American invention. It follows, Mr. Kirkman Finlay says, that if the Americans are in possession of an important improvement, unless the British manufacturer 'not only gets hold of that improvement, but works it also in a manner at least equal, or perhaps superior,' the advantage which the Americans possess in the lower price of the raw material must (for some kind of goods) be of a perfectly overwhelming character.' (p. 37.) This witness having expressed an opinion that if the tariff were to establish a moderate duty, the cotton manufacture in America would feel very severely the removal of the duty upon British cottons,' was asked whether, 'looking at the present state of things in that country,' he did not apprehend that we might feel 'considerable safety from additional competition in that quarter?'

'If the duties were removed,' he replied, the American manufacture would receive a very severe blow; but if I am to judge by what I have seen take place in the cotton manufacture of this country, I may say, that the blow will just call forth new energies, and that there are so many advantages inherent in America, if I am rightly informed with regard to the population, that nothing in the world can prevent their establishing in that country a very formidable cotton manufacture. They have vessels going daily to all parts of the world, especially to all parts of South America; and if those vessels do not carry something, of course the freight is lost. They are very adventurous persons, enterprising beyond any in that species of commerce that I know in the world,-infinitely beyond this country. Sometimes they gain and sometimes they lose; but they are most active and industrious in sending their commodities to all quarters, and they will get a very considerable sale.'-p. 42-3.

Another witness asserts that the American cotton manufacturer never asked for the tariff, never required that extensive protection embodied in it. It has been a sort of compromise,' he says, between various parties in the state, the agricultural and the manufacturing; and, the popular opinion for a time going in favour of what was called the American system, they got up the tariff.....But the manufacturers of large capital, particularly of cotton goods, never asked that protection; and they do not require even the protection of the present duty in America...They could maintain the manufacture of common goods without it; though whether they might not be overwhelmed by the immense capital which is employed by the manufacturers here, is a question..... The English manufacturer would send out his goods, and sell them at a loss, with no other object than to ruin the American manufacturer, with a view of breaking up the system of manufacturing in America.' This gentleman was asked if he thought it likely that the English manufacturers would sell their goods in America for

less than they cost? To effect a certain object,' he replied, I think they would, if they were to have a certain surplus of goods: if they make a sacrifice, they would prefer to do it where it would do the most mischief to their competitors.' The honourable member who proposed the question, and who seems little to have understood the internecine spirit of manufacturing ambition, asked farther, if this would be a combined operation on the part of the English manufacturers?' He was answered, that it would be in part combined, and in part the effect of an ordinary cause,— that is, to get rid of a surplus stock.

6

• Would they ship the surplus stock to the United States with the prospect of a certain loss?-I believe they would. I am sure that frequently goods are brought to us, upon which money is required to be advanced, going to America, where the parties expect to sustain a loss: for example, all those goods the fashion of which will go by this year. They have got a certain quantity on hand, and must sell them.'-p. 52.

This gentleman (Mr. Bates` doubted whether manufactures in the United States would increase much for a long time to come; because he thought a popular form of government is not favourable to any business or manufacture that requires legislative protection against foreign competition.' (p. 54.) A protective system 'affords a subject for popular declamation; the people are made to think it is injurious to them, and of course it is changed.' (p. 58.) We are told, however, by an American witness, that it is the object of Congress to continue a sufficient degree of protecting duty, and that public opinion is strongly in favour of it. * There is a new power created, and a new feeling throughout the country.'† 'We find the competition of the Americans,' says Mr. Graham, increasing upon us everywhere. They have exported to Mexico for the last five or six years largely; to Brazil considerably; Buenos Ayres and Cape Horn (?) also considerably; and at Valparaiso, I think, their imports of the stouter manufacture are larger than ours; and in Manilla and in Singapore, they have also made their appearance. Also, from St. Domingo, where we have done considerable business, we have lately had letters expressing great surprise that the Americans should be competing with us.' + 'We have done little in the Mediterranean for some years; at one time we had complaints from Malta that the American manufacturers had interfered with our sales.' § They find a demand at Smyrna and Constantinople.' ||

The Americans, Mr. Bates says, 'got an advantage for a time, in making what they term domestic cottons; they employed the best material, and it was found that their goods were very durable. † p. 54. + p. 325. § p. 326.

p. 172.

|| p. 120.

The

The Manchester manufacturers made theirs with less of the raw material, and perhaps not so good, by which they got into some disrepute with the consumers of coarse goods.' This gentleman thinks that the Americans got a price out of proportion to the real difference in value, and that if the Manchester people would make an imitation nearly as good, they would take the market from them.'* The American witnesses say that they have an advantage over the English in the foreign markets which they jointly supply, because the people know that the American goods are better than the English.'+- They are much more durable, which gives them a preference.' The British manufacturers, it seems, are imitating these American goods; but whether the imitation extends to the quality, or is only in appearance, is not explained by the evidence. Complaint, however, was made that in consequence of American fabrics coming into the market, our sales have been stopped, and our prices lowered; '§ nor will this appear surprising to those who peruse the following part of the Minutes:

'Have you heard any complaints of there being adulterations of the English goods by earthy matter being mixed up with them, so as to create a delusive appearance ?—Yes; I am aware that English goods of that description have been sent abroad with a filling of paste and clay, or other material.

Do not you conceive that an unfavourable impression would be created by that with regard to English goods generally?—No; it is known at once by the look of the goods; and in some markets they prefer them with a little of this filling.

"Then you do not think that that filling up can have been productive of any deception to the purchaser ?—No, not in those grey goods; but in white bleached goods it has been abused to a great extent.

'Has it been productive of an unfavourable impression with regard to the English manufacturer generally among foreign purchasers?It has enabled them to sell a showy article very cheap, and the foreigners liked it; but after a while they have discovered that it was a fallacious appearance; and in some markets they have rejected those filled goods. They would be glad to have goods with cotton instead of clay; but they wish to give you the same price as they gave for the goods with the clay, and they prefer giving you a lower price for the filled goods, than a higher price for the other, so that the system of filling goods is still pursued.

Is it upon the increase ?—I have no doubt it is increasing with the increase of trade; we fill a great many of our goods.

'What was the cause of resorting to it ?-It was to make a piece of goods that they could sell at a low price, look better.

Has not that deception been found out?-In some markets they

*

p. 58.

† p. 170.

# p. 126.

§ p. 326.

have rejected it, and in others they continue to receive those goods regularly. It cannot be called a deception, because they are perfectly aware of the filling being in the goods when they buy them.

'Was it so in the first instance ?'-(The reply to this question leaves it unanswered.) The witness merely says, In Scotland we did not begin it till 1820, and it was not much practised till 1825.'

What is the object of the people doing it?—To please the foreign

customers.

'Does it please the foreign customers when the practice has been discovered? They have always known that there is this filling: there has discovery been made: it is not concealed.

'Do the Americans make use of this clay matter?—I think not! 'Are the goods preferred on that account ?—No, because we make the same goods; and in the goods that the Americans make, we do not put this filling-at least we finish a great quantity of those goods without any filling. In the description of goods that approximate to the American, we are not in the habit of putting clay generally!'pp. 326-7.

--

Another witness, to the question whether foreigners are not 'much more particular now than they used to be, especially with regard to woollens, as to the length and breadth and weight?' answers-' I should suppose they might be!' (p. 46.)

The woollen manufacture, it appears, has increased greatly in Catalonia within the last few years (p. 81). In the Netherlands 'it is in a very prosperous state. They are progressing there.' They compete with the British woollen manufacturers in the foreign markets, particularly in the Grecian Archipelago: the whole of that trade is at present getting into the hands of the Netherlands manufacturers.'

I have reviewed,' says a witness, the manufactures of that country with greater dread than any other on the continent of Europe, with regard to our own, because they have labour cheaper, and they have wonderful means of manufacture. Latterly they have got almost all our machinery; through the great facility of getting into our manufactories in England, they are sure to get and carry off our improvements.....They have considerably competed with our kerseymere manufacture of late years. Twenty years ago they did not know how to make a kerseymere at Verviers, or in any part of France: they could not twill it; and then the trade of the continent was sup, plied entirely from England. But since the peace, they have learned the art of making good kerseymere as well as we do.'-pp. 66, 69.

Such are the facts which have been stated before the late Committee on Manufactures, Commerce, and Shipping; and there appears in the report no contrariant evidence to contradict them. Now, that our manufacturers will use every exertion to meet the competition in the foreign markets, is certain: it is for the sake of

being better able to meet it that they require the repeal of the corn-laws; and there can be no doubt that all that can be effected by ingenuity and enterprise, and enormous capital, directed by commensurate cupidity, will be done. It is not long since some leadmines were opened by an American company in the United States; lead was immediately exported thither from this country, and sold at a loss, for the purpose of ruining the undertaking. To frustrate this device, the government at Washington laid a duty on imported lead; the parties in England discovered that, owing to an oversight in the act, bullets might be imported duty free; they bought up all the lead within reach of their operations, and children were employed night and day over the fire in casting it into bullets, at wages as miserable as the employment was-to use the mildest epithetsevere !

Manœuvres of this kind will always be practised against the fiscal regulations of other countries, and of our own, until the moral principle becomes stronger among the majority of mankind than the love of lucre; that is, it may be feared, till the Greek kalends; and it is to the efforts which have been made in this spirit, for the injury and sometimes for the ruin of foreign establishments, that the dislike with which England is regarded by other nations may, in great part, be ascribed; a dislike not arising from mere envy, but from a resentful sense of injury inflicted by what may be called commercial invasion,-by a spirit which, whether it displays itself in avarice or in ambition, in the love of conquest or the lust of gain, in a cotton-king or a military emperor, is a manifestation of the same principle.

The more perseveringly it may be attempted to force our manufactures upon foreigners, to the ruin of their own, and the more decidedly such a design may be favoured by the English government, the less will that design be likely to succeed. It will have something more formidable than commercial rivalry to contend with national jealousy will be roused by it, and national policy opposed to it, upon just grounds. International commerce is beneficial when commodities are interchanged to the mutual benefit of two countries, and to the promotion of industry in both; it is injurious when it renders one country dependent upon another for the conveniences of life-and in the last degree ruinous if it induce a dependence for the necessaries. A commonwealth must be illconstituted and insecure, unless it be self-sufficient in all things needful for the subsistence and well-being of the community; and this it cannot be, unless it produces for itself all such things as nature or habit have rendered so far indispensable, that the use of them cannot be foregone without great and general distress. Inasmuch as manufactures are directed to the supply of these natu

ral