All these wild free-trading schemes!
Cobden’s calico predictions,
Porter’s importation dreams!
For I loathed the mean alliance,
Even when I chose to wheel
In the wake of him who led us,
Pinning foolish faith to Peel.
Was I mad, to place my honour
In this most disgusting fix?
Half the world was rather crazy
In the days of Forty-six.
O the happy times of premiums!
O the balmy touch of scrip!
Would that I had sold my bargains
Ere they had me on the hip!
Every day a new allotment
Promised shining heaps of gold;
Every day the mounting market
Swelled my hopes a hundredfold.
I remember old Sir Robert,
With his shirt-sleeves rolled on high,
Lust of speculation gleaming
In his gray and greedy eye;
Turning sods with silver shovel,
Celebrating that event
With a speech on competition
At the opening of the Trent.
I have dined with royal Hudson,
And may dine again, perhaps,
Should another exaltation
Follow on this drear collapse.
All had drunk the wine of gambling,
All had quaffed the share champagne,
Wisdom’s warnings were rejected,
Prudence preached to us in vain.
Madness, frenzy, lust of riches,
Reigned within the minds of all,
That, we thought, must answer Peter
Which had served the turn of Paul.
If, by scorning honest labour,
Men made fortunes in a trice,
What might be the luck of Britain,
Casting with Free-traders’ dice?
I am strongly of opinion—
Looking to my country’s good—
That I’ve stuck by him of Tamworth
Rather longer than I should.
As concerning next election,
I’ve received some pregnant hints,
Both from country correspondents,
And the leading public prints.
Cultivation’s at a discount,
Rents are very slowly paid:
Some aver that sly Sir Robert
Has contrived to coin his spade;
Neither is there much progression
In the wool and cotton trade.
What the deuce would men be after?
If those fellows had their will,
England would be straight converted
To a monstrous cotton-mill.
Everywhere would ghastly chimneys
Vomit forth their odious mist,
Settling, like the breath of Satan,
O’er this island of the blest;
When the only occupation
Would be spinning yarn and twist!
Spin away, my brave compatriots!
Spin as largely as you can;
Who shall dare to set a limit
To the sale of shirts for man?
Whilst the raw material’s granted,
Spin away with might and main;
Use the time that’s still vouchsafed you,
For it may not come again.
There’s a smartish kind of notion
Running in the Yankees’ head,
That they need not be indebted
To your kindness for their thread.
In the meanwhile go for cheapness,
Smite the farmers hip and thigh—
Making honest people bankrupt
Is the way to make them buy.
Starve the masses of the nation,
Drive them all into the mills;
Clear the plains and sweep the valleys,
Desolate the Highland hills.
Let the rough hard-fisted yeoman,
All too clumsy for the loom,
Migrate to the western prairies,
Where for labour still there’s room.
Let the peasant and the cottar
Quit the useless plough and spade—
Built for them are costly mansions,
Raised for them are rates in aid.
To the workhouse let them gather,
Or by theft attain the jail;
Honesty has bread and water,
Crime is fed on beef and ale.
O the glorious consummation
Of this truly Christian scheme,
Such as never saint or prophet
Witnessed in ecstatic dream!
Wasted fields and crowded cities,
Swarming streets and desert downs,
All the light of life concentred
In the focus of the towns!
Yea, exult, ye foes of England!
In the downfall of the race
That of yore, in fiery combat,
Met your fathers face to face:
For the pride of lusty manhood,
And the giant Saxon frame,
Never more shall be embattled
In the coming fields of fame;
Shrunken sinews, sallow faces,
Twisted limbs, and factory scars—
These shall mark your next opponents
In the European wars.
Not such yeomen as with Alfred
Won their freedom long ago—
Such as on the plain of Crecy
Triumphed o’er a worthy foe—
Such as drove invasion backward,
Have their homes in Britain now!
This at least our sons may utter,
Blushing for their fathers’ shame—
Brain me with a billy-roller,
If I longer play this game,
Either for the crimp of Tamworth,
Or his first lieutenant, Graham!
No, by Jove! I will not suffer
Degradation of the kind—
What care I for Johnny Russell,
With his hungry host behind?
Let them blunder on insanely,
Digging holes within the sand,
Thinking, like the stupid ostrich,
To escape the hunter’s hand.
Let them shirk the facts before them,
Comforting themselves the while,
That their Economic asses
Can the public ear beguile.
Lord! to hear the blockheads braying,
Spite of proof before their eyes—
“I assure the house,” quoth Wilson,
“Wheat must very shortly rise.
It was so-and-so at Dantzic
More than twenty years ago;
Therefore wait a little longer—
’Twill be up again, I know.”
Jolly Villiers, on the other
Hand, with exultation vows,
More than one-and-ninety millions
Have been plundered from the ploughs;
And he hopes before another
Year shall run its destined course,
To congratulate the public
That affairs are worse and worse.
I, for one, am sick and weary
Of these everlasting prigs;
Quite disgusted with the shuffling
Of the miserable Whigs;
With their impudent averments,
And their flagrant thimblerigs!
Hark, the midnight chimes! I fancy
The palaver’s nearly over:
For to-night let Johnny Russell
And his colleagues rest in clover.
But, upon the next occasion,
When there’s talk about a tax,
Whether it shall weigh on foreign
Or on native British backs,
Master Tufnell must excuse me,
If I seek another lobby
Than the one that’s now frequented
By my former chief, Sir Bobby!
TENOR OF THE TRADE CIRCULARS.
_Liverpool, April 19, 1850._
TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.
Sir,—That a period of severe commercial suffering is approaching us, in
which the ruinous condition of the agricultural classes will recoil
disastrously, not only upon the selfish Free-trade agitators in the
manufacturing districts, but also upon the importers of foreign produce,
the broker, the factor, the shopkeeper, and the labourers in our towns,
has for some months been patent to all who have dispassionately watched
the current of events, and been able to draw correct conclusions from
what is going on before their eyes. It is not to official tables of
exports and imports that such men look as the indices of the nation’s
prosperity. They turn rather to _the results_ of these operations, as
disclosed in our commercial circulars; to the degree of confidence
displayed by bankers in their dealings with their customers, and by
merchants in their transactions with each other; to the movements of
produce in our leading markets, and to the amount of activity which
characterises the internal trade and the consumption of the country.
They are guided, too, very materially, by the general feeling of
merchants and traders, expressed in their daily communications with each
other, on ‘Change, or in the intercourse of private life. Such a mode I
propose to employ, in investigating the real condition of the cotton
manufacturing districts of the north of England; and the result of this
investigation, which I shall now proceed to lay before your readers,
will, I fear, dissipate somewhat rudely the dream of prosperity in which
her Majesty’s Ministers, and their supporters in Parliament and
throughout the country, are just now indulging.
In pursuing such an inquiry, the condition of the port of Liverpool, the
great mart of this portion of the kingdom, naturally suggests itself as
of prominent interest. In this port, by the result of our vast
operations in imported foreign and colonial produce, the actual results
of our export trade in manufactures, and the consuming power of the
large population which draw their supplies from it, can be tested with
considerable fairness. In an article in your last Number, I find a
quotation from the monthly circular of Messrs T. and H. Littledale &
Co., whom you truly designate as perhaps the greatest brokers in the
world. A portion of this I must re-quote, in order to enable your
readers the better to appreciate some later observations of these
gentlemen. On the 4th of March, Messrs Littledale wrote:—
“_Great complaints are made of the bad state of the country
shopkeepers in the agricultural districts. We have closely questioned
some of our wholesale grocers and tea-dealers, who assure us that
there is no disguising the fact, that such is the case, and that the
general answer received from their travellers is, that ‘they can get
neither money nor orders.’_ The serious falling off in the deliveries
of sugar, coffee, tea, and cocoa, for the two months of this year,
compared with those of the last, but too truly confirms these
complaints, and are perhaps the most alarming features in our present
prospects. As given in Prince’s public prices current of the 1st
inst., they stand as follows:—
1850. 1849. 1848.
Sugar, 37,006 43,408 42,368 tons
Coffee, 3,795,712 4,907,691 pounds
Cocoa, 450,774 558,888
Tea, 5,375,648 5,502,931
The circular of this house, dated the 4th of April, has since been
published, in which they confirm their previous statement; and indeed
show that the condition of the country, as tested by its consumption of
imported produce, is retrograding. We quote the following as their
summary:—
“_General Remarks._—Another month of dull spiritless trade, as well in
our produce markets as in the manufacturing districts of Lancashire.
The demand for consumption has somewhat improved from exhaustion of
stocks in the hands of dealers; but we regret to find the deficiency
in deliveries of the principal articles noticed in our circular of
last month (tea excepted) has still further increased, which speaks
ill for the internal state of the country; in fact, _we believe the
small tradesmen and shopkeepers in the rural districts were seldom or
never in a worse position than at the present_.
“Corn has fallen so low in value, that _the farmers, anxious to secure
their rents, are not in a position to pay their tradesmen’s bills; and
we have been assured that, in numberless instances, their Christmas
accounts for last year are still unpaid_. This falls immediately on
the wholesale dealers, from them on the importing merchants, and
eventually, if no revival take place, must act with double force on
the manufacturers in a diminished home trade and in crippled exports,
which latter must ever depend on our power to take the products of
other countries as returns for our manufactures. To what class, then,
are the present ruinous low prices of grain a blessing? We
emphatically say _to none_; indeed it is quite impossible for so large
a portion of the community as that connected with agriculture to be
depressed, and the other portions long to continue prosperous; and
probably the best impulse we could receive, in the present inactive
state of our colonial markets, would be an advance of 5s., to 10s. per
qr., in the price of wheat. There is no doubt, also, that the fearful
depreciation of railway property, which appears a bottomless abyss of
mismanagement and ruin, tells cruelly on the available resources of a
very large proportion of the people, and adds seriously to the
embarrassment of trade.”
In glancing over this circular in detail, we find opposite nearly every
important item the words, “has moved off at easier prices,” “is less
inquired for,” “is dull,” or some other phrase significant of commercial
depression; yet, during the preceding month, the stocks on hand, owing
to the prevalence of easterly winds, which had kept a large number of
vessels windbound outside the Channel, had received very little
augmentation. It must be borne in mind that the dealings of this firm
extend over nearly every description of foreign produce—certainly every
large one, timber and iron excepted;—and that the money amount of their
annual transactions may be reckoned by many millions sterling. Further
inquiries amongst other houses enable me to state confidently that, with
the exception of a few trifling articles, the mass of the produce, which
is pouring into Liverpool, arrives at an unprofitable market. In cotton
alone, amongst the leading imports, a small margin of profit may at
present be secured, the abundance of unemployed money in the hands of
the banks allowing the speculators, for a short crop, to inflate prices.
Such a case, however, tells nothing in favour of a sound state of
things. The question of most material import is, whether either the
foreign demand, or the home consumption, is so urgently requiring
supply, as to enable the manufacturer of cotton goods to concede the
advanced rates demanded for the staple, by the American grower, or the
speculator at home. Present appearances scarcely warrant such an
expectation. The following opinion upon the subject, given by a leading
firm in the trade, Messrs George Holt & Co., in their circular of the
12th April, expresses the opinion of all except the most sanguine:—
“We can hardly account for this tendency of prices,”—(they had
slightly advanced during the week)—“or lay before our readers any new
circumstances affecting the value of the staple. No doubt confidence
in the shortness of the American crop remains, and probably is on the
increase. We may add also that stocks in spinners’ hands are at a low
ebb. Still _we have, from day to day, discouraging reports from
Manchester as to the state and prospects of a very large part of the
spinning and manufacturing trade. This depression, which has been so
long in existence, must be got rid of, or modified, before we can have
any permanent well-doing in the raw material._”
“Depression so long in existence!” A great majority of the public, with
the speech from the Throne, and the prosperity-speeches of movers and
seconders of the Address before them, imagined that the cotton
districts, at all events, were flourishing!
A later circular of the produce market, published upon the authority of
the entire brokers of the port, exhibits the state of the general
produce market in even a worse light than that of Messrs Littledale,
quoted above. I append it here:—
“LIVERPOOL PRICES CURRENT, IMPORTS, &c. for the week ending _April
12, 1850_. Arranged by a Committee of Brokers.—T. M. MYERS,
_Secretary_.
“SUGAR.—Holders continuing to offer freely, there has been a fair
amount of business, but at rather lower prices; 450 hhds. B. P., of
which 300 were new Barbadoes, sold at 34s. 6d. to 41s., 3500 bags
Bengal at 34s. to 40s., 1600 bags Khaur at 28s. 6d., and 3500 bags
Mauritius at 36s. to 36s. 6d., being a decline of 6d. to 1s. per
cwt.—_Foreign._—180 hhds. Porto Rico, of the new crop, sold at 40s.
per cwt. duty paid; the export demand continues slack, and sales are
only 24 cases, 150 bags and brls. Brazil and 100 boxes
Havanna.—MOLASSES.—The new arrivals coming in have induced holders of
last year’s crop to take much lower prices than have been hitherto
accepted; the sales are 500 puns. Porto Rico at 15s. 6d., 400 Cuba at
15s. 6d. to 16s., and 300 Barbadoes at 15s. per cwt.; the two cargoes
of new Porto Rico, just arrived, have been sent to store, the
importers not being willing to accept the low price offered by the
Trade; the quotations are reduced accordingly.—COFFEE.—The recent
import of Jamaica has been freely offered, and the slight improvement
that existed ten days ago is entirely lost, prices being now as low as
ever. 80 tierces have been sold, at 46s. 9d. to 54s. for low to fine
ordinary, and 62s. to 100s. for low to fine middling—the latter
quotation being 15s. below the rates of January. 100 bags native
Ceylon were sold early in the week at 52s. 6d., but that price is not
now obtainable, the nominal value being about 48s. per cwt.—A small
parcel of Bahia Cocoa sold at 33s. per cwt.—Nothing done in GINGER or
PEPPER, but a small lot of PIMENTO brought 6⅛d. per lb., being an
extreme price.—RICE.—No sales of Carolina; 13,000 bags East brought
7s. 6d. for broken, and 8s. 6d. to 9s. 9d. for low to good white,
being a decline of fully 6d. per cwt.—RUM is difficult of sale, except
at lower prices; the business consists of 200 puns. Demerara, 32 to 37
per cent O. P. at 2s. 2d. to 2s. 4½d. per gallon.”
There is a further decline, it will be seen, in every important article;
and the most experienced houses, I find, are at a loss to tell at what
point it will stop. It is generally admitted that, but for the
accommodation which the large holders can command, there must have been
a general crash long ere this, which would have overwhelmed half the
mercantile community in ruin. This would have reacted fearfully upon the
shopkeepers in the interior of the country, whose credits would have
been suddenly stopped, whilst their overdue accounts would necessarily
have been sternly exacted. In fact the bulk of this class at present
stand upon the verge of an abyss, into which a sudden panic may hurry
them at any moment.
It will doubtless be urged that this state of the produce market is only
temporary; that importations, having become profitless, will be
discontinued, and the supply thus become equal to the demand. This would
be the natural course of things under a sound system; but no sign of
cessation of imports is at present to be seen; and it is much to be
questioned whether any such cessation can take place, without throwing a
large portion of our manufacturing population into very serious
distress, if not into anarchy and outbreak. If importation of produce is
restricted, exportation must be restricted in proportion. The
manufacturer has thrown himself into almost total dependence upon the
foreign buyer of his wares. With a flourishing home market for
manufactures, a glut of produce might be got rid of without difficulty.
But the same cause—an inability of the masses to consume—which depresses
the prices of produce, now exists equally with respect to the home
market for manufactured goods; and to stop production and exports, with
a view to enhance the value of the stocks of produce already received in
remittance from the foreigner, would add another element to the
perplexity in which the nation is plunged. This portion of the subject,
however, it is not for me to discuss here. I only refer to it in order
to express the opinions which are beginning to be mooted in influential
commercial circles.
In order to be enabled to state, as much as possible upon my own
knowledge, the extent to which the internal markets of the country are
depressed, and the consumption of produce is declining, I have
instituted inquiries among some of the leading houses in Liverpool, who
send travellers into the country, and the reports given are fully as
discouraging as those given by Messrs Littledale, as to the difficulty
both of making sales and collecting accounts. From a gentleman connected
with a leading firm in the tea trade, I learn that in the country over
which their travellers prosecute their business, the orders which they
receive are for very limited quantities, and are, in fact, demonstrative
of what, in mercantile parlance, is styled “a hand to mouth” business.
Excessive caution and want of spirit characterise the feelings of the
retail trade everywhere.
Some of these parties, he suggests, may have locked up a portion of
their capital in railway investments, or perhaps lost it. Still, hand to
mouth orders—orders for a week’s instead of a month’s consumption, would
tell in the long run, if they served to make up the aggregate of past
years. But they do not. The consumption of this necessary article is
found to be declining; and the objection of the retail dealer to order
as largely as usual is accounted for, in the majority of cases, by the
inability of the farming and middle classes to pay their accounts as
punctually as heretofore. It must be borne in mind, in treating of the
consumption of such an article as tea—and I may include coffee, sugar,
&c.—that they frequently form the substitute for the poor man’s meal.
When the consumption of tea declines, in times acknowledged to be bad,
it is the worst sign of the condition of the community.
Another gentleman connected with an extensive firm in the grocery trade,
gives still more discouraging accounts. The travellers of this firm
extend their operations over the whole of the Midland Counties and the
North of England. Their reports to their employers are most lugubrious.
For example, one of them, a few weeks ago, remitted home £120, whereas
his accounts due were about £1500. As to sales, these are most difficult
to make. Consumption is gradually and rapidly declining. Retail dealers
in the country towns complain that the farmers no longer expend the
money they have been accustomed to do, when visiting markets; but
confine their consumption of food more and more to the products raised
upon their own lands. One of the travellers of this firm journeys
through the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland, in which for many
years an extensive trade has been carried on in the curing of bacon and
hams. This trade he represents as now almost extinct, or rapidly
becoming so—the parties engaged in it being unable to compete with the
importers of the low-priced hams and bacon of America. Of this class are
the farmers of the country which owns Sir James Graham as their feudal
lord, and of whom that distinguished statesman asserted, in the debate
on the Address, that they must be in a state of plethoric prosperity,
inasmuch as he had never had his rents better paid than at his last
rent-day. The worthy baronet forgot to say that rent is the last debt
that a tenant farmer will omit to pay, the landlord having a power which
overrides the claims of all other creditors. If he could have added that
his farmers’ tradesmen’s bills had been equally well paid, he would have
imparted some information most gratifying to the community. Neither this
house, nor any other that I have conversed with, can see any termination
to the present declining state of things. It is becoming admitted,
amongst the circles with which their travellers mix, that reductions of
rent are wholly unequal to meet the emergency of the present crisis.
It is proper that I should refer to one trade in Liverpool which is most
prosperous—in fact, the only prosperous one. This is the trade of the
merchants engaged in, and others connected with, the emigration of our
fellow-countrymen, to seek a home in foreign lands. The following are
the statistics of this trade, kindly furnished me by a gentleman
officially connected with the shipping of emigrants from Liverpool:—
Ships. Emigrants.
Emigration in 1847 514 128,447
Do. 1848 519 124,522
Do. 1849 565 146,162
During the present year the emigration has been—
January, 6943 Persons.
February, 8779 „
March, 16,783 „
Cabin emigrants, 705 „
At the present moment, notwithstanding the large increase in the
shipping—principally American—provided for the trade, berths, and these
at very high prices, are most difficult to be got, unless detention is
submitted to. Moreover, a great change has taken place in the kind of
persons emigrating. Last year, the same gentleman informs me,
four-fifths of the parties emigrating consisted of substantial small
farmers from Ireland and elsewhere, and skilled artisans from this
country. This year, a very superior class of English farmers are leaving
a land which no longer affords them a living in exchange for their
honest industry. The quays of Liverpool daily present a scene, which few
thinking men can rejoice in, and which the country will have to regret.
The aged as well as the mature, mothers with infants at the breast, and
stalwart youths and maidens, going from vessel to vessel, to select that
particular one whose departure from our shores will cut for ever their
connexion with the country which they have loved, and in which they
leave behind the graves of their fathers. It is melancholy to think upon
the misery there must be amidst all this activity, with the momentary
absence of regret for old scenes, and enjoyment of the new ones, into
which these poor people find themselves thrown. Yet we cannot but feel
satisfied that they are about to be bettered in condition by the change.