The Effects of the (80-called) Free-trade Measures of England on her Foreign Trade, exemplified.

• Gold was discovered in California in August, 1948; and in Australia in 1851. Of the $147,085,000 received from these sources in 1856, California produced $77,000,000; and Australia, $70,085,000 -Tooke's History of Prices, vol. 6, pp. 146, 147, 148.

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sufficient exactness. The population column relates only to Great Britain. This is due to the fact, that since the famine-year (1847), when the population of Ireland began to decrease, no official estimate of their number between the census-years has been made.1 Consulting the right-hand column of the table, we find, for more than forty years, no variation in the amount per capita of British exports so large as to suggest the operation of any highly influential cause, even though this period includes the most important of the free-trade acts.

From 1805 to 1848, the difference of the two extremes is but $5.41. Take the four years which preceded PEEL's tariff of 1842, and the mean annual value of exports is $14.10 per capita; while in the years 1847 and 1848, which followed the corn-law repeal, it was but $13.87, showing an actual decrease of trade, -a circumstance worthy of note. During the four years ending with 1852, the amount rose to $17.26; an increase calling for no special comment, as it is only fifty-six cents more per head than it was in the four years ending in 1812, when the protective system had reached its highest point. Since 1853, the increase of British exports has been rapid and striking. The biennial average of 1848 was more than doubled by the triennial average of 1860. It is true, Mr. GLADSTONE'S measures of 1853 coincide in time with the beginning of this remarkable rise in the exports. Should any infer from this that these measures and their precursors were the sole or even the principal cause of this large increase in British commerce, I think it may be shown that they reason from very narrow premises.

To this end, I again invite attention to Table A (page 8); which shows, that, for the six years succeeding the establishment of Mr. GLADSTONE's tariff measures, the mean annual receipts of customs-duties increased from $113,063,665 to $117,797,685, and that the percentage of variation in the amount of duty collected on the sixteen articles specified is scarcely appreciable. These facts at once forbid the inference, that the results in question are due, in any considerable degree, to the free-trade features of those measures.

That the admission of raw materials free, and of breadstuffs at a nominal duty, has greatly benefited the manufacturing interests of England, is undoubtedly true; but such aid, as I have already shown, is not the result of free trade, but of qualified protection. Were it the result of free trade, we might expect to find the greatest increase in the exports of articles on which the duties have been repealed. So far from this,

1 See Appendix, No. 52.

the exports of silk manufactures, protected by a duty of fifteen per cent, have increased in a greater ratio than the exports of cotton, linen, and woollen goods, on which there is no duty.1

That the tariff reform, so far as it consisted in removing the duties on foreign manufactures, could exert no appreciable influence in the expansion of British commerce, is evident from the fact, that those duties had become an insignificant item in the receipts of the custom-house. This fact, which may be gathered from our tables, was thus strikingly presented by Mr. COBDEN, in the corn-law debate: "Let me show you what these customs-duties are, about which you are so frightened. Cotton manufactures last year paid £3,700; lace, £7,600; china and carthenware, £3,600; linen, £12,000; woollens paid £16,700; silk manufactures, £240,600. The whole produce of protective duties on foreign manufactures was £284,200."*

Subtracting from this sum the silk-duties which were retained, the entire repeal of duty on foreign manufactures was $218,000; being less than one-fourth part. the amount of tax which Englishmen annually pay for the privilege of keeping their dogs.

The chief causes of this large increase of British exports are undoubtedly to be found outside of the tariff-laws. That they are causes of general application, is shown by the fact, that Great Britain was not alone in this experience of prosperity. The foreign trade of France, under a tariff highly protective, increased, during the same period, in a ratio greater than that of England; and the United States, with a tariff moderately protective, had a commercial record equally advantageous, as may be seen by the following comparative statement:*—

In accounting for this recent and great expansion of commerce, two causes especially suggest themselves:

tion,

First, The influence of the applied sciences in augmenting the means of produc

an influence which is constantly becoming more extensive and efficient. Secondly, The greatly increased supply of gold.

This is pre-eminently an age of progress. Useful inventions in the mechanic arts, and important discoveries in science, are of almost daily occurrence. Countless improvements in existing machines, and in the methods and processes of production, are continually enlarging the ability to produce, multiplying articles of consump

tion, and thus, of necessity, swelling the great currents of trade.1

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The annual produce of gold, which, prior to 1848, was $50,000,000, has, since 1853, amounted to nearly $150,000,000. The effect of this treble supply of gold," says Mr. Tooke, has been to set in motion and sustain a vast and increasing number of causes, all conducing to augment the real wealth and resources of the world, by stimulating trade, enterprise, discovery, and production."3

While these are causes of general application, which operate with more or less effect in all commercial countrics, there can be no doubt that they exert a peculiar power in England. This is an advantage which she owes to her superior capital and skill, to her well-established system of production, and her widely extended businessrelations. These enable her to apply, readily and efficiently, to her productive means, every new improvement, and to meet with promptness every new demand; while, under the all-controlling laws of commercial attraction, her position, as manufacturer for half the globe, draws to her vaults the larger part of the gold.

1 "There is every reason to believe, that during the past few years, by means of railways, free trade, new inventions, and in other modes, the skill and resources of England, in the production of exportable goods, has been considerably increased."— Tooke's History of Prices, vol. 6, p. 213.

"It is an error," said Mr. T. Baring, in debate on the present commercial treaty with France, and in reference to the increase of British foreign trade, "to say that it is due entirely to commercial freedom. It is to improvements in railways and mechanics that our prosperity is mainly due." — Dansard, vol. 156, 3d series, p. 1751.

"The railways of Great Britain effeot a direct saving to the people of not less than $200,000,000 per annum."— Robert Stephenson: Address before the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1856. Tooke's History of Prices, vol. 6, p. 209. Tooke's History of Prices, vol. 6, p. 235.

4 Says Mr. Tooke, in remarking upon the recent increased supply of gold, "We arrive at two conclusions:

"First, That the new gold has been distributed throughout the commercial world, in the first instance, in proportion to the

skill and resources of each country in the production of exportable goods in demand in the gold regions; and, in the next instance, in proportion to the skill and resources of each country in the production of exportable goods, not only in demand in the gold regions, but in demand in any other region to which any part of the new supplies of gold may have been carried.

"Secondly, That the United Kingdom has been, in a preeminent degree, the country whose exportable goods have been most in demand abroad, have contained the greatest value in the smallest bulk, and have been (practically) nearest to the mining countries; and, therefore, that by far the largest proportion of the gold has been sent to this country."- Tooke's History of Prices, vol. 6, p. 210.

"It would be difficult to exaggerate the advance that has been made in commerce and in most sorts of industry, and the improvement in the condition of society that has taken place, during the last seven years. A considerable portion of this advance is no doubt due to the discovery of the Californian and Australian gold-fields." — Mc Culloch's Dictionary, edition of 1859, p. 723.

THE MANUFACTURES OF ENGLAND.

Both in extent and variety of production, the manufacturers of Great Britain are far ahead of all other nations. After meeting nearly every domestic want, they have an abundant supply for almost half the world besides. Of manufactured articles, Britain exports in value twenty-one times as much as she imports. From her mines, she draws an annual produce estimated at $150,000. Three million tons of crude iron, worth $64,000,000, flow yearly from her furnaces, - an amount equal to the yield of all other countries put together. But it is in the department of textile industry that England has done the most. From $750,000,000 to $850,000,000 is the estimated annual value of her entire cotton, wool, flax, and silk manufactures. These great industries constitute the very foundation of her unrivalled prosperity, and control as well as characterize her social and political organizations. Of the whole population of the United Kingdom, one-fifth, at least, owe their means of subsistence, directly or indirectly, to these pursuits.

"As I have before stated, the above figures refer only to persons employed in establishments subject to the provisions of the Factory Acts, amounting to 682,497; and I have estimated, after making various calculations and consulting the best authprities, that there are 887,369 persons employed upon textile fabrics in establishments not under the provisions of the Factory Acts: which two classes of persons have dependent upon them at least 3,000,000 of unemployed persons; representing a total of 4,568,082 persons dependent upon the textile fabrics for their maintenance, being in the proportion of sixteen per cent, or one-sixth, of the population. But there are others, though not directly employed upon the fabrics themselves, equally dependent upon the prosperity of textile manufactures for their subsistence. For instance:

"Those engaged in the procuring of coal (at least 3,000,000 tons are consumed per annum in factories, print-works, &c.); those engaged in the procuring of iron, engine and machine makers; those engaged in the leather-trade, in the manufacture of grease, in the procuring of oil, dry wares, paper, skips or baskets, and of various minor articles used in manufacturing establishments; those employed in warehouses, &c.

"At a moderate computation, I reckon that the above persons and their families would raise the number of those dependent upon the textile fabrics to twenty per cent, or one-fifth, of the population." — Redgrave's Address before the Society of Arts, London, March 6, 1861.- See Appendix, No. 108.