The cheap production of Belgian fabrics is stated by the employers to be the cause of the depression in the cotton trade. (Times, Dec. 1883.)
[54] ‘Wealth of Nations,’ Bk. IV. Chap. II.
[55] A writer in Vanity Fair, in analyzing the Board of Trade’s statistics for the year ended March 31st, 1883, when compared with those for the year ended March, 1880, or the three years of the Gladstone Ministry, says:
“We were promised cheaper Government, cheaper food, greater prosperity. We find that so far from these promises being verified, they have every one been falsified by the result.
“Our Imperial Government is dearer by £8,000,000; our Imperial and Local Government, together, is dearer by £10,000,000.
“As to food, wheat has become dearer 1s. 3d. per quarter; beef, by from 3d. to 5d. per stone; Mutton, by 1s. 3d.; money is dearer than 1¾ per cent.
“As to prosperity, our staple pig iron is cheaper by 22s. 2d. per ton. We have 398,397 acres fewer under cultivation for corn, grain and other crops; 50,077 fewer horses; 129,119 fewer cattle; 4,789,738 fewer sheep in the country. We have, in spite of the Land Act and the allegation of increased prosperity, 18,828 more paupers in Ireland on a decreasing population. We find that 115,092 more emigrants have left the country in a year, because they cannot get a living in it. We lose annually 349 more vessels and 1,534 more lives at sea. The only element of consolation that these figures” (Board of Trade Returns) “have to show is, that we have 778,389 more pigs and 4,627 more policemen in the country. In fact, we are more lacking in every thing we want; more abounding in every thing we don’t want.
“The price of everything we have to sell has gone down; the price of everything we have to buy has gone up; and what has gone up most is the price of Government.
“Dearer Government, dearer bread, dearer beef, dearer mutton, dearer money; cheaper pig iron; less corn, potatoes, turnips, grass, and hops, fewer horses, fewer cattle, fewer sheep; more paupers, more emigrants, more losses of life and property at sea, more pigs, more policemen.
“These are the benefits that three years of liberal rule have conferred upon us!!!”