The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-01 00:00:00

PAPER 212AKING.

Mr. Bright in last Monday's debate took occa-
sion to dwell upon some of the statistics of the

trade of paperm- aking, and to set forth what he
supposed to be the opinion of that trade upon the
measures now before the house. If he had known

their interests better he might have done them more
justice without in any way interfering with his own ,
object of getting cheap paper for his favourite penny
newspaper. Nay, he might have even furthered
that object and obtained cheaper paper from a great
competition than he is now likely to obtain from a
Continental monopoly. Failing his assistance, the
papermakers arc themselves in the field, striving
to obtain a hearing from a very reluctant audience.
Unhappily for them, the general public will insist
that they know their case without listening to it ;
and they have a fixed notion that the papermakers
are clamouring for a protection against foreign
competition and for a right to sell dear paper. This
happens to be directly the reverse of the fact. No
persons have a greater interest in the repeal of the
Excise duties than the papermaders ; no class is
mare desirous to sell cheap paper than the owners
of paper mills. An Excise is to them not only
an annoyance, but a loss ; and every trader
knows that the higher he is obliged to raise the
price of his articles of trade the less he sells, and
the less is his margin of profit. The public, how-
bver, cannot be brought to look at the question from
this point of view. If a papermaker should manage
to catch hold of the button of a member of Parlia-

ment, and begin to tell him thic;i;-;is;tiOnga
freetrader as any man can be, and that he wants

neither favour nor protection, the captive senator
smiles blandly incredulous, and disengages himself
at the earliest possible moment. He goes away
down to the house congratulating himself that he
has got out of the clutches of a greedy monopolist,
who desires nothing less than to be hedged round
with protective duties, and secured from all foreign
competition. Of course, we shall buy our paper
where we can get it cheapest ; the exigencies of our
trade so compel us. But we have no special desire
to ruin a great industry without any profit to any
one, or to destroy the bread of our own country-
people wantonly. Therefore, although we know
that we cannot touch this subject without drawing
upon ourselves a certain quantity of dirt, we shall
incur this inconvenience, and state what the pre-
' sent case of the papermakers really is.
In the first place, we are able, from our necessary
business transactions with this trade, to affirm that

the disastrous effects which the papermakers an
ticipated from the measure of last session have
not turned out to be mere illusory terrors. The
paper trade is going right away out of England.
Mr. Maguire, who stated the case very well to the
House of Commons on Thursday last, was very
much within the truth when he said that the Irish
papermakers had already lost from 25 to 30 per
cent. of their business. The instance Mr. Maguire
gives of one Dublin firm, 'which had sent paper
to the amount of £lB,OOO a-year to London, and
does not now send a single ream, may be multi-
plied in many parts of England. It is clear that
the English paper trade cannot stand. The only
reason that it is not gone at once is that the
French, Belgians, and Germans have not yet had
time to put up sufficient machinery to meet the
increased demand. In a little time that difficulty
will be overcome, and then half the English mills
must be shut up and all the population now en-
gaged in this manufacture must be thrown out of
employ. This is a transition now being accom-
plished before our eyes. " Happy England !" cries
some fanatic who fancies himself a Free-trader ;
and is carrying out her principles; " she is buying
in the cheapest market.' Not so. England, for
the manufacture of paper, is the cheapest market
in the world. The labour, skill, machinery, and
waterpower are cheaper in England, in proportion
to the results obtained, than they are in either
Belgium, France, or Germany. The British paper-
maker is dying away. His workpeople are be-
coming destitute, and his mills are shut, not be-
cause he cannot beat all the world in papermaking,
but because his raw material is withheld from him
by the ignorance of his rulers. He cannot make
bricks, because his rulers have taken away from
him not only the straw, but also the clay. He
would give you cheaper paper than even this which
is now ruining him ; he would drive it out of the
market both tor price and quality, if you would let
him have free access to the market where he might
get the stuff wherewith to make it. The fact in,
you are even now paying dearer, and you will,
when the Excise duty is taken off, pay dearer, for
French, Belgian, and German paper than you
would pay for English paper if you would untie
the hands of your own fellow-subjects.
It is you who are doing this—you Ministers, you
Diplomatists, you members of the House of Com-
mons ! If a ship comes into port with a cargo half
of rags and half of paper, you levy £9 per ton duty
upon the rags, and you let in the rags ready made
into paper duty free. You set the Frenchman and
the Belgian to do bungling work upon an untaxed
material, and you insist upon your own country-
men working upon a material heavily taxed. You
are eager to reply that it is not you who levy the
£9. With your permission, we must insist that
it is you who levy the £9. True, it does not go
into your pocket,—that is to say, into the pocket
of this nation. So much the worse; we have
not even that scintilla of advantage. You
have not had the common sense to retain for this
country the amount of the tax which is the destruc-
tion of one of its important interests. But it was
you who put it on. A twelvemonth ago you had
the power either to allow or to disallow this tax.
By a word you might have taken it off. If you
had but mentioned the subject, no Frenchman
would have had the face to propose to you that he
should, while he imported into England manufac-
tured rags, prohibit the exportation of unmanufac-
tured rags. The Treaty under which you let in
manufactured rags duty free was, as you yourselves
say, a matter of bargain—a " Reciprocity Treaty."
Having it, then, in your power to remove this £9
impost, you deliberately, and of choice, left it in
operation. It is, then, your tax ;as much your
tax as if you levied it at the English Custom-house.
It is you, Mr. Gladstone, it is you, Mr. Milner
Gibson, it is you, ye Diplomatists, who have done
this. By your unreciprocating Reciprocity Treaties
you have not only violated the principles of Free
I.'rade, but fixed a heavy protective duty against
your own countrymen, and enhanced the price of
an article which you were endeavouring to make
cheap.
This is what the Papermakers complain of. You
have taken off the Customs, they say, and we ac-
cept our position with confidence; you are about
to repeal the Excise duty, and we thank you for
it, but you have taxed our raw material for the
benefit of the foreigner, and under such an un-
paralleled proceeding we are driven from all hope
of competition. With this case they repair to
Lord Palmerston, who gives them such gentle
language and unsubstantial satisfaction as Lord
Palmerston is wont to give to deputations on
subjects not within his immediate province.
Thence they repair to Mr. Gladstone, who tells
them that us to France he can do nothing, for
that the £9 export duty (which we are told is to
be substituted for the present prohibition) is tacitly,
and by inevitable construction, part of the French
Treaty. That Treaty of Reciprocity and Com-
merce leaves the French Emperor free to levy this
duty, and Mr. Gladstone can ask for nothing which
is outside the text of that document. As to the
other countries with which there is no Treaty of
Reciprocity, Mr. Gladstone promises every possible
diplomatic interference ; but, as he is about to com-
mence by unconditionally repealing the whole of
that Customs' duty which now balances the Excise,
it is difficult to understand what expectation he can
entertain of success from his diplomacy. What the
Papermakers are now asking is that the same duty
should be levied by us from any country importing
paper as that country levies upon rags exported
from it. The inevitable consequence of granting
this request would be that no duty would be levied
either upon rags or upon paper, and paper would
be a great deal cheaper thau it ever can be while
foreigners levy duty upon rags and Englishmen are
shut out from competition in the paper manufac-
ture.—Times.

THE CIVIL SERVICE.—Mr. Gladstone takes
credit for the reduction of the Custims' establishment, as
the result of the legislation of last year, but the drawback
is serious ; the return of the increase and diminution in the
course of 1860 in the number of persons employed in the
public effices shows a diminution of 552 in the customs,
and a saving of £91,987, but to set against there is an in-
crease of £50,216 in the retired allowances of that depart
ment. This is immediately followed in the list by the state-
ment of an increase of above £70,000 in the " expenses" of
the Inland Revenue Department, and of £52,000 in the
Post-office, which in the course of the year added 638
to
the number of its clerks and servants, and brought the
strength of the establishment above 25,000. Upon the
whole, notwithstanding the large reduction in the customs,
there were 89 more persons employed in the public service
at the end of the year than at the beginning, and the Sala-
andexperana had increased by 4110,258$