The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-26 00:00:00

THE MANCHESTER CHAMBER
OF COMMERCE AND THE IMPORT DUTIES.

MANCHESTER, APRIL 22. —An extre rely interesting
meeting of the Chamber cf Commerce and Manufactures
took Fla :e here to-day, for the further consideration of the
impart duties question, and for the purpose of determining
on th propriety of petitioning Parliament on the question.
John Benjamin Smith, Esq., President of the Board of
Directors, was present, and took the chair.
The PRESIDENT was happy to say that the question
of free trade was not now brought befute this Chamber for
the first time. He found that no long ago as 1824, by the
records of the Chamber, that when Mr. Huskisson
brought forward his trade measures, by which it was pro-
posed to allow the free exportation of machinery and arti-
sans, it was opposed by the Chamber, but at the same time
they pas:dd the following resolution :—" That in the pro-
gress which Ministers and Parliament are making towards
a revision and liberalisation of our commercial syvetn,
this meeting think it necessary to request the Directors
of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce to call their at.
tentiim to the overwhelming restriction under which the
commeseial interests of this country are placed' by the pre-
soot state of the Corn-laws, which not only tend to give a
factitious value to the most important article cf human
food, but to throw obstacles in the way of mercantile ope-
rations, by materially augmenting the difficulty of procur-
kg returns." From this resolution it was evident thatthe
Chamber thought it was beginning at the wrong end to
allow exportation of machinery without allowing a free
importation of food.--( Hear, hear.) In 1825, when Mr.
Huskisson brought forward his free-trade measures,
the fallowing resolutions were passed by the Cham-
ber :—" That having taken into consideration the im-
portant changes in the commercial policy of the country,
recommended by the resolutions of the House of Com-
mons, whereby foreign manufactures and descriptions of
foreign raw produce will be admitted on a greatly reduced
scale of duties, the members of the board feel it to be a
duty to declare their approbatioq of the proposed mea•
sures, their concurrence in the sound and enlightened
principles of government on which they are founded, and
their hope and belief that, whilst they are calculated to
promote the general prosperity of the worn. ry, they will not
prove lormairently or seriously injurious to any branch of
the tra.!e of this district, provided they be followed by that
repeal of the duty on raw cotton which is pointed out and
required by the same principles of sound policy by which
these measures have been dietatid. That the repeal of
the existing Corn-laws, and free acres to the corn markets
of the world, under easy duties on importation (if any
should be required) sill be more than ever necessary when
the proposed changes regarding the introduction of
foreign manufactures are canied into effect, and ought to
be earnestly and unceasingly pressed on the consideration
of Parliament." Such were the resolutions passed in
1825 ; since then the duty on raw cotton had been reduced,
but no change had taken place in the Corn-laws, and
very few changes had taken place affecting our commerce
with ether countries.--( Hear, hear.) It was impossible
to look at the present state of our trade without feeling
considerable alarm.—( Hear, hear.) The effect of our
restrictions upon the importation of foreign productions
had been to establish masufictories in foreign countries,
particularly in the north of Europe and the United States
of America, and now we found these countries seeking
the means of importing our machinery instead of our ma.
nufactures.—( Hear, hear.) Another important feature
in our commercial prospects was the near approach
of the termination of our treaty with the Brazils ;
their Government had given notice that, on the
termination of that treaty, unless we admit their
staple produce, which was sugar and coffee, that they
would prohibit our manufactures.—( Hear.) Now the
Brazils took a larger quantity of our manufactured goods
than any other part of the world, and therefore this be-
came a very important consideration.—( Hear, hear.)
The United States were also about to take into consi-
deraim the duties on the import of our manufactures
there. At present they were admitted at an average
duty of 25 per cent. ; but it could hardly be expected
that they would continue to allow our manufactures to be
imported on such easy terms, if we persevered in excluding
their products from our markets.—( Hear, hear.) This
question, he was happy to say, was one in which men of
all parties could join ; it was not a political question ; they
did not seek to obtain any favour from the Legislature ;
all they asked was a fair field for their own exertions;
they sought no legislative protection for their own inter-
ests—all they asked was to be feed from monopolies for
the good of others at their expense.--( Hs ar, hear.)
He could now read to them the resolutions prepared, and
about to be submitted to them.—[The Chairman then
read the resolutions, which appeared in our columns on
Saturday].
Mr.-Aicooarao HOOLE, in rising to propose the adoption
of the fiarst resolution, alluded to the report of the Direc-
tors on•Vais questions read at the last meeting, and said he
lelieved (tat the public mind had been more enlightened
by that do'ctoruent than by any report which had ever issued
from that'Cfhamber. He understood that such had been
the demand for that report, that it had been necessary to
print 4,Q01:f copies of it ; and when they took into con-
sideration that this was in addition to the wide circulation
which Lad teen previously given to it by the newspapers,
they would see the great interest taken in it, and that the
public mind began to be roused to the danger of our posi.
tion.—( Hear, hear.) He hoped that the interest which
had thus been awakened would not be allowed to diminish,
but that this Chamber, and all gentlemen who took a lively
interest in the question, would follow it up by pressing
the subject upon the consideration of the House of
Commons. He himself imagined that he had a
sort of protection, and he was anxious to ascertain to
what extent, for which ream he had paid some atten-
ti .n to the subject for the last few weeks. He was speak-
ing in reference to the exportation of machinery. He had
supposed that he was protected against the foreign spinner
by the prohibition upon tho exportation of machinery.
He examined into that question, and really if that was the
protection they enjoyed, it seemed to be reduced to the
smallest poss.ble standard, for it did appear in a most
extraordinary way that licences of the Treasury had been
granted for the exportation of what was called preparation
machinery, or machinery for manufacturing fidesses up to
that point where two slivers were joined together, from a
supposiiion that cotton up to that point was not under-
going any manufacturing process.—( Laughter.) He
never heard of anything more absurd ; if that was protec-
tion they had it but in name, and the sooner it was done
away with the better. He woutd put the case in this
way :—Suppose the agricultural interest, who were pro-
tected, or were supposed to be protected, by .the Corn•
laws, were protected in this manner, what should we say
if all corn imported into this country were admitted, by li-
censes from the Treasury, in any state of manufacture
short of being made into bread, on the understanding that
until it had undergone that process it was not an article of
food 2—( Laughter and applause). Yet this was really the
sort of protection the manufacturer enjoyed, and nothing
more.—( H car, hear.) •
Mr. J. HEREFORD second the resolution.

Mr. ADSHEAD could not conceive any subject more de-
serving of wtsntion than' that before the Chamber—a sub-
ject not only connected with the commercial policy of the
country, but also with the existence and prosperity of the
manufacturing community, Inquiries had been instituted
to ascertain the bearing of these import duties on our com-
mercial at d manufacturiug relations, and he thought it
would be admitted by all parties that an amount of evi-
dence so important in its details, so conclusive in its prin
ciplet, and so full of valuable information, had never been
brought under the especial notice of the Chamber.—
( Hear, hear.)
The resolution was agreed to unaniarionsly.
Mr. R. GARDNER, in moving the second resolution, said
that protections were a benefit to the community was
quite an erroneous doctrine. They might be a temporary
advantage to those whom they were intended to protect;
but, is the end, much evil would result from them. With
respect to sugar he found that in the year 1839 there bad
been a falling off in the importation of that article, in con-
sequence of these protections, amounting to 12,400 tons ;
and in 1840 he found there was a still further falling off of
13.800 tons, notwithstanding the increase which was taking
place in our population, in the consumption, being a full
reduction of 12i per cent. in the last three years. ®Our
policy, as regarded our own population, and as regarded
that of our colonies, appeared to him to be really crooked
and suicidal in the extreme. The policy of our Government
always appeared to him to be a starvation one.—( Hear.)
The object always appeared to be to ascertain the lowest
quantity of food they could teach the people to exist upon
—( Heir, hear)—or, to levy the greatest amount of taxes
out of toe smalluat possible quantity of the necessaries of
life.—(Applause.) They appear to add tax upon tax,
till the more they increased the taxes, the more they
deg eased the revenue.--(Laughter and applause.) It
was one of the most astonishing things to him ; and
if he expressed himself atrongty, it was because he
expressed his own feelings, that whilst we possessed
colonies, and perhaps had a population under the
crown of this empire amounting to one-tenth part of the
population of the world—that whilst we held colonies
possessing every quality of soil, and in every climate of
the world—colonies that were capable of producing as
many hundreds weight of sugar and coffee as we could
consume, supposing we consumed double what
we now did ; he repeated that if we consumed
double the quantity of these articles we had ever y -t done
in one year, we have colonies capable of producing as
many hundreds weight as we now required pounds; yet,
notwithstanding this it was surprising that with a protec
tion of 395. per cwt. upon sugar, over and above the duty
paid for sugar grown in the colonies, and 345. per cwt. upon
coffee, notwithstanding all our immense territories and ad-
vantage;, we could not produce the amount of sugar and
coffee necessary for ourselves, but were compelled to pur-
chase it from neighbouring States where they had no pro-
tection ; and those neighbouring States without this pro-
tection were able to supply our markets as well as their
own. For instance, he found that the consumption of coffee
alone, in one year, amounted to 12,823 tons; and of this
quantity, 6,470 tons were the produce of our colonial posses-
sions, while 6.353 tons were the produce of foreign countries.
But it must be c'early understood that this did not pay the
protective duty of 345., for Government admitted foreign
coffee touching at a British port at Bd. less per lb. (in-
creased by the expense of reshipping, insurance. &c., by
another penny) ; and thus these 6,353 tons of foreign
coffee would have paid an additional duty of about 375.
per cwt. This really led him to conclude that our pro-
tection, our cradling or nursing system, was a very bad one
indeed. —( Hear, Lear.) There was another inconsistency
as to our consumption of slave-grown sugar, for while the
slave grown sugar was prohibited for consumption in this
county, we purchased it and refined it in bond, and
shipped it out for the use of our colonies; therefore, while
the black population were supplied with fine sugar at
4id., we were paying them at least 7d. or 7f _their
coarser for
coarser sugar.—( Hear, heir.) All this was done for the
purpose of doing away with slavery ; but so long
.as Allis
protection lasted it appeared to him that it would increase,
and tend to increase the value of slave-labour, and' it was
his decided conviction that so long as slave-labour was
profitable, it could never be suppressed..—( Hear, bear.)
The only way to end slavery teas to do away with the
attending it.—( Hear, hear.) profit
a
It was his, full and firm
conviction that if the duties were reduced, it would not
only add to the revenue, but to the comforts of the people.
Mr. H. AsutcosTu seconded the resolution, which was
carried.