would
have been imported; and that if, for the next twenty years, the
whole protective system shall be abandoned, _the average price of
wheat will be higher than it has been for the last seven years_,
(52s. 2d.,) or than it would be in the future with a continuance of
the present system;--but with this great difference, that prices
would be nearly uniform and unaltering from year to year; that the
disastrous fluctuations would be greatly avoided, which we have
shown, in the first proposition, to be so ruinous under the present
system."
For this very notable sentiment, Mr Wilson was clapped on the back
by the Manchester men, and commended thus in the seventh circular
of the League:--"We are much indebted to Mr Ibbotson of Sheffield,
_Mr James Wilson_, and our esteemed correspondent, for labouring to
prove to the landlords that they may safely do justice to others,
without endangering their own interests. And we think very much has
been done towards justifying their opinions, _that the money price
of grain would not be lowered even by the total repeal of the Corn
Laws_!" Sir Robert Peel, in the memorable debates of 1846, attempted
to justify his experiment on the ground that previous commercial
relaxations had been found beneficial to the parties who were
directly engaged in the trade, his inference being, that the same
result would follow in the case of the agriculturists. Unfortunately
the data upon which he proceeded were altogether fallacious; for,
notwithstanding his dexterity in selecting figures, and bringing
out balances which were apparently favourable, it was clearly
demonstrated by Lord George Bentinck, that in no one instance
whatever had those relaxations proved favourable to the British
producer, and that many of them had moreover occasioned a large
loss to the public revenue. But the language held by Sir Robert
Peel, upon that occasion, cannot be construed otherwise than as
the expression of an opinion that, by the repeal of the Corn Laws,
prices would not be materially disturbed--at all events, that they
would not be lowered so as to fall below the remunerative point.
The immense influx of foreign grain which followed the opening
of the ports in 1849, and the immediate fall of price, were
calculated to alarm not only the farmers, but even that section of
the Free-Traders who believed conscientiously that the productive
powers of Europe and America were unequal to the supply of so very
considerable a surplus. It is no wonder that the farmers were
frightened, when they saw grain coming in at the rate of a million
of quarters per month! They were, however, told by the highest
Free-trading authorities in both Houses of Parliament, and the same
view was violently maintained by the Liberal press, that their
fears were altogether groundless; that such importations could not
possibly be maintained; and that the first inundation was simply
caused by an accumulation of corn at the foreign ports, stored up
in readiness for the opening of the English market--a contingency
which could not happen again. The utmost pains were taken, by those
who had consented to the repeal of the Corn Laws, to persuade the
farmers that the low prices of 1849 were attributable principally to
the superabundance of the harvest at home; and they were exhorted
to wait patiently, but hopefully, for the advent of better times.
In short, every means were taken to persuade the agriculturists
that they were labouring under a temporary but not a permanent
difficulty, and that a very short time would suffice to restore them
to their former condition. But no one attempted to maintain, in
1849, that, if wheat continued to sell at or about 40s. per quarter,
its cultivation could be profitable in Britain; and when, at a later
period, one or two rash theorists attempted to broach that doctrine,
they were instantly put to silence by the overwhelming nature of the
proof which was brought against them--not the least instructive part
of it being the admissions of the leading Free-Traders as to what
really was, on an average of years, the remunerative price of wheat
to the British grower.
It is now clearly established, that, under Free Trade, 40s. per
quarter is a price which the British farmer cannot calculate on
receiving. The averages of England are now about 36s. per quarter,
being 20s. lower than the sum which Sir Robert Peel considered as
the lowest which could remunerate the grower. Therefore, taking
the average yield of good wheat-land at four quarters per acre,
it appears that, by continuing to grow that kind of grain which
is convertible into ordinary bread, the farmer must be a positive
loser to the extent of _four pounds per acre_! In other words,
even suppose no rent at all were taken for the land, wheat cannot
continue to be grown at a profit in Great Britain, so long as
the averages remain below 40s.; and we leave a large margin to
the credit of improved husbandry and strict economy, exercised,
as it must be, at the expense of the labourer's wages. That such
is the present condition of the British farmers--a hopeless one,
unless a legislative remedy is applied--will brook no denial. Last
year we were told of farms letting at an increase of rent, and of
other symptoms of agricultural prosperity, whereof nothing now is
heard. The fact of the depression--if we may use so mild a term in
respect to a branch of industry which is now merely existing upon
capital, not by income--is beyond all possibility of doubt or cavil.
The causes of it are obvious; and it now only remains to be seen
whether we can afford to allow agriculture to be extinguished from
among us, or at best raised to that point which will afford a bare
subsistence to the grower, without the risk of involving the rest of
us in a like calamity.
You may have heard it said--for it has been often written--that it
signifies little to the people of this country from what source they
receive their bread. It is worth your while to examine into this.
That a loaf baked of American flour, grown in the valley of the
Mississippi, may taste quite as well in the mouth of the consumer as
a loaf of English material is a circumstance which we can readily
believe; but is this all that is to be considered? Does the American
bear any part of our national taxation? Does he contribute, directly
or indirectly, to the burdens which are common to the British
producer? Does he deal with any of you, and can you call him a
customer? These are the questions which you ought to ask yourselves,
in making up your minds on this matter; and if you will only examine
the subject patiently and dispassionately, your own common sense
will lead you to a just conclusion. Let us suppose that all the food
which you purchase and consume was grown on a foreign soil, and
admitted free of duty. You might then have cheap bread, but, as a
necessary consequence, you would lose more than half your customers.
Unless people have money they cannot buy; and if agricultural
production were to be abandoned in the British islands, all those
who derive their incomes--not only directly, but indirectly--from
the soil, would necessarily be stripped of their means. Are you
aware of the fact that, on a minute analysis of the census of
1841, it appeared that the relative numbers of the population of
Great Britain and Ireland, supported and maintained by the two
great sources of production, agriculture and manufactures, were as
18,734,468, dependent on the first, to 8,091,621, dependent on the
second? Do you believe that the country can remain prosperous, if
you strike a deathblow at the produce which maintains more than
two-thirds of its inhabitants?
Let us go a little farther, and suppose--what may hereafter be the
case--that other countries could undersell us in the home market in
the article of manufactures--that America, France, or Germany could
send us cotton and woollen stuffs, and other ware, cheaper than we
could make them at home. In that case, where would be the sources
of our income? All industry would be prostrated--for you know very
well that a losing trade will not and cannot be carried on long, and
that the time will soon arrive when, through the failure of capital,
it must be abandoned. In such an event, what would become of our
population, with their labour entirely destroyed? How could the
taxes be levied, and the expenses of government paid, to say nothing
of the interest of the National Debt? Great cheapness you would
have, no doubt, but nobody would be able to buy.
If cheapness is a blessing in food, it is a blessing in clothing
and in everything else. The rule admits of no exception. It is as
advantageous for any of us to save a pound on the price of his coat
as a penny on the price of his loaf. Bread is, no doubt, the most
important article of the workingman's consumption, but at the same
time it is no less a fact that the raising of food is the most
important part of the production of the labouring-classes. Without
home labour, all capital in this country would be annihilated, or
at least would depart from it. Labour depends entirely upon wages,
and wages upon the market price of the article produced. If from
the introduction of foreign labour, in the shape of products, the
price of any article is forced down below the cost of production,
then wages begin to fall, and in the end production is extinguished.
Why is it that foreign countries have imposed heavy duties upon
our exported articles of manufacture? Simply for this object--that
their own manufacturers, who give employment to large numbers of
their population, may not be undersold by ours, nor those means of
employment annihilated. In acting thus, these governments perform a
paternal duty to the people--shielding them against the competition
of an older manufacturing power, and preparing them hereafter, when
skill and capital are acquired, to enter neutral markets, with a
fair chance of ultimately overcoming the other.
It stands to reason that, with an equal degree of energy on the part
of its inhabitants, the country which is the least heavily burdened
must distance others in all branches of industry, where nature does
not oppose a barrier, or place it at a disadvantage. The mineral
wealth of England, and our priority in manufacturing invention, gave
us for a long time an advantage over all other nations. America
was not advanced enough to enter into the lists of manufacturing
competition; the distracted state of the Continent, and the
perpetual presence or apprehension of war, effectually prevented the
European states from attempting to rival Britain. But since that
time vast changes have taken place. The mineral resources of other
countries have been developed. Some idea of the manufacturing power
which America now possesses may be formed from the enormous increase
of her domestic production of iron and coal. In 1829, the amount of
iron manufactured in the United States was 90,000 tons; in 1848,
it had risen to 800,000 tons. The coal raised in 1829 was 37,000
tons; in 1849 it was 3,200,000 tons. In the article of cotton, which
is our great manufacturing staple, America has the inestimable
advantage of growing the raw material--an advantage which never
can be counterbalanced, as, even if we were to obtain our supplies
from some other quarter, the expenses of freightage must still
continue to be great. In fact, to all appearance, our supremacy in
the conversion of cotton is already doomed. That branch of industry
rests upon no substantial basis. It rose like an exhalation, and so
it will disappear. These are not merely our opinions, but those of
the most shrewd and calculating of the Free-Traders. Hear Mr Greg
of Manchester on this subject, previous to the repeal of the Corn
Laws:--
"At present we are undersold by foreigners in neutral markets in
all the staple articles of English manufacture. In the articles
of cotton, hosiery, and cutlery, which amount altogether to
three-fourths of our exports, this is notoriously the case. In
cotton fabrics the Swiss undersell us in several markets. In
cutlery Sheffeld is immensely undersold by the Alsace, and our
exports are yearly decreasing. In hosiery, the case is still
worse. Saxon hosiery, after paying a duty of 20 per cent, is
sold in London 25 to 30 per cent cheaper than the produce of
the Leicester and Nottingham looms. In Leicester the stocking
frames have diminished from 16,000 in 1815 to 14,000 in 1840;
whilst in Saxony, in the same time, they have increased from
4590 to 25,000. The English manufacturer pays 2s. 6d. for the
same work that the French manufacturer gets done for 2½d. The
American cutlery market (the most important of all) has been
wrested from us, and our exports of that article to all the
world have fallen from £1,620,000 in 1831 to £1,325,000 in 1841.
_How far with cheaper food, no taxes on the raw material, and
no duties but for the sake of revenue, we might yet recover our
lost superiority, is a matter for grave consideration._ I do not
believe we could either in woollens or hosiery; and even in the
cutlery or cotton trade I think it very doubtful. Now, under a
free commercial system, the raw material would be nearly the
same in all countries, and the advantage, where there was one,
would be generally on the side of foreigners. France and Italy
would have an advantage in silk, and America in cotton; the
current expenses would also be nearly equal. The machinery of
foreign nations even now is not very inferior to our own, and is
daily and rapidly improving; their capital is fast accumulating,
and the yearly interest of it approximating to our own rate."
Here, you see, is a confession of opinion by a leading Free-Trader,
that even the cheapening of food, by which he means the reduction of
the wages of labour, will not suffice ultimately to secure us the
supremacy of the foreign markets. He is perfectly right. In this
insane, and we believe almost entirely unprofitable competition with
the rest of the world, we must infallibly be overcome. No cheapness
of food can countervail the pressure of our heavy taxation. The
cotton-lords, if they could, would fain bring down the price of
labour to the Continental level, which doubtless would enable them,
for a long time, to prolong the contest; but this they cannot do, if
our national engagements are to be fulfilled, and our most valuable
institutions maintained. So long as the revenue duties exist,
labour cannot be forced down to that point. But, in the mean time,
agriculture may be ruined, and the home trade, by which alone you
subsist, be palsied. In fact, the present struggle lies between
the home trade and the foreign trade. One or other of these must
ultimately succumb. The effect of our present commercial system is
to paralyse the home trade, by decreasing the value of all kinds of
domestic produce; by lowering all incomes, and consequently reducing
the amount of the internal business of the country. It has enabled
our manufacturers, for the time, to make a show of larger exports
than before; but it has not, according to their own acknowledgement,
at all enhanced their profits. It may have enabled them to lower
their prices, but it has not increased their returns.
And no wonder that it should be so. Except in the most miserable and
unimportant quarters, our relaxations have been met by augmented
tariffs instead of eager reciprocity. The nations of the world have
refused to sacrifice their advantages, to renounce their prospects,
and to become Free-Traders at the call of Britain. Their statesmen
thoroughly understood the motive of the ingenuous offer: they were
not to be cozened even by the plausibility of Sir Robert Peel. It
is almost melancholy now, when we remember what has actually taken
place, to revert to the peroration of that statesman's speech
delivered on 16th February 1846. A more lamentable instance of
delusion, as to the true feeling and position of other countries,
was never perhaps exhibited. Mark his words:--
"Many countries are watching with anxiety the selection you may
make. Determine for 'Advance,' and it will be the watchword
which will animate and encourage in every state the friends
of liberal commercial policy. Sardinia has taken the lead.
Naples is relaxing her protective duties, and favouring British
produce. Prussia is shaken in her adherence to restriction.
The government of France will be strengthened; and, backed by
the intelligence of the reflecting, and by conviction of the
real welfare of the great body of the community, will perhaps
ultimately prevail over the self-interest of the commercial
and manufacturing aristocracy which now predominates in her
Chambers. Can you doubt that the United States will soon
relax her hostile tariff, and that the friends of a freer
commercial intercourse--the friends of peace between the two
countries--will hail with satisfaction the example of England?"
How strangely did this remarkable man, whose career in all time
coming will be a warning to the aspiring statesman, misunderstand
the true nature of his country's position! In order to tempt
reciprocity he opened the British ports--that is, he conceded
gratuitously the only condition by which we ever could have hoped to
insure it! At the expense of the British agriculturist he opened the
British market to the foreigner, in the expectation, as he expressly
declared, that the boon would be repaid by measures which would
prevent the rise of manufactures abroad, and restrain other nations
from employing capital profitably, from entering into rivalry with
Britain, and from using those natural advantages which were ready
to their hand; and which, if used, could not fail to add to their
wealth, and to furnish employment for millions of their increasing
population! Most egregious was the blunder, and terrible is the
penalty which we are certain to pay for it, if we do not retrace our
steps.
It is always useful to know what intelligent men of other countries
think of our system. They survey and examine it without those
prejudices which are apt to beset all of us, and are better able
than ourselves to determine with what degree of favour it will be
received, or is received, by those who are removed beyond the scope
of our immediate observation. Certainly, of all others, from their
affinity to ourselves, and their proverbially shrewd acuteness in
all matters of commercial detail, the Americans are most likely to
form an accurate estimate both of our position and our prospects
in regard to foreign trade. It is well worth our while to read and
consider the following opinion of Mr Carey, the most distinguished
Transatlantic writer on points of political economy. It occurs in
his work entitled _The Harmony of Interests_, published in America
so late as December 1849.
"Men are everywhere flying from British commerce, which
everywhere pursues them. Having exhausted the people of the
lower lands of India, it follows them as they retreat towards
the fastnesses of the Himalaya. Affghanistan is attempted, while
Scinde and the Punjaub are subjugated. Siamese provinces are
added to the empire of Free Trade, and war and desolation are
carried into China, in order that the Chinese may be compelled
to pay for the use of ships, instead of making looms. The
Irishman flies to Canada; but there the system follows him, and
he feels himself insecure until within the Union. The Englishman
and the Scotchman try Southern Africa, and thence they fly
to the more distant New Holland, Van Diemen's Land, or New
Zealand. The farther they fly, the more they use ships and other
perishable machinery, the less steadily can their efforts be
applied, the less must be the power of production, and the fewer
must be the equivalents to be exchanged; and yet in the growth
of ships caused by such circumstances, we are told to look for
evidence of prosperous commerce!
"_The British system is built upon cheap labour, by which is
meant low-priced and worthless labour._ Its effect is to cause
it to become from day to day more low-priced and worthless; and
thus _to destroy production upon which commerce must be based_.
The object of protection is to produce dear labour--that is,
high-priced and valuable labour, and its effect is to cause
it to increase in value from day to day, and to increase the
equivalents to be exchanged, to the great increase of commerce.
"The object of what is now called Free Trade, is that of
securing to the people of England the further existence of _the
monopoly of machinery_, by aid of which Ireland and India have
been ruined, and commerce prostrated. Protection seeks _to break
down this monopoly_, and to cause the loom and the anvil to take
their natural places by the side of the food and the cotton,
that production may be increased, and that commerce may revive."
In short, the harmony of interests is regarded in America as the
grand point of aim for the statesman. With us, our most important
home interests, on which depend the welfare of by far the greater
part of our population, are sacrificed to prolong a struggle in
which our exporting manufacturers cannot possibly be the victors,
and from which, even at present, they derive little or no profit.
Now, let us ask you to consider for one moment, what is the natural
effect, upon the whole of us, of a forcible diminution of prices,
and depreciation of produce. Here we shall borrow an illustration
and argument from our adversaries, referring to a point which
is in the recollection of all of you, and about which there can
be no possible mistake. You will recollect that the Liberal and
Free-trading journals, almost without exception, as well as most of
the defenders of the Peel policy in the House of Commons, attributed
much of that general depression and stagnation of trade which
followed the repeal of the Corn Laws to the losses sustained by
the failure of the potato-crop in 1845-6. Was there a general want
of confidence visible--were the shopkeepers scant of custom--was
there a less demand than usual within the country for home
manufactures--was there a decline in the price of iron--all was laid
at the door of the unfortunate potato. Since Cobbett uttered his
anathema against the root, it never was in such bad odour. To every
complaint, remonstrance, or lamentation, the reply was ready--"How
can we remedy a calamity of this kind? The potato has done it all!"
At that time it was very convenient, nay, absolutely necessary,
for the Free-Traders to discover some tangible cause for the gross
failure of their predictions. They looked about them in every
direction, and they could discover nothing except the potato which
could endure the blame. Now, although we believe that this esculent
has been unduly reviled, and made to bear a greater burden than
was its due for political misfortune, we nevertheless accept the
illustration at the hands of our opponents, and we beg you to mark
its significance. The loss of the potato-crop in Great Britain and
Ireland, during the year in question, has been variously estimated,
but if we assume it to have been £20,000,000 we are making a very
large calculation indeed. So then, _according to the Free-Traders,
the loss of twenty millions of agricultural produce_ was sufficient
to bring down profits, embarrass trade, and cause a stagnation in
home manufactures! And yet, when Mr Villiers came forward in the
beginning of 1850, and told you, in his capacity of proposer of
the Address to the Crown, that £91,000,000 were _annually_ taken
from the value of the agricultural produce of the country, you
were expected, and directed, to clap your hands with joy, and to
congratulate one another on this symptom of the national prosperity!
The sum of twenty millions lost by the failure of the potato-crop--a
single event, not one of annual occurrence--was taken from the
country's power of produce; and _therefore_, said the Free-Traders,
there was stagnation. But they, of course, could not help it. Of
course they could not; but what about the ninety-one millions
of _annual_ loss, which is equally deducted from the internal
expenditure of the country? About _that_ we do not hear a word. And
yet ask yourselves, and that most seriously--for it is time that we
should get rid of all such pitiful paltering--whether there is any
difference whatever between the two cases, except that the one was
an isolated casualty, and that the other is an annual infliction to
which we are subjected by statute? Weigh the matter as you will,
you cannot, we are satisfied, be able to detect any difference. If
the grower of grain at present prices has no remuneration for his
toil, or return for his capital, he cannot buy from you, any more
than could the farmer whose crop perished by the potato disease.
What caused the stagnation? The failure of the power to purchase,
because there was no return for produce. What causes the stagnation?
Precisely the same thing perpetrated by Act of Parliament.
Do not, we beseech you, allow yourselves to be fooled any longer
by the jesuitry of these political economists, but apply your own
reason to discover the cause of the present depression. Do not
believe them when they talk about exceptional causes, affecting
temporarily the industry of the nation, but certain immediately to
disappear. If you were to live as long as Methusaleh, no one year
would elapse without furnishing those gentlemen with a special and
exceptional cause. One year it is the potato disease; another the
French Revolution; another the Great Exhibition. Heaven only knows
what will be their excuse next year--perhaps the new Reform Bill, or
some other similar godsend. You are the particular class upon whom
the deception is to be played, and for whose especial benefit the
fraud is concocted. The producers know very well how they stand,
and what they have to expect. They can be no longer cajoled by
assurances of higher prices, by vague promises of profit after the
disappearance of "the transition state," or by impudent averments
that, by an entire change of system and the expenditure of more
capital, they will be able to maintain themselves in affluence. To
do the Free-Traders justice, they have for some time desisted from
such attempts. They now address their victims, through their organs,
in a fine tone of desperado indifference, telling them that, if they
do not like the present arrangement, the sooner they go elsewhere
the better. And the people are taking them at their word and going.
Hundreds of thousands of tax-payers are leaving the country as fast
as possible, carrying with them the fragments of their property,
and bequeathing to those who remain behind their share of the
national burdens. But in your case, the Free-Traders cannot yet
afford to pull off the mask. They are apprehensive that you should
see them in their real character; and therefore, so long as you are
likely to be amused with "specialties" and "exceptional causes,"
these will be furnished to you gratis, and in great variety. There
seems, however, to be an apprehension among their camp that you are
beginning to evince suspicion. Recent elections have not been quite
as they should be; and in the seaport and large commercial towns
there are evident symptoms of mutiny. So, by way of diverting your
attention, you are likely to have a measure of Reform next year,
possibly as satisfactory in its result as the Ecclesiastical Titles
Bill, upon which Ministers cleverly managed to concentrate the whole
public attention throughout last session, and then, having carried
it, allowed its provisions to become a dead letter, almost before
the ink, which made the measure complete, was dry! We say this, not
as opponents of an extension of the suffrage--for on that point we
reserve our opinion until the details are fully before us--but as
enemies and loathers of a miserable system of chicane and deception
which has now crept into the public counsels, and which threatens
very speedily to destroy the independence of public opinion, by
opposing state obstacles to its free and legitimate expression. We
ask any of you, fearlessly, to look back at the records of last
session, and then say whether the country was not degraded and
stultified by the act of the Prime Minister? Right or wrong, at his
invitation and call, the Protestants of Great Britain demanded a
security against what they considered an intolerable instance of
Romish insolence and aggression. They received it from Parliament;
and the moment it passed into the hands of the executive power, it
became as worthless as the paper upon which it was written! And why
was this? Simply because the object was gained--you had been amused
for a whole session. If nothing was intended to be done in the way
of repelling aggression, and if Ministers durst have told you so
a year ago, there were many points affecting your more immediate
interests which would have been forced upon their attention. But
they were very glad to escape from such discussions under cover of a
Protestantism which they did not feel, and an affected indignation
of Papal claims, which they had done everything in their power, by
diplomatic agency, to encourage; and, having escaped the perils of
one session upon that ground, they will strain every effort to turn
your attention from your own position, during the next, by bringing
forward some measure which they hope may enlist your sympathies,
or provoke controversy, so far as to render you indifferent to the
real nature of your position. The selection of the battlefield is
the oldest trick in strategy. Get up the appearance of a battle,
and people will flock from any distance to witness it, regardless
of their own interest. Lord John Russell is famous for bloodless
fields, which resolve themselves into reviews--shall we have another
such in the course of the approaching session?
That manufactures are now exceedingly depressed, and have been so
for a long time, notwithstanding the reduction in the price of food
consequent upon foreign importations, is an admitted and notorious
fact. We have from time to time kept this before the public view by
quoting from the trade circulars; and though further evidence may
be unnecessary, we shall subjoin extracts from the last accounts
received from three seats of industry, two of which are represented
in Parliament by Colonel Peyronnet Thompson and Mr Feargus O'Connor.
Gloomy as they are, they are by no means the worst which we have had
occasion to cite during the last two years.
"BRADFORD, _November 6_.--The market here does not show any
symptom of improvement in the demand for any kind of combing
wools. All seem in wonder and anxiety as to what may be next
expected, for to buy none are willing, whether with stock or
without. The staplers appeared to expect that the spirited
buying of colonial wools would give a tone of confidence, but
that appears to have no effect. The spinners pause when they
contrast the comparative high prices of English wool, especially
those of the finer class, with what they were in 1848, when
yarns were at the present prices, and will not buy with the
certainty of making so great a loss as a purchase would entail.
The supply of Noils and Brokes was never so limited as at
present, and the small quantity making brings full prices. The
business doing in yarns is certainly small, and the transactions
confined to immediate delivery. No one seems inclined to enter
into engagements for distant delivery. For to go on at the
present prices of yarns is worse than madness, the price for
low numbers of good spinning and standing having reached 8s.
per gross, and those of a secondary class sold, if reeled, for
what may be the instructions to the commission houses, who have
needy parties pressing sales. The quantity so offering is not so
great, but the sacrifices which have now for so long been made
render the position of the trade exceedingly embarrassing. _The
production continues to be daily curtailed, and from the whole
district the same cheerless tidings are received. Some large
houses, who have never reduced their operations before, have
adopted it, their loss being so immense, and the whole condition
of the trade so thoroughly disjointed._ In pieces the business
during the week has not shown any feature of increased activity,
and the stocks in the manufacturers' hands are somewhat
increasing, but not so fast as last year at this period, and
especially in Coburgs and fancy goods: the former are chiefly
made in this district, and not in Lancashire, for the ruinous
price has driven them on to other classes of goods adaptable
to their looms; and for some months several large houses have
been engaged in making Bareges for the American market. This has
prevented mousselines-de-laine being made to stock, and, perhaps
for many years, this branch of the trade has not opened with so
small a stock on hand.
"NOTTINGHAM, _November 6_.--In lace we have no improvement
to notice this week in the general sale of goods, and, with
very few exceptions, there is a great falling off in demand;
but, as many of the manufacturers are wisely lessening their
production, we do not anticipate any serious losses resulting
from the present temporary stagnation. Many are stopping their
frames to make fresh designs altogether; which, if done with
good taste, some advantage may result from present difficulties.
In hosiery our trade is not so much depressed as we had reason
to anticipate. There is still a fair business doing in wrought
hose, and a little increased demand for 'cut-ups,' as well as
gloves made of thread and spun silk. The price of yarn is low,
which is in favour both of the manufacturer and merchant.
"LEICESTER, _November 6_.--The unsettled state of the price of
workmanship for straight-down hose has caused a great depression
in that branch, and led to nearly a total cessation of work,
many hosiers declining to give out until prices are settled. In
wrought hose a better business is doing, though not so good as
usual at this season. Yarns continue dull of sale."
Now, why do we insist upon these things? For two reasons. In
the first place, we wish you to observe that the cheapness of
manufacturing products does not of itself induce consumption.
There must be buyers as well as sellers in order to constitute
a market, and the tendency of our late legislation has been to
diminish the means of the former. It by no means follows that, if
we have cheap food and cheap manufactures, the relative position
of all classes can be maintained. Never forget _that our burdens
all the while remain at a fixed money rate_, and that, as the value
of produce is lowered, the weight of those burdens is aggravated.
This consideration, which is now well understood, is beginning to
tell strongly against the doctrines of the Free-Traders, even with
some of those, who were once their ardent supporters. Mr James
Harvey of Liverpool, late a member of the Anti-Corn-Law League,
but now a strenuous opponent of their system, thus chronicles the
leading cause of his conversion. We quote from his pamphlet just
published, _Remunerative Price the Desideratum, not Cheapness_. He
says:--"My suspicions were first awakened by the blind devotion
of the Manchester school of political economy to the doctrine of
CHEAPNESS; for it struck me as a self-evident proposition, that to
buy cheap is to sell cheap, in which case there can be no possible
gain, but a positive loss, arising from the necessary aggravation of
all fixed charges." In order to place the producers of this country
in the same position as before, it would be necessary to reduce all
fixed charges, the interest of debt both public and private, the
expenses of government, and all salaries and annuities, to an amount
corresponding to the forced decline of prices. This would be called
a war against property; but, in reality, the war against property
began when the Legislature admitted foreign untaxed produce to
compete with the produce and labour of our tax-paying population at
home.
Our second reason for drawing your attention to the cheerless
prospect of manufactures, has reference to the sacrifices, not
only indirect but direct, which the other classes of the community
were called upon to make in order to prop them up. In the first
place, the Property and Income Tax, which we are still called upon
to pay, was imposed by Sir Robert Peel expressly for the object of
effecting "such an improvement in the _manufacturing interests_ as
will react on every other interest in the country." He admitted
that it was an unjust and partial impost, and therefore promised
that it should be only temporary--however, we have endured it for
ten years, and the Whigs will no doubt make an effort to continue
it still longer. Here, then, you have a sum of five millions and a
half annually confiscated for the benefit of the manufacturers, who
were relieved from taxation to that amount. So far for sacrifice the
first. Then came sacrifice the second, in the shape of Free Trade,
mulcting the productive classes of this country to the extent of at
least five-and-thirty per cent of their annual returns. Then came
sacrifice the third, which handed over the carrying trade to the
foreigner.
Now, considering that all these sacrifices have been made for the
encouragement of manufactures, or at least with that professed
object, is it not, to say the least of it, extraordinary that
they have not thriven? How are we to account for a result so
wholly contrary to the avowed anticipations of our statesmen? The
explanation is, after all, not very difficult. All these sacrifices
have been made, not for the great body of the manufacturers, but for
a mere section of them. We possess no authentic official information
as to the amount of manufactures consumed at home; but we have
records, more or less trustworthy, of the amount of our exports,
and these are used to mislead the minds of the multitude as to the
actual extent and relative importance of our trade. England has no
more title than France has to the character of the workshop of the
world. We are driven from the markets of civilised countries by the
protective duties imposed by their governments for the righteous and
prudent purpose of fostering native industry, and we are compelled
to seek our marts among people who are not yet so far advanced in
political economy as to detect the enormous discrepancy between our
principles and our practice. Listen to Mr Harvey's sketch of our
foreign trade:--
"From the theories and systems I turned my attention to passing
events and recorded facts: I saw the West Indies prostrated;
Canada thrown into a state of revolt, succeeded by a smothered
feeling of discontent; Ireland depopulated; the magnificent
resources of India undeveloped; and the British farmer
reduced to the dire necessity of paying rent out of capital.
I also perceived that the change in our commercial policy had
substituted a cosmopolitan cant in the place of patriotism and
nationality. To become the friend of every country but his own
had become the pride and the glory of statesmanship. Foreign
goods were admitted, duty free, into our ports, in the vain hope
of reciprocity being established; but our manufactures were
subjected to heavy imposts on the Continent of Europe, and in
the United States. China, unversed in the mysteries of political
economy, only levies five per cent upon our goods, whilst,
in direct contravention of our pet notions of Free Trade and
reciprocity, we impose a tax of 300 per cent upon her teas. OUR
HOPES HAVE BEEN DISAPPOINTED, OUR CALCULATIONS FALSIFIED. WE ARE
THE DUPES OF OUR OWN FANTASTIC IDEAS AND QUIXOTIC CONCESSIONS.
We are the laughing-stock of the Old and the New Worlds. The
Germanic Zollverein shuns our overtures; the American excludes
our ships from his seaboard."
Can these things be controverted? We defy the ingenuity of mankind
to do it.
So much for the foreign trade; but there still remains the home
trade, in which by far the largest portion of our manufacturing
capital is embarked, and which furnishes a much greater amount of
employment to British labour than the other. You see what is the
state of that trade, notwithstanding the savings which may have been
effected by the lowered price of food, and also notwithstanding that
partial protection which several branches of it are still allowed
to retain. One word as to that incidental point. Mr Cobden is
reported to have said, that he did not care how soon these remnants
of protection were abolished. Let him be as good as his word, and,
IF HE DARES, rise up in his place in the House of Commons, and
make a motion to that effect. We shall then have an opportunity of
testing the exact nature of his principles. To what cause can such
a depression as this, so long and continuous, be attributed, except
to a general curtailment of demand on the part of the consumers,
arising from the insufficiency of their means to make purchases as
before? You are probably aware that what is called strict economy
in families is not favourable to the interests of manufacture or
of trade. Of manufactures of all kinds there must be a certain
yearly consumption, based upon the necessities of the people.
Besides food, men require clothes to cover them, and houses in which
to dwell, and those houses must be more or less furnished. But
between the bare supply of such necessities, and that point which
is considered by persons, according to their tastes, education, or
habits, as constituting comfort, there is a wide interval. Nothing
is a more sure criterion of the wealth and income of a people than
the ordering of their homes, and the manner of their living; and the
traveller who passes from one country into another can at once form
an estimate, from such appearances, of their respective wealth or
poverty. Diminish income, and a reduction is immediately made. All
superfluities are lopped off and renounced. The broker, who deals
in second-hand articles, drives a larger business than the man who
is the vendor of new ones; and even in domestic labour there is a
large economy practised, by reducing establishments. That this must
be so, will be evident on the slightest reflection. Reduce a man's
income from £1000 to £800 or £600, and he will, if he has any wisdom
or prudence, cut down his expenses to meet the fall. It is upon
the home manufacturer in the first place, and upon the shopkeeper
secondly, that these reductions tell. The one finds that his amount
of production is much greater than the demand; the other does not
turn over his capital nearly so rapidly as before. Add to this
that the home manufacturer, in many branches, is exposed to strong
foreign competition. Sir Robert Peel, in his last alterations of
the tariff, did indeed continue Protection--more largely than is
generally understood, for the mere amount of revenue-duty drawn from
importations of foreign articles, adapted to compete with ours in
the home, is no criterion of the Protective value--to some branches
of industry; but others were exposed without shelter, and have since
suffered accordingly. It is undeniable that a very large amount of
foreign manufactures, which have paid no duty at all, or merely an
elusory one, are consumed within this country--thereby inflicting
extreme injury upon British labour, and depressing trades which,
though severally not important, give in the aggregate, or ought to
give, the means of employment to thousands. Regard the subject in
any light you will, this cheapness, of which we have heard so much,
just amounts to a diminution of the income of every class, except
the annuitants and fund-holders, while it consequently renders the
payment of the fixed burdens more grievous to every one of us.
You, gentlemen, to whom we have ventured to submit these remarks,
have a very great deal in your power. You can, by your decision,
either confirm the present policy, or cause it to be reversed; and
your own experience will suffice to show you in what manner the
system has worked. Statists may parade their figures, economists may
puff their plans, statesmen may indulge in high-coloured pictures
of the success which they expect to follow their measures--but the
true test of every measure which has a practical tendency will be
found in the effect which it produces upon the circumstances of the
people, and especially upon those of the middle classes. We, who
have, from the very first, anticipated the baneful effects of this
attack upon British industry--we, who have no more connection than
any of yourselves with territorial aristocracy, and who consider
the welfare of the people as the grand object which it is the duty
of the Government to promote--ask you to apply your own reason to
the facts which are before you and in your reach, and to decide and
act accordingly. It was, we knew from the very beginning of this
struggle, impossible that you could decide until the effects of the
Free-Trade experiment became visible and palpable among yourselves.
We foresaw that it was only through the suffering and impoverishment
of the producers that the practical lesson could reach you, and
that, until this took place, it was of little use to invoke your
aid, or even to entreat your judgment. Probably, by this time, you
will have formed an accurate estimate of the value of the doctrines
promulgated by the babblers on political economy--a sect which has
never yet been allowed to interfere with the internal affairs of
any nation, without producing the most disastrous results. To them
we are indebted for that change of the currency which has added
fully one-third to our fixed burdens, and for those complex monetary
arrangements which insure periodically the return of a commercial
crisis. But whatever you may think of them, do not allow yourselves
to be influenced by their representations, or by those of their
accredited organs. The time for theory is over. You have now to deal
with facts, regarding which every man of you is competent to form
an opinion. We do not ask you to accept our statements implicitly,
any more than those of our opponents--though, if we did so, we might
hold ourselves justified on this ground, that the greater part of
our evidence is taken from the admissions of our adversaries. We
appeal to your own experience, and upon that we leave you to decide.
And do not be afraid to give free utterance to your opinion. There
exists not in this land--there exists not in all the world, the
power which can rise up against you. The British producer on the
one hand, and the exporting manufacturer on the other, may have
conflicting interests not altogether reconcilable with the public
good, for isolated interest always begets selfishness; and where
individual or class profit is concerned, principle is apt to be
overlooked. But you are, eminently, THE CLASS to pronounce upon
conflicting opinions. Your interest is that of the nation whose
pulse is beneath your finger. You can tell, with greater accuracy
than others, whether any political prescription has stimulated
the circulation of the blood, or caused it to run torpidly in the
national veins. You can mark the changes in the circumstances of
your customers, and from these you can form an estimate whether or
not the late experiment has been successful.
If, judging by that test, you should think it has been successful,
our case is lost. We, who have advocated the Protective Principle in
legislation, cannot continue to maintain it, if those whose incomes
depend mainly upon British custom find themselves advantaged by
measures which have reduced the value of British produce. In matters
of this kind there is no abstract dogma involved, on the strength
of which any man could make himself a creditable martyr. Men have
died for their faith or for their allegiance, believing either to be
their highest duty; but no one in his senses will spend a lifetime,
or any considerable portion of it, in combating absolute facts. The
reason why Protection is still a living principle--the reason why it
finds so many supporters among the learned and the thoughtful--the
reason why it is progressing step by step towards triumph--is
because, in the minds of those who advocate it, there is a strong
and deep-rooted conviction that you already know that the opposite
system has entirely failed to realise the predictions of its
advocates, and that you feel that its permanency is contrary to your
interest, and to that of the great body of the people. If we are
right in this conviction, then we are entitled not only to solicit,
but to demand, your earnest co-operation. These are not times
for political cowardice, or weak suppression of opinion. Liberty
of thought, and liberty of the expression of sentiment, are our
unalienable prerogative; but of late years, and in the hands of a
certain party, that prerogative has been scandalously overstretched.
We now hear men--even members of the Legislature--threatening the
country, and you, with hints of insurrection, in case you exercise
your undoubted right of pronouncing a free and unbiassed judgment
upon any point of commercial policy. Let the caitiffs bluster! They
know, from the bottom of their ignoble souls--for none save an
ignoble soul would have dared to conceive that such threats would
intimidate any man of British birth or blood--that their menace is
as meaningless and vain as their miserable motives are apparent.
Let them bluster! They, the advocates of lowered wages--they, the
combatants for lengthened labour--they, the crushers of the infants,
have no large margin of operative sympathy upon which they can
afford to trade. Had John Fielden been alive, he could have told
you what these men were, and what sympathy they were likely to
command. Well do the workmen know with whom they have to deal!
Let us not be misunderstood. We never have underrated the difficulty
of a change such as we contemplate; but no difficulty attending
that, is for a moment to be put into the balance against the general
welfare of the country, if, on reflection, and on considering your
own position, you shall be of opinion that the interests of the
country demand that change. But, at any hazard, we cannot afford to
go down-hill. To bring us, as the Manchester men contemplate, to
the Continental level in point of wages as well as expenditure, is
to seal the ruin of the British empire, burdened as it is; or, in
the least dangerous view, to necessitate repudiation. That matter
is, as we have said before, for you to decide; and the period for
your decision is rapidly drawing near. On the next general election
depends the fate of the country, and--without saying one syllable
more upon the merits of the systems at issue--the decision or
inclination of your body will form the most important, because it
must be considered, as between conflicting interests, the most
impartial element, of the expression of British opinion.
THE JEW'S LEGACY.
A TALE OF THE SIEGE OF GIBRALTAR.
CHAPTER I.
The note-book of my grandfather, Major Flinders, contains much
matter relative to the famous siege of Gibraltar, and he seems to
have kept an accurate and minute journal of such of its incidents
as came under his own observation. Indeed, I suspect the historian
Drinkwater must have had access to it, as I frequently find the same
notabilia chronicled in pretty much the same terms by both these
learned Thebans. But while Drinkwater confines himself mostly to
professional matters--the state of the fortifications, nature of the
enemy's fire, casualties to the soldiery, and the like--and seldom
introduces an anecdote interesting to the generality of readers
without apologising for such levity, my grandfather's sympathies
seem to have been engrossed by the sufferings of the inhabitants
deprived of shelter, as well as of sufficient food, and helplessly
witnessing the destruction of their property. Consequently, his
journal, though quite below the dignity of history, affords, now and
then, a tolerably graphic glimpse of the beleagured town.
From the discursive and desultory nature of the old gentleman's
style, as before hinted, it would be vain to look for a continuous
narrative in his journal, even if it contained materials for such.
But here and there a literary Jack Horner might extract a plum or
two from the vast quantity of dough--of reflections, quotations,
and all manner of irrelevant observations, surrounding them. The
following incidents, which occurred at the most interesting period
of the long and tedious siege, appear to me to give a fair idea of
some of the characteristics of the time, and of the personages who
figured in it; and accordingly, after subjecting them to a process
analogous to gold-washing, I present them to the reader.
After a strict blockade of six months, reducing the garrison to
great extremity for want of provisions, Gibraltar was relieved by
Sir George Rodney, who landed a large quantity of stores. But about
a year after his departure, no further relief having reached them
except casual supplies from trading vessels that came at a great
risk to the Rock, their exigencies were even worse than before. The
issue of provisions was limited in quantity, and their price so
high, that the families, even of officers, were frequently in dismal
straits. This has given rise to a wooden joke of my grandfather's,
who, although he seldom ventures on any deliberate facetiousness,
has entitled the volume of his journal relating to this period of
the siege, _The Straits of Gibraltar_. He seems to have estimated
the worth of his wit by its rarity, for the words appear at the top
of every page.
The 11th of April 1781 being Carlota's birthday, the Major had
invited Owen (now Lieutenant Owen) to dine with them in honour of
the occasion. Owen was once more, for the time, a single man; for
Juana, having gone to visit her friends in Tarifa just before the
commencement of the siege, had been unable to rejoin her husband. In
vain had Carlota requested that the celebration might be postponed
till the arrival of supplies from England should afford them a
banquet worthy of the anniversary--the Major, a great stickler for
ancient customs, insisted on its taking place forthwith. Luckily,
a merchantman from Minorca had succeeded in landing a cargo of
sheep, poultry, vegetables, and fruit the day before, so that the
provision for the feast, though by no means sumptuous, was far
better than any they had been accustomed to for many months past.
The Major's note-book enables me to set the materials for the
dinner, and also its cost, before the reader--viz. a sheep's head,
price sixteen shillings, (my grandfather was too late to secure any
of the body, which was rent in pieces, and the fragments carried
off as if by wolves, ere the breath was well out of it)--a couple
of fowls, twenty shillings, (scraggy creatures, says my ancestor
in a parenthesis)--a ham, two guineas--raisins and flour for a
pudding, five shillings--eggs, (how many the deponent sayeth not,)
sixpence each--vegetables, nine and sixpence--and fruit for dessert,
seven and tenpence. Then, for wine, a Spanish merchant, a friend
of Carlota's, had sent them two bottles of champagne and one of
amontillado, a present as generous then as a hogshead would have
been in ordinary times; and there was, moreover, some old rum, and
two lemons for punch. Altogether, there was probably no dinner half
so good that day in Gibraltar.
At the appointed hour, the Major was reading in his quarters (a
tolerably commodious house near the South Barracks, and at some
distance outside the town) when Owen appeared.
"You're punctual, my boy; and punctuality's a cardinal virtue about
dinner-time," said my grandfather, looking at his watch; "three
o'clock exactly. And now we'll have dinner. I only hope the new cook
is a tolerable proficient."
"What's become of Mrs Grigson?" asked Owen. "You haven't parted with
that disciple of Apicius, I should hope?"
"She's confined again," said my grandfather, sighing; "a most
prolific woman that! It certainly can't be above half-a-year since
her last child was born, and she's just going to have another. 'Tis
certainly not longer ago than last autumn," he added musingly.
"A wonderful woman," said Owen; "she ought to be purchased by the
Government, and sent out to some of our thinly-populated colonies.
And who fills her place?"
"Why, I'll tell you," responded the Major. "Joe Trigg, my old
servant, is confined too--in the guardroom, I mean, for getting
drunk--and I've taken a man of the regiment, one Private Bags, for a
day or two, who recommended his wife as an excellent cook. She says
the same of herself; but this is her first trial, and I'm a little
nervous about it."
"Shocking rascal that Bags," said Owen.
"Indeed!" said my grandfather; "I'm sorry to hear that. I didn't
inquire about his character. He offered his services, saying he came
from the same part of England as myself, though I don't recollect
him."
"Terrible work this blockade," said the Major after a pause. "Do
you know, if I was a general in command of a besieging army, I
don't think I could find it in my heart to starve out the garrison.
Consider now, my dear boy," (laying his forefinger on Owen's
arm,)--"consider, now, several thousand men, with strong appetites,
never having a full meal for months together. And just, too, as my
digestion was getting all right--for I never get a nightmare now,
though I frequently have the most delicious dreams of banquets
that I try to eat, but wake before I get a mouthful. 'Tis enough
to provoke a saint. And, as if this was not enough, the supply of
books is cut off. The _Weekly Entertainer_ isn't even an annual
entertainer to me. The last number I got was in '79, and I've been
a regular subscriber these twelve years. There's the _Gentleman's
Magazine_, too. The last one reached me a year since, with a capital
story in it, only half-finished, that I'm anxious to know the end
of; and also a rebus that I've been longing to see the answer to.
'The answer in our next,' says the tantalising editor. It's a
capital rebus--just listen now. 'Two-thirds of the name of an old
novelist, one-sixth of what we all do in the morning, and a heathen
deity, make together a morsel fit for a king.' I've been working at
it for upwards of a year, and I can't guess it. Can you?"
"Roast pig with stuffing answers the general description," said
Owen. "That, you'll admit, is a morsel fit for a king."
"Pooh!" said my grandfather. "But you must really try now. I've
run through the mythology, all that I know of it, and tried all
the old novelists' names, even Boccaccio and Cervantes. Never were
such combinations as I've made--but can't compound anything edible
out of them. Again, as to what we do in the morning: we all shave,
(that is, all who have beards)--and we yawn, too; at least I do,
on waking; but it must be a word of six letters. Then, who can the
heathen deity be?"
"Pan is the only heathen deity that has anything to do with
cookery," said Owen. "Frying-pan, you know, and stew-pan."
My grandfather caught at the idea, but had not succeeded in making
anything of it, or in approximating to the solution of the riddle,
when Carlota entered from an inner room.
"I wish, my dear, you would see about the dinner," said the Major;
"'tis a quarter past three."
"_Si, mi vida_," (yes, my life,) said Carlota, who was in the habit
of bestowing lavishly on my grandfather the most endearing epithets
in the Spanish language, some of them, perhaps, not particularly
applicable--_niño de mi alma_, (child of my soul,) _luz de mis
ojos_, (light of my eyes,) and the like; none of which appeared to
have any more effect on the object of them than if they had been
addressed to somebody else.
Carlota rung the bell, which nobody answered. "Nurse is busy with
de _niña_," she said, when nobody answered it; "I go myself to de
_cocina_," (kitchen,)--she spoke English as yet but imperfectly.
"There's one comfort in delay," said the Major; "'tis better to boil
a ham too much than too little--and yet I shouldn't like it overdone
either."
Here they were alarmed by an exclamation from Carlota. "_Ah Dios!
Caramba! Ven, ven, mi niño!_" cried she from the kitchen.
The Major and Owen hastened to the kitchen, which was so close
at hand that the smell of the dinner sometimes anticipated its
appearance in the dining-room. Mrs Bags, the new cook, was seated
before the fire. On the table beside her was an empty champagne
bottle, the fellow to which protruded its neck from a pail in one
corner, where the Major had put it to cool; and another bottle
of more robust build, about half-full, was also beside her. The
countenance of Mrs Bags wore a pleasant and satisfied, though not
very intelligent smile, as she gazed steadfastly on the ham that
was roasting on a spit before the fire--at least one side of it was
done quite black, while the other oozed with warm greese; for the
machinery which should have turned it was not in motion.
"_Caramba!_" exclaimed Carlota, with uplifted hands. "_Que
picarilla!_"--(What a knave of a woman!)
"Gracious heavens!" said my grandfather, "she's roasting it! Who
ever heard of a roast ham?"
"A many years," remarked Mrs Bags, without turning her head, and
still smiling pleasantly, "have I lived in gentlemen's families--"
Here this fragment of autobiography was terminated by a hiccup.
"And the champagne bottle is empty," said Owen, handling it. "A nice
sort of cook this of yours, Major. She seems to have constituted
herself butler, too."
My grandfather advanced and lifted the other bottle to his nose.
"'Tis the old rum," he ejaculated with a groan. "But if the woman
has drunk all this 'twill be the death of her. Bags," he called,
"come here."
The spouse of Mrs Bags emerged from a sort of scullery behind the
kitchen--a tall bony man, of an ugliness quite remarkable, and with
a very red face. He was better known by his comrades as Tongs, in
allusion probably to personal peculiarities; for the length of his
legs, the width of his bony hips, and the smallness of his head,
gave him some distant resemblance to that article of domestic
ironmongery; but as his wife called herself Mrs Bags, and he was
entered in the regimental books by that name, it was probably his
real appellation.
"Run directly to Dr Fagan," said the Major, "and request him to come
here. Your wife has poisoned herself with rum."
"'Tisn't rum," said Bags, somewhat thickly--"'tis fits."
"Fits!" said my grandfather.
"Fits," doggedly replied Mr Bags, who seemed by no means disturbed
at the alleged indisposition of his wife--"she often gets them."
"Don't alarm yourself, Major," said Owen, "I'll answer for it she
hasn't drunk _all_ the rum. The scoundrel is half-drunk himself, and
smells like a spirit-vault. You'd better take your wife away," he
said to Bags.
"She can leave if she ain't wanted," said Private Bags, with
dignity: "we never comes where we ain't wanted." And he advanced to
remove the lady. Mrs Bags at first resisted this measure, proceeding
to deliver a eulogium on her own excellent qualities, moral and
culinary. She had, she said, the best of characters, in proof of
which she made reference to several persons in various parts of the
United Kingdom, and, as she spoke, she smiled more affably than ever.
"_La picarilla no tiene verguenza_," (the wretch is perfectly
shameless,) cried Carlota, who, having hastily removed the ham
from the fire, was now looking after the rest of the dinner. The
fowls, cut up in small pieces, were boiling along with the sheep's
head, and, probably to save time, the estimable Mrs Bags had put
the rice and raisins destined for a pudding into the pot along with
them--certainly, as Owen remarked, a bold innovation in cookery.
Still continuing to afford them glimpses of her personal history,
Mrs Bags was at length persuaded to retire along with her helpmate.
"What astonishing impudence," said the Major, shutting the door upon
her, "to pretend to be a cook, and yet know no better than to roast
a ham!"
Carlota, meanwhile, was busy in remedying the disaster as far as she
could; cutting the ham into slices and frying it, making a fricassee
of the fowls, and fishing the raisins out of the pot, exclaiming
bitterly all the while, in English and Spanish, against the
_tunanta_ (equivalent to female scoundrel or scamp) who had spoilt
the only nice dinner her _pobrecito_, her _niño_, her _querido_,
(meaning my grandfather,) had been likely to enjoy for a long time,
stopping occasionally in her occupations to give him a consolatory
kiss. However, my grandfather did not keep up the character of a
martyr at all well: he took the matter really very patiently; and
when the excellent Carlota had set the dinner on the table, and he
tasted the fine flavour of the maltreated ham, he speedily regained
his accustomed good-humour.
"It is very strange," he said presently, while searching with a fork
in the dish before him, "that a pair of fowls should have only three
wings, two legs, and one breast between them."
It certainly was not according to the order of nature; nevertheless
the fact was so, all my grandfather's researches in the dish
failing to bring to light the missing members. This however, was
subsequently explained by the discovery of the remains of these
portions of the birds in the scullery, where they appeared to have
been eaten after being grilled; and Mrs Bags' reason for adopting
this mode of cooking them was also rendered apparent--viz., that she
might secure a share for herself without immediate detection.
However, all this did not prevent them from making the best of what
was left, and the Major's face beamed as he drank Carlota's health
in a glass of the remaining bottle of champagne, as brightly as if
the dinner had been completely successful.
"It is partly my fault, Owen," said the Major, "that you haven't a
joint of mutton instead of this sheep's head. I ought to have been
sharper. The animal was actually sold in parts before he was killed.
Old Clutterbuck had secured a haunch, and he a single man you
know--'tis thrown away upon him. I offered him something handsome
for his bargain, but he wouldn't part with it."
"We're lucky to get any," returned Owen. "Never was such a scramble.
Old Fiskin, the commissary, and Mrs O'Regan, the Major's wife, both
swore the left leg was knocked down to them; neither would give in,
and it was put up again, when the staff doctor, Pursum, who had just
arrived in a great hurry, carried it off by bidding eightpence more
than either. Not one of the three has spoken to either of the others
since; and people say," added Owen, "Mrs O'Regan avers openly that
Fiskin didn't behave like a gentleman."
"God knows!" said my grandfather, "'tis a difficult thing in such a
case to decide between politeness and a consciousness of being in
the right. Fiskin likes a good dinner."
The dinner having been done justice to, Carlota removed the remains
to a side-table, and the Major was in the act of compounding a bowl
of punch, when there was a knock at the door. "Come in," cried
Carlota.
A light and timid step crossed the narrow passage separating the
outer door from that of the room they sat in, and there was another
hesitating tap at this latter. "Come in," again cried Carlota, and a
young girl entered with a basket on her arm.
"'Tis Esther Lazaro," said Carlota in Spanish. "Come in, child; sit
here and tell me what you want."
Esther Lazaro was the daughter of a Jew in the town, whose
occupations were multifarious, and connected him closely with the
garrison. He discounted officers' bills, furnished their rooms, sold
them everything they wanted--all at most exorbitant rates. Still,
as is customary with military men, while perfectly aware that they
could have procured what he supplied them with elsewhere at less
expense, they continued to patronise and abuse him rather than
take the trouble of looking out for a more liberal dealer. As the
difficulties of the garrison increased, he had not failed to take
advantage of them, and it was even said he was keeping back large
stores of provisions and necessaries till the increasing scarcity
should enable him to demand his own terms for them.
His daughter was about fifteen years old--a pretty girl, with hair
of the unusual colour of chestnut, plaited into thick masses on the
crown of her head. Her skin was fairer than is customary with her
race--her eyes brown and soft in expression, her face oval, and
her figure, even at this early age, very graceful, being somewhat
more precocious than an English girl's at those years. She was a
favourite with the ladies of the garrison, who often employed her to
procure feminine matters for them. Carlota, particularly, had always
treated her with great kindness--and hence the present visit. She
had come, she said timidly, to ask a favour--a great favour. She had
a little dog that she loved. (Here a great commotion in the basket
seemed to say she had brought her _protégé_ with her.) He had been
given to her by a young school friend who was dead, and her father
would no longer let her keep it, because, he said, these were no
times to keep such creatures, when provisions, even those fit for a
dog, were so dear. He was a very good little dog--would the Señora
take him?
"Let us look at him, Esther," said Owen--"I see you have brought him
with you."
"He is not pretty," said Esther, blushing as she produced him from
the basket. He certainly was not, being a small cur, marked with
black and white, like a magpie, with a tall curling over his back.
He did not appear at all at his ease in society, for he tried to
shrink back again into the basket.
"He was frightened," she said, "for he had been shut up for more
than a month. She had tried to keep him in her bedroom, unknown to
her father, feeding him with part of her own meals; but he had found
it out, and had beaten her, and threatened to kill the dog if ever
he saw it again."
"_Pobrecito!_" (poor little thing,) said the good Carlota--"we shall
take good care of it. _Toma_," (take this,) offering him a bit of
meat. But he crept under her chair, with his tail so depressed, in
his extreme bashfulness, that the point of it came out between his
forelegs.
Carlota would have made the young Jewess dine there forthwith, at
the side-table still spread with the remains of the dinner; but
she refused to take anything, only sipping once from a glass of
wine that Carlota insisted on making her drink of. Then she rose,
and, having tied the end of a string that was fastened to the dog's
collar to the leg of the table, to prevent his following her, took
her leave, thanking Carlota very prettily.
"_A Dios, Sancho!_" she said to the little dog, who wagged his
tail and gave her a piteous look as she turned to go away--"_A
Dios, Sancho_," she repeated, taking him up and kissing him very
affectionately. The poor child was ready to cry.
"Come and see him every day, my child," said Carlota, "and when
better times come you shall have him again."