Key:

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,5,323,5535,477,3894,665,409[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.,1,048,390744,861732,034
Hemp,624,866588,034465,220
Silk, raw, lbs.2,865,6053,429,2603,051,015
Do. thrown,311,413293,402200,719
Do. Waste, cwt.11,2886,1737,279
Cotton Wool, cwt.5,495,7993,866,0893,423,061
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.