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perceive the theoretical beauty of Mr. Huskisson's doctrines-but to their particular application there was the resistance of the special interest affected, and to their general application there was a multiplication of obstacles. Everybody enjoyed protection from everybody else; and while each was more than willing to see his neighbour exposed to wholesome competition, none would consent to be himself subjected to it. Thus the farmers objected to the importation of foreign wool, because it would lower the price of their own; while the cloth manufacturers for that very reason desired the importation of foreign, and objected to the exportation of homegrown wool. The theory was, that the United Kingdom and its colonies were competent to the supply of all that they needed to consume, and constituted a community of mutual producers and consumers-while, in fact, every "interest" regarded every other as its adversary, and desiderated cheapness in all productions but its own. The new Chancellor of the Exchequer perceived that the only method to quiet wild speaking about the debt, and to gain general support in making the special changes which his colleague contemplated, was to continue to reduce taxation, and to select those taxes which pressed upon reproductive industry. He had such real pleasure in his work, and his amiable enthusiasm was so contagious, that he led himself and the House into sad blunders, which procured him from Cobbett the cognomen of "Prosperity Robinson." At the outset, he managed to reckon a sum of two millions twice over, making a surplus of five millions appear seven. Before the mistake was discovered, he had concluded an arrangement proposed by his predecessors, for the conversion of pensions and half-pay allowances, to the annual amount of five millions, of course diminishing every year, into forty-five years' annuities of £2,800,000; a portion of which the Bank of England bought at nine millions and a half, relieving the tax-payers of that and the next few years, at the expense of their successors. A number of small but very annoying taxes, amounting to £70,000, he took off; reduced the window-tax and some domestic duties fifty per cent., and relieved Ireland altogether of assessed taxes. It was in the next year that he fairly commenced the new system; and, not to weary ourselves with watching the process, or specifying its particulars, we may say that, in round numbers, of the seven millions and a half remitted from 1824 to 1829, less than one million consisted of direct or assessed taxes; upwards of six millions were taken from the Customs and Excise duties. We shall now see how Mr. Huskisson effected the corresponding legal and commercial changes.

He began with wool. This ancient staple of English agriculture and commerce is of limited use in manufacture, unless worked up with foreign wool. Its exportation was forbidden, but it was altogether free from duty until 1813, when an import-duty of less than a penny a pound was imposed,

which Mr. Vansittart, in the extremest exaggeration of his method, raised at once to sixpence. The natural effect was seen, within a year or two, in the diminution, by one-fourth, of the amount of woollen manufactures exported; and in 1823 there were numerous petitions from the manufacturers for the repeal of this duty-a demand which Mr. Huskisson met with an offer of compliance, if the petitioners would consent to the free exportation of home-grown wool. That they would by no means do. The next year, therefore, Mr. Huskisson took the matter into his own hands, and carried a bill allowing wool to be either exported or imported on a payment of one penny per lb. of one shilling value. Three years later, he could boast that while our wool-growers had exported only 100,000 lbs., our manufacturers had imported no less than 40,000,000 lbs.—Silk was next subjected to the new system. Soon after the establishment of the manufacture at Spitalfields by the French refugees, laws were passed shutting out from England all foreign silks, the trade in which was previously free; and heavy duties were imposed upon the prepared material. But the manufacture gradually dwindled instead of increasing, and to such a degree, that in 1793, four thousand looms, and more than twice as many hands, that had been employed seven years before, were idle. When the manufacture revived, it was only because the East India Company had introduced into their dominions the Italian method of "throwing," and could furnish sufficient of the material to mitigate the restrictions imposed upon Italian silk. But the Legislature had not been content with protecting the descendants of the Huguenots from the throwsters of Italy and the weavers of Lyons—they had also authorized the Middlesex magistrates to regulate the wages of the work-people, and forbidden the masters to remove their establishments beyond that control. The manufacturers of Spitalfields were thus exposed to unequal competition with those of Macclesfield and Paisley, and petitioned earnestly for the abolition of this kind of superintendence. Mr. Huskisson could not but assent to so reasonable a demand, and introduced a bill for the purpose; but such was the "dismay and alarm" of the journeymen weavers-from whom Mr. Fowell Buxton presented a petition signed by eleven thousand-that the second and third readings of the bill were carried by majorities of only eight and thirteen. The Lords introduced amendments which would have had the effect of continuing the magisterial authority over wages, but permitted the manufacturers to invest their capital where they pleased. Both parties in the Commons disowned the bill when thus vitiated; and it was dropped. But next year it was re-introduced, and as the eleven thousand petitioners were then in full work, they were as careless as they had before been alarmed; and the bill for repealing the Spitalfields Act passed with only a feeble opposition in the Lords. Not so when it was proposed to repeal or relax the restrictions on

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raw, prepared, or manufactured foreign silk. The manufacturers urgently desired a freer importation of the raw material, but were generally as averse to any considerable reduction on "organzine," the prepared material, and clamoured against the removal of the prohibition on the fabric. Mr. Buxton was this time the speaker for twenty-three thousand journeymen, who crowded the precincts of the Houses, whilst their employers filled the galleries. The financial Ministers at length effected the following arrangements: - The duties on raw silk were reduced to 3d. from 4s. on the pound for Indian, and 5s. 74d. on other sorts; the duties on brown silk were reduced from 14s. 8d. to 7s. 6d. per lb.; and foreign wrought silks were to be admitted from July, 1826, at a duty of 30 per cent. upon their value. The delay in the removal of the prohibition was a concession to the fears and entreaties of the manufacturers and workmen, who talked only of getting out of the trade before the two years expired. Before that time, however, they had proved the soundness of the Ministers' calculations. The manufacture steadily advanced, till within five or six years it had doubled in extent, and in ten years we were actually exporting silk goods to France to the value of £60,000 in the year. When in 1826 a cry of distress was heard from Coventry, the cause of that distress was so obviously local, that the House refused by 222 to 40 to grant a committee of inquiry.

Commerce and labour shared in this new policy with manufacturing industry. The change effected in the Navigation Laws was the most important and significant of all that now took place. It will be remembered that the government of the United States retaliated, during the period of the Berlin decrees, on the regulation that prevented all but British ships entering British harbours with a cargo. At the restoration of peace, both governments agreed to a mutual repeal of these ridiculous restrictions. But other nations-Portugal, the Netherlands, and Prussia-followed the successful example of America, or threatened to do so. In 1822, Mr. Wallace, the then President of the Board of Trade, introduced, and by the force of these circumstances carried, five bills, making terms with those nations. The results of the relaxation were such as to supply Mr. Huskisson with an argument from present experience as well as right reason, when, in June of the next year, he proposed his famous Reciprocity of Duties Bill; which equalized duties and drawbacks on the merchandise carried by the ships of all nations, provided their governments would reciprocate these terms. Loud was the outcry of the shipowners. Mr. Huskisson replied to, if he did not silence, their complaint, that British vessels were built under a pressure of duties which foreign shipbuilders did not bear, by offering them a drawback equal to all the duties they had paid in construction; which they declined, lest it should give a stimulus to the trade. His rea

sonings, or, more probably, the necessities of the case, were so strong, that the bill passed through the lower House by majorities of five to one; but that all were not blind to the significance of the event may be judged from a sentence in the speech of Mr. Stuart Wortley (now Lord Wharncliffe)—" he thought the principles which now began to work in regard to commercial regulations, must, ere long, be applied to agriculture."

The adjustment of the relation of the employers and the employed had long been a sore necessity—it had now met with men able and willing to attempt it. The opening of the year 1824 displayed unwonted signs of prosperity. Wheat was dear enough to satisfy its growers, but nearly every class of the people was sufficiently well employed to pay the price. But in the thickest hives of industry there was revolt and bitter war. Six thousand of the operatives about Macclesfield had risen on a question of time and wages, and a body of four hundred of them had a serious conflict with the military. In many places there were cases of intimidation, and even of alleged murder. A committee of the House of Commons, with Mr. Hume for its chairman, sat and reported upon the law relating to artizans and machinery. Strangely as it reads now, the exportation of machinery and the emigration of artizans were alike forbidden. The committee reported that the folly of the law in regard to workmen was equal to its injustice—that it was as impossible as unfair to prevent them carrying their labour to the best market. They, therefore, recommended the abolition of all such laws, which was carried into effect without opposition. Another point of the inquiry involved more serious considerations—namely, the laws relative to combinations of workmen. Not only did the common law treat as conspiracy mutual arrangements for wages, but some thirty or forty Acts of Parliament, passed on occasion of particular outbreaks, or for the regulation of particular trades, had taken from workmen all opportunity of legally combining for their own protection, while the masters were virtually free from restraint. The committee reported in this spirit, and recommended that the two parties should be left perfectly at liberty to consult their separate interests by mutual consultation. In a fit of very unusual trustfulness towards the people, Parliament repealed the acts alluded to, and modified the common law. Unhappily, their generosity outran the requirements of safety. The working-classes had been for some time under the domination of a few who abused their ignorant but honest prejudices and many wrongs to the gratification of their own love of idleness and mastery, their hatred as much of steady work as of the envied wealthy. At the instigation of these social demagogues, so soon as Parliament had risen, organizations were formed throughout the manufacturing districts, strikes were commenced, and continued for months, the peaceful now more than ever ill-used by the turbulent, the resources of both capitalist and

labourer consumed, and the minds of both exasperated. Early in the session of '25, Mr. Huskisson therefore moved for a committee to reconsider the subject-the proceedings of the previous year were admitted on all hands to have been too hasty-and the now existing law was enacted, which permits combinations amongst either masters or men, but not the violation of contracts, nor the use of intimidation; a law with which, we believe, working-men are well contented, however they may object to its occasional interpretation and appliance.

The new policy was exposed to a severe shock, almost at its initiation. In the session of '22, upon the bitter complaints of the landlords that the rental of their properties and the price of their produce, in common with that of all articles, were greatly reduced by the narrowing of the currency, and the prospect of a return at last to cash payments, which were embodied in a motion by Mr. Western, a bill was quietly passed to permit the circulation of one and two pound notes, which were to have been extinguished that year, for eleven years longer! It was naturally felt that this was a virtual revocation of the bill of 1819—that so long a respite was an entire reprieve. The Bank of England declined to avail itself of the permission, and called in all its notes for less than five pounds— but the country bankers, instead of restricting their already too extended issues, indefinitely enlarged them. A general rise of prices was of course the consequence of this deluge of paper money. Within two years, it was calculated, the quantity of notes in circulation was increased from forty to fifty per cent. To the substantial wealth fast accumulating in the hands of the middle-classes, from the reduction of taxation and the healthy activity of commerce, there was thus added the delusive and feverish flush of a fictitious prosperity. Money was superabundant, and the rate of interest "miserably low." New channels of investment were inquired for by capitalists of all grades, from the Lombard-street banker to the tradesman's widow. The recognition of South American independence, the comparatively new-born powers of gas and steam, the appetite for domestic comforts and refinements that had succeeded to the boisterous passions of the war, offered boundless fields for the distribution of the golden seed, and at the same time appealed to better propensities than that of acquisitiveness. Simultaneously with the opportunity there appeared-and, as it widened, multiplied-a class that is the curse of modern civilization; the unscrupulous, crafty lawyers, the needy and unprincipled writers, the stock-jobbers and other commercial gamblers, who make a market of the necessities and impulses of mankind. The omnipotent principle of association, that had begun steadily to uplift society, was seized upon, and made the instrument of measureless demoralization, to be followed by yet wider desolation. Joint-stock companies sprang up with mushroom rapidity, quickly to

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