Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851

"The aggregate value of our exports, during the first ten months of the present year, has been L.55,038,206, against L.49,398,648 in the like period of 1849, showing an increase of L.5,639,558, which has occurred in the following order:

– Times, Nov. 10."

Now, let it be supposed that this increase, which will amount to less than L.7,000,000 in our exports in the whole year, is all to be set down to the credit of Free Trade. Let us suppose that Californian gold, which has given so unparalleled a stimulus to America, and the lowering the discounts of the Bank of England to 2½ per cent – which has done so much, as it always does, to vivify industry and raise prices at home – and the pacification of Germany by Muscovite influences or bayonets, which have again, after the lapse of two years, opened the Continental markets to our produce, have had nothing at all to do with this increase in our exports, – what, after all, does it amount to, and what, on striking the balance of profit and loss of Free Trade, has the nation lost or gained by its adoption?

It has increased our exports by L.7,000,000 at the very utmost; and as the total produce of our manufactures is about L.180,000,000, this is an addition of a twenty-fifth part. It has made four or five hundred thousand persons employed in the export manufactures prosperous for the time, and increased, by five or six hundred thousand pounds in the last year, the incomes of some eighty or a hundred mill-owners or millionnaires.

Per contra. 1. It has lowered the value of agricultural produce of every kind fully twenty-five per cent, and that in the face of a harvest very deficient in the south of England. As the value of that produce, prior to the Free-Trade changes, was about L.300,000,000 a-year, it has cut L.75,000,000 off the remuneration for agricultural industry over the two islands.

2. It has cut as much off the funds available to the purchase of articles of our manufacture in the home market; for if the land, which pays above half the income tax, is impoverished, how are the purchasers at home to find funds to buy goods?

3. It has totally destroyed the West Indies – colonies which, before the new system began, raised produce to the value of L.22,000,000, and remitted at least L.5,000,000 annually, in the shape of rent, profits, and taxes, to this country.

4. It has induced such ruin in Ireland, that the annual emigration, which chiefly comes from that agricultural country, last year (1849) reached 300,000 souls, and this year, it is understood, will be still greater.[15 - ] This is as great a chasm in our population as the Moscow retreat, or the Leipsic campaign, made in that of France; but it excites no sort of attention, or rather the pressure of unemployed labour is felt to be so excessive, that it is looked on rather as a blessing. The Times observes, on January 1, 1851: —

"We see the population of Ireland flowing off to the United States in one continuous and unfailing stream, at a rate that in twenty years, if uninterrupted, will reduce them to a third of their present numbers. We see at the same time an increasing emigration from this island. England has so long been accustomed to regard excess of population as the only danger, that she will be slow to weigh as seriously as perhaps she ought this rapid subtraction of her sinew and bone, and consequent diminution of physical strength. It is impossible, however, that so considerable a change should be attended with unmixed advantage, or that human forethought should be able to compass all the results. The census of next spring may invite attention to a subject, the very magnitude of which may soon command our anxiety."

5. It has totally ruined the West Highlands of Scotland, which depend on two staples – kelp and black cattle – the first of which has been destroyed by free trade in barilla, and the second ruined by free trade in cattle, for the benefit of our manufacturing towns, and sent their cottars in starving bands to Glasgow, already overwhelmed by above L.100,000 a-year of poor-rates.

6. It has so seriously affected the internal resources of the country, that, with a foreign trade prosperous beyond what has been seen since 1845, the revenue is only L.165,000 more than it was in the preceding year, which was one of great depression; and the last quarter has produced L.110,000 less than the corresponding quarter of 1849.

7. It has so lowered the incomes of people in the country, that although the number of travellers by railways has greatly increased, and the total receipts of the lines have been swelled by L.1,700,000 since last year, the mileage has decreased-proving, that the general traffic of the country bears no adequate proportion to its railway lines. It stands thus, —

– Times.

which is a fall of L.55 a mile in the midst of our boasted prosperous export trade.

Such are the advantages, in consideration of which the nation has embarked on a course of policy which so evidently, and in so many ways, threatens our independence. It is class government which has done it all – the determination to make the sovereign worth two sovereigns, and a day's labour to the poor man worth one shilling to him instead of two, which has induced dangers in every quarter, which threaten the existence of Great Britain. Why is it that we are constrained – though Government are perfectly aware of the danger, and the Duke of Wellington has repeatedly pointed it out – to have a military and naval force evidently incommensurate to the wants of our vast empire, and unable to defend it from the hostility which our foreign policy does so much to provoke? Simply because we have surrendered the government of the country to a moneyed oligarchy, who are resolved, coute qui coute, to cheapen everything, because it enhances the value of their realised wealth, and because the measures of that oligarchy have cut down Queen Victoria's income from £100,000,000 – as it might have been, and is now, in real weight upon the country[16 - £100,000,000 in quarters of wheat at 80s., 25,000,000 quarters; £50,000,000 in quarters of wheat at 40s., 25,000,000. So that, after all our boasted reductions, our taxes are now thirty per cent heavier than they were in the heaviest year of the war, when they were only £72,000,000.]– to £50,000,000; just as they have reduced the income of the poor needlewomen from 9d. a-day to 4-1/2d. Why is it that we are constrained, openly and avowedly, to abandon our colonies to their own resources? Only because the cheapening system and Free Trade have so paralysed and weakened our resources, that, like the Romans, if we would protect at all the heart of the empire, we must forthwith abandon its extremities.

Why are we evidently and undeniably losing the empire of the seas, by the rapid and portentous increase of the foreign and decline of the English shipping, in carrying on our own trade? Only because freights must, it is thought, be cheapened as well as everything else; and the independence of the country is a trifling consideration to a fall of a farthing in the pound, in the transport of some articles, for the benefit of the Manchester trader. Why are the West Indies utterly ruined, and the annual importation of slaves into Cuba and Brazil doubled,[17 - See a most admirable pamphlet by Mr Stanley, the worthy inheritor of his father's genius and patriotic spirit. The slaves imported into Cuba have increased since 1847 from 23,000 to 50,000.] and discontent so universally spread through our colonies, that beyond all doubt, in the first reverse, they will break off from the mother country, if not previously thrown off by it? Merely to carry out the dogma of Free Trade, and lower sugar, watered by the blood of the slaves, a penny or twopence a pound to the British consumer. Why have we brought 7,000,000 of our people, in three years, to depend for their daily food on foreign supplies, and put ourselves entirely at the mercy of the two states from which nearly all that food comes? Only to enrich the Manchester manufacturers, and appease the cry for cheap bread, by enabling them to beat down the wages of labour from 1s. 6d. to 1s. a-day. Why are poor-rates – measured in the true way, by quarters of grain – heavier in this year of boasted prosperity than they were in any former year of admitted adversity? Because, in every department of industry, we have beat down native by letting in a flood of foreign industry. Why are 300,000 industrious citizens annually driven into exile, and Ireland threatened with a depopulation the most rapid and extraordinary which has been witnessed in the world since the declining days of the Roman empire? Because we would lower wheat from 56s. to 39s. a quarter; and thereby we have extinguished the profits of cultivation in a portion of our empire containing 8,000,000 of inhabitants, but so exclusively agricultural that its exports of manufactures are only £230,000 a-year. It is one principle – the cheapening system – devised by the moneyed and manufacturing oligarchy, and calculated for their exclusive benefit, which has done the whole.

Is there, then, no remedy for these various, accumulating, and most threatening evils? Must we sit down with our hands across, supinely witnessing the progressive dangers and certain ultimate destruction of the empire, merely because the measures inducing all these perils are supported by the moneyed and manufacturing oligarchy who have got the command of the House of Commons? We are far from thinking that this is the case; but if we would avert, or even mitigate our dangers, we must set ourselves first to remedy the most pressing. Of these, the most serious, beyond all question, are to be found in our unprotected state, – for they may destroy us as a nation in a month, after some fresh freak of Lord Palmerston's has embroiled us with some of the great European powers. In regard to other matters, and the general commercial policy, the danger, though not the less real, is not so immediate, and experience may perhaps enlighten the country before it is too late. But it is otherwise with our external dangers: they are instant and terrible. The means of resisting them are perfectly simple – they will be felt as a burden by none; on the contrary, they are calculated, at the same time that they provide for our national defence, to mitigate the greater part of the domestic evils under which the people labour.

Government tell us that they have a surplus of L.3,000,000 this year in their hands. We hope it is so, and that it will not prove, like other surpluses, greater on paper than in reality. But let it be assumed that it is as large as is represented. That surplus, judiciously applied, would save the country! It would raise our armaments to such a point as, with the advantages of our insular situation, and long-established warlike fame, would prevent all thoughts of invasion on the part of our enemies. It would give us 100,000 regular troops, with those we already have – 100,000 militia, occasionally called out – and 25 ships of the line, with those already in commission, to defend the British shores. It is true, the continuance of the Income Tax cannot be relied on – nor should the country submit to it any longer; for a tax which is paid exclusively by 147,000 persons out of 28,000,000, is so obviously unjust, that its further retention is probably impossible. Additional direct taxation upon the affluent classes is obviously out of the question, for the chasms made in the incomes of those depending on land, who pay three-fourths of it, are such that it would prove totally unproductive. What, then, is to be done to uphold the public revenue at its present amount, or even prevent its sinking so as to increase instead of diminishing our helpless and unprotected state? An obvious expedient remains. Imitate the conduct of America and Prussia, France and Russia, and all countries who have any regard either to their national independence, or the social welfare of their inhabitants. Lay a moderate duty upon all importations, whether of rude or manufactured articles. In America it is 30 per cent, and constitutes nearly their sole source of revenue: in Prussia it is practically 40 or 50 per cent. By this means nearly half the tax is paid by foreigners– for competition forces them to sell the articles taxed cheaper than their ordinary price, with the addition of the tax. It is spread over so vast a surface among consumers, that its weight is not felt; being mixed up with the price of the article sold, its weight is not perceived. We pay in this way half the taxes of America, Germany, and all the countries to whom we chiefly export our manufactures. Let us return them the compliment, and adopt a system which will make them pay the half of ours. The whole, or nearly the whole, of the Income Tax, which now produces L.5,400,000 a-year, would by this change be spent in increased purchases in the home market, and sensibly relieve its sinking state. This change would at once obviate our external dangers – for it would enable Government, without sensibly burdening the country, to maintain the national armaments on such a scale as to bid defiance to foreign attack. We shall see in our succeeding paper whether it would not, at the same time, be an effectual remedy, and the only one that would be practicable, to the most serious part of our domestic evils.

CURRAN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.[18 - Curran and his Contemporaries. By Charles Phillips, Esq., A.B., one of her Majesty's Commissioners in the Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors. 1 vol. 8vo. 1850.]

A noble land lies in desolation. Years pass over it, leaving its aspect only more desolate; the barbarian takes possession of the soil, or the outcast makes it his place of refuge. Its palaces are in ruins, its chieftains are in the dust; its past triumphs are regarded as the exaggerations of romance, or the fond fantasies of fable. At length a man of intelligence and vigour comes, delves into the heart of the soil, breaks up the mound, throws aside the wrecks of neglect and time, opens to us the foundations of palaces, the treasure-chambers of kings, the trophies of warriors, and gives the world the memorials of a great people in the grave.

All analogy must be imperfect in detail; and we have no desire to insist on the perfection of our analogy between the Golden Head of the East, and the little kingdom whose fallen honours are recorded in the volume before us. But, if Ireland is even now neither the nominis umbra which the Assyrian empire has been for so many ages, nor the Irish legislature the heir of the fierce and falcon-eyed council which sleeps in the sepulchres of Nineveh, there is something of a curious relationship in the adventurous industry which has so lately exhumed the monuments of Eastern grandeur, and the patriotic reminiscence which has retrieved the true glories of the sister country, the examples of her genius, from an oblivion alike resulting from the misfortunes of the Land and the lapse of Time.

Nor are we altogether inclined to admit the inferiority of the moral catastrophe of the Island to the physical fall of the Empire. If there be an inferiority, we should place it on the side of the Oriental throne. To us, all that belongs to mind assumes the higher rank; the soil trodden by the philosopher and the patriot, the birthplace of the poet and the orator, bears a prouder aspect, is entitled to a more reverent homage, and creates richer recollections in the coming periods of mankind, than all the pomp of unintellectual power. There would be to us a stronger claim in the fragments of an Athenian tomb, or in the thicket-covered wall of a temple in the Ægean, than in all the grandeurs of Babylon.

It is now fifty years since the parliament of Ireland fell; and, in that period, there has not been a more disturbed, helpless, and hopeless country than Ireland, on the face of the earth. Nor has this calamity been confined to the lower orders; every order has been similarly convulsed. The higher professions have languished and lost their lustre; the Church has been exposed to a struggle for life; the nobility have given up the useless resistance to difficulties increasing round them from hour to hour; the landed interest is supplicating the Court of Encumbered Estates to relieve it from its burthens; the farmers are hurrying, in huge streams of fugitives, from a land in which they can no longer live; and the tillers of the ground, the serfs of the spade, are left to the dangerous teaching of an angry priesthood, or to the death of mingled famine and pestilence. A cloud, which seems to stoop lower day by day, and through which no ray can pierce, at once chills and darkens Ireland.

The author of this important and interesting volume, in a brief preface, states his object as being that of giving personal sketches of the leading Irish characters of his time, exactly as they appeared on the scenes of professional and public life – most of them being his acquaintance, some his intimates. He concludes by gracefully expressing his "hope, that the reader will rejoice in a more intimate acquaintance with them; and that, in endeavouring to elevate the land of his birth, he may make some return for the kindness bestowed on him by that of his adoption."

Here two objects are announced; and, whether the first was the elevation of his country by the characters of its eminent men; or, whether the country was the background for the figures of the national history-piece, he has given us a work which brings the patriots and orators of Ireland with singular force before the eye.

His introduction to Curran was sufficiently characteristic. When at the Temple, he had written a poem on the honours of his country, in which the great orator of her Bar was named with due admiration. The popularity of the verses excited the attention of their object, and the young barrister received an invitation to dine with Curran, then Master of the Rolls, at the Priory, his villa, a few miles from Dublin. The appointed hour was five, and it was a matter of importance to be punctual; for beyond that hour dinner was to wait for no man. His first view of his host is graphically described. He found him in his avenue.

"There he was; as a thousand times afterwards I saw him, in a dress which you would imagine he had borrowed from his tipstaff; his hands in his sides, his face almost parallel with the horizon – his under lip protruded, and the impatient step and the eternal attitude, only varied by the pause in which his eye glanced from his guest to his watch, and from his watch reproachfully to his dining-room."

However, it appears that the ominous hour had not struck, and they dined.

"I had often seen Curran, often heard of him, often read him, but no man ever knew anything about him who did not see him at his own table, with the few whom he selected… It was said of Swift, that his rule was, to allow a minute's pause after he had concluded, and then if no person took up the conversation to recommence. Curran had no conversational rule whatever: he spoke from impulse, and he had the art so to draw you into a conversation, that, though you felt an inferiority, it was a contented one. Indeed, nothing could exceed the urbanity of his demeanour."

If this description could be doubted, on the authority of the volume, it would be amply confirmed by the authority of his time. Curran was confessedly the wit of the day, and his witticisms were the more popular from their being, in general, harmless. No man could sting more keenly where he had a public culprit of his own class to sting, or a political adversary to combat; but no man was seldomer personal.

Curran's nature was playful. His taste was also dramatic, and he was fond of playing harmless tricks upon his friends. Of this taste Mr Phillips had a specimen, even on the day of his introduction: —

"When the last dish had departed, Curran totally confounded me with a proposal for which I was anything but prepared. 'Mr Phillips,' said he, 'as this is the first of, I hope, your very many visits to the Priory, I may as well at once initiate you into the peculiarities of the place. You may observe that, though the board is cleared, there are no preparations for a symposium; it all depends on you. My friends here generally prefer a walk after dinner. It is a sweet evening, but if you wish for wine, say so without ceremony.'

"Even now I can see Curran's star-like eyes twinkling at the disappointment no doubt visible in mine. I had heard, and heard truly, that he never was more delightful than with half-a-dozen friends after dinner over his bottle. The hope in which I had so long revelled was realised at last, and here came this infernal walk, and the 'sweet evening.' Oh, how I would have hailed a thunderstorm! But, to say the truth, the sun was shining, and the birds were singing, and the flowers were blooming and breathing so sweetly on that autumn eve, that, wondering not at the wish of my companions, I also voted for 'the walk.'

"We took the walk, no doubt, but it was only to the drawing-room; where, over a dessert freshly culled from his gardens, and over wines for which his board was celebrated, we passed those hours which seemed an era in my life."

All this is very well told, and very amusing in description, and was very innocent – when all was over. But it was exposed to the chance of being differently taken, and had but one advantage – that it could not be repeated on the individual.

Curran was born in 1760 at Newmarket, a village in the county of Cork. His parentage was humble, his father being only the seneschal of the manor. His mother seems to have been a woman of superior faculties, and her celebrated son always spoke of her with remarkable deference.

As it was a custom, among the oddities of Ireland, to teach Greek and Latin to boys who probably were to spend the rest of their lives at the spade, Curran had what in Ireland was called a classical education, but which his natural talent turned to better account than one in a million of those half-naked classicists. It enriched his metaphors in after life, and enabled him to talk of the raptures of antiquity. In the Irish University, he shared the fate of other celebrated men. Swift, Burke, and Goldsmith made no figure in their academic course. We certainly do not mention this failure to their praise, nor would they themselves have ever so mentioned it. We can easily conceive, that in their palmiest days they regretted their waste of time, or want of industry. Still, they may have found their palliative in the ungenial nature of the collegiate studies in their day. We should observe, that those studies have since been more advantageously adapted to the national necessity, and are of a much more general and popular description.

But in the last century, the whole bent of the collegiate education was mathematical: the only road to distinction was Euclid. The value of mathematics is unquestionable. As a science, it holds its head among the highest; but as a national education, it is among the most useless. The mind made for mathematical distinction is as rare as the mind made for poetic pre-eminence. One might as well make poetry a requisite, in a national education, as the mastery of mathematics. The plea that they invigorate the reason is contradicted by perpetual experience. Some of the feeblest, and even the most fanciful, and of course the silliest, managers of great principles, have been mathematicians of celebrity. Napoleon said of Laplace, the first mathematician of his day, to whom he gave a title and a seat in his Council of State, on the strength of his scientific renown, that "he could do nothing with him, – that as a public man he was useless – that his mind was full of his infinite littles." And this is the history of nearly all mathematical minds: beyond their diagrams, they are among the dullest, most circumscribed, and most incapable of mankind. The mind of a Newton is not to be ranged in this class of elaborate mediocrity: he was not the mole, whose merit consists in seeing his way in the dark by an organ which is blind in the broad light of nature; he was an eagle, and could dare the full effulgence of the sun. But this meagre and inapplicable acquirement was the chosen prize for the whole young mind of educated Ireland; her mathematical crutch was the only instrument of progress for all the salient spirits of a nation abounding in the most aspiring faculties of man, and the quiet drudge who burrowed his way through Cubics and Surds, or could keep himself awake over the reveries of the Meditationes Analyticæ, was the Coryphæus of the College; while men passed along unnoted, who were in future years to embody the national renown.

As Curran's determination was the Irish Bar, he of course made the customary visit to the English Inns of Court. Here, though his finances compelled him to live in solitude, he contrived to amuse himself by that study of which in life he was so great a master – the study of character. Some of his letters from London are curious indications of this early tendency of his mind. Curran was by nature a Tory. All men of genius are Tories, until they get angry with the world, or get corrupt, and sell themselves to Whiggism; or get disgusted, and think that both parties are equally worthless.

"Here," says Curran, "every coal-porter is a politician, and vends his maxims in public with all the importance of a man who thinks he is exerting himself for the public service. He claims the privilege of looking as wise as possible, and of talking as loud; of damning the Ministry, and abusing the King, with less reserve than he would his equal. Yet, little as those poor people understand the liberty they so warmly contend for, or of the measures they rail against, it reconciles me to their absurdity, by considering that they are happy, at so small an expense as being ridiculous."

This feeling was too true ever to have been changed. The language was changed, and no tongue could pour out more showy declamation on the multitude; but, when loosed from the handcuffs of party, no man laughed more loudly, or sneered more contemptuously, at the squalid idol to which he had so long bowed the knee.

Another fragment has its value in the illustration of his kindness of heart: —

"A portion of my time I have set apart every day for thinking of my absent friends. Though this is a duty that does not give much trouble to many, I have been obliged to confine it, or endeavour to confine it, within proper bounds. I have therefore made a resolution to avoid any reflections of this sort except in their allotted season, immediately after dinner. I am then in a tranquil, happy humour, and I increase that happiness by presenting to my fancy those I love, in the most advantageous point of view. So that, however severely I treat them when they intrude in the morning, I make them ample amends in the evening. I then assure myself that they are twice as agreeable, and as wise and as good, as they really are."

Whether the author of Tristram Shandy would have been a great orator, if he had begun his career at the Bar, may be a question; but that Curran could have written admirable Shandian chapters can scarcely be doubted by those who have observed the exquisite turns of his speeches from grave to gay; or perhaps even those who now read the few words which conclude the story of Dr du Gavreau. This man was one of his casual acquaintances, a French fugitive, who ran away with a Parisian woman of a different faith. Whether they married or not is dexterously veiled. The woman died, leaving a daughter; but, whether married or not, their child would have been illegitimate by the existing laws of France. The widower had often been pressed by his friends to return to France, but he determined never to return, where his child would be stigmatised.

"I did not know the particulars," says Curran, "till a few days since, when I breakfasted with him. He had taken his little child on his knee, and, after trifling with her for a few moments, burst into tears. Such an emotion could not but excite, as well as justify, some share of curiosity. The poor Doctor looked as if he were conscious I felt for him, and his heart was too full to conceal his affliction. He kissed his little 'orphan,' as he called her, and then endeavoured to acquaint me with the lamentable detail. It was the hardest story in the world to be told by a man of delicacy. He felt all the difficulties of it: he had many things to palliate, some that wanted to be justified; he seemed fully sensible of this, yet checked himself when he slided into anything like defence. I could perceive the conflict shifting the colours of his cheek, and I could not but pity him, and admire him for such an embarrassment. Yet, notwithstanding all this, he sometimes assumed all the gaiety of a Frenchman, and is a very entertaining fellow."

In all these breaks of the story, and touches of feeling, who but must recognise the spirit of Sterne?

The volume is a grave volume, and treats of high things with equal grace and gravity; but Curran was an eccentric being, and his true history must always be mingled with the comic.

"I have got acquainted," he says, "with a Miss Hume, who is also an original in her way. She is a relation of the celebrated David Hume, and, I suppose on the strength of her kindred, sets up for a politician as well as a sceptic. She has heard his Essays recommended, and shows her own discernment, by pronouncing them unanswerable, and talks of the famous Burke by the familiar appellation of Ned. Then she is so romantic, so sentimental! Nothing for her but goats and purling streams, and piping shepherds. And, to crown all, it sings like a nightingale. As I have not the best command of my muscles, I always propose putting out the candles before the song begins, for the greater romanticality of the thing."

Then, as to his relaxations —

"You will perhaps be at a loss to guess what kind of amusement I allow myself: why, I'll tell you. I spend a couple of hours every night at a coffee-house, where I am not a little entertained with a group of old politicians, who meet in order to debate on the reports of the day, or to invent some for the next, with the other business of the nation! Though I don't know that society is the characteristic of this people, yet politics are a certain introduction to the closest intimacy of coffee-house acquaintance. I also visit a variety of ordinaries and eating houses, and they are equally fertile in game for a character-hunter. I think I have found out the cellar where Roderick Random ate shin of beef for threepence, and have actually drunk out of the identical quart which the drummer squeezed together when poor Strap spilt the broth on his legs."