Produced by Brendan OConnor, Alan, Jonathan Ingram and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Library of Early Journals.)
BLACKWOOD'S
Edinburgh
MAGAZINE.
VOL. LXIII.
JANUARY--JUNE, 1848.
[Illustration]
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH;
AND
37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
1848.
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCLXXXVII. JANUARY, 1848. VOL. LXIII.
CONTENTS.
THIRTY YEARS OF LIBERAL LEGISLATION, 1
SOMETHING LIKE A COUNTRY-HOUSE, 28
EVENINGS AT SEA.--NO. III., THE SURGEON, 33
FLÉCHIER'S CHRONICLE OF CLERMONT ASSIZES, 47
DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA, 70
A NIGHT'S PERIL, 83
SWITZERLAND AND ITALY, 98
THE PERIODICAL LITERATURE OF AMERICA, 106
IRELAND AND THE MINISTERIAL MEASURES, 113
NOTE.--BLACKWOOD AND COPYRIGHT IN AMERICA. 127
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND 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. CCCLXXXVII. JANUARY, 1848. VOL. LXIII.
THIRTY YEARS OF LIBERAL LEGISLATION.
"EXPERIENCE," says Dr Johnson, "is the great test of truth, and is
perpetually contradicting the theories of men." "If an empire," said
Napoleon, "were made of granite, it would soon be reduced to powder by
political economists." Never was there a period when the truths stated
by these master minds were so clearly and strikingly illustrated as the
present; never was there an epoch when the necessity was so fearfully
evinced of casting off the speculative dogmas of former times, and
shaping our course by the broad light which experience has thrown on
human transactions. If this is done, if wisdom is learnt by experience,
and error expelled by suffering, it is yet possible to remedy the
evils; though not before a frightful and _yet unfelt_ amount of misery
has been encountered by the people.
For the last thirty years, the liberal party have had the almost
uncontrolled direction of the affairs of the nation. One by one,
they have beat down all the ancient safeguards of British industry,
and given effect to the whole theoretical doctrines of the political
economists. So complete has been their ascendency in the national
councils--so entire in general the acquiescence of the nation in their
direction, that without one single exception ALL their doctrines have
been carried into practice; and the year 1847 exhibits a fair, and
it may be presumed average result of the liberal system when reduced
into execution. The result is so curious, its lessons so pregnant with
instruction, its warning of coming disaster so terrible, that we gladly
avail ourselves of the opening of a new year, to portray them in a few
paragraphs to our readers.
The first great change which took place in British policy was in 1819,
by the famous Bank Restriction Act, passed in that year. Everyone
knows that the obligation on the Bank of England to pay in specie,
was suspended by Mr Pitt in February 1797; and that under that system
the empire continued to rise with all the difficulties with which it
was surrounded, until in the latter years of the war it bore without
difficulty an annual expenditure of from £110,000,000 to £120,000,000
annually. But under the new system introduced in 1819, the currency
was restricted by imposing on the bank the obligation of paying its
notes, when presented, not in gold _or silver_, but in GOLD ALONE. The
currency was based on the article in commerce _most difficult to keep_,
most easy of transport, most ready to slip away--the most precious
of the precious metals. The result has been that the nation,--which,
with a population of 18,000,000 of souls, raised without difficulty
£71,000,000 annually by taxes, and from £30,000,000 to £40,000,000
annually by loans in 1813, 1814, and 1815, of which at least a half was
sent abroad, and wholly lost to the nation--is now, with a population
of 28,000,000, not able to raise in round numbers above £51,000,000 on
an average of years by taxation, and is brought to the verge of ruin by
the purchase of £33,000,000 worth of foreign grain in 1846 and 1847,
and the expenditure of £35,000,000 in 1846, and £25,000,000 in the
first six months of 1847 on domestic railways, every shilling of which
last sum was spent at home, and puts in motion industry within the
nation.
The next great change was made in the year 1821, when the reciprocity
system was introduced by Mr Huskisson. This subject has acquired great
importance now, from the avowed intention on the part of government,
scarcely disguised in the opening speech of this session of Parliament,
to follow up the labours of the committee which made such laborious
inquiries last session, by a bill for the total abolition of the
Navigation Laws. We shall not enlarge on this subject, the vastness and
importance of which would require a separate paper. Suffice it to say,
therefore, that here too, experience has decisively warned us of the
pernicious tendency of the path on which we have entered, and of the
truth of Adam Smith's remark, that "though some of the regulations of
this famous act may have proceeded from national animosity, they _are
all as wise as if dictated by the most deliberate wisdom_. As defence
is of much more importance than opulence, the act of Navigation is
perhaps the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England."[1]
It appears from the parliamentary tables compiled by Mr Porter, that,
while the British tonnage with the Baltic powers had increased from
1801 to 1821, under the protective system, to a very considerable
degree, theirs with us had declined during the same period; under the
reciprocity system, our tonnage with them had on the whole decreased
to _a third_ of its former amount, while their shipping with us had,
during the same period, quadrupled.[2] It further appears, from the
same tables, that the great increase which has taken place during the
same period, has arisen from the prodigious growth of our colonial
trade, or increase of the countries with whom we had concluded _no_
reciprocity treaties, but left them on the footing of the protection
of the old Navigation Laws. And though the profits of shipping of all
sorts have received a vast addition, from the enormous importations
consequent upon Sir R. Peel's free-trade measures, yet the returns of
these years prove that the greater part of this increase has accrued
to foreign states and powers, which may at any time turn the maritime
resources thus acquired against ourselves. Suffice it to say, as an
example of this truth, that of the ships which, in 1846, imported
four million nine hundred thousand quarters of corn into the British
harbours, no less than three-fourths were foreign vessels, and only
one-fourth British. Nevertheless, so insensible are political fanatics
to the most decisive facts, when they militate against their favourite
theories, that it is in the full knowledge of these facts that
government are understood to be prepared to introduce, even in this
session of parliament, a measure for the abolition, or at least the
essential abrogation, of the Navigation Laws.
The third great change made during the last quarter of a century has
been in the government of Ireland. Here, if any where, the liberal
system has received its full development, and has had the fairest
opportunity for displaying its unmixed blessings. The Catholic
disabilities, which we had been told for thirty years were the main
cause of its distressed condition, were repealed in 1829. A large
measure of parliamentary reform--larger than the most vehement Irish
patriots ventured to dream of--was conceded in 1832. Corporate reform
succeeded in 1834; the Protestant corporations were dispossessed of
power; the entire management of all the boroughs of the kingdom was
put into the hands of the Romish multitude; and a large portion of the
county magistracy were, by the appointment of successive liberal Lords
Chancellor, drawn from the better part of those of the same religious
persuasion. The Protestant clergy were deprived of a fourth of their
incomes to appease the Romish Cerberus; and, to avoid the vexation of
collecting tithes from persons of a different religious belief, they
were laid directly as a burden on the land; Maynooth was supported
by annual grants from government; the system of national education
was modified so as to please the Roman Catholic clergy. Monster
meetings, where sedition was always, treason often, spoken, headed by
O'Connell, were allowed to go on, without the slightest opposition,
for two years; and when at length the evil had risen to such a height
that it could no longer be endured, the leading agitator, after being
convicted in Ireland, was liberated, in opposition to the opinion of a
great majority of the twelve judges, by the casting-vote in the House
of Peers of a Whig law-Lord. British liberality, when the season of
distress came, was extended to the famishing Irish with unheard-of
munificence; and while the Highlanders, who suffered equally under
the potato failure, _got nothing_ but from the never-failing kindness
of British charity, Ireland, besides its full share of that charity,
received a _national_ grant of TEN MILLIONS STERLING, of which no less
than eight millions were borrowed by Great Britain.
What have been the results? Has crime decreased, and industry improved,
and civilisation advanced, under the liberal system? Has attachment to
the British government become universal, and hatred of the stranger
worn out, in consequence of the leniency with which they have been
treated, and the unparalleled generosity with which their wants have
been supplied? The facts are notoriously and painfully the reverse.
Hatred of the Saxon was never so general or so vehement; idleness
and recklessness were never so wide-spread; destitution was never so
universal; life and property was never so insecure,--as after this
long system of concession, and these unparalleled acts of private and
public generosity. The Irish Repealers declare, that though Ireland,
like England, has been blessed with an uncommonly fine harvest, there
are _four millions_ of persons in that country in a state of hopeless
misery; and supposing, as is probably the case, that this statement
is exaggerated, the authentic reports to Parliament on the state
of the poor prove that there are above two millions of paupers, or
a full fourth of the population, in a state verging on starvation.
A new so-called Coercion Bill has been brought into Parliament in
consequence of the great increase of crimes of violence, and, above
all, of cold-blooded murders; and on the necessity that existed for its
introduction the present Secretary of State must speak for himself.
Sir George Grey said, on November 30, 1847, on moving the first reading
of the Coercion Bill, that during the six months ending October 1846,
the heinous crimes of violence over Ireland stood as follows:--
"Homicide, 68
Attempts upon life by firing at the person, 55
Robberies of arms, 207
Firing into dwelling-houses, 51
For the six months ending October 1847, the number increased to--
Homicides, 96
Attempts upon life by firing at the person, 126
Robberies of arms, 530
Firing into dwelling-houses, 116
It would thus be seen that there was a fearful increase in the amount
of these four classes of crime. The whole of Ireland was implicated in
the shame and disgrace consequent upon this large increase of crime.
Looking at the police returns for the month of October, (for from that
period it was that those crimes commenced to increase at such a fearful
rate,) he found the following results for the whole of Ireland:--
Homicides, 19
Firing at the person, 32
Firing into dwelling-houses, 26
Robberies of arms, 118
---
Making a total of cases, 195
Looking at the districts in which these crimes were committed, he found
that the total number of all those crimes committed in three of the
counties of Ireland, _i.e._, Clare, Limerick, and Tipperary, was to the
whole of Ireland as 139 to 175, or that 71 per cent of the whole amount
of crime was committed in those three counties, which did not include
more than 13 per cent of all Ireland."
Such has been the result of liberal government during twenty years
in Ireland. And it is particularly worthy of notice, that the three
counties in which this unenviable pre-eminence of atrocious crime
exists, viz., Clare, Limerick, and Tipperary, are precisely those in
which the Romish faith is most inveterate, and the authority of the
priesthood most unbounded.
The next great change introduced by the liberal party, was by the
carrying through of the Reform Bill, and settling the constitution
upon an entirely new basis by the act of 1832. We do not propose at
present to resume any part of that great debate, in which at the time
this Magazine took so prominent a part. We have seen no cause to
change any of the opinions then expressed, and only pray God that the
predictions then made may not be too faithfully verified. As little
shall we inquire whether the changes which have since ensued, and
under which the nation is now so grievously labouring, are or are not
to be ascribed to the constitution of government as then framed, and
the urban ascendency which the bestowing of two-thirds of the seats in
the House of Commons upon towns necessarily occasioned; we are content
to accept the constitution, as new-modelled by the Reform Bill, as
the constitution of ourselves and our children, and to support it as
such. We know that by it the government of the country is substantially
vested in the majority of eight hundred thousand electors. We aim
only at explaining facts and dispelling illusions to these electors.
Suffice it to say, therefore, that, whether the Reform Bill has worked
for good or for evil as regards the industrious classes; whether it
has substituted or not substituted moneyed for landed ascendency;
whether or not the first devil has been expelled, but straightway he
has returned with seven other devils worse than himself, and the last
state of the man is worse than the first--in any of these cases the
liberal party have got nothing to say, and have no title to complain of
the results which have followed. They got every thing their own way;
they remodelled the constitution according to the devices of their own
hearts, and if they are now suffering, they are reaping the fruits of
the seed which they themselves have sown.
But of all the innovations of the liberal party, that of which the
consequences have been most disastrous within the sphere of their
immediate influence, and which have now been demonstrated in the most
decisive way by the results of experience, are the changes they have
made on our West India colonies. They exhibit a series of alterations
so perilous, so irrational, so disastrous, that we do not hesitate
to say they are unparalleled in the annals, extensive as they are, of
human folly and perversity. Only think what they were!
We first, in 1807, abolished the slave trade in our dominions. So
far there can be no doubt that the step taken was both just and
expedient--just, because the iniquitous traffic in human flesh should,
at all hazards, be stopped in a Christian state; expedient, because
we already possessed, in the colonies themselves, a large negro
population, perfectly capable, if well treated, of keeping up and
increasing their own numbers, and performing all the field operations
requisite for the cultivation of produce, which at that period employed
two hundred and fifty thousand tons of British shipping for its
transport, and maintained a population that consumed £3,500,000 worth
of British manufactures. But as the British colonies were thus deprived
of the aid of imported forced labour, which the rival sugar colonies
of Cuba and the Brazils enjoyed, of course it was indispensable that
the labour of the black cultivators in the British islands should be
perpetuated, and the proprietors maintained in the means of getting
that work from _them_ which they were prohibited from acquiring from
foreign labourers. The way to do this, and withal to give the greatest
possible security and means of improvement to the black population of
which they were susceptible, was evident, and was clearly and forcibly
pointed out at the time. It was to maintain slavery in the meantime,
doing every thing possible to mitigate its severity, till the negro
population had come so much under the influence of artificial wants as
to be ready, for their enjoyment, to submit to regular and continuous
toil; to regulate their days of forced labour, and give them some
days in the week to work for themselves, of which they might reap the
fruits; and to allow every negro, who could thus amass a sum equal to
his price, to purchase his freedom from his master. By this simple
system, no one could become free without having proved himself fit to
be a freeman, and therefore the whole evils of premature emancipation
were avoided. It was thus that slavery wore out almost without being
noticed in the European kingdoms; it was thus it almost disappeared,
insensibly and without a convulsion, in Spanish South America.
Instead of this wise, judicious, and really humane course, what
have we done? Why, we first, by the act of 1834, abolished slavery
altogether in the British dominions, upon giving a compensation to the
proprietors, which, large as it was, was not, on an average, the fourth
part of the value of the slave population set free, at the expiration
of a prospective apprenticeship of seven years; and at the end of four
years, deeming that first time too long, we set them free altogether!
We thought, in our wisdom, that a nation required no longer time to
serve the apprenticeship to freedom than a freeman did to become expert
in a trade. We proposed to do in a few years what nature could only
accomplish in centuries. The consequences, so often and so fatally
predicted, immediately ensued. The emancipated black population either
refused to work, or did so at such high wages, and in so desultory
a manner, that the supply of sugar rapidly declined in the British
islands. It, in consequence, rose considerably in price in the mother
country; and upon that, partly under the influence of the free trade
mania, partly from a desire to appease the clamorous multitude in the
British towns, who had begun to feel, in the enhanced price of that
article, the inevitable consequences of their own actions, we did a
thing so unjust, so monstrous, so cruel, so inconsistent with all our
former professions, that we believe the annals of the world may be
searched in vain for its parallel. It was this:--
We first reduced to a half of its former amount the protective duty on
foreign slave-grown sugar, and then, by the act of 1846, in pursuance
of Sir R. Peel's principles, and with his approbation, passed an act
for the progressive reduction, during three years, of the duties on
foreign sugar, until, in 1849, those on foreign and colonial were to
become equal to each other! That is, having first deprived our own
colonies of their slave labour for less than a fourth of its value, we
proceeded to admit foreign sugar RAISED BY SLAVES to the supply of the
British markets, on terms which in two years will be those of perfect
equality. We have seen what came of the attempt in the Mauritius, to
compete with slave-labour by means of the labour of freemen. Even
though the attempt was made under the most favourable auspices, with
the colossal capital of Reid, Irving, and Company, and an ample supply
of hill coolies to carry it on, the immense wealth of that house
was swallowed up in the hopeless attempt, and it became bankrupt in
consequence. Experience had long ago proved in St Domingo that the
black population, when not compelled, will not raise sugar; for that
noble island, which, anterior to the emancipation of its slaves by
the Constituent Assembly of France, raised and exported 672,000,000
pounds of sugar, now _does not export a single pound_; and instead
of consuming as then £9,890,000 worth of French manufactures, does
_not import a single article_.[3] To provide against this evidently
approaching crisis in the supply of sugar for the British market, we
have thrown open our harbours to _slave-grown sugar_ from every quarter
of the globe; and from the rapid decline in the produce of the West
Indian islands, even before this last _coup-de-grace_ was given them
by the application of free trade, principles to their produce, it is
painfully evident that a result precisely similar is about to take
place in the British colonies.[4] And it is little consolation to find
that this injustice has recoiled upon the heads of the nation which
perpetrated it, and that the decline in the consumption of British
manufactures by the West India islands is becoming proportioned to the
ruin we have inflicted on them.[5]
But most of all has this concatenation of fanaticism, infatuation, and
injustice proved pernicious to the negro race, for whose benefit the
changes were all undertaken. Happy would it have been for them if the
British slave trade had never been abolished; that they had crossed
the Atlantic chiefly in Liverpool or Glasgow slave-ships, and been
brought to the British West India islands! For then the slave trade
was subject to our direction, and regulations might have been adopted
to place it on the best possible footing for its unhappy victims. But
_now_ we have thrown it entirely into the hands of the Spaniards and
Portuguese, over whom we have no sort of control, and who exercise
it in so frightful a manner that the heart absolutely sickens at the
thought of the amount of human suffering, at the cost of which we have
reduced the price of sugar to sixpence a pound. Compared with it, the
English slave-ships and English slavery were an earthly paradise. Mr
Buxton, the great anti-slavery advocate, admitted, some years ago, that
the "number of blacks who now annually cross the Atlantic, is _double
what it was_ when Wilberforce and Clarkson first began their benevolent
labours."[6] _Now_, under the fostering influence of free trade in
sugar, it may reasonably be expected that in a few years _the whole_,
or nearly the whole sugar consumed by Europe, will be raised by the
slave colonies, and wrung by the lash from the most wretched species
of slaves--those of Cuba and Brazil! Moreover, the slave trade, to
supply them, will be _triple_ what it was in 1789, when the movement
in favour of the negro population began! Thus, by the combined effects
of fanaticism, ignorance, presumption, and free trade, we shall have
succeeded, by the middle of this century, in totally destroying our own
sugar colonies; adding, to no purpose, twenty millions to our national
debt; annihilating property to the amount of £130,000,000 in our own
dominions; doubling the produce of foreign slave possessions; cutting
off a market of £3,500,000 a-year for our manufactures: and tripling
the slave trade in extent, and quadrupling it in horror, throughout the
globe.
Grave and serious matter for consideration as these results afford, all
of which, be it observed, are _now ascertained by experience_--they
yet sink into comparative insignificance compared with the gigantic
measures of "free trade and a fettered currency," which have now spread
ruin and desolation through the heart of the empire. It is here that
the evil now pressing is to be found; it is from hence that the cry of
agony, which now resounds through the empire, has sprung. And unless a
remedy is applied, and _speedily applied_, to the enormous evils which
have arisen from the reckless and _simultaneous_ adoption of these
powerful engines on human affairs, it may safely be affirmed that the
present distress will go on, with slight variations, from bad to worse,
till the empire is destroyed, and three-fourths of its inhabitants are
reduced to ruin. These are strong expressions, we know; but if they
are so, it is from the testimony of the government, and the ablest
advocates for the free trade and bullion system, and the facts which we
see around us, that we are reluctantly compelled, not only to use them,
but to believe they are true. Hear what the _Times_ says, on the aspect
of national monetary and commercial affairs:--
"In our wide sea of difficulties, therefore, we are without rudder or
compass. We cannot base our proceedings on a calculation that the Bank
Charter Act will be carried out; nor can we, on the other hand, assume
that an inconvertible currency will be authorised, and thus frame our
future contracts accordingly. All that we can discern before us is
declining trade and grinding poverty, bankrupt railways, and increased
taxation; but whether the lesson will be prolonged in its bitterness,
and its salutary effect retarded by measures of national dishonour,
is a point upon which it would be vain to prophesy. _Three years back
an indignant negative might have been given to such a conjecture, but
since then demoralisation has been rapid_, and time alone can determine
if, by the deliberate proceedings of the legislature, the record of it
is destined to become indelible."--_Times_, 26th November 1847.
This is tolerably strong evidence from the leading and ablest free
trade and bullionist journal. Strong indeed must have been the
testimony of facts around them, when the well-informed and powerful
writers in the _Times_ put forth such admissions as to the state of
the country. Observe, the emphatic words wrung by woful experience
from this journal. "Three years back an indignant negative would
have been given to such conjectures; but SINCE THEN the progress of
demoralisation has been rapid." Sir R. Peel's Bank Act was passed in
1844, and his free trade measures in 1846. And be it observed that
that state arose _entirely under their own system_; at a time when the
Bank charter stood unchanged, and free trade, the grand panacea for
all evils, was, and had been in a great degree, for years, in full and
unrestrained operation. We shall see anon whether the Irish famine
and English railways had any thing material to do with the matter.
Strong as it is, however, this testimony is increased by the real
evidence of facts in every direction, and of the acts and admissions
of government. These are of such a kind as a few years ago would have
passed for fabulous. They have outstripped the most gloomy predictions
of the most gloomy of the Protectionists; they have out-Heroded Herod
in the demonstration of the perilous tendency of the path we have so
long been pursuing. They could not have been credited, if not supported
by the evidence of our own senses, and the statements of ministers of
high character, from undoubted and authentic sources of information.
We subjoin a few of them, of universal and painful notoriety to every
inhabitant of the empire at this time; not in the belief that we, in
so doing, can add any facts not previously familiar to the nation, but
in order that these facts, now so well known, should get into a more
durable record than the daily journals, and not pass for fabulous in
future, and it is to be hoped, happier times.
The first is, that the interest of money has, by the recommendation,
and indeed express injunction of government, been raised to _eight
percent_. This grievous and most calamitous effect, which was never
heard of during the darkest period of the Revolutionary war, which
did not ensue even at the time of the Mutiny of the Nore, or the
suspension of cash payments in 1797,[7] has been publicly announced to
the nation, in the Premier's and Chancellor of the Exchequer's Letter
to the Directors. It is well known that, high as this rate of interest
was, it was _less_ than had been previously taken by private bankers,
which had risen to nine, ten, and even fourteen or fifteen _per cent_.
for short periods. These are the rates of interest which, anterior to
their conquest by the British government, were common amidst Asiatic
oppression in the distracted realm of Hindostan. They had not been so
high in England before for a century and a quarter. It was reserved
for Great Britain, in the middle of the nineteenth century, to render
universal, by the effects of domestic legislation, at the end of thirty
years' peace, and when in a state of entire amity with all the world,
a rate of interest unknown for a century before in the British empire;
which could previously be hardly credited as having existed, even in
the days of feudal barbarity; and which had latterly been known only
amidst the predatory warfare, fierce devastations, and universal
hoarding of specie, under the native powers of Hindostan.
In the next place, the public revenue for the quarter ending 1st
October, 1847, is £1,500,000 less than it was in the corresponding
quarter of the preceding year, which itself was below the corresponding
quarter in 1845. Here then is an ascertained falling off of £1,500,000
a quarter, or SIX MILLIONS A-YEAR, in a revenue not exceeding
£52,000,000 of net income, and of which upwards of a half is absorbed
in paying the dividends on the public debt. There is no reason to hope
for an amendment in the next or the succeeding quarter; happy if there
is not a still greater falling off. This is, be it observed, in the
thirty-second year of peace, when in amity with all the world, and
when the war income-tax, producing £5,200,000 a-year, is added to the
national income! But for that grinding war-addition, laid on to meet
the disasters of the Affghanistaun expedition, and kept on to conceal
the deficiency of income produced by Sir R. Peel's free trade measures,
the deficiency _would be above £11,000,000 a-year_. And this occurs
just after a proper and suitable thanksgiving for an uncommonly fine
harvest; when all the world is at peace; five years after Sir R. Peel's
tariff in 1842, which was to add so much to our foreign trade; three
years after the act of 1844, which was to impose the requisite checks
on imprudent speculation; and eighteen months after the adoption of
general free trade, and the abolition of the corn laws by the act of
July 1846, by which the commerce and revenue of the country were to be
so much improved!
In the third place, nearly the whole railways in progress in the United
Kingdom have been stopped, or are to be in a few days, in consequence
partly of this exorbitant rate of interest, partly of the impossibility
of getting money even on these monstrous and hitherto unheard-of terms.
It is calculated that three hundred thousand labourers, embracing with
their families little short of a million of persons, have been from
this cause suddenly thrown out of work, and deprived of bread. Already
the effects of this grievous and sudden stoppage are apparent in the
metropolis, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and other great cities,
in the groups, at once pitiable and alarming, of rude and uncouth,
but sturdy and formidable labourers, who are seen congregating at
the corners of the principal streets. But if this is the effect of
the sudden stoppage on the mere navigators, the hod and barrow-men,
what must it be on the vast multitude of mechanics and iron workmen,
thrown idle from the inability of the railway companies, at present, at
least, to go on with their contracts? So dreadful has been the effects
of this stoppage in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, the two principal iron
districts of Scotland, that before these pages issue from the press,
forty thousand persons in the former county, and thirty thousand in
the latter, including the families of the workmen, will be out of
employment in the iron and coal trades alone! The greater part of
this immense and destitute mass will fall on Glasgow, where already
half the mills are stopped or on short time, and in which city, since
the beginning of the year, no less than 49,993 Irish[8] have landed,
nine-tenths of whom were in the last stage of destitution, and no
inconsiderable part bringing with them the contagion of typhus fever.
In the fourth place, the great marts of manufacturing industry, both
for the home and the export trade, are in nearly as deplorable a
condition as the iron trade; and the multitude who will be out of bread
in them is not less appalling than in the railway and iron departments.
As a specimen of the condition to which they have been brought by the
combined operation of free trade and a fettered currency, we subjoin
the weekly return of the state of trade in Manchester for the week
ending November 23. It is well known that this return is made up under
the direction of the admirable police of that city, with the utmost
accuracy.
Weekly return made up to yesterday, (November 23), in the improved
form, of the state of the various cotton, silk, and worsted mills, and
other large establishments and works in Manchester:--
+-----------------+---------+----+----+----+-------+-------+-------+------+
| Description of |Full Time| | | | | | | |
|Mills, Factories,| | | | | | | | |
| &c. | (a)| (b)| (c)| (d)| (e)| (f) | (g) | (h) | (i) |
+-----------------+----+----+----+----+----+-------+-------+-------+------+
|Cotton Mills, | 91| 44| 10| 21| 16| 28,033| 15,060| 6,079| 6,894|
|Silk Mills, | 8| 2| ...| 6| ...| 3,009| 621| 2,138| 250|
|Smallware Mills, | 18| 11| 3| 3| 1| 1,937| 1,232| 601| 104|
|Worsted Mills, | 2| 2| ...| ...| ...| 155| 155| ...| ...|
|Dye Works, | 20| 3| ...| 17| ...| 1,675| 470| 862| 403|
|Hat Manufactures,| 2| ...| 1| 1| ...| 107| 7| 49| 51|
|Mechanists, | 32| 7| 10| 12| 3| 6,079| 2,777| 1,615| 1,687|
------------------+----+----+----+----+----+-------+-------+-------+------+
| Totals, | 173| 69| 24| 60| 20| 40,995| 20,322| 11,284| 9,389|
+-----------------+----+----+----+----+----+-------+-------+-------+------+
Key:
(a) Total No. of Mills, Works, &c.
(b) No. working full time, with full complement of hands.
(c) No. working full time with a portion only of hands employed.
(d) Short Time.
(e) Stopped.
(f) Total No. of hands.
(g) No. working full time.
(h) No. working short time.
(i) No. wholly out of employment.
From this Table it appears that out of 40,995 workers employed in the
factories of Manchester, 11,284 are working short time, and no less
than 9,389 are _wholly out of employment_. This last class, with their
families, cannot embrace less, at the lowest computation, than thirty
thousand souls, who are entirely destitute. The state of matters in
Glasgow is at least as bad; about half of the mills there are shut,
or working short time. And this is the condition of our manufactures,
we repeat, in the thirty-second year of profound peace, when we are
engaged in no foreign war whatever; when, so far from being distressed
for the ordinary supply of subsistence, we have just returned thanks to
heaven for the finest harvest reaped in the memory of man; and when,
under the combined operation of home produce and an immense foreign
importation, wheat is selling for 52s. the quarter; three years after
the imposing of the golden fetters which were for ever to preclude
improvident speculation; and a year and a half after the adoption of
the free trade principles, which were to open up new and unheard-of
sources of manufacturing prosperity.
In the fifth place, if the general state of our exports, and of the
importation of the raw material, from which they are prepared, is
considered, it will not appear surprising that the principal marts of
manufacturing industry should be in so deplorable a situation. The
declared value of the exports of our manufactures, for nine months,
ending October 10, in each of the following years, have stood thus,
according to Lord John Russell's statement:--
1845. 1846. 1847.
First nine months of year, £41,732,143 £40,008,874 £39,975,207
Single month of October, 5,323,553 5,477,389 4,665,409[9]
This decline is of itself sufficiently alarming, the more especially
when coming in the wake of the great free trade change, from which so
great an extension of our exports was predicted. Here is a decline
of exports in two years of three millions, which in last October had
swelled to a decrease of NEARLY A MILLION in a single month. But from
the following Table it appears that this falling off, considerable
as it is, exhibits but a small portion of the general decline of
manufacturing industry in the nation; and that the stoppage of industry
for the home market is much more serious.
RAW MATERIAL IMPORTED, JAN. 5 TO OCT. 10.
| | 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. | 11,288 | 6,173 | 7,279 |
| Cotton Wool, cwt. | 5,495,799 | 3,866,089 | 3,423,061 |
| Sheep's Wool, lbs. | 57,308,477 | 51,058,209 | 43,348,336 |
This Table exhibits an alarming decline in the importation of all
the materials for our staple manufactures, except raw silk, which
has considerably increased. That increase has not arisen from any
increased sale of articles of clothing, viewed as a whole, in the
nation since 1845, but solely from the great extent to which, since
that time, the fashion of ladies' dress has run in favour of silk
attire. And, accordingly, the decline in wool and cotton imported is so
very considerable, that it amounts, since 1845, to fully a fourth. We
are aware how much the price of cotton rose in 1845; but it has since
rapidly declined; and yet, even at the present low prices, Lord George
Bentinck stated in his place in the House of Commons, in the course of
the debate on bringing up the address in this session of Parliament,
without contradiction from the practical men there, that so miserable
were the prices of export markets just now, that cotton manufactured
goods were exported cheaper than the raw material from which they are
formed could be imported to this country.
It is a poor set-off to these facts demonstrating the declining state
of our foreign manufactures, to say that the exportation of iron and
machinery has greatly increased during the same years, and that we
have imported enormously all kinds of foreign subsistence.[10] So it
has been; but what does that indicate? The first, that foreigners,
under our liberal system of free trade, even in the articles vital
to our manufacturing wealth, are largely importing the machinery
which is to enable them to rival our staple manufacturing fabrics;
and the iron rails which are to give them the means of bringing
their establishments, for practical purposes, nearer each other, and
compensating the immense advantages we have hitherto derived from the
narrowness and compact nature of our territory, and our insular and
highly favourable maritime situation. The last, which undoubtedly has
risen in so short a time to a height which the most decided and gloomy
Protectionist never ventured to anticipate,[11] only demonstrates that
free trade is even more rapidly than was anticipated by its opponents,
working out the downfal of our agricultural industry, and reducing us
to the pitiable condition of the Roman empire, when, instead as of old
sending supplies of provisions to the legions from Italy into distant
provinces, they were entirely fed by them, and the life of the Roman
people was committed to the chances of the winds and the waves.
In the sixth place, the depreciation of property and ruin to
individuals which has ensued and is going on from the present
crisis, is so prodigious, that the mind can scarcely apprehend it,
even by the aid of the most ardent imagination. Not to mention the
extreme embarrassment to merchants which must ensue from the present
extravagant rate of interest and discount, and which must in most
branches of commerce _entirely absorb the profits of stock for this
year_--not to mention the vast number of the most respectable houses
which have sunk under the pressure of the times--not to mention
the prodigious burden imposed on landed proprietors and debtors in
mortgages and bonds on personal security, by the general rise of
interest to five per cent. and often above that sum, from three and a
half or four _per cent_--let us endeavour to estimate, on something
approaching to authentic data, the depreciation and destruction of
property which had taken place even so early as 26th October last, when
Government most properly stepped in to arrest the ruinous effects of
Sir Robert Peel's currency bill of 1844.
We estimate the National Debt, funded and unfunded, in round numbers
at £800,000,000; the railway property, which now produces a revenue of
above £9,000,000 a-year, of which half is profit, at £100,000,000;[12]
bank and other joint stock at as much; and the capital embarked in
commerce and manufactures at £500,000,000. Thus, the loss on the
moveable property of Great Britain by the present crisis, may be
estimated as follows:--The three per cents. in August, 1845, were at
£100-7/8, and for a considerable time were about 100: when Lord John
Russell stepped in by his letter of 26th October, 1847, to arrest
the consequences of Sir Robert Peel's bill of 1844, they were at 79;
and the effect of that partial remedy, even with the bank advances
for a month after at eight per cent., has been to raise them to 85.
The depreciation of funded property, till the Act of 1844 was broken
through, had been in two years from 100 to 80, or a fifth. Take the
depreciation of all other moveable property engaged in fluctuating
employments, on an average at the _same amount and no more_. We need
not say how this understates the matter. How happy would a large part
of the railway stockholders, merchants, and manufacturers of the United
Kingdom be, if the depreciation of their property could truly be
estimated at no larger an amount! But take it on an average as a fifth
only,--the strength of the argument, as Mr Malthus said of his famous
arithmetical and geometrical progression, will admit of almost any
concession. The depreciation and destruction of property since 1845,
will then stand thus:--
Funded property, £800,000,000
Railway property, 100,000,000
Banking and other
joint-stock companies, 100,000,000
Capital invested in
commerce and manufacture, 500,000,000
-------------
£ 1,500,000,000
Depreciated, a-fifth, 300,000,000
Here, then, is the result of thirty years' legislation, during which
time, under different administrations, some bearing the names of Tory,
others of Whig, liberal principles in every department of government
have been without intermission in the ascendant. The Catholic
emancipators, the Negro emancipators, reciprocity advocates, reformers,
self-government men, bullionists, and free-traders, have got every
thing their own way. The triumph over the old system was not immediate;
it took a quarter of a century to complete it: like Wellington at
Waterloo, it was late in the evening before the victory was gained.
But gained it has been; and that not in one branch of government, but
in every branch. The ancient system has been universally changed,
and to such an extent, that scarcely a vestige of it now remains
in the policy of Government. So uniform has been the alteration in
every thing, that one would think our modern reformers had adopted
the principle of their predecessors in the days of Calvin, who stood
up to pray for no other reason but because the Roman Catholics knelt
down. And what have been the results? Ireland, with some millions
of paupers, in a state of anarchy and crime unparalleled in modern
Europe; a hundred millions of property almost destroyed in the
West Indies; the slave trade, tripled in extent, and quadrupled in
horror throughout the globe; an irresistible ascendency given in
the Legislature to urban electors; all protection to agriculture
destroyed; from ten to twelve millions of quarters of grain--a full
sixth of the annual subsistence--imported in a single year; the
national independence virtually destroyed, by being placed to such an
extent at the mercy of foreigners, for the food of the people; foreign
shipping rapidly encroaching on British, so as to render the loss of
our maritime superiority, at no distant period, if the same system be
continued, a matter of certainty; the practical annihilation of the
sinking fund; the permanent imposition of the war income-tax, in the
thirty-second year of profound peace; a falling off in the revenue at
the rate of six millions, and in our exports at the rate of twelve
millions a-year; the depreciation and destruction of property to the
amount of three hundred millions in two years in Great Britain; and,
finally, the general stoppage of railway undertakings over the whole
country, and the shutting or putting on short time of half the mills
in our manufacturing cities, for whose benefit all these changes were
intended! We doubt if the history of the Fall of Rome exhibited such
a uniform and multifarious decay in an equal period; certainly no
parallel to it has yet been presented in the annals of modern Europe.
If we thought that this long and portentous catalogue of disasters
was unavoidable, and could not be remedied by human wisdom, we would
submit to it in silence, and we trust with resignation, as we do to the
certainty of death, or the chances of plague, pestilence, or famine,
arising from the dispensations of Providence, for wise and inscrutable
purposes, but over which we have no control. But this is very far from
being the case. We believe, as firmly as we do in our own existence,
that they are _entirely of our own creation_,--that they are the
result solely and exclusively of false principles diffused through our
people, and false measures in consequence forced upon our Government;
and that, though the consequences of these false principles must be
long and disastrous, yet it is still possible to remedy the evil, to
convert a land of mourning into a land of joy, and restore again the
merry days to Old England. The retreat from the ways of error never
was to nations, any more than individuals, by any other path but the
path of suffering; but if the retreat is made, and the suffering borne,
we trust in the good providence of God, and energy of the British
character to repair all that is past.
The distress which prevails in the nation, and, most of all, _in the
commercial districts and cities_, being universal and undeniable, the
supporters of the present system, which has led to such results, are
sorely puzzled how to explain so decisive and damning a practical
refutation of their theories. The common theory put forth by the free
traders and bullionists is, that it is the railways and Irish famine
which have done it all. This is the explanation which for months has
been daily advanced by the _Times_, and which has been formally adopted
by the leaders of government in both Houses. We are a miserably poor
nation; we have _eaten up our resources_; the strain upon our wealth
has been greater than we could bear. This, of having eaten up our
resources, has, in a peculiar manner, got hold of the imaginations
of the able writers in the _Times_; and, forgetting that a great
importation of food was the very thing which they themselves had held
forth as the great blessing to be derived from free trade, they give
the following alarming account of the food devoured by the nation in
the first nine months of 1847:--