Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 434, December, 1851. Various
that you should see them in their real character; and therefore, so long as you are likely to be amused with "specialties" and "exceptional causes," these will be furnished to you gratis, and in great variety. There seems, however, to be an apprehension among their camp that you are beginning to evince suspicion. Recent elections have not been quite as they should be; and in the seaport and large commercial towns there are evident symptoms of mutiny. So, by way of diverting your attention, you are likely to have a measure of Reform next year, possibly as satisfactory in its result as the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, upon which Ministers cleverly managed to concentrate the whole public attention throughout last session, and then, having carried it, allowed its provisions to become a dead letter, almost before the ink, which made the measure complete, was dry! We say this, not as opponents of an extension of the suffrage – for on that point we reserve our opinion until the details are fully before us – but as enemies and loathers of a miserable system of chicane and deception which has now crept into the public counsels, and which threatens very speedily to destroy the independence of public opinion, by opposing state obstacles to its free and legitimate expression. We ask any of you, fearlessly, to look back at the records of last session, and then say whether the country was not degraded and stultified by the act of the Prime Minister? Right or wrong, at his invitation and call, the Protestants of Great Britain demanded a security against what they considered an intolerable instance of Romish insolence and aggression. They received it from Parliament; and the moment it passed into the hands of the executive power, it became as worthless as the paper upon which it was written! And why was this? Simply because the object was gained – you had been amused for a whole session. If nothing was intended to be done in the way of repelling aggression, and if Ministers durst have told you so a year ago, there were many points affecting your more immediate interests which would have been forced upon their attention. But they were very glad to escape from such discussions under cover of a Protestantism which they did not feel, and an affected indignation of Papal claims, which they had done everything in their power, by diplomatic agency, to encourage; and, having escaped the perils of one session upon that ground, they will strain every effort to turn your attention from your own position, during the next, by bringing forward some measure which they hope may enlist your sympathies, or provoke controversy, so far as to render you indifferent to the real nature of your position. The selection of the battlefield is the oldest trick in strategy. Get up the appearance of a battle, and people will flock from any distance to witness it, regardless of their own interest. Lord John Russell is famous for bloodless fields, which resolve themselves into reviews – shall we have another such in the course of the approaching session?
That manufactures are now exceedingly depressed, and have been so for a long time, notwithstanding the reduction in the price of food consequent upon foreign importations, is an admitted and notorious fact. We have from time to time kept this before the public view by quoting from the trade circulars; and though further evidence may be unnecessary, we shall subjoin extracts from the last accounts received from three seats of industry, two of which are represented in Parliament by Colonel Peyronnet Thompson and Mr Feargus O'Connor. Gloomy as they are, they are by no means the worst which we have had occasion to cite during the last two years.
"Bradford, November 6. – The market here does not show any symptom of improvement in the demand for any kind of combing wools. All seem in wonder and anxiety as to what may be next expected, for to buy none are willing, whether with stock or without. The staplers appeared to expect that the spirited buying of colonial wools would give a tone of confidence, but that appears to have no effect. The spinners pause when they contrast the comparative high prices of English wool, especially those of the finer class, with what they were in 1848, when yarns were at the present prices, and will not buy with the certainty of making so great a loss as a purchase would entail. The supply of Noils and Brokes was never so limited as at present, and the small quantity making brings full prices. The business doing in yarns is certainly small, and the transactions confined to immediate delivery. No one seems inclined to enter into engagements for distant delivery. For to go on at the present prices of yarns is worse than madness, the price for low numbers of good spinning and standing having reached 8s. per gross, and those of a secondary class sold, if reeled, for what may be the instructions to the commission houses, who have needy parties pressing sales. The quantity so offering is not so great, but the sacrifices which have now for so long been made render the position of the trade exceedingly embarrassing. The production continues to be daily curtailed, and from the whole district the same cheerless tidings are received. Some large houses, who have never reduced their operations before, have adopted it, their loss being so immense, and the whole condition of the trade so thoroughly disjointed. In pieces the business during the week has not shown any feature of increased activity, and the stocks in the manufacturers' hands are somewhat increasing, but not so fast as last year at this period, and especially in Coburgs and fancy goods: the former are chiefly made in this district, and not in Lancashire, for the ruinous price has driven them on to other classes of goods adaptable to their looms; and for some months several large houses have been engaged in making Bareges for the American market. This has prevented mousselines-de-laine being made to stock, and, perhaps for many years, this branch of the trade has not opened with so small a stock on hand.
"Nottingham, November 6. – In lace we have no improvement to notice this week in the general sale of goods, and, with very few exceptions, there is a great falling off in demand; but, as many of the manufacturers are wisely lessening their production, we do not anticipate any serious losses resulting from the present temporary stagnation. Many are stopping their frames to make fresh designs altogether; which, if done with good taste, some advantage may result from present difficulties. In hosiery our trade is not so much depressed as we had reason to anticipate. There is still a fair business doing in wrought hose, and a little increased demand for 'cut-ups,' as well as gloves made of thread and spun silk. The price of yarn is low, which is in favour both of the manufacturer and merchant.
"Leicester, November 6. – The unsettled state of the price of workmanship for straight-down hose has caused a great depression in that branch, and led to nearly a total cessation of work, many hosiers declining to give out until prices are settled. In wrought hose a better business is doing, though not so good as usual at this season. Yarns continue dull of sale."
Now, why do we insist upon these things? For two reasons. In the first place, we wish you to observe that the cheapness of manufacturing products does not of itself induce consumption. There must be buyers as well as sellers in order to constitute a market, and the tendency of our late legislation has been to diminish the means of the former. It by no means follows that, if we have cheap food and cheap manufactures, the relative position of all classes can be maintained. Never forget that our burdens all the while remain at a fixed money rate, and that, as the value of produce is lowered, the weight of those burdens is aggravated. This consideration, which is now well understood, is beginning to tell strongly against the doctrines of the Free-Traders, even with some of those, who were once their ardent supporters. Mr James Harvey of Liverpool, late a member of the Anti-Corn-Law League, but now a strenuous opponent of their system, thus chronicles the leading cause of his conversion. We quote from his pamphlet just published, Remunerative Price the Desideratum, not Cheapness. He says: – "My suspicions were first awakened by the blind devotion of the Manchester school of political economy to the doctrine of CHEAPNESS; for it struck me as a self-evident proposition, that to buy cheap is to sell cheap, in which case there can be no possible gain, but a positive loss, arising from the necessary aggravation of all fixed charges." In order to place the producers of this country in the same position as before, it would be necessary to reduce all fixed charges, the interest of debt both public and private, the expenses of government, and all salaries and annuities, to an amount corresponding to the forced decline of prices. This would be called a war against property; but, in reality, the war against property began when the Legislature admitted foreign untaxed produce to compete with the produce and labour of our tax-paying population at home.
Our second reason for drawing your attention to the cheerless prospect of manufactures, has reference to the sacrifices, not only indirect but direct, which the other classes of the community were called upon to make in order to prop them up. In the first place, the Property and Income Tax, which we are still called upon to pay, was imposed by Sir Robert Peel expressly for the object of effecting "such an improvement in