Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 434, December, 1851. Various
it! At the expense of the British agriculturist he opened the British market to the foreigner, in the expectation, as he expressly declared, that the boon would be repaid by measures which would prevent the rise of manufactures abroad, and restrain other nations from employing capital profitably, from entering into rivalry with Britain, and from using those natural advantages which were ready to their hand; and which, if used, could not fail to add to their wealth, and to furnish employment for millions of their increasing population! Most egregious was the blunder, and terrible is the penalty which we are certain to pay for it, if we do not retrace our steps.
It is always useful to know what intelligent men of other countries think of our system. They survey and examine it without those prejudices which are apt to beset all of us, and are better able than ourselves to determine with what degree of favour it will be received, or is received, by those who are removed beyond the scope of our immediate observation. Certainly, of all others, from their affinity to ourselves, and their proverbially shrewd acuteness in all matters of commercial detail, the Americans are most likely to form an accurate estimate both of our position and our prospects in regard to foreign trade. It is well worth our while to read and consider the following opinion of Mr Carey, the most distinguished Transatlantic writer on points of political economy. It occurs in his work entitled The Harmony of Interests, published in America so late as December 1849.
"Men are everywhere flying from British commerce, which everywhere pursues them. Having exhausted the people of the lower lands of India, it follows them as they retreat towards the fastnesses of the Himalaya. Affghanistan is attempted, while Scinde and the Punjaub are subjugated. Siamese provinces are added to the empire of Free Trade, and war and desolation are carried into China, in order that the Chinese may be compelled to pay for the use of ships, instead of making looms. The Irishman flies to Canada; but there the system follows him, and he feels himself insecure until within the Union. The Englishman and the Scotchman try Southern Africa, and thence they fly to the more distant New Holland, Van Diemen's Land, or New Zealand. The farther they fly, the more they use ships and other perishable machinery, the less steadily can their efforts be applied, the less must be the power of production, and the fewer must be the equivalents to be exchanged; and yet in the growth of ships caused by such circumstances, we are told to look for evidence of prosperous commerce!
"The British system is built upon cheap labour, by which is meant low-priced and worthless labour. Its effect is to cause it to become from day to day more low-priced and worthless; and thus to destroy production upon which commerce must be based. The object of protection is to produce dear labour – that is, high-priced and valuable labour, and its effect is to cause it to increase in value from day to day, and to increase the equivalents to be exchanged, to the great increase of commerce.
"The object of what is now called Free Trade, is that of securing to the people of England the further existence of the monopoly of machinery, by aid of which Ireland and India have been ruined, and commerce prostrated. Protection seeks to break down this monopoly, and to cause the loom and the anvil to take their natural places by the side of the food and the cotton, that production may be increased, and that commerce may revive."
In short, the harmony of interests is regarded in America as the grand point of aim for the statesman. With us, our most important home interests, on which depend the welfare of by far the greater part of our population, are sacrificed to prolong a struggle in which our exporting manufacturers cannot possibly be the victors, and from which, even at present, they derive little or no profit.
Now, let us ask you to consider for one moment, what is the natural effect, upon the whole of us, of a forcible diminution of prices, and depreciation of produce. Here we shall borrow an illustration and argument from our adversaries, referring to a point which is in the recollection of all of you, and about which there can be no possible mistake. You will recollect that the Liberal and Free-trading journals, almost without exception, as well as most of the defenders of the Peel policy in the House of Commons, attributed much of that general depression and stagnation of trade which followed the repeal of the Corn Laws to the losses sustained by the failure of the potato-crop in 1845-6. Was there a general want of confidence visible – were the shopkeepers scant of custom – was there a less demand than usual within the country for home manufactures – was there a decline in the price of iron – all was laid at the door of the unfortunate potato. Since Cobbett uttered his anathema against the root, it never was in such bad odour. To every complaint, remonstrance, or lamentation, the reply was ready – "How can we remedy a calamity of this kind? The potato has done it all!" At that time it was very convenient, nay, absolutely necessary, for the Free-Traders to discover some tangible cause for the gross failure of their predictions. They looked about them in every direction, and they could discover nothing except the potato which could endure the blame. Now, although we believe that this esculent has been unduly reviled, and made to bear a greater burden than was its due for political misfortune, we nevertheless accept the illustration at the hands of our opponents, and we beg you to mark its significance. The loss of the potato-crop in Great Britain and Ireland, during the year in question, has been variously estimated, but if we assume it to have been £20,000,000 we are making a very large calculation indeed. So then, according to the Free-Traders, the loss of twenty millions of agricultural produce was sufficient to bring down profits, embarrass trade, and cause a stagnation in home manufactures! And yet, when Mr Villiers came forward in the beginning of 1850, and told you, in his capacity of proposer of the Address to the Crown, that £91,000,000 were annually taken from the value of the agricultural produce of the country, you were expected, and directed, to clap your hands with joy, and to congratulate one another on this symptom of the national prosperity!
The sum of twenty millions lost by the failure of the potato-crop – a single event, not one of annual occurrence – was taken from the country's power of produce; and therefore, said the Free-Traders, there was stagnation. But they, of course, could not help it. Of course they could not; but what about the ninety-one millions of annual loss, which is equally deducted from the internal expenditure of the country? About that we do not hear a word. And yet ask yourselves, and that most seriously – for it is time that we should get rid of all such pitiful paltering – whether there is any difference whatever between the two cases, except that the one was an isolated casualty, and that the other is an annual infliction to which we are subjected by statute? Weigh the matter as you will, you cannot, we are satisfied, be able to detect any difference. If the grower of grain at present prices has no remuneration for his toil, or return for his capital, he cannot buy from you, any more than could the farmer whose crop perished by the potato disease. What caused the stagnation? The failure of the power to purchase, because there was no return for produce. What causes the stagnation? Precisely the same thing perpetrated by Act of Parliament.
Do not, we beseech you, allow yourselves to be fooled any longer by the jesuitry of these political economists, but apply your own reason to discover the cause of the present depression. Do not believe them when they talk about exceptional causes, affecting temporarily the industry of the nation, but certain immediately to disappear. If you were to live as long as Methusaleh, no one year would elapse without furnishing those gentlemen with a special and exceptional cause. One year it is the potato disease; another the French Revolution; another the Great Exhibition. Heaven only knows what will be their excuse next year – perhaps the new Reform Bill, or some other similar godsend. You are the particular class upon whom the deception is to be played, and for whose especial benefit the fraud is concocted. The producers know very well how they stand, and what they have to expect. They can be no longer cajoled by assurances of higher prices, by vague promises of profit after the disappearance of "the transition state," or by impudent averments that, by an entire change of system and the expenditure of more capital, they will be able to maintain themselves in affluence. To do the Free-Traders justice, they have for some time desisted from such attempts. They now address their victims, through their organs, in a fine tone of desperado indifference, telling them that, if they do not like the present arrangement, the sooner they go elsewhere the better. And the people are taking them at their word and going. Hundreds of thousands of tax-payers are leaving the country as fast as possible, carrying with them the fragments of their property, and bequeathing to those who remain behind their share of the national burdens. But in your case, the Free-Traders cannot yet afford to pull off the mask.