"'Tis hard, but patience must endure
And bear the woes it cannot cure."

And now, leaving this discursive preliminary sketch, the length of which was unpremeditated, of the leading influences which are fast hurrying to social disorganization, it is time that once more we stand face to face with the one disorganizing doctrine of one-sided free trade; with the banner on which the phraseurs and farceurs have inscribed the cabalistic devices, in flaming characters—"Leave the imports alone, the exports will take care of themselves;" and, "A fixed duty is a fixed injustice." One might be tempted to believe the first borrowed from the armorial bearings of Lord Huntingtower's "bill" friends, whose motto is, or should be—"Leave the fools alone, and the knaves will take care of themselves;" the second is clearly no better than a petty-larceny paraphrase of Newgate felony, in whose code of duties it stands decreed, from all time, that "a fixed law is a fixed despotism."

The history of industry and commerce in every country, from the most ancient down to modern times, gives the lie to these pertly pretending truisms; for there is scarcely one branch of manufacture to be named which does not owe its rise, progress, and perfection, to the protective or financial, or both combined, control exercised over imports. If we look at home only, where, we ask, would the woollen manufacture be now, but for the early laws restrictive of the importation of foreign woollens, nay more, restrictive of the export of British fleeces with which the manufactories of Belgium were alimented? Where the cotton trade, even with all Arkwright and Crompton's inventions of mule and throstle frames, and the steam-engine wonders of Watt, but for the importation tax of 87 per cent with which the cotton manufactures of India were weighted and finally crushed? Where the British iron mines and the iron trade, now so pre-eminent over all the world, but for the heavy import duties with which the iron of Swedish, Russian, or other foreign origin was loaded? And so also, may it be asked, in respect to almost all industry and production. If, as contended, the woollen, cotton, and iron industries would not only have been created, but much more largely have flourished, without the aids and appliances of friendly tariffs, the one-sided free traders are, at least, bound to something more potential than mere assertion and idle declamation in support of the vague allegation. They have the evidence of facts patent and abundant to confront and gainsay them; they shall have more; but is there to be no reciprocation of facts counter? Is the evidence and the argument to remain all on one side, and on the other nothing but wordy nothingness—

"Dat inania verba,
Dat sine mente sonum."

Where are the unknown lands of factories and furnaces, of puddling and power looms, of steam-engines and blowing machines, all self-created and "self-supporting," scorning the crutches of patronage, and high-mounted on the stilts of free, or one-sided free trade? Either they exist in the shape of matter tangible and substantial; or they exist not except as chateaux en Espagne are dreamt of, or as bubbles blown and chased by idle urchins—modern philosophers in petticoats. This bubble-blowing has been, indeed, converted into something of a mine of industry of late years, most successfully exploité by all the chevaliers d'industrie of the race of farceurs before referred to. Let us not forget, however, that one of the most indefatigable of the class, after various and many voyages by sea, and travels by land, in quest of the picturesque in political economy, did, indeed—or says so, and has compiled a book to prove it—light on this long-sought, never-before discovered land, in whose Arcadian bowers sits enthroned the very genius of trade, free and unfettered as the eagle in his eyry on the crowning crest of St Gotthard. Would you know this thrice-blest region—"Go climb the Alps," as the Roman satirist bids—it is Switzerland snugly ensconced in their bosom.

Nevertheless, before the title of Switzerland Felix be fully conceded, the legitimacy of its derivation remains to be investigated. The concession can only be registered upon three conditions fulfilled. It must be shown, firstly, that manufacturing industry was not fostered in its early stages by the governing power; secondly, that if it had attained a large development unprotected, the proportions of such development shall have been at the least equal, as upon the theory of free trade they should be superior, to the ratio of progression manifested in other countries where protection has been the ruling principle; thirdly, that free trade was not a necessity imposed by circumstances and position, not the result of a barter of value for value, but of free and spontaneous choice, and as the result of the profound conviction of the superior excellency and adaptability of the abstract principle. We shall deal briefly with the subject, because it has been discussed more at length heretofore in those special articles in which we have treated of the rise and progress of the cotton manufacture in this and other countries. In regard to the first condition, it was established on a former occasion, that the ruling powers of one or more of the Cantons, did advance large capitals, and offered more, in order to encourage and assist in the establishment of cotton-spinning mills, with machinery of the most perfect construction, under the superintendence, and with a share in the profits, of persons duly skilled from England. Happily, one of the individuals to whom such offers (on the basis of a £100,000 capital) were made, and by whom declined, then and subsequently one of the largest exporting merchants of Lancashire to Switzerland, and the Continent generally, still lives, and we have had the statement confirmed by himself within the last two or three years. This was somewhere between 1795 and 1800, further our memory does not serve for the precise date at present, nor is it indispensable. A manufacture thus, as may be said, artificially created and bolstered up, we do not say unwisely, does not assuredly answer the first condition required. With respect to the measure of the manufacturing development, the data are unfortunately wanting for precise verification; for Switzerland possesses no returns of foreign trade at all, nor can any satisfactory approximation be arrived at from inspection of the official tables of the foreign and transit commerce now before us of Holland, Belgium, and France, through which all the transmarine intercourse of Switzerland must necessarily pass. The exports and imports of Holland, by the Rhine, are not so classed as to show what proportion appertains to Germany and what to Switzerland, as both stand under the one head of Germany and the Rhine. In the Belgian tables, Switzerland does not enter at all until 1841, therefore they can afford no materials for the comparison with former years. From the French tables, more scientifically constructed, correct information may be gathered, so far as the commerce with and through France. But we are wanting nearly altogether in materials for estimating the land traffic of Switzerland with Germany and Italy. Taking the French tables alone, it may be collected, however, that the commerce of Switzerland has been considerably on the increase with and through France. In the cotton trade, for example, the imports of raw cotton in transit through Havre, for Switzerland, had already augmented from 2,973,159 kilogrammes in 1830, to 6,446,703 kilogrammes in 1836; and again, from the latter term, to 104,842 metrical quintals in 1840, which declined to 77,534 in 1841. Our returns do not enable us to state with exactitude whether the whole, or what portion, of the transit of cotton for the two latter years was destined for Switzerland, because our French tables do not, as up to 1836, embrace the details of the separate transit trade to each country, but only the total quantities. The increase of imports by way of France must not, however, be taken to all the extent as an absolute increase, nor can we conclude, with any assurance, that it was an increase upon the whole. For, in consequence of some important reductions in the dues agreed to by France in order to favour and attract the entire transit trade of Switzerland through its territory, the cottons formerly passed to Switzerland through Rotterdam and Antwerp by the Rhine, have been sent by way of Havre. Thus, on consulting Mr Porter's Tables of Trade, we find that the twenty-one millions of lbs. of cotton re-exported to Holland and Belgium in 1837, had decreased, in 1840, to little more than twelve millions. What proportion of the twenty-one millions was destined for Switzerland, there are no means of ascertaining, except from the returns in detail of the Rhine navigation, the existence of which, in any available shape, may be doubted. Assuming that the whole of the cotton passing in transit through France was for Switzerland, we find a quantity equal to about seventeen millions of pounds, in 1841, as required for the supply of the cotton manufacture; or say, on a rough average of 1840 and 1841, nineteen and a half millions of pounds. Now, considering that the cotton manufacture has been established in Switzerland above a century, these figures certainly demonstrate any thing but an extraordinary rate of progress. The cotton manufacture of Russia does not number half the years of existence, and yet the average consumption of raw cotton, in 1840 and 1841, was nearly thirteen millions of pounds, and of cotton yarn, rendered into cotton,[J] about twenty-three millions more. It must be noted, moreover, that whereas subsequently to the inventions of Arkwright and Crompton, Switzerland drew nearly the whole of her yarns for making into cloths from England, not possessing herself any spinning machinery until the commencement of the present century, and then but to a trivial extent, with scarcely any augmentation of importance, until some years after the general peace of 1815; yet that, within the last twenty years, the use of machinery has been extensively introduced, cotton factories have spread on all sides, for working which water-power in abundance afforded every facility, so that she now spins nearly all the yarns necessary for her fabrics, and imports from England but a very slender quantity of the higher counts still required for her finest muslins. Those imports do not perhaps exceed, if they reach to, one million pounds per annum. Of many merchants in Manchester, thirty or forty years ago, extensively engaged in furnishing that supply, but one or two at present are to be found. It remains, therefore, doubtful whether there has been any material progress in the cotton manufactures of Switzerland, so far as the quantities of fabrics produced, and the weight of cotton consumed, for many years past. Through the commercial arrangements before referred to, her special trade with France in all commodities has been on the increase; but, as the usual result of the commercial treaties of France, all to the advantage of France. Thus, for 1841, the imports (special trade of internal consumption) of France from Switzerland are stated at twenty-two millions of francs only, whilst the exports of France to Switzerland amounted to thirty-nine millions. This, be it observed, is the result of one-sided free trade, which opens its gates to all, whilst partially favoured only in return, when at all. Switzerland, for example, is free to the import of French cottons; France hermetically sealed against those of Switzerland. The general trade, that is, inclusive of transit and special, had also materially improved; the aggregate imports representing eighty-three millions of imports into, against eighty-nine millions of exports from Switzerland; or that the general trade with France had rather more than doubled since 1832, imports and exports together. The transit portion of this general trade, representing all the transmarine movement of Switzerland, is that rather, it may be said, carried on with the United States Spanish America, Brazil, &c., in which the greatest improvement of her foreign trade had taken place. She has, on the contrary, very largely lost ground in Germany, where she enjoyed marts for her manufactures, before the establishment of the Commercial Union, of an extensive and profitable description, from the advantages of her geographical position; and it is probable, that from the same cause she will have lost no inconsiderable portion of the share her merchants had in the supply of Turkey, Persia, and other countries on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. With Holland and Belgium, her commercial relations would seem to have been sensibly on the decline, so far as the returns, available and comparative, enable us to form an opinion. Upon a balance, therefore, of increase, upon one side, and decrease on the other, there is reasonable ground to question any progress in Switzerland, at all commensurate with the general accelerated movement in manufactures and commerce of other industrial countries about her, and beyond the seas; in exemplification of which, we have on other occasions presented, as we shall continue to present, evidence which may not be questioned.

Therefore, it results, that the second condition in proof of the superiority of the free, or one-sided free trade principle, as represented in Switzerland, the embodied beau idéal of the theory, is not fulfilled. It were easy, indeed, to show the absurdity of a pretension to the rigorous reign of a principle, in a country where, though the federal government levies are merely nominal duties on imported commodities, for other than which it is and must ever be powerless, whatever the will, yet in the separate cantons or chief towns with barriers, scarcely any article enters and escapes without payment of an octroi impost, equal to a moderate state duty on importation at the ports or frontiers of other states. What would be said in this country, if wool, cotton, or any commodity entering free, or at merely nominal rates, at London or Liverpool, were to be taxed on arrival at Leeds or Manchester, for purposes of local revenue or local protection?

We may afford to dismiss the third condition in the smallest space. Free trade in Switzerland, such as it is, is not an affair of principle, of conviction, therefore of choice, as ridiculously pretended, but a necessity arising out of her geographical position. On all sides she is surrounded enclavée, amidst states which hold the gates of ingress and egress. Close the Rhine and the Seine against her, and she must surrender commercially at discretion, as she politically does, to such terms as may be dictated. A heavy péage upon river or land transit, ruins her manufactories, her industry, root and branch. She is too happy only, therefore, to be tolerated with a passage to the sea, on the hard terms of surrendering the just rights of her own industry to the free invasion of foreign competing products; she makes, ex necessitate, the sacrifice of a large portion, in order to save the remainder. Would you have the commentary? Read it in the miserable fare, the low wages, the toil unremitting and uncompensated, of the operative masses; in the depressed rate of profits, the strict, painful, but indispensable frugality of master manufacturers and capitalists, when perchance capitalists may be found, of Switzerland surnamed Felix, over-borne by foreign competition, as depicted in the Report of that romance writer, Mr John Bowring himself, who, of all men, in his own particular case, would be the last to advocate short commons, shabby salaries, or petty profits. Switzerland, therefore, answers none of the conditions required for the demonstration of the free trade theory upon the greatest profit, or even upon the greatest happiness principle, the verba ardentia of anti-corn-law declaimers, and utilitarian poetasters, notwithstanding. But if the case of the free and one-sided trade theory breaks down in its one only deceptive personification, the proofs are strong and abundant in behalf the cause of the legitimate principle of protection to industry, or of the reciprocity principle well understood, which involves essentially the principle of protection. Let us discursively range over Europe, in further addition to the evidence, which, in respect of Russia, has already been assigned; and, as with regard to Spain, and Russia as well, we shall not hesitate to signalize the abuse of a righteous principle, where in practice it degenerates into the Japanese barbarism of almost absolute prohibition and isolation. A comparison betwixt Switzerland and Japan, two nearly stationary states, where all around is in progress in the industrial sense, ruled upon economical principles so opposite and conflicting, would be a labour both amusing and profitable; but unfortunately the adequate materials are wanting in the one case as in the other; state-books of account and custom-house returns, are as rare and unheard of in Nangasaki as in Helvetia. Fiscal exactions, however, are not unknown in either, the difference being, that the despotic majesty of Japan undertakes them upon his own account, whilst the people of the Alps, as intractable, with better right, impose and levy for their own use and behoof. Withal, to the one-idea'd philosophy of your absolute theory, systematic, uniformity men of the present day, it should seem an extraordinary paradox, putting all speculation to rout, that despotic Japan should be as prosperous, more powerful, more free from intestine convulsion, although more ancient of standing, therefore to be presumed enjoying at least as much happiness as free and unfettered Switzerland, rioting betimes in all the freaks of liberty and revolution.

We do not propose to extend our enquiries into the history of industrial progress in other lands further on the present occasion, than to such external demonstrations, as measured by imports and exports, as may with most convenient brevity and fidelity answer the purpose in view. The possession of authentic documents in ample degree, expository of the past and present conditions of social and material interests in almost all the civilized states of the world, would enable us to follow out, in minute detail, the rise, the career, the vicissitudes of each; but although, on future and suitable occasions, we may be induced to resume and pursue the task already commenced in former numbers, it is not necessary now, and would far outstrip any possible space at our disposal. Commencing with Austria, it may be shown, that even with an ill-considered economical régime of, until of late years, general prohibitions and restrictions, with the incessant and ill-judged policy of forcing manufacturing industry, for the hasty development of which the natural foundations were not previously laid, whilst neglecting the cultivation and encouragement of those varied agricultural and mining treasures, with which, through the length and breadth of her territory, she is so abundantly stored, the advance of Austria, commercial and manufacturing, need not assuredly fear comparison with that of free-trading Switzerland. The following are the returns of the foreign trade of the Austrian empire, excepting for Hungary and Transylvania, which will be found hereafter for the years cited. Other documents are in our possession, bringing the information down to 1840, but as not entirely complete in respect of a portion of the traffic by the land frontiers, whilst in results they differ little from the last year of the table here given, it is not worth while to make the addition.

Imports.Exports.Total.
1829By sea & land95,321,861florins.107,254,048202,575,909
1830...99,545,289...110,587,974210,133 263
1831...94,116,471...98,937,022193,053,493
1832...107,825,991...115,007,352222,833,343
1833...106,270,012...116,624,202222,894,214
1834...107,781,409...111,092,942218,874,351
1835...121,482,876...115,217,804236,700,680
1836...130,865,339...122,284,173253,149,512
1837...120,897,761...119,721,758240,619,519
1838...127,445,295...134,908,064262,353,359