THE SILK TRADE CONTROVERSY.
MORNING CHRONICLE—it is astonishing how people can confound the high or low rate of wages and profits with the policy and impolicy of the
changes in the silk trade, effected under the councils of Mr. Huskissou and Mr. Grant. The rate of wages and the rate of profits depend on circum- stances affecting all trades indifferently, and are about as material to the question of the silk duties, as the argument of the wittol, who insisted, at the meeting held at the Old City of London Tavern on Wednesday, that Mr. Grant's statements were not to be trusted, because he had measured the increased consumption of silk by weight, and not by length. The real point at issue is, whether the home manufacture has or has not been able to sustain itself in that partial rivalry with the foreign which has been per- mitted. And this question has been determined, beyond all possibility of farther controversy, by Mr. Grant's clear and convincing statement, founded on the irrefragable evidence of returns* showing the quantity of silk actually taken out of the warehouses to be worked up. It is not, therefore, by vague statements of diminished profits, or general declamations on the hardships endured by the work-people, that the country will be justified in withholding from the authors of the liberal system, that recognition of its soundness and advantages which they may so justly claim as the meed of their political wisdom and moral courage in proposing and enforcing its adoption.
STANDARD—The principle occupation of the labouring people of Honiton, for example, is lace-making; in the not very remote village of West Coker there is an extensive, and we believe, a flourishing manufactory of flaxen sail cloth. The raw material in which the populace of these two places work, being the same, scilicet flax, let us suppose that political economy or any other commercial blight were to ruin the trade of Honiton, and, which were no improbable case, that the ci-devant lace-makers should, rather than starve, betake themselves to sail-cloth weaving, for any wages that might be offered : let us suppose also, that, from some cause, flax shonld at the same time be. come much cheaper than heretofore, and that a difficulty of finding employ- ment for capital should accompany both events. Now, is it not extremely likely, that with very little ultimate improvement to the sail-making branch of the flax trade, a considerable increase of the consumption of flax might take place, while the lace-trade—a trade employing ten times as many people, and a hundred times as important to the general interests of commerce—should be utterly ruined ? Now, if we read silk for flax, Spitalfields for Honiton, and Manchester for West Coker, with the slightest imaginable variation otherwise, that which we have described has actually occurred; the finer and im- measurably more profitable manufactures in silk have been ruined ; but the earth having hitherto failed to swallow up the manufacturers in conformity with the theory, and must we add ? the wishes of the pious economists, they have been compelled to work at miserably reduced wages, and in coarser fabrics, in those, in fact, in which the price of labour bears so small a proportion that they are not worth the attention of the foreign artist. The temptation of low wages and a reduced price of raw silk, accompanied by a notorious difficulty of finding profitable employment for capital, has induced some manufacturers to speculate in these coarser fabrics ; and for a while the capricious fancy among the lower orders of wearing silk, however coarse, because they never wore it before, may have protected the speculators front ruin. It appears, however, that this caprice has already worn out, and that at no time did the demand for labour in coarse goods and for lower wages even so far com- pensate to the working men the loss of the employment in fine goods as to give full occupation to all the hands engaged generally in the trade before the rod of "political economy" had paralysed it. Thus, then, has been demonstrated the value of Mr. Charles Grant's reasoning, from increased importation and even from increased consumption. "Leave trade to itself;" but first let it be trade, and never yet was there a trade, whose infancy was not protected by artificial arrangements—" Art is man's nature" is finely said by Mr. Burke ; and trade, the pursuit of man, and the creature of society, becomes unnatural when it ceases to be artificial. Yes, " leave trade to itself," that is, when trade has, by the help of law, established its own seat--bent itself to the protection of the shelter provided for it—struck its roots far into the soil which art has prepared for it, expanded its branches where the care of the cultivator has opened a way for it to the sun and air, "leave it so to itself," and it will support you by its strength, protect you by its shade, and enrich you by its fruit. Freedom of trade is a good thing, but, like political freedom, it is the offspring, not the negation of legal re- straint. As among men, that is not liberty where the strong are at liberty to oppress the weak—so in commerce that is not freedom, where superior advantages of wealth, climate, cheapness of labour, and of provisions, &c. meet with no counterbalance. The effect of both kinds of liberty is, by
adjusting inequalities, to put all upon a level. It may happen that trade shall be fettered and embarrassed by the aids contrived for its protection ; but here we say—" leave it to itself." The mature bird will itself burst the shell, while your over-care to release it will, in nine cases out of ten,
* A statement showing the consumption of silk forthe last five years, and thefirst quarter of the current year.
Raw and Waste Silk. Thrown Silk.
1823 - - - - lbs. 2,104,257 - lbs.:363,564 • 1824 - 3,547,777 463,271 1825 - - - 3,04-1,416 559,642 1526 - - _ 1,064,188 289,225 1827 - - -
- :i,7.7,9,1 :1S
454.015 113228„Qr. ending 5th April, 1,131,171 112,363 cause its destruction. Let the demand for free trade come from the traders, and thin, whether you do well or ill, you escape the responsibility, and you . adhere, honestly, and according to its right interpretation, to your maxim, " Leave trade to itself."
GLOBE—We should be guilty of the same sort of deception (though in a less degree)'which we attribute to the meeting, if we pretended that because the silk manufacture, taken as a whole, has been in a progressive state of increase, every part of it has been flourishing. A part of the manufacture of Spitalfields has had much to struggle with, not on account of the admis- sion of silks paying the duties, but on account of the smuggling which is encouraged by those high duties, and by the heavy tax on the foreign thrown silks. The British silk-throwsters cannot, or will not, throw the fine silks which are needed for the manufactures on which many of the Spitalfields ma- nufacturers are supported. These manufacturers earnestly wish not to raise the duties, but to have them lowered, and to be able to meet with the smug- glers, which they would be able probably to do if they were not sacrificed to the dog-in-the-manger spirit on the part of the throwsters, who them- selves cannot supply the thrown silk which is needed, and will not allow it to be got cheap elsewhere. It must be confessed, however, that the esta- blishment of the finest species of manufactures requires time, and a particu- lar education, if it may be so called, of a class of workmen. The sum of the history of the silk trade is this : as a whole it has greatly increased since the admission of foreign silks ; and, apparently, on account of the stimulus which that change gave though particular branches of it have suf- fered from the causes we have described, the most important part—that which supplies the millions, and not merely the narrow circle of fashion— has increased, and is likely to increase, though it has partially suffered within the last few months one of those depressions which every great and hurried increase of manufacture is attended with.
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