ing up, or dealing in which, affords employment to seven parts out of ten of our population, is higher than in any average year of the war, and that, since the peace, they have all either absolutely increased, or maintained a high average rate.

It has often been lamented by political writers, that more satisfactory registers are not kept of the produce of our cotton and woollen manufactures. From the defect of all official records upon this subject, the state of these manufactures can only be collected either from the local vouchers of one or two districts, or from general observation of what is passing before the eyes of all of us. Enough, however, appears upon both these grounds to justify the assertion, that our cotton and woollen manufactures are rapidly rising to a state of unexampled prosperity. The activity of the woollen manufactures in Yorkshire, during the last half year, has never been known to be greater. This appears from the accounts of the quantity of manufactured cloth, exhibited at the quarter sessions for the West Riding. The increase of the import of the raw material may afford a just measure of the increased manufacture. It has been stated in a former part of these observations, that, from 1817 only to the present time, our import of cotton wool has nearly doubled, having risen in that time from three millions to five. It is the same with flax and hemp, the raw materials of our linen, the value of the import of raw flax having augmented from four hundred thousand to eight. It is the same with our silk manufactures, the importation of the raw material having risen, from 1817 to the present time, from six hundred thousand pounds in value to nearly one million and a half: and what is perhaps of more importance, having so prodigiously advanced as to outstrip the manufactures of Lyons and Italy. The improved style of dress of the great majority of the people, is an unanswerable argument of the vast increase of muslins and calicoes. If it be here objected, that against this augmentation of the supply, we must set off the reduction in the price, it may be answered, that the increase of manufactures does not occasion a glut or mischievous excess, so long as the demand continues with the increase, and so long as the manufacture can be carried on with profit. But the present active employment of all hands shows that such is the actual state of our manufactures. Under such circumstances, the reduction of price is proof only of the abundance of the article, and of the skill and industry with which it is worked up. If it be admitted that the total amount of what is now manufactured does not exceed in pecuniary value the less quantity which we worked up during the war, the country still possesses the same total value, and gains in the increased comfort and abundance in which every individual in the country is supplied.

VOL. XX.

Pam.

NO. XXXIX.

C

As regards our silk manufactures in particular, it is not too much to say, that the country in general is not sufficiently sensible of their value and importance, and of the astonishing growth to which they have attained during the short period of ten or twelve years. This is a manufacture in a great degree foreign to us, and entirely taken from our neighbours; and having attained to its present state in so short an interval, it is not too much to anticipate such a further improvement, and such a consequent reduction of price, as may greatly extend the consumption of this article, not only amongst ourselves, but amongst foreigners. But upon this trade the country is already in possession of the report by the committee of the House of Lords. It was in the same manner that, from small beginnings, our cotton manufacture has excluded that of all nations of the world; and that the fine muslins and cambrics of Manchester, Glasgow, and Paisley, have driven those of France and India nearly out of the market.

As respects our domestic consumption, our printed goods are next in consequence. Here we get to the undoubted authority of official documents, and of those which can least be suspected, the accounts of money received upon them at the Excise. Here we have indisputable proof of the vast increase of the manufacture. Within seven years only, from 1813 to 1821, the annual excise upon this manufacture has risen from less than a million to nearly a million and a half; the amount paid in 1813 being about nine hundred thousand pounds, whilst in 1820 it was nearly a million and a half. It is scarcely necessary to observe, that seven-tenths of this species of manufacture is consumed entirely at home, and is the clothing of a great majority of our female population; and that the large consumption of it is, therefore, at once a proof of the prosperity of the manufacture, and of the continued ability of the consumers.

If the depression of price have been one of the causes of this increased consumption, the continuance of the manufacture from year to year is still a proof that the article can be yet made with profit; whilst as above said, the cheapness, or in other words, the abundance, is but so much added to the comfort and substance of the people. If national opulence, like individual, consists only in the abundant possession of whatever renders life easy and comfortable, surely it is no inconsiderable addition to our general wealth, that so large a proportion of our population is so well and so sufficiently clothed. Is it possible, indeed, to pay a weekly visit to our country churches, and yet refuse to recognize the vast superiority of our laboring poor, in the quality and cleanliness of their clothing, above those of the continental nations? In answer, indeed, to any complaints of declining manufactures, is it necessary

to say more than to refer the reader to his own observation? But as public wealth consists in the abundance itself, and not in current prices as a manufacture, like a mine, is to be considered the richest, which pours forth the most plentiful produce and as the integrity of the funds of growth is of infinitely more consequence, than the incidental price of their supply in a pecuniary market, it is unnecessary to urge further proof, that, as respects our manufactures at least, the resources of the country are unimpaired; that all the same funds continue, and that almost all yield, not the same, but an increased supply; that the cheapness of price enables more persons to buy, and all persons to use more plentifully; that the consumption of the manufacture thus passes into classes, from which higher prices had excluded it, and, whilst the manufacturer himself loses nothing, inasmuch as he gains the same profit upon a larger stock, the condition of every individual in the country is improved, by obtaining either what he had not before, or by having it in more abundance. If our manufacturers have not a continental monopoly, as during some years of the war, it can no longer be a question, whether they are not more than compensated by the increased demand at home. High prices and large profits do not necessarily constitute the prosperity of trade, and assuredly do not compose the prosperity of a nation. It is the interest of a paternal government, that the largest possible proportion of its whole population should be enabled to reach the comforts and decencies of life; and this can never happen in any extent but under larger supplies and low prices. The poorest nation in the world, the Spanish empire, made the highest profits upon the amount of its trade, and with no other national benefit, than that a few merchants and companies were enriched at the general expense. Of so little importance, in a national point of view, is the reduction of the profits of trade, or rather the depression of prices.

If it could be expected that the reader would go through these statements without weariness, it might be easy to carry the same comparison through the long details of our domestic consumption, and to exhibit the same advantage of increase through all those heads and articles which peculiarly belong to our internal trade and intercourse. In that portion of our stamp-duties which belongs to the degree and number of our domestic dealings and exchanges, and which is therefore a just measure of any increase or diminution; in assessed taxes upon windows and inhabited houses, any augmentation of which can only arise from the continual employment of capital in building and improving; in the post-horse and stage-coach duties, which necessarily measure the degree of intercourse between town and town;-under all these

heads the official reports of finance can only lead to the same conclusion, that the resources of the internal trade of the country are not only unimpaired, but are all existing in increased energy.

A very brief view of the quarters just terminated will confirm the above proposition, and conclude this division of our subject. The first quarter of this year ended, of course, April 5th. Now, for the sake of exhibiting a fair comparison of the two years, let us for a moment assume the two financial years, 1820 and 1821, to have terminated respectively on that day. The increase of the revenue of the latter year would then exhibit a sum of nearly two millions. The increase on the excise alone would appear to be two millions and a half, and this increase attaching on general consumption; on candles, coffee, hops, malt, pepper, printed goods, salt, soap, British spirits, tea, tobacco, and snuff. But if this quarter were thus favorable, the October quarter now past exhibits an augmentation of revenue without parallel. Under all the heads of the consolidated fund, the customs, excise, stamps, and assessed taxes, there was a large excess above the corresponding quarter of the preceding year. In the total war taxes there is an excess of 500,000l., beyond the corresponding quarter of the last year; and in the total revenue, the excess, as compared with the same quarter, is between 8 and 900,000l. Under the excise, all the great articles of consumption have increased, and this augmentation has pervaded almost every head of the consolidated excise duties. The total was astonishing. It exhibited an increase over the October quarter of 1818 of a sum above 700,000l.; over the like quarter of 1819 of above 1,800,000l.; and over the corresponding quarter of 1820 of 857,000l. Nor is there any just cause of apprehension that this prosperity is merely transient. At the time these observations are writing, there is confident reason to expect that there will be a considerable rise in the customs, and, so far as the payments from week to week have been made from the collectors of excise, they justify the expectation that the total produce will be equal to the receipt of the corresponding period of the last year. But it is surely not necessary to argue, that occasional vibrations between a higher and a lower degree, from causes so entirely incidental as insufficient harvests and unfavorable seasons, are not to be carried to the discredit of the general character of our financial resources. The question is, what is our general condition, and not what is our particular suffering under a cause manifestly temporary. As a nation, like an individual, consumes perhaps under the same general circumstances about the same

Since the publication of the first edition of this work, the quarter has closed with an increase of more than 400,000l. above the corresponding quarter of last year.

quantity, one year with another, it would be sufficient for our present purpose to show that our general consumption has not declined.

Such is the general condition of the resources of the country, as respects the four great members which compose the fund of public wealth, our commerce, navigation, manufactures, and internal trade. An objection may here probably be made, whether a fifth and most important member, our agriculture, does not remain behind, and whether the condition of that element of national strength be equally prosperous with those above-mentioned. To this it might be answered, in the first instance, that we should carry in our minds a distinction before taken between the integrity of the fund of production itself, and the pecuniary price of its produce in the market. Every fund of production, whether a mine, a meadow, a tree, the soil of the earth, or a manufacture, is in a more or less prosperous state, and is more or less rich at one period than another, according as its actual produce has increased or diminished-according as it produces more or less of its natural fruit and subject of growth. But if this principle be applied to our agriculture, will it be contended, that the productive powers of the soil are impaired, and that the proportion in natural produce of what is sown and what is reaped has become diminished? It is perfectly true, that, from a multitude of causes, some of them obvious and distinct, and others more remote and complicate, many of them still in operation, and others which have certainly exhausted their effect-our landlords and farmers have suffered much from the depression of the markets; and that the price of land in rent, and the price of its produce in the market, have rapidly fallen from their rate during the war. The causes of this depression have been examined at length by a parliamentary committee, and the conclusion to which the report conducts the reader agrees with the inference previously deduced by every one acquainted with the principles of political economy. As the committee was honored by the attendance of several of those gentlemen, who in the present day particularly profess to advocate those principles, and who indeed chiefly censure his Majesty's ministers for not adopting their sentiments to the full extent in which they themselves advocate them, we would wish to put it to their candor, whether, according to every just maxim of political economy, the present state of the corn-market can be any thing but temporary; and whether it be in the nature of things, that the general price of the materials of human sustenance can fall short of the cost of producing them. It is totally impossible that the present state of the markets can continue, or that agriculture, like manufactures, should not accommodate itself to a