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London, England, 1825-08-18 00:00:00

dustricies employments, and of • better division of labour ; so that,
though the French imported (tom us as good ;machinery al we
have, you would still have mane incommunicable advantages
which they could not have, and you viould always have cheaper
machinery ht proportion is the cost of the transfet of the machines
into Franca.
win you have the goodness to State to the Committee the ad-
vantages that Wottid serve to 1, nie.and from the exportation of 14
machinery Y—The advantages would be, that in addition to all MD
I present manufactures we should hare an additional branch of me.
nufeeture, corresponding in latent to the extent that the foreigner
took machines from us. You would thus hare a new field creates
fat the intuitable employ of capital end industry, which you have
not pow."
Your Committee think proper to notice, as a third oh-
jection entertained by many of the witnesses, via. that, in
consequence of the low rate of wages paid on the continent
of Europe, manufacturers in foreign countries would be
enabled to tell their goods cheaper titan we could sell ours.
Your Committee are sensible of the propriety of paying,
due attention to this objection ' • as not only many of the wit-1
noses whom they have examined form their opinion of the
impoliey of allowing machinery to be exported, on the
grounds that the low wages of France and other nations
secure to those countries advantages over England; but
almost all persons of all descriptions consider this doc-
trine of the advantage of low wages as forming a settled
axiom in political economy, and therefore as one which
admits of no question whatsoever; but so far from
this, being a doctrine that ought to be universally re-
isseived as sound and settled, your Committee are of opinion
_
that exist

!tended to what
has taken place in respect to the cotton mauufacture in Ire-
land (and it has been alluded to in the evidence), that
when Mr. Pitt, in 1788, and at the Union, proposed to
lower the duties on cotton goods imported Ireland
into England, the witnesses who were then examined be-
fore Committees of this Howe. .resisted his plans, on the
same grounds that the witnesscli whom your Committee
have examined objet to the exportation of machinery,
namely, the atlvintages which a country with low wage'
has over a country in which wages are high. But al—
though Mr. Pitt, at the Union, lowered the duties on cot-
ton goods imported from Ireland into England to ten per
cent. ; and that cotton goods could be rent from Ireland to
foreign countries, to be sold there in free competition with
: II cotton goods; and although Ireland has imported
fru., or to time the best English innehinery,and employed
the best Leglish workmen to instruct the Irish workmen, yet
Ireland, under all these circumstances (with an average
rate of wages of 3d. or 4d. a day, as proved in evidence
before the Committee on the state of Ireland), was not
able to do any thing werehrepf notice iu the cotton manu-
facture till the repeal of the duty of teu per cent. in 1823
led to the sending of English yarn into Ireland to be wove
there, and returned to England, and till English capital
was employed in Ireland to promote the industry of her.
,people, by giving orders for goods to be sent to England ter'
enable the English manufacturers to make good thaN
orders which tl:ey could not execute in England.
The case of England herself is also in point, to show
that low wages may be counterbalanced by other circuits'
stances ; for though wages in England are much higher
than wages in other countries in Europe, yet almost every,,
kind of manufactured goods that are required in great
quantities can be made so much cheaper and better in Eng-
land as to find a market in almost every foreign country.
' But besides these facts, tending to disprove the doctrine
that low wages always give to a country-advantages in carry-
ing on manufactures, there exist the reasonings and con-
clusions of those learned and observing persons (who dur-
ing the last fifty years have reduced the rules that govern
the operations of industry and trade to a science) to explain
in what way they cumei,der thisdectrine to be-wholly unten-
able. These eminevriptivselts utillertake t 6 show, by argu-
ments and facts, that? the ellect bf low wages is not a low
price of the commodity to which they are applied, but the
raising of the average rate of profits in the country in
which they exist. The explanation of this proposition,
occupies a large portion of the justly-celebrated work of
the late Mr. Ricardo, on the principles of political
economy ; and is also ably set forth in the following evi-
dence of Mr. M'Culloch, to which your Committee par*•
cularly desire to draw the attention of the House:—
" Ilave you turned your attention to the effect of fluctualinns
in the rate of wages on the price of commodities P—l have.
" Do you consider that when wages rise the price of comma
diem will proportionally increase ?—I do not think that a real rise
of wages has any effect whatever, or but a very imperceptible one,
on the price of commodities.
" Then supposing wages lobs really lower in France than in this
country, do you think that that circumstance would give the French
any advantage over us in the foreign market?—\o, I do not;
do not thing it would give them any advantage whatever. I think
ft would occasion a different distribution of the produce of in.
dustry in Franca from what it would obtain in England, but that,
would be all. In France the labourers would get a less propos..
don of the produce of industry, and the capitalists a larger pro.
portion.
" Could not the French manufacturer, if he gets his labour fur
less than the English manufacturer, afford to sell his goods for
less P—As the value of goodie is made up wholly of lubour and
profit, the whole and only effect of a French manufacturer getting
his labour for less than an English manufacturer is to enable
him to make more profit than the Unglish manufacturrr can make,
but not to lower the price of his goods. The low rate of wages in
France goes to cstiblish a high rate of profits in all branches of in.
dusty y in France.
" What conclusion do you more to in making a comparison
between wages in Ergland and wages in France ?—1 conic to
this conclusion : that If it be true that wages are really higher In
England than in France, the only effect of that would be to lower
the profits of capital in England below their level in France; but
that will have no offect whatever on the price of the commodities
produced in either country.
" When you say tint wages do not affect prices, what is it that
does affect prices P—An increase or diminution of the quantity of
labour necessary to the production of the commodity.
" Supposing that there was a free export of machinery, so that
France could get that machinery, do you think that under those
circumstances we should retain those advantages which we possess
at the present moment ?—Yes, we should ; for the export of the
machinery would not lower our wages or increase the wages in
France, so that we should preserve that advantage to the full extent
that we have it at this moment.

.....
" Will rou explain to the Committee why you are of opinion
that the kreneli manufacturer would not undersell the English,
seeing that his profits are larger than the English manufacturer tr_._
Because if he acre to offer to undersell iho English he can only do
it by consenting to accept a less mte of profit on his capital than the
other French capitalists are making on tleirs, and I cannot suppose
a man of common sense would act upon sllich a principle.
" Are the Committee to understand, this although a French ma.
nnfaeturtr pays half the wages to his men in France, which our
manufacturers do in England, yet that his wages being on a par, or
a level, in general, with the other wages in France, will render his
profits on a par with them, and consequently lie would not under-
sell the English merchant by lowering his profits below the average
rate of profits in France ?—Precisely so. I believe, in point of
fact, there is no such difference : bet lie could not undersell the
English nianufacturer unless he wok lower profits than all oilier
producers in France were making. I might illustrate this by what '1
takes place every day in England, where you never find the pro-
prietor of rich land, in order to get rid of his produce, offering it in
Mark-lane at a lower rate than that which is got by a fanner or pro-
prietor of the very woest land in the kingdom.
" Would it not produce a larger sale if the French manufacturer
well to sell at a less price ?—Supposing that to be w, the greater
the sale the greater would be the loss of profit."
- - -

. It is the opinion of many of those who object to the ex-
portation of machinery, that Great Britain owes her present
superiority in manufactures solely to the excellence of her
machinery; but the evidence already noticed, as well as that
of Mr. Martineau and others, would incline your Commit-
tee to believe that many other circumstances had tended to
produce that effect, and that if the exportation of machi-
' nery was generally permitted, English engineers would
supply the greater part of the world, without endangering
her. present superiority. "My reasons," Mr. Martineau
says, " for forming this opinion principally consist in the
natural advantages that 'England possesses, from the cir-
cumstance of the iron stone and cwal being invariably found
in the same spot, and thus affording a means of manufac-
turing iron at a cheap rate ; the talent and ingenuity of,
the workmen; the immense spare capital we have in this
country ; the circumstance of our canals and rail-roads al-
ready established, enabling us to bring the raw material
from the interior of the country at a very low rate; it would
of Mille take a considerable time before France, or any

that many facts enlist to show that doubts may be justly most di
entertained respecting its validity. Experience proves that nary iti
in those countries *here wages are low the workinen are quire
often indolent, and so unskilful as torte incapable of above
producing any -corontoditierlittt such as are of the rudest opine=
and coarsest kind; one .workman is employed in two or poste
more different operations in fabric, and little or along I
no assistance is 440.10 n bout by inventions to may le
abridge
rttrewetialbevolioln abuitawasimea where gaped
wages are big are nenfrally active, spirited, tures of
persevering, and vfeceslihglir sisiLful ;—no ankle is too retain t
difficult or delicate for thrill to make the principle of opinion
division of labour is in full operation, and every description were
of machinery is made to contribute extensively to the di- those h
miuution of manual lablour. seded
It is well known ttl those who have attended to what from w