In the increase here exhibited lies the reason why the League made such a desperate, and unfortunately successful, effort to overthrow the whole protective system of Great Britain; and also the reason why America refuses reciprocity. The Manchester men began to see—there being no want of shrewdness among them when their own individual interests were concerned—that their game had not only become hazardous, but must ere long prove desperate. They had already many rivals on the continent of Europe, who were, equally with themselves, customers to the Americans for cotton wool, and who fenced themselves against the introduction of the Manchester fabric by hostile tariffs. That, however, was nothing in comparison to the appalling fact, that the very people who found the raw material were actually in possession of the means of spinning it themselves, and seemed bent on doing so by their progress from year to year! In vain did our manufacturers and chambers of commerce try to demonstrate to the Yankees that they were not only committing a foolish but a most unnatural action—in vain did they assert, as a fundamental doctrine of ethics, that Britain ought to have the manufacturing monopoly of the world; and as a fundamental principle of economy, that it was far more for the advantage of a nation which produced the raw material to forego its manufacture, than to rear up within itself a new and lucrative branch of industry. Their ethics and their economy were alike scouted; and no wonder, for both propositions were repugnant to common sense, to ascertained results, and to reason. If it is indeed a law of economy that a nation which produces the raw article ought to confine itself to that production, and not to undertake the finishing and manufacturing process—then, by the same reasoning which was attempted to be palmed off upon the Americans, our wool, instead of being made up at Leeds or Bradford, should be straightway shipped off to Saxony; and the product of our iron mines transported to Sweden, there to undergo the necessary process of smelting. It is perhaps the strangest feature of the age in which we live, that such absolute and self-evident nonsense as this should not only have been uttered on platforms, and received with applause by crowds of congregated merchants, but have been gravely set forth in our public journals as a doctrine of the highest value.
There is, however, no such thing as a universal code of political economy. The Americans listened and laughed, and ran up their factories faster than ever, and ransacked the bowels of the earth for their inestimable strata of minerals, believing with a proper faith that they would not have been placed there unless it was intended that man should convert them to his use. Our cotton manufacturers, being thus situated, had some reason to despond. The nation that gave them their raw material, and that was also their best customer for fabrics, seemed on the very point of deserting them in both ways. True, a much greater quantity of cotton than was ever yet grown might be raised in America, but then the demand, though great in itself, has limits; and an unusually large crop has the effect of extinguishing profit to the grower. This will be better understood by the American estimate of the value of crops:—
| Crop. | Amount of Product, lbs. | Estimated Value, dols. |
|---|---|---|
| 1844 | 812,000,000 | 65,772,000 |
| 1845 | 958,000,000 | 56,000,000 |
| 1847 | 711,000,000 | 72,000,000 |
| 1848 | 1,100,000,000 | 60,000,000 |
The estimate for the latter year, says Mr Carey, was that made at New Orleans before the occurrence of the frosts and freshets, which, we presume, raised the price of cotton wool. We see, however, from this, that the small yield of 1847 was infinitely more profitable to the grower than the large yield of 1845, and this will explain the reason why the culture of cotton cannot be indefinitely extended. It therefore became necessary, at all hazards, if cotton-spinning in Britain was to be maintained in its former palmy state, that some further concession should be made to America, to bribe her, since she could not be forced to abstain from the encouragement of her own manufactures.
That bribe was the removal of the import duties on grain and provisions to Great Britain. Let the secret instigators of the movement—the men who organised the machinery of the League—disguise the fact as they may, that, and that alone, was the actual cause of our lowered tariffs and the ultimate repeal of the corn-laws. The Manchester Chamber hoped—most vainly, as it now appears—that, by giving a new stimulus to agriculture in America, at the expense of the vast body of British producers, they could at least ward off the evil day when the American manufacturer should be able to annihilate their trade, by depriving them of the enormous profits which they realised on the conversion of the raw material into yarn. What these profits were will appear from the fact that the price of cotton wool at Liverpool, in 1843-4, was 6d., whilst twist was selling at 101⁄4d.; and that in 1844-5, the price of wool having fallen to 4d., the market value of twist was 113⁄4d. Hitherto the prices, as fixed in England, have regulated those of the world.
That the late Sir Robert Peel, himself a scion of the cotton interest, should have been swayed by such considerations, is not, perhaps, remarkable; but that any portion of the landed gentry, of the producers for the home market, the labourers and the mechanics of Great Britain, should have allowed themselves to be deceived by the idea, that diminished or depreciated production could possibly tend either to their individual or to the national advantage, will hereafter be matter of marvel. We who know the amount of artifice and misrepresentation which was used, and who never can forget the guilty haste with which the disastrous measure was hurried through both Houses of Parliament, without giving to the nation an opportunity of expressing its deliberate opinion, feel, and have felt, less surprise than sorrow at the event. With British feeling, however, we have at present nothing to do; our object is to trace the effect which our relaxation has exercised upon American policy.
The American tariff of 1846, denounced by the Protectionists of the States as injurious to home interests, and supported by the Free-Trade party, imposes, among others, the following duties:—
These duties are somewhat lower, though not materially so, than the former tariff of 1842; but they certainly offer no inconsiderable amount of protection to home industry and produce. We have already seen the progress which has been made by the American cotton manufacturers, iron-masters, and miners; and it is now quite evident that, unless that progress is checked—which it only can be by the will of the Americans—our exports to that quarter must naturally decline. This is not our anticipation merely; it has been expressed openly and anxiously in the columns of the Free-Trade journals. In the iron districts of Scotland and Staffordshire, the apprehension that henceforward the American market will be generally closed against them, is, we know, very prevalent; and the following extract from the report of the Morning Chronicle, (April 11, 1850,) on the condition and prospects of the iron trade in the spring of 1850, applies exactly to the opening of 1851:—
"The present state of our commercial negotiations with the United States, particularly in relation to the exportation of iron from this country, promises greatly to aggravate existing evils. It is feared by many largely interested in the iron manufacture of this neighbourhood, that the efforts of Sir Henry Bulwer at Washington to obtain a modification of the American tariff, with respect more especially to the importation of iron, will prove abortive for some time to come. Our exports of iron from South Staffordshire are said to be already considerably reduced; and should our Transatlantic friends continue, as they threaten, their restrictive commercial policy, business in these important manufacturing districts must of necessity be still more limited than it is at the present moment."