+--------------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | 1845. | 1846. | 1847. |
| +------------+------------+------------+
| Flax, cwt., | 1,048,390 | 744,861 | 732,034 |
| Hemp, | 624,866 | 588,034 | 465,220 |
| Silk, raw, lbs., | 2,865,605 | 3,429,260 | 3,051,015 |
| Do., thrown, | 311,413 | 293,402 | 200,719 |
| Do., waste, cwt., | 11,238 | 6,173 | 7,279 |
| Cotton wool, | 5,495,799 | 3,866,089 | 3,423,061 |
| Sheep's wool, lbs.,| 57,308,477 | 51,058,209 | 43,348,336 |
The above table affords us the means of estimating our immediate
manufacturing prospects, and we need hardly say that these are any
thing but cheering. In no one particular have the prophecies of the
free traders been fulfilled. They were wrong in their revenue
calculations with respect to the tariff; wrong in their anticipations
regarding the import of raw materials; and deplorably wrong in their
promises of increased exportation. We hope that Sir Robert Peel will
shortly favour the House of Commons, and the country with his
explanation of the following mercantile phenomena. It will be listened
to with more curiosity than his arguments upon the nature of a pound.
DECLARED VALUE OF EXPORTS OF HOME PRODUCE AND MANUFACTURES FOR
NINE MONTHS. JAN. 5 TO OCTOBER 10.
1845. 1846. 1847.
£41,732,143. £40,008,874. £39,975,207.
The general decrease is apparent, but it is necessary to go a little
more minutely to work, and inquire into the respective items. It is
only by doing so that we can fully understand the true operation of
free trade, and the manner in which it is calculated to undermine and
ultimately to overthrow the strongholds of our domestic industry. We
entreat the earnest attention of our readers to the great decline,
which is exhibited in the following staples of export.
| | 1845. | 1846. | 1847. |
| | | | |
| Cotton Manufactures, | £14,761,236 | £13,632,880 | £13,682,095 |
| Ditto Yarn, | 5,379,400 | 6,112,918 | 4,601,180 |
| Linen Manufactures, | 2,353,879 | 2,110,666 | 2,273,427 |
| Ditto Yarn, | 807,418 | 639,245 | 504,727 |
| Wool, | 456,170 | 228,645 | 214,756 |
| Woollen Yarn, | 835,370 | 685,712 | 778,725 |
| Woollen Manufactures,| 6,224,981 | 5,146,699 | 5,616,536 |
| | +-------------+ |
| | £30,818,454 | £28,556,765 | £27,671,445 |
The decline upon these staple commodities of export is so obvious as
to need no remark. There is also a falling off, as between 1845 and
1847, in the following exported articles:--Butter, candles, coals,
earthenware, glass, leather, copper and brass, lead, tin-plates, soap,
and refined sugar. The rise, on the contrary, is upon cheese, fish,
hardwares, machinery, iron and steel, unwrought tin, salt, and silk
manufactures; of which two items certainly important.
| | 1845. | 1846. | 1847. |
+----------------+------------+ | |
| Machinery, | £644,839 | £897,442 | £942,533 |
| Iron and steel,| 2,854,048 | 8,374,335 | 4,096,367 |
+----------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | £3,498,887 | £4,271,777 | £5,038,900 |
This shows the pace at which manufactures are advancing abroad, and
explains but too clearly the reason of the decrease in our staple
exports. The product of British industry is declining; and we can only
partially redeem the deficit by sending abroad the sinews of our
national prosperity. We are in the condition of the artisan whose
expenditure exceeds his wages, and who is driven to part with his
tools. We are fitting up foreign mills with our choicest machinery,
furnishing our opponents with weapons, and yet the free traders tell
us that on such terms we can afford to cope with, and to vanquish
them!
The truth is, so long as we proclaim ourselves the gold-bankers of the
world, and make perpetual boast of the hoards which we have from time
to time accumulated, we shall never be safe against a money drain
from England. We cannot force foreigners to take our British
manufactures; the demand, as we said before, is precarious, and we
cannot go on making calicoes and cottons for ever at a loss. In
exchange for extended imports, two things may be taken, goods or
specie, and with the prospect of lower prices to come, the foreigner
will always choose the latter. Hence, in a great measure, arose the
drain of bullion, which was sent to America. We were at that time in
want not only of corn, but of cotton, and a supply of the latter
material was indispensably necessary to keep the factories open. In
ordinary times, no doubt, the American would have taken goods in
exchange, but in the then posture of affairs, he saw the subsequent
advantage which he must derive by carrying away her bullion from
England, without decreasing her stock, for, as a natural consequence,
that stock must sorely depreciate in value. And it is not until we can
get rid of our ready manufactured stores, at whatever sacrifice, that
we shall again recover that precious basis of our currency, which we
cling to with the most doting affection, and for the sake of which we
are content every few years to undergo a national convulsion.
Such being the state of our exports under the operation of free trade,
let us now look a little to the other side of the balance sheet. The
duties levied at the custom-houses constitute, as every one knows, the
largest portion of our revenue, and therefore cannot be made the
subject of experiment, without extreme risk of defalcation. We have
already shown that, although, upon the whole, our imports have risen,
the gain has exclusively proceeded from that portion of imports upon
which the duty has not been reduced, and that wherever we have lost
any thing, it has been through the attempt to approximate to free
trade. The experiment, however, has already been made upon a large
scale; it has cost us many millions, and the odious income tax remains
as a tangible proof of its failure. It was, according to Sir Robert
Peel, the sure method of commanding reciprocity from the foreigner,
and of extending our exports largely. Neither result has followed; we
are as far from reciprocity as ever, and the exports have seriously
decreased.
It is necessary also that we should remark what kind of articles have
been selected for the late experiment, because some, although not all,
of our import duties are framed with a view to protection as well as
for revenue purposes. For example, no one will dispute that we have a
great interest in procuring such raw materials as cotton and silk for
our manufactures as cheap as possible, because we cannot produce those
articles at home, and our success depends upon their reproduction in
the shape of fabrics. Here then there is no question of competition,
apart from colonial interests, and we do right to throw no obstacle in
the way of their introduction. But the admission of manufactured
articles, either of silk or of cotton, at so low a rate of duty as to
encourage the foreigner to compete with us in the home market, is a
totally different matter. It is a blow to native industry of the worst
and most insidious description, and cannot be justified even on the
ground that the cheapness thereby induced is a recompense to the
agricultural portion of the community for the sweeping measures which
abrogated not only the grain duties, but those which were formerly
imposed upon all kinds of foreign provisions. The agriculturists of
Britain, from the landlord to the peasant, desire no such recompense.
They do not wish that in addition to the hardships which they
themselves have sustained, other classes of the community should be
doomed to suffer; they do not wish that the wages of the manufacturing
operative should be reduced in order that French silks and velvets and
millinery may be brought in to inundate the market; and they will be
no parties to any scheme for the depression of our national labour. It
may suit Sir Robert Peel and the Whigs to hold up cheapness as the
great desideratum of commercial legislation, but our creed, is
otherwise: we protest against the tariff of 1846, as injurious to the
revenue, as hostile to home industry, and as an engine of destruction
to the already over-taxed and over-burdened artisan. Let us extract
from the tariffs of the last two years some instances of this
unnatural policy:--
Duty levied on 1845. 1846.
L. S. D. L. S. D.
Cotton manufactures,
per L.100 value, 10 0 0 Free
Gauze of thread, 15 0 0 10 0 0
French lawns, per
piece, 0 5 0 0 2 6
Other lawns, per L.100
value, 15 0 0 10 0 0
Linen manufactures,
plain, 15 0 0 Free
Woollen manufactures,
plain, 15 0 0 Free
Ditto, made up, 20 0 0 10 0 0
Silk manufactures, 25 0 0 15 0 0
Brocaded ditto, 30 0 0 15 0 0
Silk dresses, 40 0 0 15 0 0
Clocks, 20 0 0 10 0 0
Copper manufactures, 15 0 0 10 0 0
Boots, per dozen, 1 8 0 0 14 0
Shoes, per ditto, 0 14 0 0 7 0
Paper, printed or
stained, per yard, 0 1 0 0 0 2
Lace thread, 12 10 0 10 0 0
Platting of straw, per
lb., 0 7 6 0 5 0
and so on, _ad infinitum_.
What is this, we ask, but a direct invitation to the foreigner to step
in and undersell us in our market? We are told, and we believe it to
be true, that the revenue has been augmented in several of the above
instances by the reduction of the duty; if so, the announcement should
be received with any thing but feelings of exultation. There is the
bread taken from the mouths of very many thousands of our industrial
classes, in order that we may indulge to our heart's content in
foreign finery and gewgaws! Not one article of reduction in the above
list, but has been made at the expense of the life-blood of our
fellow-subjects: not one duty removed without a permanent addition to
the workhouse. We shall give but one instance to show how such
alterations work even in the smallest cases.
The manufacture of straw-plait is, and has been for many years, one of
the principal branches of industry practised in the Orkney islands.
During the long winter nights in that stormy region, when almost every
other occupation is suspended, the women are occupied with this work,
from which they have hitherto derived a small but a certain profit.
Sir Robert Peel, sitting at his ease in Whitehall, esteems straw-plait
an article of no consideration; and in revising his tariff, with a
view to temporary popularity, he strikes off one-third of the existing
import duty, being half-a-crown per pound, and the peasantry of
Normandy and Baden come in to supplant the unfortunate Orcadians! The
youngest of us must recollect the distress which has frequently
prevailed amongst the silk-weavers of Spitalfields, even under a
protecting tariff, and the attempts which have repeatedly been made by
Royalty itself, and by good Queen Adelaide in particular, to set the
fashion and revive the taste for home manufactures. Was this attempt a
wrong one? It would seem so, for the soul of Sir Robert Peel is set
upon French brocades. The millinery of Paris is in the ascendant, and
there is no longer any need for searching female smugglers at the
custom-house. We are invited to wear French cravats, waistcoats, hats,
handkerchiefs, boots, and gloves, all procurable at a cheaper rate
than they can possibly be manufactured at home, and very few of us
have sufficient patriotism to decline the advantage. Our ladies have
their dresses sent ready-made from the capital of France, or if they
still adhere to the native milliner, or the _artiste_ who is a
naturalised French-woman, the materials, fresh from Lyons or
Marseilles, are invariably purchased at these huge emporiums in Regent
Street and Bond Street, which you may search in vain for a specimen of
British industry. The walls of our houses are covered with French
fancy papers, brought down to a nominal price, with which the home
producer cannot compete. Or molu clocks, and ornaments of French,
German, and Bohemian glass are on every chimney-piece and table. Some
articles of foreign cutlery are sold in Birmingham and Sheffield for
about one-half of the price at which they can be manufactured in those
towns; and the woollen productions of Saxony are competing with the
staple of Yorkshire. These are the blessings of what is called free
trade, though free trade, in the full sense of the word, is a manifest
delusion and impossibility. We, the inhabitants of the highest-taxed
country of the world, have essayed the adventure of opening our ports
to the products of other nations--if not altogether, at least in such
a degree as to invite and stimulate competition; we have done so
without asking reciprocity, and without finding it, in the mere vague
hope that our exports might be doubled in return; and the result is,
that our own labourers and artisans are swamped in the home market,
and that our exports are lamentably decreased.
And, in the mean time, what is to become of our people, whom free
trade is reducing to pauperism? The political economist, whose heart
is as hard as the machinery he drives, will scarcely pause for a
moment to answer so trivial a question. His _ultimatum_ is, the
factory, the workhouse, or emigration. But unfortunately the factory
doors are not wide enough to admit all comers. Even now the mills of
Lanarkshire and of Lancashire are on short time, and we cannot predict
the quarter from which an augmented demand is to arise. Apart
altogether from humanity, the workhouse is an expensive establishment
for those who must maintain it, and the blessing of the Almighty will
not rest with the nation which has so little regard for its poor.
There remains then only emigration, whereof we have already some
specimen. Whilst we are writing, the subjoined paragraph is going the
round of the public press:--
"FRENCH MANUFACTURERS AND SCOTCH MANUFACTURERS.--The
following paragraph, from the Paris _Moniteur_, is not
without some significance at the present time:--
'The steamer Finisterre landed, a few days ago, at Morlaix,
thirty-eight Scotchwomen, who are to be employed in the
spinning-mill of Landernau, which is to commence operations
at the close of the month. The Morlaisien is to convey a
similar number at her next trip. These women, who are
intended to form the nucleus of the Flax-Spinning Company of
Finisterre, will be lodged and fed together in a building
constructed for that special purpose. Most of them are
young, very neatly dressed, and all wear bonnets after the
English fashion. Their countenances exhibited the
satisfaction they experienced at having arrived in a country
where they were certain to find employment and means of
existence.'"
Alas! it is but too true. Let free trade continue to progress, and it
is only amidst aliens, and far from their native soil, that the
children of our poor can hope to find a refuge. What a tale of
shattered hopes, of breaking hearts, and of domestic misery may be
read in these few simple, sentences! Can Britain hope to be prosperous
whilst such is the condition of her daughters?
From the position so imprudently occupied we must perforce recede, but
we hope that the reasons for, and manner of doing so, will be
distinctly marked in Parliament by some clear and unequivocal
resolutions.
We have tried free trade, and it has failed. The specious promises of
Sir Robert Peel have proved utterly delusive, and his disciples cannot
point to one instance in which his anticipations have been realised.
The question at present is, are we to try the experiment further? If
we are to do so, it must be at the cost of a prolonged period of
misery, with very little prospect and no certainty of an ultimate
escape. The revenue has fallen off: _that_ at least is certain and
beyond cavil, and we presume that a sweeping property and income tax
is the only remedy which Lord John Russell or his Chancellor of the
Exchequer will propose. The imports of daily consumpt have
prodigiously increased, in consequence of our altered tariffs, and
must be paid for; whilst, on the other hand, the exports, which are
the means of payment, are decreasing in a corresponding ratio. And
should we be told that this decrease is merely temporary, and that a
large demand for our manufactures must infallibly arise from abroad,
we shall merely ask our opponents in what way that demand is to be
supplied? The table of the imports of raw material which we have given
above, speaks volumes as to the state of our industry. Cotton, wool,
flax, hemp--all the products which kept the mills, not of one
district, but of all the districts of this mighty empire, in motion,
have, since the introduction of free trade, arrived in alarmingly
diminished quantities, and extended export is an impossibility,
because we have not got the material to keep our home machinery in
motion.
These are not speculations, but facts: and it is very much to be
hoped that honest men of the free trade party will lay them earnestly
to heart, and endeavour to retrieve the error into which they have
been led by an over-sanguine estimate of our own powers, and a far too
generous view of the commercial policy which influences the other
nations of the world. The decline of our commerce is also inseparably
connected with our mischievous currency laws. That an immediate reform
of the latter is absolutely necessary, is quite clear from the
monetary history of the last few months. We must adopt some system
which shall maintain legitimate credit, and allow property at all
times to command its commercial representative emblem at a fair rate,
without subjecting the person who requires it to a worse than
Israelitish rate of usury. Which of us is there in the country, one
class alone excepted, who has not felt the pressure of the times? Is
it a light matter, either to the landowner or the manufacturer or the
merchant, that money should be driven up to its present exorbitant
rate, and so maintained simply that the capitalist may step in, and
reap an undue profit from the artificial and not the real necessities
of the others? This is the motive which lies at the bottom of all the
views of the bullionists. They know very well that perfect
convertibility is a dream, but they try to keep up the semblance of it
so far as they can, and the absurd and complicated machinery of the
Bank of England was constructed for no other purpose. The public have
been gulled by specious declamation about security, and when the
crisis arrives, they find that they have got no security at all.
This state of things cannot be allowed to continue. If our exports are
ever to revive--nay, if they are merely to continue at their present
ebb without further declension--money must be made procurable at
something like an easy rate. We cannot, and we will not permit the
resources of the whole nation to fall a sacrifice to the insatiable
avarice of the capitalist. We must not starve our population to allow
him an exorbitant bargain. In the opinion of many we have already
weathered the worst of the storm, and may prepare for a new career,
though necessarily on a contracted scale. Certainly, if any thing
could give us confidence, it is the knowledge of the fact that the
mischievous monetary law is in abeyance, and we hardly think that,
with the sight of the recent wreck which it has caused before our
eyes, there is any chance of its remaining longer on the statute-book
unrepealed. The very lowness of the ebb to which prices have been
brought is a sort of guarantee of their revival; and although we have
much to do, and perchance not a little to suffer, before we can regain
the position which we once occupied, there is, at all events, some
prospect of an advance. That, however, can only be gradual, and must
depend upon our abandonment of theories, our renunciation of false
guides, and our return to honest, humane, and intelligible principles.
In the event of any temporary prosperity, it will be well to recollect
that we owe the amendment neither to Sir Robert Peel nor to the Whigs.
The former brought us into our difficulties; the latter did their best
to keep us there, and yielded at the last moment with undeniably bad
grace when matters were at the verge of desperation, and when no man
could trust his neighbour. Warned by experience, it will be the duty
of parliament, if it is wise, to apply itself diligently to the task,
not of rash reform, but of wise remodelment. On many matters of the
utmost financial importance there is little difference of opinion
between the leaders of the country party and the representatives of
large manufacturing constituencies. Peel and his few supporters,
backed by the present ministry, stand isolated in their adherence to
positions--it would be absurd to call them principles--which have been
tried and found wanting in the balance. Except these, and unhappy Mr
Jones Loyd, who stands forth in the midst of the group as the great
hierophant of Mammon, there are few hardy enough to raise their voices
in defence of arbitrary Bank restriction. It is clear to every
thinking man, that extended operations require an extended currency;
and that, as we cannot force gold into the country--for, after all,
the supply of that commodity is by no means limitless--except at a
ruinous loss, we must adopt the principle already sufficiently
recognised and tested, and make good the deficiency with paper. This
might be done either by the resumption of a one pound note circulation
in England, or by an issue of national paper to the amount of our
ordinary taxation; or, better still, by setting banking free, and
permitting the joint-stock companies to issue notes in proportion to
the amount of national securities lodged by them in the hands of
government Commissioners. At any rate, we do hope that so far as
Scotland and Ireland are concerned, they may be allowed once more to
resume the control of their own monetary matters, and be relieved from
those golden chains which are not only cumbersome to them, but, as we
have shown, are seriously detrimental to England, by locking up in
time of need a large portion of her established currency. With regard
to the public works now in progress, we deprecate rash interference.
It is not likely, nor is it at all desirable that for some time to
come, any new schemes of magnitude will be proposed: let us then apply
ourselves seriously to finish what we have begun, and without calling
new labour into existence, let us husband our employment for the old.
A new element of danger and distress has been introduced by the
dismissal of many thousands of the workmen from unfinished lines,
owing to the tightness of the money market, and the impossibility of
procuring loans. This must be looked to immediately. These men have a
right to their employment, for they have been called forth from their
other avocations by the sanction of Parliament, and neither good faith
nor public policy will admit of their abandonment at present. Above
all, let us look to the tariff, and, dismissing from our minds the
delusions of free trade and the dreams of future reciprocity, let us
stand forth manfully in defence of the rights of labour, and of that
native industry which is the true source of our country's greatness
and renown. It will not do for the rich to go flaunting in foreign
manufacture and apparel, while the operative is starving at home with
the doors of the factories closed. We must not fill our palaces and
our homes with articles of continental manufacture, whilst British
skill is left to languish unpatronised and unemployed. If we must have
those things, let us pay for them at a rate which will leave to our
own workmen the ordinary chances of competition, and we have no fear
whatever of the result. If we make a national profit by the depression
of industry at home, we are buying it with the tears, and the misery,
and the curses of thousands of the poor; if, on the contrary, we make
no profit by the sacrifice, we are wantonly betraying ourselves. Let
us then be wise in time. We have tried the effects of quack
experiments upon our monetary and commercial systems, and both of them
have given way. Let us have no more such; but let men of all parties,
who are true and honest in their opinions, unite together in putting
an end to the disorders in our social economy. The new Parliament ere
these pages can issue from the press will be convened, and the
prosperity of the country rests in a great measure in their hands. We
shall await the issue of their deliberations upon these momentous
matters with much anxiety, some apprehension, but withal a large
admixture of hope. For although parties at first sight appear to be
more than commonly disorganised, the late discussions which have
arisen in consequence of our unfortunate embarrassments have effected
a mighty change in the sentiments and language of many. Men who were
formerly held to represent opinions of conflicting tendency, have been
forced into juxtaposition, and have discovered that their differences
were far more nominal than otherwise; and we cannot but hope that all
such will work together cordially and conscientiously, and apart from
faction, in placing both our systems, monetary and commercial, upon a
firm and permanent basis. Be this as it may, we are at least assured
that the members of the country party, undismayed by defeat or by
desertion, will be, as ever, at their posts, and will justify, by
their maintenance and advocacy of sound national principles, the
confidence which has been unhesitatingly accorded to them by an
important section, of the people.