The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-10 00:00:00

the ha,bit of consigning hosiery to the United States. He
says—" For fifteen years, up to 1838, I have occasionally
shipped worsted and cotton hose to the United States.
Since that time I have regularly corresponded with my
agent at New York, whose long standing and integrity
will bear the strictest test of comparison. His advice
has invariably been--'send no more cotton hose here: the
Germans are beating you, in make and price, to such an
extent, that it would be folly to do so.'—(Loud cries of
" Hear, hoar." At his recommendation and introduction,
I have imported hose and gloves from Germany, to a
considerable amount, and which it is my intention to
continue. The hose, paying a duty of twenty per cent.
yield a fair profit in this country ; they have hitherto
been of a fine make, but I have just received samples of
a heavier style, which you may inspect, and which I
have no doubt will sell well. In men's brown and white
cotton half hose, I can meet with nothing in our market
to equal them for quality and price. Women's open
work cotton gloves, with twenty per cent. import duty
paid upon them, are then fifty per cent. less than they
can be made for here ; of which I have imported many
cases. Of these, the principal London houses make a
leading article, at a bare remuneration, to the exclusion
of our own. I know, further, that one of the first
houses in London, who are extensive makers of cotton
hose themselves, buy largely in the German markets
for home consumption." I now adduce the further
evidence of a large London house, who are exten-
sive importers of French and German gloves. They
say :—" We are importers of German cotton gloves, and
we have imported them for eight years. They are bought
by British merchants and factors, for British home con-
sumption and re-exportation, to a great extent. The
Germans now supply almost all the markets which we
formerly supplied with this article. Their manufacturers
are growing and gaining upon us very fast, and the im-
portation into this country is annually increasing. We
buy their gloves at 2s. 3d. per dozen, in bond, fully
equal in quality to what we can purchase of British ma:-
nufacture at 4s. 6d. per dozen. Our opinion is, that we
shall ere long be obliged to buy all our cotton and Lisle
gloves from Germany. The portion of these articles
which we at present purchase of British manufacture is
entirely for home consumption, being in some instances
preferred to the foreign article, in consequence of being
made more to the taste of the English consumer ; but
this the foreigner will soon overcome. The merchant
invariably buys the cheapest article." The next is the
evidence of a manufacturer in Leicester, who has tra-
velled on the Continent, and has made particular inqui-
ries and observations upon the hosiery trade in Saxony.
He says—" I have travelled on the Continent and spent
many months in Saxony. While there I made extensive
inquiries as to the state and progress of the hosiery trade;
I found it was progressing with fearful rapidity. In the
year 1815, at the close of the war, there were not more
than 4,500 frames in Saxony ; in 1835 these had in-
creased to 13,481. There are now, in 1841, 25,000 ; so
that they have been increasing for the last ten years at
the rate of upwards of 1,000 per year ; while, at the
same time, the English manufacturers in these midland
districts have been for the last few years laying down
more and more of their machinery, till now at least one-
third is utterly unemployed. If it were not for the re-
striction laws as it respects machinery, I believe that
one-half the stocking frames in Leicester would be im-
mediately exported to the Continent. We ourselves
should not hesitate to send over 500 frames at once, if
there was any chance of sale—of course English work-
men would not follow them, on account of the low rate of
wages in Saxony ; so that they would be left without
frames with which to earn a scanty subsistence ; and as
every other department in the labour market is filled,
and more than filled, they would, after inevitably reduc-
ing agricultural and every other sort of labour, to which
they could apply themselves, have to be maintained as
paupers on the land. The amount of hosiery and gloves,
more particularly imported into England from Saxony,
is considerable, and is still annually increasing. In the
year 1827, the whole declared value of German hosiery
imported into the United States of America was 96,821
dollars. The statistics of Saxony now state that they
export to the United States, 1,500,000 dozen of cotton
hose annually, or 18,000,000 of pairs ; which is one
pair at least for every individual in the Union.
British cotton hosiery may be considered as almost
totally superseded in the United States. The Saxons
now further export extensively to South America,
both of which countries were formerly supplied exclu-
sively with British manufacture."--(Hear, hear.) I now
adduce the evidence of a Manchester factor, with which
I shall conclude the whole of the evidence I propose to
lay before the Convention. He says :—" I have an agent
at Chemnitz in Saxony ; he is there constantly, for the
purpose of buying on the spot, and sending me his pur-
chases, from week to week. lam regularly importing
German hosiery, ond selling it to merchants, after paying
a twenty per cent, duty on import, cheaper considerably
than they can buy the same articles of British manufac-
ture. I bought last year 8,000 pair of English cotton
gloves for exportation ; now I buy them all in Germany,
and shall not be able to buy any more gloves of this
style, of English manufacture, at all. I can import them
from Saxony full fifty per cent. cheaper than I can pos-
sibly buy them in England. There is, beyond this, a
considerable importation of German frame gloves, for the
English home market, which is increasing from year to
year ; their goods I should say average at least thirty
per cent. cheaper, and some, particularly cotton gloves,
average fifty per cent. cheaper than ours ; they beat us
most in half-hose and regular made goods ' • their
middle and fine qualities of wrought hose sell for the
same price as our best cut hose. They make five mil-
lion dozens of cotton hose and gloves per year, which
they sell on the Continent, in the United States, in South
America, and in England. We are shipping them now
in large quantities to South America, which is compa-
ratively a new market for them. They have long been
shipped in large quantities to North America, and are
now bought by English merchants, and shipped out to
Canada and our own colonies, to the partial exclusion
of our (domestic manufactures." Here, then, is evi-
dence collected from parties who have been in Ger-
many, who have agents at Chemnitz, who have for a
long time imported German manufactured goods ; all
tending to show that the continental manufacturers
can make leading articles in gloves particularly, 50
per cent. cheaper than we can—that while our ma-
chinery is diminishing in actual amount, and while
one-third of that reduced amount is at present to-
tally unemployed, they are actually adding to theirs
at the rate of upwards of 1,000 per year. The end
of such a competition is inevitable. If the Corn-laws
remain unchanged, and this competition progresses, the
more markets the Saxons gain from us, the faster, of
course, will be our decline ; the more machinery shall
we have to lay down from year to year ; the less and
less employment will there be for operatives • the more
and more will their wages of necessity be reduced—un-
til (for the painful alternative will force itself upon them)
whatever may be the price of provisions here as com-
pared with Germany, they must either leave the trade
altogether, and betake themselves to agriculture or some
other employment if they can (in which case they will
reduce agricultural and every other species of labour) or the
rate of manufacturing in this department, and many others
in England, will inevitably assimilate itself to the general
level of the wages of continental Europe. Nothing can
stave off this calamity but a repeal of the Corn-laws ; if
they continue unaltered it must inevitably overtake us ;
and, when it does, the condition of our population will
be wretched beyond the power of any language to de-
scribe. If the working classes could but see their own
real interests, and had had honest advisers, they might
still hope ; but in the absence of both, if the middle
classes cannot save them (almost in spite of themselves),
they are doomed by the landlords to wretchedness and
ruin.—(Hear, hear.) I have now, Gentlemen, gone
through an almost 61infinite amount of dry,
statistical details. I I have proved the existence of
extensive distress and suffering in Leicester, as evi-
denced by the reduction in :the wages of labour, to the
extent of nearly one-half, and that, too, in a manu-
facture which has never been interfered with by steam
power • I have proved it further by the number of fail-
ures and bankruptcies among manufacturers, by the de-
preciated value of the machinery employed, by the di-
minution of its actual amount, by the non-employment
of one-third which is at present in existence—further,
by the depreciated value of property in houses, by the
number at present unoccupied, compared to former pe-
riods, by the diminution in the amount of weekly rent
for houses, and the increased difficulty of collecting it,
by the diminished amount of necessaries and small luxu-
ries sold by shopkeepers and dealers to the poor, and by
their purchase of coarser articles of consumption, and
by the diminished purchases of the middle classes them-
selves, in departments where retrenchments can be made.
In addition to all this, I have shown the progress and
fearful operation of a gigantic foreign competition, which
has been nursed and fostered into vigorous operation by
our anti-national and suicidal Corn-laws, and which
threatens if unchecked and unaltered, to render all the
distress I have before referred to, as existing latterly in
Leicestershire a permanent and confirmed calamity, that
no individual efforts, or private beneficence, or public cha-
rity, or even ultimately legislation itself, can alleviate or
Christian alter. Now, Gentlemen, my deliberate opinion is, that wide
.(esTeiverielaizclaatinoad deep-seated as this distress is, there is no real
dis-
grace to
natunrdy.to
We
ee
have advanced
not
fh e existencenineteenth whatever
Government,ce ; and that it is a
been visited b
national oreign war, or desolating pestilence, or
stroyed our calamity,
poattlat has wasted our substance or de-
we are at the end of twenty-six
years of nearly profouand pea?e, and at the same time have
been in the possession all this time of every natural ad-
vantage ; we have mineralsand
climate and a fertile soil , coal ;we have a genial
prise ; we have the most skilful we
lhave capital and enter-
have them ost exquisite machinery,uartizans in Europe ; we
character in the world for en and the first national
perseverance, and industry
anedrgy. , patient application,
, yet with all these ad-
vantages, both natural and adventitious
manufac-
tures are decaying, our artisans are unemployed,
commerce is declining, foreign rivalry is
surrounding
our
on all sides, while famine and discontent .us
are stalking
through the length and breadth of the land. I do not
hesitate to give it as my decided
opinion, that this
altered and awful state of things is produced mainly by
the existence of our Corn-laws ; and I look with fear and
dread at the tremendous experiment which is making by
the landlords, in thus putting to hazard the security of
property and the existence of social order, for an advan-
tage and questionable
tage to them of such a
character.—(Hear, hear.) No violations of great moral
laws can ever go unpunished—it is so arranged by the
Ruler of the Universe—and the Corn-laws are flagrant
violations of the laws of God, and the clearest rights of
man. Here we have warehouses loaded with goods which
we cannot vend, and operatives starving for want of em-
ployment. In the United States they have granaries
overflowing with corn, and interminable plains teeming
with easy fertility ; and we are not allowed to exchange
ourmutual productions for the common benefit of both.
I believe some righteous retribution will overtake such
wicked and monstrous legislation.—(Loud cheers.) I
believe, further
i that if the Corn-laws were repealed to-
morrow, that t would be immediately followed by the
prosperity of 1822, 1834, 1835, and 1836 ; and that this