The Express.
London, England, 1853-01-22 00:00:00

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LONDOA SATURDAI', JANUARY 22.

IT is of consequence to know, if possible, how
much ground there is for the new alarm that M aris-
ing about our wool, and how far the alarm extends.
From the imperfection of some of our social machi-
nery, which much needs enlarging, it is a difficult
smatter to ascertain either the one or the ether point.
It is easy to ask the woollen manufacturers what
they think and expect; but it is not easy to get an
answer from them, for the sufficient reason that they
do not know what to think and expect. One after
another of them will say just this to an inquirer. There
are two grounds on which they are entirely uncertain.
They do not know, because no mortal knows, how
many people in Australia, or going there, will be
willing to attend to the sheep next year. For this
year, they are hopeful. The clip has begun. The
sheep are still there, alive and fleeced. That is some-
thiag ; more than some of us expected last year.
The cost of labour is enormous; so that there seems
to be no hope that the sale of the wool will answer
to the grower. He would not hold on, of course,
but for the hope of better future years. But there b
wool ; and it is being shorn. The next misfortune's
that the roads are so excessively bad as not only, to
enhance the cost of carriage prodigiously, but to um-
iak the quality of the wool ; the same grievants,
that is so vexatious about East India cotton, that
gets full of dirt in coming down the ghauts. Here
again the importer will lose. He, too, must
look forward to future years for compensa-
tion. It is inconceivable that the evil of
bad roads should long continue in colonies which
may now be called well-peopled, and which arc
richer than any other colonies ever were at their
age—or at any age. Be the cost of labour what it
may, it must be a saving to the gold diggers and
everybody to have bridges and good roads; and
therefore we have no doubt that when the colonists
have abused the government a little longer, and the
government has protested its helplessness for a few
more weeks or months, the two parties will find out
that the thing con be done, and how. As for the
care of tho sheep, it is something that they have
survived the last year, and been kept together till
sow. There seems to be a strong and a growing
hope that more and more people will drop back from
the diggings into the sheep walks, believing from
experience that their earnings at the stations
mooed the average from gold digging. Even
among those Australian crowds who seem
mad for excitement, there are some—there must
be many—who have a taste for repass and domestic
comfort and quiet. The shortest way, we are as-
sured, to promote a good supply of wool is to send
eat that prime article of domestic comfort, a wife, to
such men as these. A vast number of the colonists
lave left wives and children here. If we send out
those wives and children, and as many more women,
boys, and girls as we can convey, we may hope for
an easier mind—Yorkshire and national—about our
woollen manufacture. Mrs. Cmsnotm, with her
train of 900 good women—respectable English wives
mid daughters—is preparing the way for Yorkshire
t• do a good business in times to come : and the
weaver -here, the shepherd yonder, will send her
name down, in a grateful way, to a future generation.
The other ground of uncertainty is about the
amount, even the sufficiency, of our home growth of
wool. There is a vague supposition among the
manufacturers that they are consuming beyond the
limits of production; but, do what they can, they
cannot make out whether it is NO Or no. They have
done what they can. The Bradford Chamber of
Commerce :has made great and repeated efforts to
obtain the statistics of wool-growing, and they have
always and utterly failed. They thought
that observation and inquiry along the great lines of
railway would help them to much of what they
want; but they can get no reliable information.
In the same way as the agricultural statistics of an
isolated district are of no value in comparison with
what they would be as a portion of a great whole.
the statistics of a particular "interest" are a dela-
Moe, if taken alone. In such a came as this of wool-
growing, the information is obtained with
Ose utmost difficulty ; and what is ob-
tained cannot be relied on. The people
along. the road fancy that the inquirer has
some interest to serve, and are suspicious and re-
served ; or they have an interest, and see facts, and
make answer accordingly. And so, for want of a
good general system of returns of agricultural statis-
tics, all manner of mischief is going on to the =nuts.-
turer weaver, grazier, and farmer, who might, if
brought face to face, be one another's best friends.
Why, in the ancient days, when the Romans set up
our first woollen manufacture at Winchester, and
when they sent such specimens home of our primi-
tive Southdown short wool that their emperors would
dress in nothing less eminent than Winchester cloth,
there was a more adequate knowledge of menu and
ends in regard to wool-grewing than there is now.
When, again. centuries later, the great ALFRED'S god-
mother used to entice her darling boy to bring his
"boke" and read by her side as she span, when keg
wool, as we see by this, was dividing favour witklhe
Winchester short—it was one of the alibi bra roam
of the country to know how the shiepiemstem•Aeir
many. died in hard winters, and how alleeh Wad Mu
growing within the range of certain imillista When
EDWARD IV. allowed his sister Milani! to "NW
money in her own royal way, by expos two the
▪ rams a year to Holland and the he.
ther and sister knew very well how mash amp
breeding might be allowed for exportation, over sod
above what was wanted for home use. But we have
no knowledge of the sort now. We are more igno-
rant of the statistics of sheep than our own fathers
end grandfathers were. In the time of the late Rai
Laming& it was a received fact, desilemi le be
proved by anthem"' dosumeats, that the number if
sheep in the United Hingdom had more than trehledin
a century and a half. The impulse to the inquiryMna
ins the extension of turniphusbandry.Wehave tank
Impulse enough now for such an inquiry ; but wince
are the authentio documents? WhenBAIRWILL
had found how plastic a material the living
was, and bad moulded it into the perfection
" prime Leicester," he let his first ram for 17s. M.
for the season. Within thirty years he let a ram for
1,0001. for the season ; and the Midland farmers
were known to spend 100,0001. a year in the hiring
of rams. This was in the last century. Improve-
ment in all rural production whatever has gone es
rapidly since, and especially of late years; and we
have everpeasihle assurance that our farmers and
bare in them the spirit of enterprise,
Cidenambition for improvement, and the pleasure
in doing business well that are natural to =a ;
—at all events to Englishmen. But they ere work.
big in the dark, for want of knowing the broadest
Irate about demand and rapply. This is no fault of
theirs; and, whoever may be to blame, it is very ab-
oard.
Re bate done great things for our woollen mann-
festuro—canoot we do this one thing more P We
lave dam great things for agriculture by giving it
freedom--ainnot we now give it light to do its
by? We have transformed the primitive
downs, that the Romans were so delighted et, into
the modern Boutholowns, eageTly ref
"the Southdown interest" before
committees, when Free Trade was in qaulleall 7.74
have stocked our Australian pastures witip annals
of merinos. Cannot we make out how mideiroolik
would suit us to have from thence, or to obtain it
home, if the colony cannot send it? The traveller
sees that it must be a government work : but he pro-
nounces it a very practicable one. Traversing the
downs of Dorsetahire, Hampshire, and Sussex, he
sees the flocks on the sward like mites in a cheese;
be could not count them; but a isoor-law or tax-
collecting machinery can count anything abort of the
mode Oa the sea-shore ; and the sum would be easier
by the variety introduced—the accounts of soils and
production of all kinds, which must be given in
a statistical return like that we want. In Wales,
spin, what woolly swarms amaze the traveller!—