Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851

The law which gave a tariff to Switzerland on the 30th of June 1849, commences by enacting "that all the articles which are imported into Switzerland, are, with certain exceptions, specified by the present law, submitted to an import duty," and proceeds to impose duties of various kinds on all conceivable articles of importation. So far from being in favour of Free Trade, the Swiss nation is distinctly opposed to it; because, as in France, the people engaged in those important branches of industry are fully alive to their interest, and exercise the power they possess to render the revenue laws subservient to it.

Next comes France, upon the example of which country, and its reciprocal sentiments, Mr Cobden almost perilled his case, when he undertook his crusade to stir up that enthusiasm for free imports which, according to his view, lay burning at the heart of every people throughout the civilised globe. We have reason to know that the accounts of his reception in France, which appeared in many of the London journals, were absurdly exaggerated; and that, beyond the circle of that small and despised clique of whom M. Bastiat is or was the head, it was the reverse of flattering, until he arrived at Bordeaux. There, indeed, the winegrowers of the Gironde prepared an ovation for the statesman who had opened – or rather who, it was hoped, would open – the ports of England to the produce of their generous vintage. But when, in answer to one of his entertainers, more practical or suspicious than the rest, the hero of the League was compelled to avow his opinion that wine was a fair subject for taxation, the disheartening announcement was made that, if the wine duties were not repealed, Bordeaux did not interest itself at all in the question of Free Trade. Nor can we at this moment discover a country visited by Mr Cobden, whatever may be its form of government, that has fulfilled those "confident expectations" which he announced with such singular energy. It cannot be said that democracy has made no progress in Europe since 1846. The gallant and mighty people of France are now in full enjoyment of all the rights of man, and have only to indicate their will to their representative governors, and it is obeyed. Have, then, free imports followed in the train of liberty? Englishmen are not likely soon to forget how the enfranchised people of France first made use of their newly acquired power; and, though with steadier and more regular action, the great French Republic has held on its protective course up to the recent opening of its Chamber, heedless alike of the lectures of M. Bastiat, or the example of England. Indeed, there appears to be a tacit agreement on this one subject among all statesmen and all parties. Once, it is true, the eloquent though unsuccessful voice of M. de Lamartine was heard prophesying, in mystical phrase, the speedy triumph of brotherhood and interchange; but, by some association of ideas which we do not pretend to understand, the Free-trader of Meudon shortly became chief of that government which established the communist National Workshops. We have waited in vain to hear from any statesman of note a criticism on the President's most Protectionist Message, or any decided expression of dissent; and why is this? Because the French people, the small proprietors, the peasantry, the workmen of Lyons and Mulhausen, the manufacturers "of woollen[30 - President's Message, November 1850.] cloths and tissues, of cotton cloths, leather, earthenware, glass, and objects of luxury, have found ready and advantageous markets" under the existing system, and are prepared to defend Protection to the last drop of their blood. The rulers of such a people know, that to deprive their labour of Protection is but to inaugurate the reign of Communism, to establish anarchy, and to insure their own immediate downfall.

So much for the Liberal states of Europe. Let us next turn to America, wherein no corrupt aristocracy sheds its baneful influence upon society; where an unsectarian and generous instruction is given by the State to all; where no standing army is at hand, first to inflame, and then to gratify the unwise lust of conquest; where the people are really the source of power, and a free press enlightens them as to its proper exercise. There surely, if anywhere, we shall find political economic truth enshrined in the heart and tariff of the nation, and the pestilent heresies of Protection given up to the ridicule of a wise and discerning community. A glance at the present tariff, and an examination into the relations between "the plough, the loom, and the anvil," on the other side of the Atlantic, may consequently afford some useful information to us who are now subjected to a policy which is sacrificing the first to the two other members of that great industrial triad. Mr Carey, the well-known statistical writer of America, has, in The Harmony of Interests, supplied us with ample materials for conducting such an inquiry; and we can safely recommend his remarkable work to all who wish to investigate the causes of the progress and decline of industrial communities.

Governor Pownell in 1769, arguing in the House of Commons against taxing our North American provinces, had the prophetic wisdom to foresee – what some few American politicians of the present day, and the leaders of our own Manchester school do not yet seem rightly to comprehend – that the time must inevitably come when America would cease to depend upon English industry for manufactured goods. "They will abominate," said he, addressing himself to the people of England, "as sincerely as now they love you; and if they do, they have within themselves everything requisite to the food, raiment, or dwelling of mankind; they have no need of your commerce." A dim perception of this truth has at last impelled the Manchester Chamber of Commerce – the oligarchy by whom the destinies of this empire are swayed at the present time – to despatch a Commissioner to India in search of cotton-growing districts, whence they may obtain certain supplies of the raw material, and, we hope, of markets for the manufactured products thereof; for to us it is evident, that the "model republic" is henceforth to be relied on for neither the one nor the other.

Is this a bold or unauthorised assertion? Let us see. Who has forgotten the prophecies, or rather the confident assumption, of that entire and unlimited reciprocity which was to prevail between Great Britain and America, the moment after the former power announced her intention of admitting free of import duties the produce of the latter? Certainly we have not, though the memories of many people in Manchester and the adjacent parts may be more fallacious. In common fairness we must allow that, so far as argument could be drawn from mere hypothesis, the advocates of Free Trade were entitled to make the most of America. No other country could afford them so plausible a plea for reciprocity. Through absolute necessity, the cotton manufacturers of Great Britain depended upon America for their yearly supply of raw material. America hitherto had taken a large proportion of our manufactured goods – being content that the cotton, before it reached her in a textile fabric, should twice cross the waters of the Atlantic; and she also was a large customer for our coal, our iron, and other commodities. The terms were still unequal, at least for endurance. Britain could not do – at least Manchester and its dependencies could not – without the supply of cotton wool; but how if America, by rearing factories and furnaces, could contrive to do without either our calicoes, or our coal, or our iron? For a long time it was supposed that this was impossible – that the Americans had not sufficient capital to embark in manufacturing pursuits – and that nature had denied them those plentiful stores of coal and iron which are to be found in the British islands. The following tables, brought down to the latest accessible dates, will demonstrate the fallacy of that idea: —

BALES OF COTTON WORKED UP IN THE UNITED STATES.

The annual production of American coal and iron is as follows: —

In the increase here exhibited lies the reason why the League made such a desperate, and unfortunately successful, effort to overthrow the whole protective system of Great Britain; and also the reason why America refuses reciprocity. The Manchester men began to see – there being no want of shrewdness among them when their own individual interests were concerned – that their game had not only become hazardous, but must ere long prove desperate. They had already many rivals on the continent of Europe, who were, equally with themselves, customers to the Americans for cotton wool, and who fenced themselves against the introduction of the Manchester fabric by hostile tariffs. That, however, was nothing in comparison to the appalling fact, that the very people who found the raw material were actually in possession of the means of spinning it themselves, and seemed bent on doing so by their progress from year to year! In vain did our manufacturers and chambers of commerce try to demonstrate to the Yankees that they were not only committing a foolish but a most unnatural action – in vain did they assert, as a fundamental doctrine of ethics, that Britain ought to have the manufacturing monopoly of the world; and as a fundamental principle of economy, that it was far more for the advantage of a nation which produced the raw material to forego its manufacture, than to rear up within itself a new and lucrative branch of industry. Their ethics and their economy were alike scouted; and no wonder, for both propositions were repugnant to common sense, to ascertained results, and to reason. If it is indeed a law of economy that a nation which produces the raw article ought to confine itself to that production, and not to undertake the finishing and manufacturing process – then, by the same reasoning which was attempted to be palmed off upon the Americans, our wool, instead of being made up at Leeds or Bradford, should be straightway shipped off to Saxony; and the product of our iron mines transported to Sweden, there to undergo the necessary process of smelting. It is perhaps the strangest feature of the age in which we live, that such absolute and self-evident nonsense as this should not only have been uttered on platforms, and received with applause by crowds of congregated merchants, but have been gravely set forth in our public journals as a doctrine of the highest value.

There is, however, no such thing as a universal code of political economy. The Americans listened and laughed, and ran up their factories faster than ever, and ransacked the bowels of the earth for their inestimable strata of minerals, believing with a proper faith that they would not have been placed there unless it was intended that man should convert them to his use. Our cotton manufacturers, being thus situated, had some reason to despond. The nation that gave them their raw material, and that was also their best customer for fabrics, seemed on the very point of deserting them in both ways. True, a much greater quantity of cotton than was ever yet grown might be raised in America, but then the demand, though great in itself, has limits; and an unusually large crop has the effect of extinguishing profit to the grower. This will be better understood by the American estimate of the value of crops: —

The estimate for the latter year, says Mr Carey, was that made at New Orleans before the occurrence of the frosts and freshets, which, we presume, raised the price of cotton wool. We see, however, from this, that the small yield of 1847 was infinitely more profitable to the grower than the large yield of 1845, and this will explain the reason why the culture of cotton cannot be indefinitely extended. It therefore became necessary, at all hazards, if cotton-spinning in Britain was to be maintained in its former palmy state, that some further concession should be made to America, to bribe her, since she could not be forced to abstain from the encouragement of her own manufactures.

That bribe was the removal of the import duties on grain and provisions to Great Britain. Let the secret instigators of the movement – the men who organised the machinery of the League – disguise the fact as they may, that, and that alone, was the actual cause of our lowered tariffs and the ultimate repeal of the corn-laws. The Manchester Chamber hoped – most vainly, as it now appears – that, by giving a new stimulus to agriculture in America, at the expense of the vast body of British producers, they could at least ward off the evil day when the American manufacturer should be able to annihilate their trade, by depriving them of the enormous profits which they realised on the conversion of the raw material into yarn. What these profits were will appear from the fact that the price of cotton wool at Liverpool, in 1843-4, was 6d., whilst twist was selling at 101⁄4d.; and that in 1844-5, the price of wool having fallen to 4d., the market value of twist was 113⁄4d. Hitherto the prices, as fixed in England, have regulated those of the world.

That the late Sir Robert Peel, himself a scion of the cotton interest, should have been swayed by such considerations, is not, perhaps, remarkable; but that any portion of the landed gentry, of the producers for the home market, the labourers and the mechanics of Great Britain, should have allowed themselves to be deceived by the idea, that diminished or depreciated production could possibly tend either to their individual or to the national advantage, will hereafter be matter of marvel. We who know the amount of artifice and misrepresentation which was used, and who never can forget the guilty haste with which the disastrous measure was hurried through both Houses of Parliament, without giving to the nation an opportunity of expressing its deliberate opinion, feel, and have felt, less surprise than sorrow at the event. With British feeling, however, we have at present nothing to do; our object is to trace the effect which our relaxation has exercised upon American policy.

The American tariff of 1846, denounced by the Protectionists of the States as injurious to home interests, and supported by the Free-Trade party, imposes, among others, the following duties: —

These duties are somewhat lower, though not materially so, than the former tariff of 1842; but they certainly offer no inconsiderable amount of protection to home industry and produce. We have already seen the progress which has been made by the American cotton manufacturers, iron-masters, and miners; and it is now quite evident that, unless that progress is checked – which it only can be by the will of the Americans – our exports to that quarter must naturally decline. This is not our anticipation merely; it has been expressed openly and anxiously in the columns of the Free-Trade journals. In the iron districts of Scotland and Staffordshire, the apprehension that henceforward the American market will be generally closed against them, is, we know, very prevalent; and the following extract from the report of the Morning Chronicle, (April 11, 1850,) on the condition and prospects of the iron trade in the spring of 1850, applies exactly to the opening of 1851: —

"The present state of our commercial negotiations with the United States, particularly in relation to the exportation of iron from this country, promises greatly to aggravate existing evils. It is feared by many largely interested in the iron manufacture of this neighbourhood, that the efforts of Sir Henry Bulwer at Washington to obtain a modification of the American tariff, with respect more especially to the importation of iron, will prove abortive for some time to come. Our exports of iron from South Staffordshire are said to be already considerably reduced; and should our Transatlantic friends continue, as they threaten, their restrictive commercial policy, business in these important manufacturing districts must of necessity be still more limited than it is at the present moment."

What the prospects are of future relaxation may be gathered from the following extract from the message of President Fillmore to Congress, which has reached us whilst writing this article. We observe that the Times is bitterly chagrined to find that the President "has stated and commended the false doctrine of Protection." Was it to be expected that he would have done otherwise, seeing that the vast majority of the American public are thoroughly imbued with the same doctrines, however false and heretical they may appear in the eyes of Manchester?

"All experience has demonstrated the wisdom and policy of raising a large portion of revenue for the support of Government from duties on goods imported. The power to lay these duties is unquestionable, and its chief object, of course, is to replenish the Treasury. But if, in doing this, an incidental advantage may be gained by encouraging the industry of our own citizens, it is our duty to avail ourselves of that advantage.

"A duty laid upon an article which cannot be produced in this country, such as tea or coffee – adds to the cost of the article, and is chiefly or wholly paid by the consumers. But a duty laid upon an article which may be produced here stimulates the skill and industry of our own country to produce the same article, which is brought into the market in competition with the foreign article, and the importer is thus compelled to reduce his price to that at which the domestic article can be sold, thereby throwing a part of the duty upon the producer of the foreign article. The continuance of this process creates the skill, and invites the capital, which finally enable us to produce the article much cheaper than it could have been procured from abroad, thereby benefiting both the producer and the consumer at home. The consequence of this is, that the artisan and the agriculturist are brought together; each affords a ready market for the produce of the other, the whole country becomes prosperous, and the ability to produce every necessary of life renders us independent in war as well as in peace.

"A high tariff can never be permanent. It will cause dissatisfaction and will be changed. It excludes competition, and thereby invites the investment of capital in manufactures to such excess, that when changed it brings distress, bankruptcy, and ruin upon all who have been misled by its faithless protection. What the manufacturer wants is uniformity and permanency, that he may feel a confidence that he is not to be ruined by sudden changes. But, to make a tariff uniform and permanent, it is not only necessary that the law should not be altered, but that the duty should not fluctuate. To effect this, all duties should be specific, wherever the nature of the article is such as to admit of it. Ad valorem duties fluctuate with the price, and offer strong temptations to fraud and perjury.

"Specific duties, on the contrary, are equal and uniform in all ports and at all times, and offer a strong inducement to the importer to bring the best article, as he pays no more duty upon that than upon one of inferior quality. I therefore strongly recommend a modification of the present tariff, which has prostrated some of our most important and necessary manufactures, and that specific duties be imposed sufficient to raise the requisite revenue, making such discrimination in favour of the industrial pursuits of our country as to encourage home production without excluding foreign competition. It is also important that an unfortunate provision in the present tariff, which imposes a much higher duty upon the raw material that enters into our manufactures than upon the manufactured article, should be remedied."

So that America, the great democratic state on which we relied for reciprocity, is going ahead, not, as our Free-Traders foretold, in their direction, but precisely on the opposite tack.

What is there wonderful in this? Was it likely that a country, possessing within itself the raw material in abundance, and, so far as cotton was concerned, having a virtual monopoly of its growth, should for ever refuse to avail itself of its natural advantages, and to stimulate agriculture by giving it that enormous increment of consumption which must arise from the establishment of domestic manufactures? Does not common sense show us that, the nearer the point of exchange can be brought to the exchanging parties, the more advantageous and profitable to both parties must that interchange necessarily become? Unquestionably it is for the interest of the American planter to have the manufactory brought as close as possible to his plantation, seeing that thereby he would avoid the enormous charges which he bears at present, both in land carriage and freightage – charges which, of themselves, go a great way towards the annihilation of his profit. Add to this that those charges on the raw material necessarily enhance the price of the fabric when converted by British machinery, and again transported to America, and it must become evident to every one how largely the American planter is interested in the foundation and success of American manufactures. The interest of the agriculturist is equally great. For him a steady market at his own door, such as extended manufactures alone can give, is the readiest and most certain source of wealth and prosperity. What he wants is regular consumption, and the nearer the customers can be found, the greater will be the demand, and the more profitable the supply.

We need not, however, argue a matter which has been already settled on the other side of the Atlantic. It suffices us to know that, in all human probability, America will persevere as she has begun, taking every advantage which we are foolish enough to give her, and yet adhering to her system of protecting domestic labour, and of riveting more closely than before all branches of industry by the bonds of mutual interest. Such clear, distinct, and philosophic principles as are enunciated by a late American writer make us blush for the confused, absurd, and contradictory jargon which of late years has been proffered to the world, with so much parade, as the infallible dicta of British political economy.

"A great error exists in the impression now very commonly entertained in regard to national division of labour, and which owes its origin to the English school of political economists, whose system is throughout based upon the idea of making England 'the workshop of the world,' than which nothing could be less natural. By that school it is taught that some nations are fitted for manufactures and others for the labours of agriculture; and that the latter are largely benefited by being compelled to employ themselves in the one pursuit, making all their exchanges at a distance, thus contributing their share to the maintenance of the system of 'ships, colonies, and commerce.' The whole basis of their system is conversion and exchange, and not production, yet neither makes any addition to the amount of things to be exchanged. It is the great boast of their system that the exchangers are so numerous and the producers so few; and the more rapid the increase in the proportion which the former bear to the latter, the more rapid is supposed to be the advance towards perfect prosperity. Converters and exchangers, however, must live, and they must live out of the labour of others; and if three, five, or ten persons are to live on the product of one, it must follow that all will obtain but a small allowance of the necessaries and comforts of life, as is seen to be the case. The agricultural labourer of England often receives but eight shillings a-week, being the price of a bushel and a half of wheat.

"Were it asserted that some nations were fitted to be growers of wheat and others grinders of it, or that some were fitted for cutting down trees, and others for sawing them into lumber, it would be regarded as the height of absurdity, yet it would not be more absurd than that which is daily asserted in regard to the conversion of cotton into cloth, and implicitly believed by tens of thousands even of our countrymen. The loom is as appropriate and necessary an aid to the labours of the planter as is the grist-mill to those of the farmer. The furnace is as necessary and as appropriate an aid to the labours of both planter and farmer as is the saw-mill; and those who are compelled to dispense with the proximity of the producer of iron labour are subjected to as much disadvantage as are those who are unable to obtain the aid of the saw-mill and the miller. The loom and the anvil are, like the plough and the harrow, but small machines, naturally attracted by the great machine, the earth; and when so attracted all work together in harmony, and men become rich, and prosperous, and happy. When, on the contrary, from any disturbing cause, the attraction is in the opposite direction, and the small machines are enabled to compel the products of the great machine to follow them, the land invariably becomes poor, and men become poor and miserable, as is the case with Ireland."

In short, the American system is, to stimulate production by creating a ready market at home, and, as the best means of creating that market, to encourage the conversion of the raw material within the United States, by laying on a protective duty on articles of foreign manufacture. The British system now is, to discourage home production, and to sacrifice everything for the desperate chance of maintaining an unnatural and fortuitous monopoly of conversion, not of our own raw material only, but of that of other countries. In the attempt to secure this exceedingly precarious advantage – which, be it remembered, does not conduce to the prosperity of the great majority of the nation – our rulers and politicians have deliberately resolved that agriculture shall be rendered unprofitable; and that the bulk of our artisans, who can look to the home market only, shall henceforward be left unprotected from the competition of the whole world. It needs little sagacity to predict which system is based upon sound principles; or which, being so based, must ultimately prevail. Our economists never seem to regard the body of British producers (who, as a class, are very slightly interested in the matter of exports) in the light of important consumers. If they did so, they could not, unless smitten by judicial blindness, fail to perceive that, by crippling their means, and displacing their labour, they are in effect ruining the home market, upon which, notoriously, two-thirds even of the converters depend. The stability of every state must depend upon its production, not upon its powers of conversion. The one is real and permanent, the other liable to be disturbed and annihilated by many external causes. A country which produces largely, even though it may not have within it the means of adequate conversion, is always in a healthy state. Not only the power, but the actual source of wealth is there; and, as years roll on, and capital accumulates, the subsidiary process of conversion becomes more and more developed, not to the injury of the producer – but to his great and even incalculable advantage.

The natural power of the production of Great Britain, as compared with other states, is not very high. Its insular position, and the variableness of its climate, renders the quality of our harvests uncertain; but that uncertainty is perhaps compensated, on the average, by our superior agriculture, and the vast pains, labour, and capital which have been expended on the tillage of our land. Our meadows, downs, and hill pastures have, however, been most valuable to us in furnishing a better quality of wool than can elsewhere be obtained in Europe – an advantage which our forefathers perceived and wisely availed themselves of – for, as early as the reign of Edward III., manufacturers from Hainault were brought into this country by the advice of Queen Philippa, and laid the foundation of the most prosperous, healthy, and legitimate trade which we possess. Ever since, the woollen manufacture has been inseparably connected with the interests of the British soil. Few luxuries, or even such articles of luxury as are now considered necessaries, can be grown in Great Britain. For wine our climate is unsuited; but there is nothing whatever to prevent us – except a system which calls itself, though it is not, Free Trade – from growing the coarser kinds of tobacco, and from establishing manufactories of sugar from beet-root. Our stock of minerals is great – almost inexhaustible – and to this fact we must look for our singular pre-eminence during so many years in Europe. Our unlimited supply of coal and iron gave us an advantage which no other European nation possessed – it was, in fact, virtually a monopoly – and upon that we built our claim to become the workshop of the world. Nor was the claim in any degree a preposterous one. That singular monopoly of minerals – for such it seemed – gave us the actual power, if judiciously used, of controlling the process of conversion, not only here, but elsewhere throughout the globe. Manual labour, it mattered not what was the distance, had no chance at all against the triumphs of machinery; and hence our commerce extended itself far and wide, to savage as well as civilised nations, and our arms were used to force a market where it could not otherwise be obtained. This, if not our strength, was undoubtedly the cause of our supremacy, and even of our extended colonisation; and as we obtained command of a raw material of foreign growth, so did we adapt our machinery to convert it into fabrics for the world.

It is by no means a pleasant matter to recur to certain particulars in our commercial and manufacturing history. We found the East Indies in the possession of a considerable manufacture of cotton, the producer and the converter being there reciprocally dependant. That we have stopped, the object being to compel the Hindustani to receive his clothing direct from Manchester. And we have succeeded so far that, last year, our exports to Hindostan were so great, that, by lumping them in the general account, our statists were able to furnish what appeared to many a convincing argument in favour of Free Trade, though in reality it had nothing to do with that question. But at what cost have these operations been made on India? Simply at this, that, whilst destroying the native manufacture, we have also curtailed the production of the raw material. Of the rapid diminution in its amount let the following figures tell: —

IMPORT OF COTTON FROM INDIA TO ENGLAND.

But raw material we must have, else our machinery is of no use. We have had so long a monopoly of cotton-spinning that we have accustomed ourselves, spite of nature, and spite of fact, to believe that our whole destiny was that of cotton-spinning. We ignore all history in favour of that particular shrub; and, pinning our faith to export tables – concocted by the weakest and most contemptible of charlatans – we make no hesitation in avowing that the prosperity and destiny of Great Britain is indissolubly entwined with our monopoly of cotton twist! That would be simply laughable, if we had not absolutely legislated on, and committed ourselves to that theory. We stand just now, in the face both of Europe and America – we know not whether we ought to exclude the other quarters of the globe – in the most ridiculous possible position. Our economists are permitted to say to them – "Send us your raw material, and we shall be proud and happy to work it up for you. Don't be at the pains or the cost of rearing manufactories for yourselves. That would entail upon you, not only a great deal of trouble, but a vast expenditure of capital, which you had much better lay out in improving your extra soil, and in bringing it to good cultivation. We can promise you a ready market here. Our proprietors and farmers are unquestionably heavily burdened by taxation, but they must submit to the popular will; or, if they choose to dissent, they may sell off their stock and emigrate to your country, where doubtless they will prove valuable acquisitions. You, we are well aware, are able to provide us with food cheaper than they can do it; and cheapness is all we look to. We shall even do more for you. We agree to admit to our market, at merely nominal duties, all your small articles of manufacture. You may undersell and annihilate, if you can, our glovers, hatters, shoemakers, glass-blowers, and fifty others – only do not interfere with the larger branches, and, above all, do not touch our monopoly of cotton."

It is now obvious, and we believe generally acknowledged by those who have most practical knowledge of the subject, that the monopoly is broken up. America is seriously addressing herself to the task of applying her lately discovered stores of coal and iron to practical use; and, as we shall presently have occasion to show, she has no need to train workmen for that purpose, since the great emigration from this country supplies her with practised hands. That her rivalry will be of the most formidable description there can be no matter of doubt, for she will still be able to retain command of the raw material, and, retaining that, to regulate the price of cotton and cotton goods at New Orleans, instead of permitting Liverpool or Manchester to dictate authoritatively to the world. Whether the Manchester Chamber, finding their last move utterly abortive in securing monopoly, may succeed in rearing up plantations of cotton elsewhere than in America, is a point upon which we cannot speak with any degree of certainty. That they are alarmed, and deeply alarmed, at the prospect before them is evident, not only from the representations made in Parliament, and the desponding tone of their organs, but from the experiments which they have instituted for the purpose of ascertaining whether some other vegetable product may not be used as a substitute for cotton. Even if they were successful in one or other, or in both of their inquiries, it seems clear to us that they never can hope to regain their former ascendency. They must be exposed to the competition not only of America, but of the Confederation of the Zollverein, which now receives from the United States a large and increasing supply of raw material. The following table will show the extreme rapidity in the growth of that consumption: —

Although it never can be agreeable to know that any important branch of trade in this country is retrograding or falling into decay, we cannot affect to feel much sympathy with the cotton manufacturers, and that for several reasons. In the first place, their trade was a factitious one, not founded upon or tending in any degree to promote the real production of Great Britain, but avowedly rendering us dependant to a dangerous degree upon foreign supplies. Secondly, there can be no doubt that our demand for the raw material has had the effect of perpetuating slavery in the southern states of America. And, lastly, we cannot forget that we owe all our present difficulties to the machinations of men connected with the cotton manufacture. The doctrine that the strength of Britain lay in its powers of conversion, not in its powers of production, originated with them; and in their selfish eagerness to maintain a monopoly, even then in a precarious position, they made no scruple of sacrificing every interest which stood in their way. Our readers cannot fall to recollect the arguments which were employed by the champions and leaders of the League. America, whether as an example or an ally, was never out of their mouths. We were to spin for America, weave for America, do everything in short for her which the power of machinery could achieve. America, on the other hand, was to forego all idea of interfering with our industrial pursuits, in the way of encouraging her own children to become manufacturing rivals, and was to apply herself solely to the production of raw material, cotton, corn and provisions, wherewith the whole of us were to be fed. Our statesmen acted on this faith, assured us that we had but to show the example, and reciprocity must immediately be established, and opened the British ports without any condition whatever. The consequence was an influx of corn and provisions far greater than they expected, which at once annihilated agricultural profits in Great Britain, and is rapidly annihilating agriculture itself in Ireland. We were told to take comfort, because the very amount of the importations showed that it could not be continued; and yet it is continued up to the present day, and prices remain at a point which, even according to the estimate of the Free-traders, is not only unremunerative, but so injurious to the grower that he must lose by the process of cultivation. The actual labourer was the last sufferer, but he is suffering now, and his future prospects are most miserable and revolting. The smaller branches of manufacture, and the multitudes of artisans employed in these, have felt grievously the effect of lowered tariffs, and, even still more, the competition which has been engendered by the amount of displaced labour. Our large towns are the natural receptacles for those who have been driven from the villages, on account of sheer lack of employment; and ever and anon philanthropists are made to shudder by the tales of woe, and want, and fearful deprivation, which are forced upon the public ear. And yet few of them appear to have traced the evil to its source, which lies simply in the legislative discouragement of production, for the sake of a system of conversion which can offer no means adequate to the wants and numbers of the competing population.

Our exports, when we deduct the value of the raw material, constitute in reality an insignificant item in the account of our annual creation of wealth. The greatness and prosperity of Britain never did, and never will, depend upon the amount of her foreign trade, though that is now regarded by our statistical quack-doctors as the sole criterion. What we must depend upon is the home trade, and that can only be prosperous by maintaining the value of production. For how else, save from production, are the labouring population, or indeed any of us, high or low, rich or poor, as we may call ourselves, to be maintained? All of us derive our subsistence from the earth, and beyond what is reaped or redeemed from its bosom we have nothing. If, for example, there is no market for iron, the furnaces will be blown out, and the ores left unworked; if there is no market for agricultural produce – that is, a remunerative market – the fields will be left untilled. What, then, becomes of the converters? – for whom do they work? – or how do they acquire the wherewithal to purchase the food which the foreigner may chance to send them? Let Ireland answer. That unhappy island is at this moment paying the last penalties of Free Trade. It stands before us as a beacon and warning of what we must expect, and cannot avoid, if we continue to discourage production, in the insane hope of thereby stimulating conversion; and perhaps we cannot do better than quote an American opinion as to the cause of its wretchedness and ruin: —

"With this vast increase in the importation from abroad has come the ruin of the people of Ireland. Deprived of manufactures and commerce, her people were driven to live by agriculture alone, and she was enabled to drag on a miserable existence, so long as her neighbour was content to make some compensation for the loss of labour, by paying her for her products higher prices than those at which they might have been elsewhere purchased. With the repeal of the Corn Laws that resource has failed; and the result is a state of poverty, wretchedness, and famine, that has compelled the establishment of a system which obliges the landowner to maintain the people, whether they work or not; and thus is one of the conditions of slavery re-established in that unhappy country. From being a great exporter of food, she has now become a large importer. The great market for Indian corn is Ireland – a country in which the production of food is almost the sole occupation of the people. The value of labour in food throughout a population of eight millions, is thus rapidly decreasing."

To every word of this we subscribe, and we beg to say, further, that this is not the only instance. A large portion of Scotland has been absolutely pauperised by Free Trade. The condition of the western Highlands and Islands is most appalling; and unless Ministers and members of Parliament are prepared to do their duty to the children of the soil, they are utterly and execrably unworthy of the trust which has been committed to their charge. It is with a feeling nearly akin to loathing that we peruse accounts of Brobdignag glass-houses, and sham exhibitions of the industry of nations, reared at an enormous cost, when we know that the men who ought to be the producers of our national wealth – and who might be so, were they not made the victims of a heartless and senseless system – are being driven in hundreds from their hearths and homes, and cast upon the wide world, without a roof to shelter them, or a rag to give them covering!

All this, and more – for every day brings its fresh tale of woe and wretchedness – is the consequence of free imports. And how stands the account the other way? Where is the counterbalancing advantage? It may be that the ruin and prostration of Ireland and the Highlands is no great loss to the indwellers of the towns, the men of the factories and counting-houses. It may be that they are not at all affected by such misery, or that they care to listen to it, notwithstanding that the victims are in the sight of God as valuable beings as themselves. It may be that, in consequence of such suffering, or rather by creating it, they have derived some advantage large enough to compensate for the havoc, by enabling them to give a livelihood to thousands who would otherwise have been unemployed and destitute. If so, where is it? Has America reciprocated?

No! and America will not.

America laughs at the whole crew of Manchester conspirators with sovereign and undisguised contempt. She wants nothing from them – she will take nothing from them. Secure in her own position, and possessing within herself every requisite for greatness, and – what is more – for the happiness and welfare of her children, she regards with scorn the attempted compromise of the crippled converters, and, while she rejects their offer, gives them a burning rebuke for their treachery to their native land.

So far from discouraging her manufactures, she intends to protect them; so far from concealing her mineral wealth, she has resolved to develop that to the utmost – judging, and rightly judging, that it is alone through the "harmony of interests" that a nation can be truly prosperous.

Her rebuke, as contained in the documents before us, which we firmly believe convey the sentiments of the wisest men of the Union, is perhaps the most poignant that ever was cast in the teeth of a civilised and Christian community. It resolves itself into this: —

"You, producers, mechanics, and artisans of Great Britain, who are deprived of your labour, which is your only heritage, for the sake of a few men, who will neither take your produce nor avail themselves of your skill, come to us. We require hands to till our savannahs, to excavate our ores, to work at the furnaces, to weave, and to spin. Labour with us is not as in your country. The producer shall not be sacrificed for the sake of the converter, or the converter subjected to the precarious mercy of the producer of another land. Here, at least, you will find an entire harmony of interests. Foreign customers you need seek none, for every requisite of life is secured to you in return for your labour."

And, lest it should be thought that we are putting words into the mouth of the Americans without authority, we shall presently have occasion to quote from the remarkable work before us.

The repeal of the Corn Laws, and of the duties levied on provisions, have enormously, as we all know, increased the exports of America. The following tables will show their amount, and, in the case of provisions, the increase since the lowered tariffs came into operation.

AMOUNT OF AMERICAN EXPORTS OF GRAIN AND PROVISIONS.

Grain and Flour.

Provisions.

Now, if the doctrine of the Free-traders is a true one, it will follow that the imports of America must be on a scale corresponding to the magnitude of the exports. If that be so, the fact will be evident on the face of their revenue accounts. We turn to these, and find the following results: —

CUSTOMS REVENUE FROM THE IMPORTS TO THE UNITED STATES.

How, then, and in what shape, were these enormous exportations of grain and provisions paid for? Not certainly in goods, for if that were so, a corresponding increase would be apparent in the revenue accounts. The answer is quite short – in gold, and in that commodity which ought to be regarded as far more valuable than gold – MAN.

It is a fact of no small interest, that the ship-owning corn-merchants have willingly sold grain in Liverpool for less than they could have got for it in the States, in order to insure the return cargo – that which they find so profitable – emigrants. Mr Blain, who was engaged for many years by the Jews of London and Germany in valuing the growing crops of America, gives the following account of this apparently unreasonable process: – "The shipowners of America are making much money by carrying emigrants to the States: they are now extensive corn-merchants, and are buying largely at very low prices, it being better to carry wheat across the Atlantic, and sell it at 2s. per quarter less than it cost, than buy ballast, which is very dear in the American seaports."[31 - Liverpool Mail, Nov. 2, 1850.] Steam, too, is now about to be applied in furtherance of this traffic, and we read of magnificent steamers built expressly for the corn and emigrant trade between New York and Liverpool. By the way, with freights at 6d. a barrel of flour, (the rate in September 1849,) equivalent to 1s. per quarter of wheat, what becomes of the once favourite sophism, that the Atlantic afforded a natural protection of at least 10s. to the English farmer? Nor should it be forgotten that the American farmer finds it his plain interest thus to part with his surplus production, procuring in return that of which he stands so much in need – labour; and the vast emigration from the western states to California has rendered European labour more valuable and welcome to him than ever.