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them. The rise of prices, which has been made greater in Great Britain than on the Continent, and must continue to be so, may, and probably will, occasion an over-production on the part of our manufacturers which the rise of prices elsewhere may not enable their customers abroad to take off. The great emigration' at home must seriously affect the labour market, and the prices of production here may come to be so high that not only may our manufacturers be unable to compete with foreign nations in the supply of the foreign markets, but even to keep their ground in that of their own. As the advantage which Sir R. Peel looked for by the adoption of the cheapening system, and which, in his estimation, was more than sufficient to counteract all the present evils with which it was attended, was the ultimate extension of our markets abroad from increased cheapness of production at home; so it is very possible, nay, perhaps probable, that the reversal of his monetary policy may be followed in both cases by the opposite set of consequences, and that the impulse at present given to industry of all sorts by the general rise of prices may be the forerunner of a serious and lasting check to it, from the enhanced cost of production acting more stringently on this country than on rival states.

But there is one very great and peculiar advantage which will undoubtedly arise from the rise of prices owing to California and Australia, that it will be comparatively gradual, and on that very account prove lasting. As it arises from an annual increase in the supplies of specie which are to form the monetary circulation of the whole world, so its effects must be very much diffused, and a plethora of currency in any particular country is less likely to occur than when it was founded on paper, which is capable of increase in a particular state to any extent. The rise of prices which followed the discovery of the mines of Mexico and Peru in the sixteenth century was so gradual that it was not perceived at the time, and it only became evident when, after the lapse of a century, it was found that prices of all sorts had been quadrupled. The rise in our times has been much more sudden, owing to

gold, in which the great increase of production has taken place, being fifteen times as valuable as silver, which the mines of Potosi and Mexico chiefly yielded. But still it has been and must be gradual, and, above all, it is not liable to be withdrawn. Those frightful crises with which the experience of the last thirty years has rendered us so familiar, arising from enterprise being violently stimulated at one time by a copious issue of paper based on a large store of gold in the coffers of the Bank, and as rapidly cast down at another in consequence of a serious drain setting in upon the metallic treasures of the country, from the necessities of foreign war or the effects of a bad harvest, will be no longer heard of. We may have, and doubtless will have, commercial distress arising from the glutting of markets and over-production; but these terrible social spasms-monetary crises, arising from the sudden contraction of a circulation based on gold, and of necessity drawn in when it disappears - I will be numbered among the things which have been.

But while we never can be sufficiently thankful for the probable cessation of this terrific scourge, the creation of human legislation and the punishment of human selfishness, it is not unmixed good which will arise from this change in prices which is going on around us; and many consequences vital to our independenceit may be, our existence as a nation, cannot fail to result from their operation for any length of time.

The first, and without doubt the most important of these is, the great impulse which the enhancement of the price of rural labour must give to the already immense proportion of our national subsistence which we derive from foreign nations. Lightly as, while basking in the sunshine of peace and prosperity, we may make of this circumstance, it is the one which has proved fatal to the greatest states which have preceded us on the theatre of the world, and which now most seriously menaces our own. The vast importations of foreign grain into the heart of the empire were the real cause of the ruin of Rome in ancient times; and it is going on at such an accelerated rate amongst us at this time, that it is difficult to see how a similar ca

tastrophe is to be avoided in our own land. Already we import annually from eight to ten millions of quarters of grain from foreign parts, being nearly four times its average amount before Free Trade was introduced; and although there was a considerable check to importation of grain, owing to the bad harvest in the north of Europe in the year 1852, it is again, with the slight rise of prices in this country, at this time going on at such a rate as warrants the most gloomy presages as to our future dependence on foreign supplies for the staple food of our people. In this change there is not only the utmost possible danger to our national independence, since our chief supplies of wheat and wheaten flour come from two countries, Russia and America, which may any day unite to shut their harbours against us; but there must eventually accrue a serious diminution of the home market for our manufacturers, owing to the cutting off of the chief source of wealth to the cultivators of the soil, their best purchasers.

In the next place, the effect of this enhanced price of labour will be as seriously felt by our shipping as our agricultural interest. This is a most serious consideration; for the navy is a branch of industry to which, equally as to the cultivation of the soil, the aid of machinery is in a great degree inapplicable, and in which the rude appliance of stout arms and bold hearts is worth all the art in the world. The high price of, and dearth in, the supply of labour, therefore, will more immediately and directly

affect our mercantile and royal navy than any other branch of industry, save agriculture; and the effects which have already taken place from the competition of states, where labour was cheaper from money being scarcer, are sufficient to warrant the most serious apprehensions of what must ensue when the competition is continued with the wages of labour much higher in this than in any of the adjoining states which vie with us in nautical enterprise. From the table quoted below, it appears that, from the date of the introduction of the reciprocity system in 1823, down to the repeal of the navigation laws in 1849, foreign shipping had materially encroached upon British, in the conducting of our own trade for the former had increased from 926 to 3.531, or nearly 400 per cent.; while the latter had only increased from 3.202 to 9.669, or 300 per cent. But this change, alarming as it is upon the future interests of our shipping, is as nothing to that which has ensued since the repeal of the navigation laws, and commencement of the great emigration from the British Islands; for, during the three years that have since elapsed, foreign shipping has advanced from 4.334 to 6.159, that is, about 50 per cent; and British from 9.669 to 9.820, that is, about per cent. The superior growth of foreign to home shipping in carrying on our own trade, also is, at this very moment, rapidly on the increase, as appears from the tables showing the comparative progress of the two in this very year :* *

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We should fall into the most enormous error, therefore, if we should imagine that our maritime interests are in a safe and desirable state, because freights are high, and wages of seamen extravagant at this moment. That state of matters is, without doubt, in the general case, an unequivocal proof of prosperity, and the best commentary on the wisdom of the measures which have brought about such an auspicious condition of things. But it must be obvious to all, on the most cursory survey, that the present rise in everything connected with our shipping is not only not founded on durable causes of prosperity, but the very reverse; and that it portends not the superiority of our commercial navy over that of other nations, but that of theirs over us. It arises from the vast exportation of our labourers, and importation of their food; neither of which is either a cause or an indication of public wellbeing. When

a nation comes to export annually 350,000 of its labourers, and to import eight or ten millions of quarters of grain for the food of those who remain, it is clear that the nation is not in a very safe or desirable position. Its situation resembles the estate of the spendthrift, which is for the time vivified and improved by the extravagant expenditure and wasting away of the substance of a prodigal heir. And the temporary impulse given to shipping and seafaring persons by this wasteful system of crossing and recrossing the sea, with men going out and food coming in, such as it is, has already proved more advantageous to foreign states than ourselves, for the proportion of it which they enjoy is every day becoming greater. So that we have not even the poor consolation of being able to say, that, if we are exporting our people, and importing our food, we are, at least, gaining something from the wasteful traffic: for foreign states, which may any day become our enemies, are daily encroaching more and more on our seamen and ships in conducting it. We are like a proprietor who is pulling down his castle so rapidly that his labourers make a gainful trade in the mean time by carting away the stones; but, unfortunately, the process of demolition has become so rapid that his own waggons are not adequate to the

removal of the debris, and those of his neighbours are daily carrying off more and more of the lucrative but ruinous profits.

As this encroaching of foreign shipping on our own, in the export of labourers and import of food, is owing to causes of a durable, and now irremediable nature amongst us, so it may not only be expected to continue, but increase. The more that foreign corn comes in, the more must our agricultural labourers go out, because their employers will be unable, by the forcible reduction of price of the imported article, to make any profit by their labour. The more that the robust and healthy inhabitants of the country emigrate, the greater will be the difficulty experienced in finding hands for either our commercial or royal navy, and the higher the wages received by those who can be got to convey our inhabitants across the Atlantic. It is in them, not among the comparatively weak and effeminate inhabitants of inland towns, that the nursery of a powerful race of seamen is to be found. The higher our seamen's wages, and the greater the profits made by the shipping interest, the greater will be the inducement for foreign shipowners, who can both build and navigate their vessels cheaper than we can, to engage in the gainful traffic to be made in the scattering abroad the huge fragments of the British empire. Thus, one step in the downward progress, by natural consequence, induces another; one deep calls on another; and no stop can be anticipated in the progress of decomposition, till the vast fabric is at last resolved into its original elements, and the work of destruction can bring no more profit, because there is nothing left to destroy.

The danger, it is to be observed, to be apprehended from this encroachment of foreign shipping on our own, in carrying on our own trade, is not that ours will decay, but that theirs will increase faster than our own, and then our means of defence as a maritime power, and existence as an independent state, may come to be destroyed. If our shipping doubles in ten years, and that of our Continental rivals quadruples in the same period, it is evident that the time is not far distant, and may be calculated with

mathematical certainty, when the latter will first equal and then exceed the former. As soon as this effect takes place, our means of existence as an independent power are not only threatened, but at an end: because our rival maritime neighbours may any day, by declaring war, and withdrawing their shipping from our trade, deprive us at once of the means of carrying on above the half of our commerce, and consequently reduce us to the necessity of submission without firing a shot. This danger is obviously most seriously increased by the large proportion of the food of the nation, already above a fifth, which comes from foreign parts. How many years' purchase would any man give for the independence of England, if we have arrived at that point that the half of the food of our people is imported from foreign parts, and the half of our trade carried on in foreign bottoms? And yet is there any one who can deny that that is the rock on which we are obviously drifting, as certainly as the progress of the sun is from east to west: nay, that our present prosperity is mainly owing to the rapidity with which we are advancing in our perilous course?

Our manufacturers may perhaps imagine that these dangers threaten the agricultural and shipping interests more than themselves, and that the rapid growth of our colonies in Australia, or of exports to the gold regions of America, will for long enable them to drive a profitable trade amidst the decline of the other great national interests. There is no doubt that this effect will for a considerable period take place. Our exports to Australia this year will probably turn £4,000,000 sterling, and in ten years may, at the present rate of progress, amount to ten millions; and it is not the less true that the great advantages we have over other countries in capital, coal, iron, and machinery, may long enable us to retain the virtual monopoly of this growing trade, notwithstanding all the competition of rival states. So far there is a very cheering prospect, and it is the more so because it arises from the growing prosperity of our own colonies, our own flesh and blood, not the rise of rival or hostile nations. It is not the least surprising or memorable circum

stance of this age of wonders that it has at one blow re-established the colonial, and reduced to its just proportion the foreign trade system, and that the very party who have so long decried our colonies as useless and burdensome limbs of the empire, which it would be our wisdom to lop off as speedily as possible, are now driven to those very colonies to find the only solutions of the difficulties in which their Free-Trade policy has landed the State.

But it is not unmixed good even to our manufacturers that has arisen from the great monetary and social changes which are going on around us. Gold and emigration threaten them with dangers and evils as well as the other classes of society, and they may perhaps find it even more difficult to withstand the competition of foreign rivals under the elevated prices on which we are now entering, than under the cheapening system of former days.

In the first place, the general rise in the wages of labour, which already has amounted in the mauufacturing districts to 40 per cent, must tell, and that powerfully, on the cost at which we can raise manufactured articles. Every one engaged in business knows how large a part of the cost of production, the raw material, and the wages of the labour employed upon it, compose, and how close a shave it often is to extract any profit at all, if the cost of the production of either is enhanced without a proportional rise in the price finally received for the manufactured article. When both are advanced, as they must and assuredly will be by the effects of the influx of gold, they must be exposed to difficulty, unless they can raise the price of the manufactured article in the same proportion. This might have been easily done under a system of Protection, because import duties would have covered the difference of the cost of production in this and the neighbouring states. But as Protection, though still kept up to a certain extent to support our manufacturers, is not on such a scale as to cover a great difference in the cost of production, it becomes a very serious matter for the consideration of our manufacturers, how they are to withstand the competition of foreign manufacturers under high prices, either in

the supply of foreign markets, or in the preservation of our own. For nothing can be more certain than that prices will be raised much more in our manufacturing towns than in those of the Continent, simply because we are much richer than they are; can both take off and require a much larger quantity of the precious metals for carrying on our trade; have a much larger paper currency, which ample supplies of specie keep out and render stable; and because the drain of emigration is felt with ten times the force upon our labour market that it exercises on any other, simply because our emigration is, in proportion to the number of our people, ten times greater than theirs.

In the next place, it is to be recollected that although all classes feel themselves greatly benefited and relieved from the effects of the great rise of prices, the more especially from its contrast to the long and dreary period of low prices which had preceded it, yet this result, in its effect upon industry, as well manufacturing as nautical, cannot be expected to be durable. Beyond all question, the difference in the cost of production in different countries, under the new scale, will soon proclaim themselves. The present universal stimulus arising from the general rise of prices cannot continue. The effects of the beating down of important branches of our industry by foreign competition, must make themselves felt upon our manufacturers for the home market. If the agricultural and the shipping interests, those great and important branches of our industry, are seriously depressed by the effects of Free Trade and high prices, how are the manufacturers for the home market to be supported? This is a question of the very highest importance, for it is hopeless to look for an extensive market for our industry, if the sources from which the funds for their maintenance come are cut off; and how are these sources to be filled up, if the industry which creates the funds for their support is dried up? The home market is well known to be double all the foreign markets in the world put together; and if the home market is rendered unprofitable, how is the chief market for our manufacturers to be maintained?

Nay, in the supply of foreign markets the same danger threatens us. It is in vain to expect that our manufacturers are to preserve their advantages in the supply of the foreign markets, if the price of labour is materially higher here than it is elsewhere. Customers invariably look for the cheapest persons to supply them; and if the foreign manufacturers can meet their demands cheaper than the English ones can do, it is not to be supposed that they will not give them the preference. This all depends, of course, on the fact of the wages of labour in Great Britain being higher than in the adjoining states of the Continent. The experience of the last few months may convince us how likely this is to occur; and if the records of the war, when the currency of England was so much augmented by the issue of paper, are consulted, it will be found that in all such circumstances the wages of labour are infinitely more enhanced in the rich and commercial old states, than in the poor and agricultural young ones.

These are some of the industrial effects which may be anticipated from the great monetary revolution which is now going on around us, from the vast produce of the Californian and Australian mines. But there are other effects of a social character which are still more important, and the consideration of which is necessary to complete the review of the consequences it is destined to produce, and is in the course of producing, upon society in this country and over the world.

The first and perhaps the most important of these is the influence which it will have in diminishing the weight and influence of realised capital; in a word, in undoing all, in this respect, that the legislation of the preceding thirty years had done. No one who considers the changes which went on in British society during the thirty years that money was constantly becoming more and labour less valuable, can doubt that they were the mainspring of the changes in the balance of political power and the constitution of the state which have occurred. It was this constant increase in the value of realised capital, and decline in that of the produce of industry, which went on for so long a time, that occasioned

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