the Prussian dominions from France, the towns of Eupen, Aachen, Montjoie, Stolberg, and Malmedy, prepare from the native wool the finest cloths and cassimeres, the annual value of which is at present about 1,250,000l. Sterling; and they give employment to 50,000 workmen, as well as to every kind of machinery that has been invented in England or elsewhere. The fabrics have been much improved; the manufacturers contend, that their cloths are superior in quality, and lower in price, than any that we can make; and, at the last fair of Leipsic, where the buyers and sellers met in great numbers, in consequence of a dispute on the subject, a committee was appointed, who were neither interested in the manufactures of England, nor in those of the Rhine, but who, as purchasers, may be presumed to be both competent and impartial judges, to examine and report on the best cloth in the city, from the two countries. Their decision, I am sorry to say, was unanimously in favour of the cloths from Eupen. The encouragement given to them by the merchants from Greece and from Turkey, who meet the manufacturers at Leipsic or at Frankfort on the Oder, has acted as a stimulus to greater exertions, and to a greater extension of their several establishments. The fine cloths of Eupen appear to me not to be sheared so close as ours, or to have more wool raised by the teazles; so that, though they do not look so beautiful when new, they can be worn longer before they become threadbare. p. 246.

Of all the continental manufacturers, the competition of those of Prussia and Saxony is the most serious to this country. We find their woollens and linens in every quarter of the globe. They come into contact with us in all the markets of the Continent, and in those of North America, Brazil, and China. Neither is it merely in the finer descriptions of woollen goods that we have to fear their competition. They are gaining fast upon us in those of an inferior description; and, as the tax chiefly operates to raise the price of our coarser cloths, it has given a proportional advantage to those who manufacture similar articles on the Continent. Independently, however, of this circumstance, it is certain that German woollen goods had begun, previously to the period when the tax was imposed, to enter into a successful competition with ours in foreign markets. In proof of this, we may refer to the evidence of Mr Bainbridge, who is a very extensive general merchant, before the Committee of the House of Commons, appointed, in 1820, to inquire into the state of the foreign trade of the country. On Mr B. being asked whether he thought that an increase in the means of paying for our manufactures would produce an increased consumption of them in Russia, Sweden, and Prussia, he answered: I believe the woollen manufactures in Prussia are ⚫ in such a state as to be able to compete with us completely:

I speak of it particularly, because we are in the habit of having transactions with the United States of America; and I ⚫ find, that a very considerable proportion of fine woollens, and of coarse woollens and stuffs, are absolutely shipped from the Netherlands, and from ports contiguous, part of which I understand to come from the interior of Germany, and from Saxony in particular; so that a portion of the trade which we have been in the habit of transacting with the United States, is finding its way from the north of Europe. I therefore conceive, that their manufactures are competing very much with the manufactures of this country; and consequently, they ⚫ would not come to us to receive a supply of those articles which they can purchase from their own manufacturers at home.'-(Commons Report, printed 9th March 1821, p. 48.) In corroboration of what Mr Bainbridge has here stated, we have learned, from unquestionable authority, that some of the first English manufacturers have lately received orders, from their correspondents in Russia, to discontinue sending them fine cloths, because they could procure them of as good a quality, and at a much lower price, from Prussia and Saxony.

Such was the nature of the foreign competition with which the English woollen manufacturers had to contend, when Mr Vansittart took it into his head to lay a tax on the raw material used by them! He could not possibly be ignorant of the very great improvement and extension of the manufacture carried on by their rivals in Germany: For a Report is made every four years to the Prussian government on the state of agriculture and manufactures; and in this Report, which is published, the extent of every separate branch of manufacturing industry, and every new discovery and improvement made in it, are particularly detailed. Although, therefore, Mr Vansittart had not deigned to consult an English manufacturer on the subject of his tax, he might have learned its impolicy and ruinous tendency from this official document. But the right honourable gentleman was determined to have a surplus revenue of five millions placed at the disposal of ministers; and, to effect this darling object, it was necessary to sacrifice the interests of the woollen manufacturers, or of 1,100,000 of the inhabitants of Britain, to procure the parliamentary support of a few rapacious and mercenary landlords!

Neither is it true, as was contended in the House of Commons, that the burden imposed by this tax is only of trifling amount. On the contrary, it is most oppressive. The average annual importation of foreign wool, for the ten years previous to 1819, amounted to about eleven millions of pounds, more H

VOL. XXXIX. No. 77.

than a third of which was sold at and under 2s. 6d. per pound, and the remainder at about 5s. per ditto. It is clear, therefore, that the duty of 6d. per pound makes an addition of no less than twenty per cent. to the price paid by the English manufacturer for all his coarse wool imported from abroad, and of ten per cent. to the price of the finer parcels. Now, considering the extent to which foreign competition had already been carried, and considering also that the foreign manufacturers were totally exempted from this burden, it must have been evident, on the slightest reflection, that the effect of the tax could not be otherwise than injurious; and that, if it did not immediately drive the English manufacturer out of the foreign market, it would, by giving so great an advantage to the foreigner, force him gradually to contract his exports to the markets open to the competition of both parties. And such has really been the case. For, while the exports of those species of goods made exclusively of long or English wool, and which are not affected by the tax, have rather increased since 1819, the exports of those made wholly or partly of short wool, in the manufacture of which foreign taxed wool is used to a greater or less extent, have alarmingly declined. The subjoined official accounts will render this obvious:

Account of the declared value of the Woollen Goods wholly manufactured from short wool, and principally affected by the wool tax, exported in the years ending 5th January

1816

1817

1818

1819

L.7,388,479 1820

5,872,191 1821

5,498,250 1822
5,829,573

L.4,361,334

3,742,059

4,432,072

Account of the declared value of Woollen Goods partly manufactured from long and partly from short wool, and which are partially affected by the wool tax, exported in the years ending 5th January

1816

1817

1818

1819

1820

L.664,543
462,724 1821

506,062 1822
614,532

L.391,978

328,180

388,843

Account of the declared value of the Woollen Goods wholly manufactured from long or English wool, and which are not affected by the wool tax, exported in the years ending 5th January

Account of the total declared value of all sorts of Woollen Goods ex

These statements furnish an unanswerable demonstration of the impolicy and injurious effects of this tax. They show, that our foreign woollen trade had begun to decline previously to its imposition; that this decline has since been greatly accelerated; and that it has almost wholly taken place in those descriptions of goods which are affected by the tax. Neither must it be forgotten, in estimating the effects of this tax, that the demand for British woollen goods has been of late vastly extended, both in the East Indies and China; and that, but for the opening of this new market, to which foreigners have not hitherto had access, the injury inflicted on our foreign woollen trade by the tax would have been still more striking and obvious. But, independently altogether of this circumstance, we doubt whether any such clear and decisive evidence to prove the injurious nature of a tax as is contained in the previous statements has ever been laid before the public. It can no longer be questioned, that a branch of industry, emphatically called by Lord Hale the basis of all our commerce,' and which feeds and clothes a thirteenth part of the whole population of Great Britain, has been seriously injured; and that this injury has been mainly occasioned by the imposition of a duty on the raw material which, when greatest, has barely produced 400,000l. a year! ! We think too favourably of Messrs Robinson and Huskisson, to suppose it possible that they will allow the foreign woollen trade of the country to be paralyzed, and eventually destroyed, for the sake of this miserable pittance. Even the paternal feelings of the Noble Lord by whom the tax was imposed, cannot be allowed to stand in the way of its repeal. To maintain it, would not be to sacrifice the goose for the sake of the golden eggs, but for the sake of the offal she has picked up.

That the agriculturists will continue to oppose the repeal of the wool-tax, may be expected. These gentlemen seem to think that they possess an undoubted right to stuff their own pockets at the expense of their neighbours. This, however, is not quite so easy a matter as they suppose. It is to no purpose that they make laws to monopolize the supply of corn and wool, and to force up their prices, unless they can, at the same time, secure an ample supply of customers to take them off at the high prices. But this is what they neither have done, nor can do. So far, indeed, from the wool-tax having been of any advantage to

6

them, its effect has been distinctly and completely the reverse. By paralyzing the energies of the manufacturer, and narrowing the foreign demand for his produce, it has really operated to lessen the demand for British wool, and to sink, not to raise, its price. It is a fallacy and an absurdity,' as Sir Matthew Decker has conclusively observed, to think to raise or keep up the value of lands by oppressions on the people that cramp their trade; for, if trade declines, the common people must either come upon the parish, or fly for business to our neighbours: In the first case, they become a heavy tax on the rich, and, instead of buying the produce of the lands, must have it given them; and in the second, when the consumers are gone, what price will the produce of lands bear?'-(Essay on the Causes of the Decline of Foreign Trade, p. 57, ed. 1756.)

The woollen manufacturers have had several meetings with Ministers on the subject of this tax. At the last meeting, which took place in June, after a good deal of discussion, the Earl of Liverpool stated, that his Majesty's Ministers would consent to the repeal of the tax, provided the manufacturers would consent to the free exportation of British wool! To understand the nature of this singular condition, it is necessary to bear in mind, that the woollen manufacture is divided into two great and totally distinct branches-that of cloths, and that of worsteds. The cloths are prepared exclusively from short wools, and the whole foreign wool imported into the country is used in their manufacture. The worsteds, on the other hand, are prepared exclusively from long English wool, without any intermixture of foreign. The repeal of the tax is thus an object of the greatest importance to the cloth manufacturers, without being of any consequence whatever to the worsted manufacturers; while, on account of the presumed scarcity of long wool on the Continent, the restriction on exportation is supposed to be of considerable advantage to the latter, without being of the least advantage to the former! To make the consent of different classes of manufacturers to a measure with respect to which their interests are so widely different, a sine qua non to the repeal of the tax on wool, is just about as absurd as if Government had told the private traders in 1813 that the consent of the East India Company was quite indispensable to the giving a partial opening to the trade with the East! The duty of Ministers is clear. The wool-tax has been proved to be unproductive, and extremely injurious to one of the principal manufactures of the country. Its repeal is, therefore, imperiously required; and it would be most jesuitical and unworthy of the Government of a great nation, to attempt to evade the performance of an act demanded