The Sun.
London, England, 1846-03-17 00:00:00

in the letter which accompainied that petition, I am in
formed that the people of Macclesfield are perfectlyconteu
to have some reduction of the protective duty on silk—
that Macclesfield would be content with a reduction
from 30 to 20 per cent. Now, we propose 15 per cent.
There is only therefore a difference of 5 per cent. be-
tween our opinion, and the opinion of the people of
Macclesfield. Spitalfields comes next, and I cannot say
that I have received many representations against it
from Spitalfields. Connecting it with the other mea-
sures, I believe it is adopted there, furlamnotaware that
the people of Spitalfields are at all opposed to the gene-
ral proposal of the Government. Therefore, as far as
the trade is concerned, judgingfrom the opinions of par-
ties engaged in it, the trade generally speaking are
satisfied with the whole measure. Now my Noble
Friend has adopted a channel for arriving at conclusions
upon this subject which I think is not at all satisfactory,
namely, the quantity of raw material taken for home
consumption. lie takes the declared value of the exports
for the last five years, and compares it with the de-
clared value of the imports of the five preceding years ;
but that is an erroneous test. Alderman Webb was
constantly insisting on it that this country was ruined,
because the declared value of the manufactured exports
did not keep pace with the imports. But he was told
that this was neither a safe nor a just test to go by,
because as there was a great reduction in the cost of
production, the value of the manufactured articles sold
and exported year by year was diminished. It did not,
however, follow that because the declared value of ma-
nufactured exports diminished yearly that their should
be an increase in the imports over the exports. So it is
with silk. The cost of silk manufactures has been
diminished within the last five years ; improvements in
manufactures and the exercise of greater skill has di-
minished the cost of production within the last five
years, and it would be strange indeed if the declared
value of the manufactured exports of the last five years
had not diminished as compared with the declared value
of the manufactured exports of the preceeding five years;
but this by no means indicated that the silk manu-
facturers of this country had not flourished during the
last five years. The cost of production may have
decreased, and must have decreased in consequence
of the diminished cost of raw material ; so in
the cotton-trade, and woollen-trade, as in the silk-trade,
and therefore the declared value is necessarily no indi-
cation of the quantity of the article exported. But I
am asked, how do you account for so much of the raw
material being consumed at home ? Why, the fact is,
there is a growing taste for silk manufactures in this
country, and we cannot do better than encourage it.
Cottons and woollens have hitherto been the formidable
rivals of silk, but we never take into account what for-
midable competitors cotton and wool are to silk. It is
not foreign competition that has diminished the silk
trade, but it is the wool and cotton -trade ; but there is
a growing desire in this country to consume silk in
preference to these articles, and you cannot do better
than encourage it. There has, therefore, necessarily
been an increase in the quantity of foreign articles
brought into this country. In the five years preceding
the last five, there was an extensive system of smug-
gling carried on. But within the last five years there has
been some check put upon it, and in consequence of that
check, the customs show an increase in the amount of
silk imports.—(Hear, hear.) Silk was growing
upon the domestic manufactures of the country, and it is
therefore desirable that you should use every means to
put a check upon smuggling. It is presumed by some
that smuggling does not exist under a duty of thirty per
cent., but there is no 'denying it, smuggling does ex-
ist. It is now three-ana• twenty-years since the attention
of the House of Lords was called to this subject. A
Committee was then appointed to inquire into the state of
our foreign trade, and that is the tribunal to which my
Noble Friend alluded when he called upon the House of
Lords to oppose this measure in the event of its passing
this House. The House of Lords appointed a Com-
mittee upon the foreign trade of this country, and silk
was one of the articles to which they referred. Now,
what conclusion did the House of Lords come to in the
year 1821 ? Why, that if a small duty of from twelve
to fifteen per cent. w ere placed upon the introduction of
the raw material, it would enable the British manufac-
turer to compete with the foreigner, while it would di-
minish smuggling ' • and yes the Noble Lord calls upon
the House of Lords to reject this measure indignantly,
as tending to undermine the interests of the manufac-
turer, and as sowing the seeds of vice and immorality.
He calls upon the House of Lords to do this after one of
its tribunals had maturely considered this subject, ex-
amined witnesses interested in the domestic silk manu-
factures of. the country, and declared that the
public interest only required the existence
of a duty from twelve to fifteen per cent.
Supposing also—which was then in contemplation in the
House of Lords—we reduce the duty upon the articles
of subsistence, and so enable the manufacturer of this
country to compete with the foreign manufacture, we
pay not 121. but 15/. per cent. ; and when the House of
Lords do refer to their own recommendation, I shall be
surprised indeed if they do reject the measure which her
Majesty's Government proposes. Sir, my Noble Friend
has referred, and naturally has excited the sympathy of
those who placed confidence in his statement with re-
spect to the position of the unprotected classes of the
milliners and dressmakers. Sir, I think I could show
that if there be any class that suffers from the illicit
introduction of goods, it is that very class—(Hear, hear)
—to which my Noble Friend refers. I believe, in respect
to all those articles, that they are introduced in a con-
traband manner ; that there is a false reliance placed
upon protection ; that at any time you can insure
the introduction of silk goods (Hear, hear)—
and silk dresses—(hear, hear)—for au annual, the
extra cost not being greater than the duty which is
placed upon that article. And if the system be so—if
the taste for silk goods do advance in this country—you
will promote and encourage the price of that article—
you will give the manufacturer the advantage of com-
peting in the open day with the duty-plaid article ; but if
you subject him to that unknown disadvantage, he can,
take no precaution against the smuggling of goods pay-
ing no duty, and the honest trader suff, rs the greatest
loss and the greatest injustice by competition with the
dishonest trader. If you will permit the manufacturer
fairly to compete at a known advantage with his foreign
rivals, and if you will discourage among the higher
classes the use of those contraband articles, by facili-
tating the admission of them at moderate prices—(Hear,
hear)—then, I say, the manufacturer of silk, the opera-
tive employed in the silk manfacture, the dress-maker,
and the milliner (to whom my Noble Friend refers), has
a better chance in honest employment of gaining an
honest subsistence, as they ought to be enabled to
gain by continuous labour, than any advantage
they can now derive from high nominal duties,
which you cannot enforce against the evasion of
your own laws. —(Wear; hear.) Sir, these are the con-
siderations which induced her Majesty's Government to
propose this measure, feeling that it was for the interest
of the revenue that we should admit goods at a moderate
rate of duty, believing it to be for the interest of the
manufacturer that he should compete under ascer-
tained terms, believing it to be for the interest of those
employed in the manufacture, that we should, if it
were possible, pluck up by the root the system of
smuggling, which, while it professes to give protection,
is really delusive, and which inflicts a much greater
injury upon manufacturers than any that can be inflicted
by a fair and honest competiton.—(Cheers.)
Mr. DISRAELI add he should not detain the House
above two minutes—(Hear, hear)—while he made a few
observations with respect to those made by the Right
Hon. Gentleman in answer to his Noble Friend; and
whilst he made one more effort to induce lion. Gentlemen
Honourablesoul d , be-
cause
toeiiteirieinbtoeliteh
atlobabley
Friends were advocating that night was really the
acsasehewhhicimhsleilisf
veedsamthe
object of the working classes.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.")
The Eight Honourable Gentleman had in his pe-
roration laid the greatest stress upon the temptation
which the trade was liable to, in regard to smuggling,
as well as the responsibility which her Majesty's Go-
vernment possessed in struggling with that dark power,
which with the protection of 30 per cent., baffled as it
would seem all the efforts of her Majesty's Ministers.—
(llear, hear, and laughter.) But what they washed to in-
quire of the Right Hon. Gentleman was, how they suc-
cessfully struggled against the smuggler, who had an
inducement to carry on his trade by the 1200 per cent.
placed upon tobacco, and 250 per cents which was placed
upon tea.—(l roteetionist cheers.) When they heard of
those stories of the extraordinary power and achieve-
ments of the smugglers, with respect to the silk trade,
ha was at a loss to know where the Right lion. Gentle-
man obtained his information, unless it were from that
celebrated individual—(Hear, hear, and laughter)—who
he (Mr. Dlsraeli) observed had lately paid a visit
to the Vice-President of the Board of Trade—(Great
laughter)—he meant the fortunate Mr. Campden.
He (Mr. Disraeli) knew rot whether her Majesty's At-
torney-General had assisted at that interview, but it
seemed quite clear that the Treasury Bench on this and
on previous discussions had profited by that acquaint-
ance.—(Hear, and laughter.) Now the Right lion.
Gentleman had turned to the situation—the too pitiable
situation—of the silk trade in 1812, and while he had
dilated upon the miseries which the operatives of that
trade had endured in the year 1812, he had turned
round to the House and said, "See what protection has
produced."—(Hear, hear.) He had said to the Hon.
Gentlemen on his (Mr. Disraeli's) side of the House,
do you wish to bring back or rather to perpetuate such
a state of things as this ? Why, the working classes of
this country he said had nothing to suffer so much from
as protection. Why, it was during the period of the
terrible war, he believed, that wheat was sold at )20s.
the quarter.—(Opposition cheers.) It was a period
almost as unfortunate for all trades as that very period
to which the Right Honourable Gentleman had
referred—he meant the period 1816, which remained as
unprecedented for the general commercial depression of
brought
the country—(Hear, hear) —and those were the instances,
the answers, and the arguments that were
for-
, ward against his Noble Friend (Lord George Bentinck).
and thus he supported his argument by economical prin-
ciples, as flagrant as his historical fallacies, which were
opposed by all the social experience they possessed.—
husks, and while dilating on the importance and the
(Cheers.) The lion. Gentleman referred to knubb3 and
value of that article, he said what does it signify if it
employs labour and produces a great demand.—(Hear.)
Observe, in the first place, knubbs and husks are no
more to be accounted silk, than a sheep-skin is to be
wool.— (Cheers.) But to work up 2,0001b5.
ocfco rawui silk would employ per week 800 people,
accounted
and concluding from this datum, to which he be-
lieved ho might pledge himself for its accuracy,
to work up the whole 1,700,0001b5. imported
would occupy in one year only 1,200, while to manu-
facture the same quantity of the good material would
employ for the same length of time 13,000 persons.—
(Hear, hear.) Now ho would leave it to the House to
make its own deductions on the relative value of the two
articles in the trade and their respective produce.—(Hear.)
Then the Hon. Gentlemen accounted for the increase of
their exports by alleging that it was the effect of the
increase of duty on the raw material. Whatwas the fact?
That increase amounted to the one-twentieth of a penny.