Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 71, No. 438, April 1852
If it should be said that this is not a fair illustration, and that the depression in the iron districts arises from peculiar circumstances unconnected with the question of Free Trade, we reply, that to the iron trade, more perhaps than to any other in the kingdom, the most extravagant representations were made of the increased consumption which must follow on the opening of the ports. Not only have those promises utterly failed, but this most important branch of industry has been brought down to a point only short of absolute annihilation. The masters are not only realising no profit, but they are large annual losers by carrying on their works. The men, as we have already seen, are on half wages.
But who was the orator that, in 1839, predicted with such exceeding accuracy the decline of the iron and other trades as a necessary consequence of a diminution in the consumption of British corn? Hansard gives us the name: it is that of Sir James Graham.
In truth, unless an early and thorough revision of our whole commercial system is made, the mercantile interests of Great Britain will be placed in the greatest jeopardy. This may appear incredible to that portion of the public who are gulled by the political economists, and who are content to receive the Board of Trade returns of exports and imports as satisfactory proofs of prosperity. But there is not a merchant in one of our large towns who does not know that the case is otherwise. The present number of the Magazine contains a paper from a valued correspondent in Liverpool, giving a fearful account of the losses which have been sustained during the bygone year of prosperity and Free Trade; and we are enabled, on the very best authority, to state that Glasgow is at this moment suffering under the effects of extreme mercantile depression. This may, and undoubtedly does, conduce to cheapen commodities; but such cheapness will be dearly purchased by the sacrifice of capital, and the wholesale ruin of thousands. It is the knowledge of these facts, and, in many cases, the bitter experience of them, which has wrought such a change in the mercantile mind of the country. No one has profited – all have lost by Free Trade; and therefore it is no wonder if the resuscitated Anti-Corn-Law League should receive little countenance beyond its own particular domain. What the country most urgently requires, and what we expect to receive from the Government of Lord Derby, are measures calculated to secure the prosperity – not fictitious but real – of all the great interests of Britain; and it is to prevent the introduction of such measures that faction is exerting itself to the utmost. The Whigs cannot deny the fact that there has been a strong reaction throughout the country. They can assign that reaction to no other cause than a general conviction that the interests of the country have suffered, instead of being promoted, by the practical working of Free Trade; and the existence of that conviction is of itself a clear proof that Free Trade has not fulfilled the anticipations of those who promoted it. It has long ceased to be a theory. It has been presented in a practical shape to the people of Great Britain, who, moreover, had experience of the older system of legislation; and every individual has had the opportunity of testing its effects, and feeling its operation upon his own circumstances. Can any man believe that, if Free Trade had tended to promote the prosperity of the country, or even to maintain it in its former position, there could have been any reaction at all? In that case the opponents of Free Trade might have as well attempted to overthrow Atlas, as to assail any portion of the policy inaugurated by the late Sir Robert Peel. The educated classes of England are still what they were described by Milton – "a nation not slow nor dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit; acute to invent, subtile and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point that human capacity can soar to." What effect could any arguments against Free Trade have had on their minds, if the system was daily and yearly vindicating itself by promoting the general prosperity? If the facts had been favourable to their side, our friends of the press, who, in the exuberance of their humour, were wont to accuse us of entertaining a scheme for the restoration of the Heptarchy, would have been fully justified in their banter. As it was, we managed to live on, even under the load of their ridicule, being fully convinced that the day must ere long arrive when stern experience would open the eyes of the public to the real posture of the country, in spite of every delusion which interest and ingenuity could devise.
That such delusions have been practised, and that very largely, we have had frequent occasion to show. Dull statists like Mr Porter, shallow political pretenders like Mr Cardwell, and unscrupulous compilers like the Editor of the Economist, have done their utmost to persuade the public that the proofs of national prosperity are to be found in certain tables emanating periodically from the Board of Trade. For some time we are inclined to believe that their efforts were rather successful than otherwise. Most men have an antipathy to figures, and a fondness for general results; and when they were joyously told that both the exports and the imports of the nation were on the increase, they concluded that all was right, and that the mercantile interest was advancing. We are almost inclined to give the Whig Ministry credit for the same sincere belief, at least up to the commencement of the Session of 1850. We do this the more readily, because we feel convinced that none of them were at all conversant with the real practical working of the commerce of Great Britain. If we were to make an exception at all, it would be in the case of Mr Labouchere; but this we shall not do, as ignorance is his best excuse for the statement he made regarding the position of the shipping interest in February of that year. After that period, however, it is not uncharitable to suppose that the Whigs must have lost confidence in the accuracy of their oracles. It might, undoubtedly, be too much to expect that they should have denounced oracles so perpetually delphic and comfortable to their cause, or that they should not have availed themselves of their aid in repeating to the very last the cuckoo cry of prosperity; but we must conclude that the Trade Circulars were brought, occasionally at least, under the notice of Sir Charles Wood; and surely no man, holding the office of Chancellor of Her Majesty's Exchequer, could fail to perceive that there was something manifestly inconsistent with the deductions which hitherto had been drawn from the trade tables, in the uniformly lugubrious, and frequently despairing tone of these valuable publications. The fact is that these Trade Circulars are by far the most authentic documents we have for ascertaining the real state of the country. They give us, from month to month, an accurate account of our commercial position. They emanate alike from Free-Trader and Protectionist – reveal the actual state of the market, and the amount of demand and supply – and admit of no party colouring, except as regards anticipation of the future – rather a perilous commercial vaticination, as the result of each succeeding month is expected to justify the prediction of the previous issue. For nearly three years we have been unable to glean from these circulars a word of actual comfort. They are uniform in their accounts of depression and absolute want of profit in manufactures, and all of them confess that the home trade is most miserably contracted. This being the case, of what value are the tables of export? They are valuable simply as showing that the manufacturers must export what cannot be used at home, unless they choose at once to shut up their mills, and square their accounts with the banking establishments which have given them credit – a process which, in nine cases out of ten, would lead to most unpleasant results. As to the imports upon which so much stress has been laid, let the importers of Liverpool, Glasgow, and Bristol, tell us what they have made of their speculations for the last couple of years. We sympathise, most deeply, with the valuable class of men who have so suffered. They were not the originators of the system which has proved so fearfully hostile to their interests; and we firmly believe that, in giving their support and countenance to it, they were not actuated by any selfish motive. Their mistake was this – that they believed the effect of the Free-Trade measures would be to extend the foreign market of Britain, and greatly to increase its value. They contemplated a reciprocity which has not taken place, and which never can be established, unless the governments of other states fail in their duty to their own people. And here we may remark that nothing can be more odious than the spite and rancour exhibited by the Free-Traders towards the states which have not reciprocated. If the views of some of their organs were to be carried into effect, this miserable lack of liberality would be made a casus belli, and we are not quite certain that some members of the Peace Congress would object to such a declaration. These gentlemen have no idea that any kind of manufacture, which can at all interfere with their own, ought to be permitted abroad. Since America has established her own cotton-factories, and applied herself to the working of her own mines, she has lost an amazing hold of the affections of Manchester. Sorry are we to say that Mr Cobden now seldom wafts his sighs across the Atlantic, and that apparently he has abandoned his scheme of rivetting together the valley of the Mississippi and Manchester "with hooks of steel." The smoke of an American factory is excessively nauseous to his nostrils. John Bright has ceased to take any active interest in Pennsylvania. He opines that it has denied the faith according to his principles of brotherhood; and it may be that the charge is well founded. We hope our Transatlantic friends are prepared to stand the fearful consequences. Terrible as has been the denunciation of the Manchester men, launched against Russia, Austria, and every other non-reciprocating state of Europe which has made head against British calico, the Americans must expect a fuller volley of tenfold wrath for their unprincipled tergiversation. According to the views of Manchester, a Free-trading despotism is to be preferred to a Protectionist republic. Liberty is estimated according to the return which it brings, not to the children of the soil, but to the cottonocracy of Great Britain.
Even if it could be shown that the commercial policy at present in operation had tended to the prosperity of particular interests, and the realisation of individual fortunes, it would by no means follow, as a necessary consequence, that it is a desirable one for the nation at large. What are the symptoms which we find coincident with the increase of exports and imports? First, there is the wholesale depopulation of Ireland, and the great abandonment of tillage in that country, to the amount, we believe, of many millions of quarters of grain. Secondly, there is the ruin of the colonies, not in a metaphorical, but in the literal sense of the term. We have lying before us a copy of a Jamaica paper, The Daily Advertiser, of date 19th January last, containing a full report of a meeting in the parish of Saint George, convened for the purpose of taking into consideration the present deplorable state of the colony. We regret much that we are precluded from commenting in this article upon the statements made by the several able speakers; but we may give, as a proof of the decline of the produce of the island, the following statement by Mr Hosack: – "The past history of Jamaica shows a crop and export of 150,000 hhds. of sugar, and 34,000,000 lb. of coffee. The present shows a crop and export of 36,000 hhds. of sugar, and 5,000,000 lb. of coffee." Another gentleman, Mr Dunbar, thus described the appearance of the island: —
"The present crisis of affairs is fearfully appalling, and cannot be viewed by those immediately concerned without the greatest dismay. Within the recollection of the youngest among us, but a few years ago, our fields wore the garb of luxuriant culture; our population was active and cheerful; our homes were easy, comfortable, and hospitable; and our towns and villages presented the appearance of busy lives. Now the scene is all changed. There is a widespread desolation; the din of industry is no longer heard; we have been driven by distress from our long-cherished homes; the jungle has taken possession of the fields where, but lately, the waving canes met the eyes; our costly buildings are mouldering into decay; and we ourselves are now suspended on the brink of a precipice, created by the unwise and heartless policy of the mother country, in the lowest abyss of which we must ere long be engulfed, unless some kind protecting angel should come to the rescue."
Still more significant, perhaps, of the state of the colony is the account given by the collecting constable of the parish. We insert it here in order to show the effect of Liberal legislation upon British capital invested in a British colony: —
"I will show that properties which formerly paid £1400 taxes are now, if not entirely abandoned, very nearly so. Let the most favourable supporter of Free Trade policy ride over the Buff Bay River district, and at one glance he will see the awful, lamentable, miserably fallen state of our once valuable and flourishing coffee properties. Let him continue his ride through the sugar district, and I envy not the heart of that man who can look on approvingly when he beholds so many valuable estates grown up in common brushwood; the residences of many falling into decay, and scarce affording shelter to the watchman. Let him ask how long has all this been brought about, and I will tell him – that by the list I now hold in my hand, and about to submit to you, sir, it will be found that twenty-six of these coffee properties were valued in 1841 by the assessors of the parish, appointed by the House of Assembly, at a total of £53,060; that these properties paid £619 public and parish taxes; that fourteen of these sugar estates, now nearly all abandoned, were then valued for £83,600, and they then paid £782 taxes; that in 1850 the whole of the taxes of the twenty-six coffee properties amounted to, and were reduced to £147! – and of the fourteen sugar estates, £144. Are these not damning evidences of the destructive policy? Mr Sollas then laid before the meeting the following statement, which he had prepared for the occasion: —
[R] Abandoned.
[S] In partial cultivation.
[R] Abandoned.
[S] In partial cultivation.
– I feel, Sir, that I assert the truth when I add, that my predecessors in office collected these heavy sums within the walls of their office, and the proprietors were then in a position to pay sufficiently early, to avail themselves of the ten per cent discount allowed by law for prompt payment. How different is it with me, sir? I am necessitated not only to keep my hands constantly at the pump, but in too many cases I have been obliged to give the finishing stroke of destruction by levying upon the stock of these properties; and but for much forbearance on my part, heaven knows if others might not be hurried as quickly to ruin. These are truths patent to all; and I assert that this very fact of the taxes being so much reduced, so insignificant by comparison, and yet unable to be met, or met with the greatest difficulty, is an undeniable evidence of the total prostration of the island."
The third symptom to which we would refer is one of marked importance. We mean the enormous increase of emigrants from the British islands. The emigration from the United Kingdom, which, in 1843, amounted only to 57,212, rose in 1849 to the astounding number of 299,498, being 22,000 more than the entire combined population of the large counties of Perth and Fife, according to the census of 1841! How is that fact reconcilable with the professed prosperity of the country? Fourth, and last, because we need not here multiply examples, we have the returns of the Income-tax, which must be accepted, if anything is to be accepted, as a sure index of the state of the nation, and regarding which there can be no delusion, as in the case of export and import tables. Well, then, what do we find from these? Why, that in 1843 the amount of property assessed for trades and professions amounted to £63,021,904. That was under a protective policy. But in 1850, with Free Trade in full operation, that property, which, be it remarked, includes the entire profits arising from the commerce and manufactures of Great Britain, was estimated only at £54,977,566. Where, then, are the increased profits? Let the oracles of Free Trade explain.
Surely these are no wholesome symptoms of the state of the country. Taken singly, each of them implies an enormous amount of misery and decline; taken together, they furnish clear evidence of general national decay. They show us that trade, commerce, and manufactures are far less profitable than before. They show us that emigration from the mother country has multiplied five or six fold, and that the great stream of it is directed to America, a country which is flourishing under protective laws. They show us that agriculture, the only great staple of Irish industry, is largely on the decline. They show us that some of our once richest colonies – because the case of Jamaica is precisely that of several others – are prostrated, and the capital invested in them lost. And all this has taken place under the new commercial system!
Is this a policy to be pursued? Is it one which we are justified in pursuing? Is it one which can afford the slightest pretext for agitation? The answer to these questions must ere long be given by the country on the occasion of the general election. In the mean time, we would entreat the constituencies to consider what interests are at stake, and how much of the national welfare depends upon the nature of their decision. The symptoms of general decadence which we have just referred to cannot be gainsayed nor denied. They are clear ascertained facts, which we have, over and over again, defied the Free-Traders to account for or explain, consistently with their prosperity theories; but in no one instance yet has the challenge been accepted. We are not surprised at this backwardness. Reckless as are the champions of the League – unscrupulous as are their advocates – cunning and sophistical as are the compilers of returns – slippery as are the Whig officials – it would require more courage, craft, and ingenuity than belong to the whole body, to account satisfactorily for the one fact of the diminution of the value of the property assessed for trades and professions. While this fact remains unimpeached – and we have it on Parliamentary authority – it is absolute trash and childish babble to tell us about increased exports and imports. Here are the detailed returns. They comprise, as we have already said, the whole commercial profits of the kingdom; and if we should seem to insist, more strongly than is our wont, upon this point, our apology lies in its paramount importance.
Can there be a more bitter commentary on the working of Free Trade – a more decisive summary of its effects – than is contained in the above three simple lines?
These are the results of that policy, to secure the adoption of which Sir Robert Peel broke up the great Conservative party, leaving the government of Great Britain, and the welfare of so many millions of human beings, in the hands of an incompetent faction, powerless of themselves, and depending mainly for support on the capricious votes of the democracy. What wonder if that democracy took due advantage of their position? Without them the Russell Cabinet was nothing; and each successive month the tone of the Minister became less firm and determined. Radicalism, in our day, has assumed an entirely new form. It affects a community of interest with the prosperity of British manufactures, though rather abroad than at home. Its focus is Manchester; its apostles are the men of the League. Brimful of hate and envy towards the aristocracy of Great Britain, these men are determined to leave no stone unturned whereby they may scramble upwards into power; and they calculate on the possible reconstruction of a Russell Cabinet as their most probable means of ascent. Their actual ulterior objects, after they have attained power, are best known to themselves: we hope never to see them placed in such a situation as shall admit of their broad development. In the mean time they are vociferously demanding an enlargement of the suffrage, and a reconstruction of the whole electoral system, by means of which additional power may be given to the large manufacturing towns, and a huge mass of urban ignorance added to the constituencies. It is full time that their progress should be checked. Unless a stand be now made – unless the country shall rally around Lord Derby, and give him the means of stopping those perpetual inroads on the Constitution, it is by no means impossible that the revolutionary party may soon achieve a triumph. Henceforward, in any Liberal Administration, Lord John Russell can be little better than a cipher. Already there has been talk of deposing him – of electing new leaders for the conduct of the Opposition – of putting forward to the van men who are beset with less scruple, and unencumbered with aristocratic connection. The private history of Liberalism affords more than one instance of such depositions. Lord John must abdicate, or march onward at the head of the progressive democracy.
We are glad to perceive that this position of affairs is appreciated, not only at home but abroad. The advance of Radicalism, under the cover of Free-Trade opinions, has not escaped the notice of the French journalists: indeed it would be strange if it were otherwise, seeing that no long time has elapsed since the same movement was made in France by the acknowledged friends of Mr Cobden. The result of that movement is matter of common notoriety. We copy from the Standard of 20th March the following extract: —
"The Assemblée Nationale, in its remarks upon the new English Administration, makes the following just observations: – 'Lord Derby, with that elevation of sentiment, and that boldness of language, which give him a patrician superiority among English statesmen and orators, throws down a challenge to his adversaries upon the ensemble of Conservative policy. In this point of view we look on Lord Derby's speech as the inauguration of a new phase in English policy. For several years back the agitators, Radicals, and English statesmen, have too much materialised the policy of England. Lord Derby is right in reacting against this tendency, which has caused the English constitution to lean too much to the side of democracy. It was by subordinating his policy to economical questions that Sir Robert Peel threw parties into that state of mobility and confusion, which now raises such serious difficulties in the way of parliamentary government. The evil reached its extreme limits under Lord John Russell. For the honour and safety of the British Constitution, it is time to put an end to it. Thus Lord Derby does not accept the battle on the sole ground of Free Trade. He promises to disembarrass the political life of England of that struggle of economical interests which has for ten years absorbed it. He aims at reconstituting in the country and the Parliament a Conservative majority, to defend traditional interests, old national institutions, and social and political principles, against disquietude and revolutionary tendencies. The English people, endowed with admirable good sense, will comprehend that power ought to be in the hands of a united and disciplined party, and of a compact and homogeneous majority; and not at the mercy of two or three factions, which can neither govern or allow others to govern; and will feel that, in the actual situation of Europe, England ought to have at its head a Ministry firmly and loyally Conservative.'"
Mr Cobden, in his speeches both at Manchester and Leeds, has thought fit to be quite explicit as to the avowed connection of the impending contest with ulterior political objects. At Leeds, he made use of the following language: —
"You feel, as all will now feel, that this is the critical time of this question. Other questions are not so ripe as this. You feel that this must be settled now and for ever, and therefore you come forward in all your strength, in order that you may put the finishing stroke upon it. But it is not merely the Corn-Law question which is involved in what we are now doing. If you settle the Corn question now, once and for ever, it leaves the field open for other questions."
And again more enigmatically, but perhaps not less significantly —
"I have said that it is for the interest of the people that this one thing should be done, though, in saying this, I do not say that it is to be carried on to the exclusion of other important questions —as reform in Parliament, OR WHAT OTHER MOVEMENT MAY BE BEFORE YOU – but I say you will be better able to do those things when you have obtained this charter of the bread of life. When you have received abundant food, with its chances of abundant labour, you will be better able TO ENTER UPON THAT NEW CAMPAIGN YOU HAVE CONCEDED well drilled; and, having beaten your opponents in one thing, you will find it is just the same party you have to beat in the other; for the monopolists in corn are, after all, the monopolists in political power. We may have in our ranks men who go various lengths in political reform and the question of the suffrage, but, at all events, I scarcely know anybody who voted in favour of the total repeal of the Corn Laws that is not willing to go onward also in the path of reform; whilst, on the other hand, they who would deprive you of the privilege of eating an untaxed loaf, they are the very men who will keep you out of the pale of the Constitution, and who will take advantage of their power to tax you in other things pretty roundly as well as the loaf. By settling this question, and securing for the working classes freedom for their industry, and the greatest abundance, under the laws of nature, in the supplies of food, we are placing them in the best possible position to fight any other battle."
We quote these passages simply for the purpose of showing that Mr Cobden considers the defeat of Lord Derby's Ministry as a necessary preliminary to ulterior objects, the nature of which may be interpreted according to the will of the reader. We have no leisure to make remarks upon the alteration of tone visible in these speeches, from that exhibited in others delivered in former years. Mr Cobden now admits that the question is not settled; and that is undoubtedly a very considerable concession. Also, he is not quite so minatory or threatening in his language as he used to be, which possibly may arise from a prudent conviction that certain acts, relating to sedition, which are contained in the statute-book, are not yet altogether in abeyance. He wisely confines himself to inuendo, trusting to the intelligence of his audience to supply the lack of direct speech. Only on one occasion does he transgress the limits of prudence; and we quote it, as reported in the Times, as an instance of that kind of suggestive oratory, of which the late Mr Hunt was esteemed a consummate master.
"I don't like to see a London newspaper saying we have not the working classes with us on this question, because it is a great libel on the working classes to say so. And another thing too; it is trying to discredit the working classes with those who have at present political power, in order that, by-and-by, it may be turned against them, and enable them to say they did not, by their petitions, contribute to the repeal of the Corn Laws. Now, when the Corn Law was laid on in its most unmitigated severity in 1815, the loudest protests against it were made by the working classes. The working men of London made the loudest protests against it, though rather rudely I admit, for they tore the members' coats from their backs. (Cries of 'They did right.') They pulled them out of their carriages, soldiers had to be called up to protect the members of parliament, and the Houses of Parliament were surrounded by infantry and cavalry to enable them to pass this infamous corn law. The middle classes and the working classes then thoroughly co-operated in opposing this law; but the middle classes had not then the political power they have now. The working people did their duty then, and I hope they will do it again. (Shouts of 'We will, we will,' and loud cheers.) I hope they will do it not only in Yorkshire, where it is well said 'we are safe,' but elsewhere."
Far be it from us to put strained interpretations on the language of Mr Cobden. We do not care one rush what he says, considering the blatant absurdities of his speech on more than fifty occasions. No jack-pudding alive has exhibited himself to greater disadvantage, although jack-pudding exhibitions can always command an audience. But what we wish to bring out is this – that Mr Cobden, the individual expressly consulted by Lord John Russell before the Chesham Place meeting was held, refers uniformly to "ulterior objects" as the consequence of the defeat of Lord Derby's Ministry, and does not hesitate to express his hope that, in the event of the parliamentary majority being returned hostile to his notions, the working classes may proceed to acts of overt violence, similar to those which were committed on a previous occasion. If we misconstrue Mr Cobden's meaning, we ask his pardon; and, on a disclaimer of such being his intention, we shall make ready reparation. But we judge of words according to their ordinary significance, and we can gather no other meaning from his language.