by different causes, which, during the present year, would not be in operation. Thus, in 1825, no less a sum than 1,050,000l. of duties, had been refunded to 1 dealers in wine upon the stock in their possession. In consequence, likewise, of the alterations in the system of bounties which had been effected during preceding session, there would this year be a reduction of 50,000l. Another, and an unforeseen diminution of the revenue had arisen from an oversight in the new acts for simplifying the whole le system of the customs. It had been intended that the duty on tobacco should continue to be four shillings, the rate at which it stood in the beginning of the year; but by some mischance, scarcely avoidable where such a mass of scattered and minute regulations were to be dealt with, the unintentional but practical effect of the new acts had been, that one shilling of the duty had lapsed; and the duty having thus been, for the latter half of the year, only three shillings, instead of four shillings, that branch of the revenue fell 450,000l. short of what it would otherwise have yielded. These deductions from the revenue of 1825 exceeded a million and a half; yet, as they could have no place during the present year, they ought to be added to the 37,546,000l. received independently of them in the preceding year; and the customs and excise would present, for 1826, a revenue of 39,096,000l. But as, in the present state of the country, still labouring under the pressure which it had felt for so many months, it would be unwise and improvident to calculate on a revenue equally large with that of 1825, all the items had been taken

below their proceeds in the last year, and due allowance made for other unavoidable deficiencies. There would be a deficiency of 350,000l. arising from the reduction of taxes in 1825, and a deficiency of about 1,300,000l., in the excise, produced by diminished consumption. Allowance for all this had been made in the es timates; and the stamps, the postoffice, and the assessed taxes, had all been taken at lower rates than they had yielded last year, the stamps being estimated at 48,000%., the post office at 46,000l., and the assessed taxes at 190,000l., less than had been received from them in 1825. On the other hand the miscellaneous items had increased. A sum of 100,000l. was due from Holland, under a treaty with that government, and ought to have been paid in 1825. It had not been paid; but, having been now remitted, it would go to the service of the current year. About 108,000l. would be received from lotteries; for, although the last lottery had been contracted for two or three years ago, its existence was protracted, in consequence of the usual course of conducting lotteries, for two or three years after they had been contracted for. In consequence of an arrangement with the East-India company, that corporation had become bound to pay 60,000l. in consideration of an increase of our naval force for the security of their possessions. The new silver coinage for Ireland had cost the country last year 500,000l.: in the present year the old coin would come back, and be available for the public service, to the amount it was calculated, of about 400,000l. With these additions to the usual revenue, making every allowance for the probable depres

amounted to 3,135,000 lbs., and, during the following three quarters of that year, ending on 10th October, to no less than 3,431,122 lbs., being more than the importation of the whole preceding year. The importation again, for the year ending 5th January, 1824, had been only 2,512,164 lbs. Nay, so far was this spirit carried, that, in February, 1825, there appeared in a Macclesfield newspaper, an advertisement to the following effect: "To the overseers of the poor, and to families desirous of settling in Macclesfield. Wanted between 4,000 and 5,000 persons, between the ages of seven and twenty-one years." Thus the manufacturers themselves held out the assurance of the trade being about to become so prosperous, as to suggest a favourable opportunity for families to settle, and for the overseers of the poor to put out parish apprentices. After such efforts to induce so many young persons to flock into Macclesfield, was it wonderful that it should have been soon found out that all this was extravagant, and most imprudent speculation, which speedily led to its usual consequences? or that the silk manufacture should not have been found to be an exception to the re-action and difficulty which had been felt so severely by every other branch of trade.

It was true that the bill of 1824 proceeded upon the idea that a duty of 30 per cent on foreign silks would afford sufficient protection to the home manufacturer; and it was likewise true that this idea was correct. The committee of the House of Lords had not proceeded without the most cautious investigation; instead of acting precipitately, or founding their recommendations on pre-conceived

notions, or theoretical reasonings, they had availed themselves of the best attainable evidence on the subject. Foreign merchants, who had both gone to France, and come to this country to purchase goods, and who, of course, were only interested to procure them on the best terms, declared, that the difference of price between_goods of equal quality, bought in France and England, was not more than 20, or 25 per cent. Others had stated that the difference did not exceed 20 per cent, and, in articles of silk hosiery, they would give the preference to the English manufacture both in quality and cheapness. On that occasion, the manufacturers themselves had expressed their conviction, that, with proper guards, they could compete successfully against the continent; and those guards they explained to be, a reduction of the duty on the raw material, and a protecting duty of 15 per cent. The former measure had been adopted ; and in regard to the latter, the protecting duty had been fixed, not at 15 per cent, but at 30 per cent. The manufacturers had gotten more than they asked, and no clamour could be more unjust or contradictory than that which was now raised.

In regard to the alleged inferiority of England to France, in some parts of the requisite machinery, the fact, if it existed, was a new proof of the necessity of never returning to the system of entire prohibition. From what cause could that inferiority arise in a country like this, in which every other branch of machinery had been carried to the highest perfection? It could only be accounted for by that system of prohibition, which, if it did not prevent, certainly did not encourage.

the application of learning and ingenuity to this branch of industry. Why did the silk trade not enjoy the same advantages of machinery as the cotton-manufacture? because the trade was not open. Hence had arisen the long unimproved continuance of the old defective looms which were used in Coventry. But even already, amid all that had been said of the hopelessness of endeavouring to meet continental competition, this mischief was disappearing, and only the necessity of proper exertion would ever make it disappear. Already power looms had been erected in Manchester, each of which, with the attendance of one woman at 14s. a week, produced 108 yards weekly. This made the cost of the manufacture not more than 34d. a yard, while the cost of the same species of article in France was 7d. a yard.

There being, therefore, no reason in principle or in fact, why the House should retrace its steps and return to the former system of universal prohibition, still less could any good be obtained by farther delay, which was confess edly the only object of the motion. Two years had originally been allowed; and the experience of these two years shewed sufficiently what might be expected from farther procrastination. had been employed, not in paration, the purpose for which they were granted, but in improvident speculation. Much time was yet to come, which, if properly employed, might be converted to the best purposes; while, if further time were granted, the same arguments would be again used, and a similar attempt would be again made to postpone the execution of the measure to a still more distant day.

They

pre

It would be an act of injustice to the silk-weavers and their employers to excite in them fallacious hopes by seeming to yield to their expectations; and, as the House evidently neither wished nor intended, that government should abandon the more liberal principles which had now been adopted as the basis of the commercial policy of the country, the wiser and more humane course was, by putting a negative on the motion, to close the discussion for ever.*

In the course of the debate, Mr. Huskisson mentioned the following cirless jealousies entertained of foreign cumstance, as illustrative of the groundmanufactures. "A French manufacturer, of the name of de Pouillet, came over to England, established his looms, and British manufacturers openly stated, commenced business. Forthwith the that this establishment was nothing but a cover for smuggling foreign goods into the country. My right hon. friend (Mr. Grant) on being applied to, sent for the parties, and put them upon their trial. He heard the charges advanced by the British manufacturers, and then he had the opposite party called in. And what did this indignant foreigner foreigner, who had come over to this say in reply to those charges-that country, where he had embarked and risked a large capital, from the knowledge that here industry and talent were certain to be encouraged? His immediate reply was, "send for my books, you shall see them, and they shall be delivered to you for examination." His books were accordingly brought, and his whole transactions were minutely looked into. The officers of the revenue by this means ascertained the persons employed by him; they went to the houses in which his men

were at work, and they found them man for man, employed exactly as they had been described in his books, and upon the very pieces of silk that were there set down. But the inquiry, in order to satisfy the British manufacturers, was prosecuted still farther.

Those manufacturers themselves were

called upon to select from among them those persons who had most skill and

The motion was negatived by a majority of 222 to 40.

The ship owners, and others connected with the shipping interests, who believed themselves to be affected by the late alterations in the navigation laws, complained, equally with the silk-manufacturers, of the mischievous consequences of innovation. They complained particularly of the system which had been adopted of removing discriminating duties, and allowing articles of merchandize to be imported in foreign vessels, under the same burthens as if they had been imported in British bottoms, on condition of reciprocity in regard to ourselves. They contended in numerous petitions to parliament, that such a reciprocal removal of discriminating duties was ruinous to British shipping; because the British and the foreign owner could never be put upon an equality, unless the

judgment as to the difference between foreign and home manufactured silk, and the individuals so selected, were directed to go and look over the hundreds of pieces of silk in the warehouse of the foreign manufacturer, and to take from among those hundreds, all the pieces of which they had no doubt as to their being manufactured abroad, so as to establish beyond all question, the guilt or the innocence of the iudividual accused. This was accordingly done, and a report was made, that the persons appointed had selected thirtyseven pieces of silk out of the many hundreds examined by them, of which they had made seizure as contraband goods. What was then done by the foreign manufacturer? He brought from Manchester, and from Spitalfields, the very men who had made every one of those thirty-seven pieces; and it was proved upon oath, to the entire confusion of the accusers, that every piece had been manufactured either in Manchester or Spitalfields. The consequence was, a full and complete acquittal of the foreigner.

latter were burthened with a higher duty. For, said they, in consequence of the greater price of all the labour and materials used, the rate of ship-building is nearly double of what it is in most foreign countries; the cost of navigation, when the ship has been built, is much higher, because the wages of seamen, and the price of the stores and victuals for the seamen, are much higher here than they are abroad. Without a countervailing duty, therefore, laid upon their foreign rivals, they were not put on a fair ground of competition against these rivals. In support of these views they asserted, that, during the last four years, the tonnage of the foreign shipping entering our ports had trebled, while our own trade was declining: that the foreign tonnage entering the port of London, during the last three years, had doubled; that, at this moment, nine-tenths of the shipping coming into the port of Liverpool were American; and that, unless, therefore, it were intended that our navy should dwindle into insignificance, it was necessary to lighten the burthens of the shipping interthe shipping interest of foreign est, and enable it to compete with countries.

The petitioners and their adherents in parliament, repeated these doctrines and assertions on every opportunity; but, owing perhaps to the decided approbation which the House of Commons had given to the principles of the government on the debate concerning the silk trade, no attempt was made to bring them formally under the notice of the legislature. Mr. Huskisson, however, to whose department, as President of the Board of Trade, the subject belonged, did