troverted and incapable of denial; and so it will remain until the national policy is altered. It is now precisely twelve months ago since we drew the attention of the public to the actual state of British agriculture under the operation of Free-Trade prices. We then, and in subsequent articles, quoted the deliberate opinion of those who favoured and carried the repeal of the Corn Laws, as to what remunerative prices in reality were; we called as wit nesses the late Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Wilson, M.P. for Westbury, and others and showed that, according to their judgment, not that of Protectionists, wheat could not be grown with a profit in this country unless it commanded in the market from 12s. to 16s. more per quarter than was at that time the average of England. We were told in reply, by our antagonists, that the depression was merely accidental. Hardly one of them ventured to say that they had anticipated such a result, or that such a result was desirable: on the contrary, the farmers of this country were told to believe that the low prices current were simply the consequences of an exuberant harvest, combined with the first impulse of new importation, and that, from sheer want of material, the latter would speedily subside. At the close of another year, and after another harvest materially differing in quality, we find prices actually lower than they were at this time twelvemonths. Nor is this the case with grain alone, but with cattle: thus demonstrating how hopeless is the condition of the British farmer, under the operation of the present law. That the impending ruin of the agriculturists, who constitute by far the most important body of British producers, and therefore of consumers in the home market, would speedily react upon every branch of industry, we foresaw and foretold; and the result is now before us, evident in each day's reiterated tale of distress. Notwithstanding all this, we are assured in certain quarters, that at every hazard the experiment must go on; that, having once embarked in a career, however dangerous, we must persevere to the last; and that protection to native industry is inconsistent with the genius of a free and enlightened people. Let us see whether it be so. And, as to judge of this question we must look elsewhere than to Britain, let us try to discover the extent to which the principles of Free Trade are acknowledged in other lands, where freedom, both of sentiment and action, is claimed quite as enthusiastically as in our own. It is worth while knowing how far our opinions on this commercial subject have been responded to, not by despotic states, wherein the popular voice might be suppressed, but by the most liberal and enterprising countries which, we were told, waited only for our example to engage in the work of reciprocity. Among these we are surely entitled to reckon Switzerland and Germanyincluding in the latter denomination that powerful confederacy, the Zollverein, which embraces the Hanseatic towns. These are Protectionistdetermined at all hazards to maintain their doctrine of fostering native industry, and meeting us, not with reciprocity, but with augmented customs' duties. The following extracts from the last modifications of the general tariff of the Zollverein may be instructive: MODIFICATIONS OF THE GENERAL TARIFF OF THE ZOLLVEREIN. Cotton twist, unbleached, per cwt., do. pig, rails and raw, cast and refined steel, OLD DUTY. £0 6 0 bleached, &c. 1 13 0 Woollen manufactures, . 4 10 0 NEW DUTY. 090 0 1 0 04 6 116 British Labour and Foreign Reciprocity. 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 [Jan. 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 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; President's Message, November, 1850. 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 Commercethe oligarchy by whom the destinies of this empire are swayed at the present time-to dispatch a Com missioner to India in search of cottongrowing 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 unauthorized 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. Northern Manufactures. Southern Manufactures. 1843-44 347,000 None. 1844-45 389,000 None 1845-46 423,000 30,000 1846-47 428,000 40,000 1847-48 531,000 75,000 1848-49 518,000 100,000 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. Manchester men began to see-there The 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 Americans for cotton wool, and who to the 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 vaid 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 3,089,000 their economy were alike scouted: and no wonder, for both propositions were repugnant to common sense, to ascertained results, and to reason. indeed a law of economy that a nation If it is to confine itself to that production, which produces the raw article ought 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 to Sweden, there to undergo the neproduct of our iron mines transported cessary process of smelting. It is perhaps the strangest feature of the age in which we live, that such absolute and self-evident nonsense should not only have been uttered on as this 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. a universal code of political economy. There is, however, no such thing as 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 situ ated, had some reason to despond. The nation that gave them their raw as fixed in England, have regulated those of the world. That the late Sir Robert Peel, him 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 pre-self a scion of the cotton interest, sume, 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 eannot 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 tariff's and the ultimate repeal of the cornlaws. 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 101d.; and that in 1844-5, the price of wool having fallen to 4d., the market value of twist was 114d. Hitherto the prices 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: Bottles, Candles, Duty per Cotton goods, (cord, gimps, ings, &c., Duck, } 20 |