Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 38

Letter Fourth

Letter Fourth.

Them change of Mr. Huskisson's opinions in regard to protection followed so closely on large increase in the duties on foreign iron and other commodities, that it was, as I think, but six years later in date. Four years still later came the French Revolution of 1830, and by that time the slight changes which had followed his conversion may be supposed to have begun to produce the effect desired. Taking that year, then, as the starting point of a comparison of the working of protection in France, and free trade in Britain, we obtain results which will now be given, as follows:—

In that year the French domestic exports amounted, in round numbers, to $100,000,000, or little more than $3 per head of the population. Thirty years later, at the date of the Cobden treaty, under a prohibitive system, they had grown to $400,000,000, or about $11 per head. Since the close of the German war their page 14 growth, under a highly protective one, in millions of dollars, has been as follows:—
1871 573
1872 736
1873 760
1874 774
1875 800 *

The population for 1872, Alsace and Loraine having passed to Germany, was in round numbers 30,000,000, and an export of 800,000,000 gives $22 per head, or seven times more than that of 1830. Seeing this wonderful upward and onward progress in face of the general depression that now prevails, an English journalist has recently told his readers that France seemed to bear "a charmed life." He failed, however, to say to them that the charm would be found in the fact that for eighty years the French policy had looked steadily in the direction of development of that domestic commerce which now constitutes the foundation of her great and rapidly growing foreign commerce. Scarcely knowing it, France has been a consistent disciple of Adam Smith.

The declared value of "British produce and manufactures" exported in 1830, was, in round numbers, $190,000,000, or about $8 per head; being almost thrice that of France. That of the last five years has been, as here given in millions of dollars:—
1871 1115
1872 1280
1873 1275
1874 1200
1875 1150
these last figures giving about $34 per head of the population; or but about 50 per cent, in excess of the exports of France. It thus appears that under a thoroughly protective system the foreign commerce of this latter has grown with such rapidity that whereas in 1830 it stood to that of Britain as little more than 1 to 3; it now stands as 2 to 3.

Were even this apparent difference a real one, the change would still be most extraordinary, in view of the facts, that, whereas France, in losing her Rhine provinces, had lost more than she had gained in Algeria or elsewhere, Britain had not only added in India, Australia, South Africa, and other of her dependencies, more than 100,000,000 to her population, but had so subjugated the hundreds of millions of Japan, China, and other Eastern States, as to have compelled them to add largely to the markets for her products which she had before controlled.

That it is not, however, a real difference will now be shown, as follows:—

The farmer who has sold his crops has at his command, for any and every purpose, the whole amount they had produced. His neighbor, the shopkeeper, having sold a similar amount, has only his profits, having at his command but a tenth or an eighth of the

* The last account I have seen showed a considerable increase on 1874, but as yet I have seen no definite figures for the year.

page 15 amount of sales. That the two men thus described are the prototypes of France and Britain will now be shown, as follows:—

At the first of the periods above referred to, both France and Britain sold mainly the produce of their own land, and so it still continues with the former; the foreign raw material entering into her domestic exports not exceeding, probably, an eighth of their gross amount. At that date Britain bought her cotton, but she not only sold her own flax and her own wool, but with the products of her soil she fed the people employed in converting them into the fabrics required in distant markets. Now, all is different. Nearly, if not quite, every pound of raw material—silk, flax, hemp, jute, wool, cotton—entering into the composition of the textiles exported has been brought from distant lands, to be paid for to foreign farmers and planters, and Not, as in France, to her own people. So, too, with the wheat, the cheese, the eggs, the poultry, and other food consumed by the men who work up such materials. Seeing all this, Mr. Editor, may we not assume that a full half of what is given to the world as exports of "British produce and manufactures," is really but a re-export of the products of other lands whose people claim the proceeds, minus the enormous charges made for the work of manufacture and exchange Can it then safely be asserted that the real domestic export of Britain exceeds, if indeed it equals, that of France? It certainly seems to me that it cannot.

The policies of the two countries and their results having been so widely different, we may now look to the changes that, under their influence, have been brought about in the condition, material and moral, of their respective populations.

At the opening of the French Revolution the condition of a large portion of the people of France, as has been already stated, was nearly akin to that of serfdom. To-day we have the assurance of your countryman Mr. Thornton, made after a very thorough examination of the subject, that their condition compares advantageously with that of those of the most favored countries of the world; and that to all appearance the prosperity now so generally evident must continue and increase. So much for a system that, in harmony with the ideas of Adam Smith, has looked to development of the domestic commerce, and has been carried into effect in despite of a warlike policy that has not only annihilated millions of men and thousands of millions of property, but has also thrice subjected the country to invasions, and thrice to heavy taxation for the maintenance of foreign armies quartered upon it. The first Napoleon has told us that it was the empty belly that caused revolutions. May it not then be that to the general prosperity indicated not only by Mr. Thornton but by a thousand important facts, may be attributed the extraordinary quietude of the whole French people while waiting throughout the last four years for institution of a government?

Looking now back in British history, we find the people of Ireland to have been prospering by aid of a legislative independence which had been then secured; Scotland to have exhibited tens of page 16 thousands of tenants holding, as they supposed, their lands under titles as secure as were those of the great landholders under whom they held: England exhibiting hundreds of thousands of men living on lands of their own, and giving annually to the nation tens of thousands of youths capable of serving, with advantage to their country and to themselves, in the forum or the field, in the workshop or on the farm; and presenting as fine and intelligent a body of men as had ever been exhibited by any nation of the world. "What now has become of these men? In Ireland, says Thackeray, they have "starved by millions." In Scotland they have been dispossessed to make way for sheep and deer. In England they have been replaced by farm laborers who have before them, says an Edinburgh reviewer, "no future but the poorhouse;" and who exhibit in the present, as but now described by Mr. Cliffe Leslie, a general sad-ness and stupidity, an absence of intelligence and of energy, that can with difficulty be paralleled in any nation whatsoever, however barbarous. * Such has been the result of a century of wars for trade; of "warfare" upon all the nations of the world for preventing growth of that domestic commerce whose advantages the illustrious author of the Wealth of Nations so greatly desired to impress upon his countrymen.

The French people furnish to the outer world their own products to the amount of $700,000,000, the proceeds being so distributed among themselves that the little egg-producing farmer, equally with the great mining capitalist, obtains the share to which he may justly be deemed entitled. As a consequence of this the foundations of the system become from day to day more wide and deep, the societary machine taking daily more and more the stable form of a true pyramid.

The bankers and traders of Britain, on the contrary, pass annually through their hands property that counts by thousands of millions, retaining for themselves so large a share of the profits that but little remains for those unfortunate laborers who now represent that admirable body of small proprietors who in the days of Adam Smith furnished the youths of whose achievements Britain now so justly boasts. As a consequence of all this the machine takes daily more and more the form of an inverted pyramid upon whoso future calculation can with difficulty be made.

Compare now, Mr. Editor, the two pictures that have been presented, and determine for yourself if men should not be allowed to differ from you in opinion without exposing themselves to the charges of "imbecility and ignorance."

Turning our eyes now to this western side of the Atlantic, allow me to submit to your consideration some important facts, as follows:—

The cotton here converted into cloth in this last year has amounted to no less than 600,000,000 pounds. Of the cloth produced the ex-

* This is taken from a quotation in the Journal des Economists for last month. The original I have not seen.

page 17 port was small, and so was the import of foreign cottons, the balance either way being unimportant. The consumption by our own 43 millions of people may therefore be taken at 600 millions, giving 14 pounds, or an average of probably 50 yards, for every man, woman, and child in the Union; that, too, in a time of serious commercial crisis. So much, Mr. Editor, for bringing consumers and producers into near connection with each other.

The quantity of cotton simultaneously worked up in Britain for the supply of her own 33 millions of people, and for the thousand million's of the world at large, was but little more than double the quantity here actually consumed, say 1224 millions of pounds; the power of consumption being everywhere limited by reason of the enormous taxes required to be paid on the road between Carolina, Brazil, and other cotton producing countries on One hand, arid the various cotton consuming countries on the other.

Of all tests of the growth of wealth and civilization the most certain is that which is found in the power of a people for the production and consumption of iron. Subjecting the Union to this test we obtain the following results, to wit:—
In the so-called free trade period which closed in 1824, the consumption of foreign and domestic iron was, per head, in pounds 35
Under protection it rose in 1835 to 48
Under a free trade system it fell in 1842 to 38
Under protection it rose in 1847-8 to 98
Under free trade it fell in 1858-60 to 80
Under the present moderate protection it has now risen to more than 150

The capacity of now existing furnaces is that of five and a half millions of tons, or 280 pounds per head.

Of mineral oils our contribution to the commerce of the world counts almost, even if not quite, by thousands of millions of gallons, little, if any, of which would ever have come to the light but for close proximity of the machine shops of Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and Cleveland. Those shops are as much the offsprings of protection as is the cotton trade of Russia, or of the New England States.

Allow me now, Mr. Editor, to call your attention to an article of your own this day received, in which are given figures representing the trade of Britain with the nations that more or less protect their various industries, proving conclusively, as you there have said, "that the countries which set the greatest opposition to our iron industry are those from which we purchase most largely;" a state of things which you regard as greatly to be deplored. Does this not, however, prove that the countries which, in accordance with the advice of Adam Smith, look most carefully to the promotion of their domestic commerce are precisely those which find themselves enabled to contribute most to the commerce of the world at large?

For an answer to this question look to the report of your min- page 18 ister in Spain above referred to. For farther answer look to the figures here below given representing our domestic exports, and satisfy yourself that it is precisely as we make our own iron, and our own cottons and woollens, we are enabled to become larger customers to the various non-manufacturing nations of the earth.

In the fourteen free trade years ending in 1860 their amount was $3,400,000,000. In the fourteen years of protection that have just now closed it was $6,600,000,000. The last three free trade years gave a total of $920,000,000. The last three of the protectionist years give $1,985,000,000, being more than 100 per cent, increase accompanied by a growth of population not probably exceeding 40 per cent.

Seeing how fully both American and French facts tend to prove the accuracy of the idea you have now propounded, to the effect that it is the countries which "set the greatest opposition" to your iron industries that find themselves enabled to furnish you most largely with the things you need, may you, Mr. Editor, not find in this important fact some reason for revising the opinions you have "for thirty years" so freely expressed in regard to the "folly and iniquity" of the system advocated by those who, like myself, hold to a firm belief in the teachings of that greatest of economists, the illustrious author of the Wealth of Nations?

Respectfully submitting this question to your careful consideration, I remain

Your obedient servant,

Henry C. Carey.

Philadelphia,