Part 2

Grave and serious matter for consideration as these results afford, all of which, be it observed, are _now ascertained by experience_--they yet sink into comparative insignificance compared with the gigantic measures of "free trade and a fettered currency," which have now spread ruin and desolation through the heart of the empire. It is here that the evil now pressing is to be found; it is from hence that the cry of agony, which now resounds through the empire, has sprung. And unless a remedy is applied, and _speedily applied_, to the enormous evils which have arisen from the reckless and _simultaneous_ adoption of these powerful engines on human affairs, it may safely be affirmed that the present distress will go on, with slight variations, from bad to worse, till the empire is destroyed, and three-fourths of its inhabitants are reduced to ruin. These are strong expressions, we know; but if they are so, it is from the testimony of the government, and the ablest advocates for the free trade and bullion system, and the facts which we see around us, that we are reluctantly compelled, not only to use them, but to believe they are true. Hear what the _Times_ says, on the aspect of national monetary and commercial affairs:--

"In our wide sea of difficulties, therefore, we are without rudder or compass. We cannot base our proceedings on a calculation that the Bank Charter Act will be carried out; nor can we, on the other hand, assume that an inconvertible currency will be authorised, and thus frame our future contracts accordingly. All that we can discern before us is declining trade and grinding poverty, bankrupt railways, and increased taxation; but whether the lesson will be prolonged in its bitterness, and its salutary effect retarded by measures of national dishonour, is a point upon which it would be vain to prophesy. _Three years back an indignant negative might have been given to such a conjecture, but since then demoralisation has been rapid_, and time alone can determine if, by the deliberate proceedings of the legislature, the record of it is destined to become indelible."--_Times_, 26th November 1847.

This is tolerably strong evidence from the leading and ablest free trade and bullionist journal. Strong indeed must have been the testimony of facts around them, when the well-informed and powerful writers in the _Times_ put forth such admissions as to the state of the country. Observe, the emphatic words wrung by woful experience from this journal. "Three years back an indignant negative would have been given to such conjectures; but SINCE THEN the progress of demoralisation has been rapid." Sir R. Peel's Bank Act was passed in 1844, and his free trade measures in 1846. And be it observed that that state arose _entirely under their own system_; at a time when the Bank charter stood unchanged, and free trade, the grand panacea for all evils, was, and had been in a great degree, for years, in full and unrestrained operation. We shall see anon whether the Irish famine and English railways had any thing material to do with the matter. Strong as it is, however, this testimony is increased by the real evidence of facts in every direction, and of the acts and admissions of government. These are of such a kind as a few years ago would have passed for fabulous. They have outstripped the most gloomy predictions of the most gloomy of the Protectionists; they have out-Heroded Herod in the demonstration of the perilous tendency of the path we have so long been pursuing. They could not have been credited, if not supported by the evidence of our own senses, and the statements of ministers of high character, from undoubted and authentic sources of information. We subjoin a few of them, of universal and painful notoriety to every inhabitant of the empire at this time; not in the belief that we, in so doing, can add any facts not previously familiar to the nation, but in order that these facts, now so well known, should get into a more durable record than the daily journals, and not pass for fabulous in future, and it is to be hoped, happier times.

The first is, that the interest of money has, by the recommendation, and indeed express injunction of government, been raised to _eight percent_. This grievous and most calamitous effect, which was never heard of during the darkest period of the Revolutionary war, which did not ensue even at the time of the Mutiny of the Nore, or the suspension of cash payments in 1797,[7] has been publicly announced to the nation, in the Premier's and Chancellor of the Exchequer's Letter to the Directors. It is well known that, high as this rate of interest was, it was _less_ than had been previously taken by private bankers, which had risen to nine, ten, and even fourteen or fifteen _per cent_. for short periods. These are the rates of interest which, anterior to their conquest by the British government, were common amidst Asiatic oppression in the distracted realm of Hindostan. They had not been so high in England before for a century and a quarter. It was reserved for Great Britain, in the middle of the nineteenth century, to render universal, by the effects of domestic legislation, at the end of thirty years' peace, and when in a state of entire amity with all the world, a rate of interest unknown for a century before in the British empire; which could previously be hardly credited as having existed, even in the days of feudal barbarity; and which had latterly been known only amidst the predatory warfare, fierce devastations, and universal hoarding of specie, under the native powers of Hindostan.

In the next place, the public revenue for the quarter ending 1st October, 1847, is £1,500,000 less than it was in the corresponding quarter of the preceding year, which itself was below the corresponding quarter in 1845. Here then is an ascertained falling off of £1,500,000 a quarter, or SIX MILLIONS A-YEAR, in a revenue not exceeding £52,000,000 of net income, and of which upwards of a half is absorbed in paying the dividends on the public debt. There is no reason to hope for an amendment in the next or the succeeding quarter; happy if there is not a still greater falling off. This is, be it observed, in the thirty-second year of peace, when in amity with all the world, and when the war income-tax, producing £5,200,000 a-year, is added to the national income! But for that grinding war-addition, laid on to meet the disasters of the Affghanistaun expedition, and kept on to conceal the deficiency of income produced by Sir R. Peel's free trade measures, the deficiency _would be above £11,000,000 a-year_. And this occurs just after a proper and suitable thanksgiving for an uncommonly fine harvest; when all the world is at peace; five years after Sir R. Peel's tariff in 1842, which was to add so much to our foreign trade; three years after the act of 1844, which was to impose the requisite checks on imprudent speculation; and eighteen months after the adoption of general free trade, and the abolition of the corn laws by the act of July 1846, by which the commerce and revenue of the country were to be so much improved!

In the third place, nearly the whole railways in progress in the United Kingdom have been stopped, or are to be in a few days, in consequence partly of this exorbitant rate of interest, partly of the impossibility of getting money even on these monstrous and hitherto unheard-of terms. It is calculated that three hundred thousand labourers, embracing with their families little short of a million of persons, have been from this cause suddenly thrown out of work, and deprived of bread. Already the effects of this grievous and sudden stoppage are apparent in the metropolis, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and other great cities, in the groups, at once pitiable and alarming, of rude and uncouth, but sturdy and formidable labourers, who are seen congregating at the corners of the principal streets. But if this is the effect of the sudden stoppage on the mere navigators, the hod and barrow-men, what must it be on the vast multitude of mechanics and iron workmen, thrown idle from the inability of the railway companies, at present, at least, to go on with their contracts? So dreadful has been the effects of this stoppage in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, the two principal iron districts of Scotland, that before these pages issue from the press, forty thousand persons in the former county, and thirty thousand in the latter, including the families of the workmen, will be out of employment in the iron and coal trades alone! The greater part of this immense and destitute mass will fall on Glasgow, where already half the mills are stopped or on short time, and in which city, since the beginning of the year, no less than 49,993 Irish[8] have landed, nine-tenths of whom were in the last stage of destitution, and no inconsiderable part bringing with them the contagion of typhus fever.

In the fourth place, the great marts of manufacturing industry, both for the home and the export trade, are in nearly as deplorable a condition as the iron trade; and the multitude who will be out of bread in them is not less appalling than in the railway and iron departments. As a specimen of the condition to which they have been brought by the combined operation of free trade and a fettered currency, we subjoin the weekly return of the state of trade in Manchester for the week ending November 23. It is well known that this return is made up under the direction of the admirable police of that city, with the utmost accuracy.

Weekly return made up to yesterday, (November 23), in the improved form, of the state of the various cotton, silk, and worsted mills, and other large establishments and works in Manchester:--

+-----------------+---------+----+----+----+-------+-------+-------+------+ | Description of |Full Time| | | | | | | | |Mills, Factories,| | | | | | | | | | &c. | (a)| (b)| (c)| (d)| (e)| (f) | (g) | (h) | (i) | +-----------------+----+----+----+----+----+-------+-------+-------+------+ |Cotton Mills, | 91| 44| 10| 21| 16| 28,033| 15,060| 6,079| 6,894| |Silk Mills, | 8| 2| ...| 6| ...| 3,009| 621| 2,138| 250| |Smallware Mills, | 18| 11| 3| 3| 1| 1,937| 1,232| 601| 104| |Worsted Mills, | 2| 2| ...| ...| ...| 155| 155| ...| ...| |Dye Works, | 20| 3| ...| 17| ...| 1,675| 470| 862| 403| |Hat Manufactures,| 2| ...| 1| 1| ...| 107| 7| 49| 51| |Mechanists, | 32| 7| 10| 12| 3| 6,079| 2,777| 1,615| 1,687| ------------------+----+----+----+----+----+-------+-------+-------+------+ | Totals, | 173| 69| 24| 60| 20| 40,995| 20,322| 11,284| 9,389| +-----------------+----+----+----+----+----+-------+-------+-------+------+

Key: (a) Total No. of Mills, Works, &c. (b) No. working full time, with full complement of hands. (c) No. working full time with a portion only of hands employed. (d) Short Time. (e) Stopped. (f) Total No. of hands. (g) No. working full time. (h) No. working short time. (i) No. wholly out of employment.

From this Table it appears that out of 40,995 workers employed in the factories of Manchester, 11,284 are working short time, and no less than 9,389 are _wholly out of employment_. This last class, with their families, cannot embrace less, at the lowest computation, than thirty thousand souls, who are entirely destitute. The state of matters in Glasgow is at least as bad; about half of the mills there are shut, or working short time. And this is the condition of our manufactures, we repeat, in the thirty-second year of profound peace, when we are engaged in no foreign war whatever; when, so far from being distressed for the ordinary supply of subsistence, we have just returned thanks to heaven for the finest harvest reaped in the memory of man; and when, under the combined operation of home produce and an immense foreign importation, wheat is selling for 52s. the quarter; three years after the imposing of the golden fetters which were for ever to preclude improvident speculation; and a year and a half after the adoption of the free trade principles, which were to open up new and unheard-of sources of manufacturing prosperity.

In the fifth place, if the general state of our exports, and of the importation of the raw material, from which they are prepared, is considered, it will not appear surprising that the principal marts of manufacturing industry should be in so deplorable a situation. The declared value of the exports of our manufactures, for nine months, ending October 10, in each of the following years, have stood thus, according to Lord John Russell's statement:--

1845. 1846. 1847. First nine months of year, £41,732,143 £40,008,874 £39,975,207 Single month of October, 5,323,553 5,477,389 4,665,409[9]

This decline is of itself sufficiently alarming, the more especially when coming in the wake of the great free trade change, from which so great an extension of our exports was predicted. Here is a decline of exports in two years of three millions, which in last October had swelled to a decrease of NEARLY A MILLION in a single month. But from the following Table it appears that this falling off, considerable as it is, exhibits but a small portion of the general decline of manufacturing industry in the nation; and that the stoppage of industry for the home market is much more serious.

RAW MATERIAL IMPORTED, JAN. 5 TO OCT. 10.

| | 1845. | 1846. | 1847. | | | | | | | Flax, cwt., | 1,048,390 | 744,861 | 732,034 | | Hemp, | 624,866 | 588,034 | 465,220 | | Silk, raw, lbs. | 2,865,605 | 3,429,260 | 3,051,015 | | Do. thrown, | 311,413 | 293,402 | 200,719 | | Do. Waste, cwt. | 11,288 | 6,173 | 7,279 | | Cotton Wool, cwt. | 5,495,799 | 3,866,089 | 3,423,061 | | Sheep's Wool, lbs. | 57,308,477 | 51,058,209 | 43,348,336 |

This Table exhibits an alarming decline in the importation of all the materials for our staple manufactures, except raw silk, which has considerably increased. That increase has not arisen from any increased sale of articles of clothing, viewed as a whole, in the nation since 1845, but solely from the great extent to which, since that time, the fashion of ladies' dress has run in favour of silk attire. And, accordingly, the decline in wool and cotton imported is so very considerable, that it amounts, since 1845, to fully a fourth. We are aware how much the price of cotton rose in 1845; but it has since rapidly declined; and yet, even at the present low prices, Lord George Bentinck stated in his place in the House of Commons, in the course of the debate on bringing up the address in this session of Parliament, without contradiction from the practical men there, that so miserable were the prices of export markets just now, that cotton manufactured goods were exported cheaper than the raw material from which they are formed could be imported to this country.

It is a poor set-off to these facts demonstrating the declining state of our foreign manufactures, to say that the exportation of iron and machinery has greatly increased during the same years, and that we have imported enormously all kinds of foreign subsistence.[10] So it has been; but what does that indicate? The first, that foreigners, under our liberal system of free trade, even in the articles vital to our manufacturing wealth, are largely importing the machinery which is to enable them to rival our staple manufacturing fabrics; and the iron rails which are to give them the means of bringing their establishments, for practical purposes, nearer each other, and compensating the immense advantages we have hitherto derived from the narrowness and compact nature of our territory, and our insular and highly favourable maritime situation. The last, which undoubtedly has risen in so short a time to a height which the most decided and gloomy Protectionist never ventured to anticipate,[11] only demonstrates that free trade is even more rapidly than was anticipated by its opponents, working out the downfal of our agricultural industry, and reducing us to the pitiable condition of the Roman empire, when, instead as of old sending supplies of provisions to the legions from Italy into distant provinces, they were entirely fed by them, and the life of the Roman people was committed to the chances of the winds and the waves.

In the sixth place, the depreciation of property and ruin to individuals which has ensued and is going on from the present crisis, is so prodigious, that the mind can scarcely apprehend it, even by the aid of the most ardent imagination. Not to mention the extreme embarrassment to merchants which must ensue from the present extravagant rate of interest and discount, and which must in most branches of commerce _entirely absorb the profits of stock for this year_--not to mention the vast number of the most respectable houses which have sunk under the pressure of the times--not to mention the prodigious burden imposed on landed proprietors and debtors in mortgages and bonds on personal security, by the general rise of interest to five per cent. and often above that sum, from three and a half or four _per cent_--let us endeavour to estimate, on something approaching to authentic data, the depreciation and destruction of property which had taken place even so early as 26th October last, when Government most properly stepped in to arrest the ruinous effects of Sir Robert Peel's currency bill of 1844.

We estimate the National Debt, funded and unfunded, in round numbers at £800,000,000; the railway property, which now produces a revenue of above £9,000,000 a-year, of which half is profit, at £100,000,000;[12] bank and other joint stock at as much; and the capital embarked in commerce and manufactures at £500,000,000. Thus, the loss on the moveable property of Great Britain by the present crisis, may be estimated as follows:--The three per cents. in August, 1845, were at £100-7/8, and for a considerable time were about 100: when Lord John Russell stepped in by his letter of 26th October, 1847, to arrest the consequences of Sir Robert Peel's bill of 1844, they were at 79; and the effect of that partial remedy, even with the bank advances for a month after at eight per cent., has been to raise them to 85. The depreciation of funded property, till the Act of 1844 was broken through, had been in two years from 100 to 80, or a fifth. Take the depreciation of all other moveable property engaged in fluctuating employments, on an average at the _same amount and no more_. We need not say how this understates the matter. How happy would a large part of the railway stockholders, merchants, and manufacturers of the United Kingdom be, if the depreciation of their property could truly be estimated at no larger an amount! But take it on an average as a fifth only,--the strength of the argument, as Mr Malthus said of his famous arithmetical and geometrical progression, will admit of almost any concession. The depreciation and destruction of property since 1845, will then stand thus:--

Funded property, £800,000,000 Railway property, 100,000,000 Banking and other joint-stock companies, 100,000,000 Capital invested in commerce and manufacture, 500,000,000 ------------- £ 1,500,000,000 Depreciated, a-fifth, 300,000,000

Here, then, is the result of thirty years' legislation, during which time, under different administrations, some bearing the names of Tory, others of Whig, liberal principles in every department of government have been without intermission in the ascendant. The Catholic emancipators, the Negro emancipators, reciprocity advocates, reformers, self-government men, bullionists, and free-traders, have got every thing their own way. The triumph over the old system was not immediate; it took a quarter of a century to complete it: like Wellington at Waterloo, it was late in the evening before the victory was gained. But gained it has been; and that not in one branch of government, but in every branch. The ancient system has been universally changed, and to such an extent, that scarcely a vestige of it now remains in the policy of Government. So uniform has been the alteration in every thing, that one would think our modern reformers had adopted the principle of their predecessors in the days of Calvin, who stood up to pray for no other reason but because the Roman Catholics knelt down. And what have been the results? Ireland, with some millions of paupers, in a state of anarchy and crime unparalleled in modern Europe; a hundred millions of property almost destroyed in the West Indies; the slave trade, tripled in extent, and quadrupled in horror throughout the globe; an irresistible ascendency given in the Legislature to urban electors; all protection to agriculture destroyed; from ten to twelve millions of quarters of grain--a full sixth of the annual subsistence--imported in a single year; the national independence virtually destroyed, by being placed to such an extent at the mercy of foreigners, for the food of the people; foreign shipping rapidly encroaching on British, so as to render the loss of our maritime superiority, at no distant period, if the same system be continued, a matter of certainty; the practical annihilation of the sinking fund; the permanent imposition of the war income-tax, in the thirty-second year of profound peace; a falling off in the revenue at the rate of six millions, and in our exports at the rate of twelve millions a-year; the depreciation and destruction of property to the amount of three hundred millions in two years in Great Britain; and, finally, the general stoppage of railway undertakings over the whole country, and the shutting or putting on short time of half the mills in our manufacturing cities, for whose benefit all these changes were intended! We doubt if the history of the Fall of Rome exhibited such a uniform and multifarious decay in an equal period; certainly no parallel to it has yet been presented in the annals of modern Europe.

If we thought that this long and portentous catalogue of disasters was unavoidable, and could not be remedied by human wisdom, we would submit to it in silence, and we trust with resignation, as we do to the certainty of death, or the chances of plague, pestilence, or famine, arising from the dispensations of Providence, for wise and inscrutable purposes, but over which we have no control. But this is very far from being the case. We believe, as firmly as we do in our own existence, that they are _entirely of our own creation_,--that they are the result solely and exclusively of false principles diffused through our people, and false measures in consequence forced upon our Government; and that, though the consequences of these false principles must be long and disastrous, yet it is still possible to remedy the evil, to convert a land of mourning into a land of joy, and restore again the merry days to Old England. The retreat from the ways of error never was to nations, any more than individuals, by any other path but the path of suffering; but if the retreat is made, and the suffering borne, we trust in the good providence of God, and energy of the British character to repair all that is past.