The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-06 00:00:00

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Oxford Professor.

Another of those admirably useful and carefully
elaborated treatises in regard to French Commerce,
recently contributed to Bentley month after month
by Mr. FREDERICK MARSHALL, appears in the
current number," the December number (CCC.) of
that popular miscellany. The present instalment
(the ixth) of this very able series relating to the
Trade and Population of France, acquaints us with
all we could reasonably want to know at a single
sitting, in respect to the silk growth and the silk
manufacture of our Imperial neighbour. At all
times a matter of interest to us. At the present
moment a matter of real and serious importance.
Now, that is to say, that:the silk growth of the:two
countries may be—now that the silk manufactures
of these two great industrial nations are certain to
be—brought, year after year, more and more
directly into competition. How ?—it can scarcely
be asked seriously, every one instinctively appreciat-
ing, of course, that reference is here made to the ine-
vitable influences to this end arising out of the
operation of Mr. COBDEN'S Reciprocity Treaty.
Often though we have had occasion before now to
write the words, we can still never do so without
a renewed sense of their astounding incongruity—
Mr, COBDEN'S Reciprocity Treaty, forsooth ! fifteen
years after the triumph achieved by Free Trade
Principles, thanks beyond aR ether human means
to Mr. COBDEN'S own unadorned eloquence. Re-
ciprocity Treaties, we might thenceforth have been
led to suppose pretty confidently, were part and
parcel of a system of mercantile legislation that had
seen its day—a system that thenceforth, from the
date of Sir R. PEEL'S great measure, would neces-
sarily, it was thought, altogether, in legal phrase,
cease and determine." An erroneous conjecture,
as events have proved—seeing that Mr. COBDEN
himself, of all men, has been the one deli-
berately to revive, as a sort of new-
fangled device, the old, used-up scheme of a
Reciprocity Treaty. However—'tis the small end
of the wedge, we are told ; and so—we must make
the best of it. Accepting it as the small end of
the wedge, in effect—all we have now to do in its
regard is to aid in driving it imperceptibly but
steadily further " home." Until the old gnarled
obstruction of French mercantile Monopoly shall,
in the natural course of things, be riven asunder,
and Free Trade inaugurated upon the opposite
shores of the Channel, as firmly and impartially
as upon these. Then, adieu to all further reci-
procity between us about the export or import,
as the case may be, of coal, or iron, or wine, or
silk, or calico !

A Reciprocity Treaty, however, as it is, we have.
And, therefore, it becomes a matter of interest for us
to examine as carefully as may be, now in the midst
of our earlier experiences of the operation of that
treaty, into the relative position of the trade of the
two countries, France and England, in regard to
anyone of the more important and valuable materials
for exportation or importation. Hance, the pecu-
liar satisfaction with which we have turned to the
investigation of the very curious and remarkable
statistics accumulated by Mr. MARSHALL with a
view to the throwing of a broad flood of light upon
the silk trade of France. These statistics, we would
here earnestly commend to the scrutiny of
those amongst us who are likely to be more imme-
diately affected by the prospect of our own silk trade
being brought into more intimate competition with
the silk trade of our neighbours.
At the first blush it would seem almost preposte-
rous to talk about the probabilities of any such
serious competition between France and England
—remembering the fact that France, according to
the last reliable estimate that has been formed upon
the subject now under our consideration, produced
as nearly as possible one-tenth of all the silk grown
in the whole world. The estimate here referred to
is the one authoritatively put forth by M. DUM As in
March, 1857, in the Bulletin de la Societe d'En-
couragement (p. 151), an estimate showing the value
of the cocoons grown is 1853 in all parts of the
globe. It is as follows :

France .. • • .. £4,344,000
Italy .. • • • . 11,260,000
Spain, and other European
countries

.. .. 934,000

Total for Europe £16,588,000
China .. £17,000,000
India .. 4,830,060
Japan .• • . 3,200,000
Persia .. • . .. 920,000
Other Asiatic states .. 2,192,000

Total for Asia .. £2B, 112,000
Africa .. • • • • .. • . 44,000
Tho Pacific Islands .. .. 24,000
America,. . • , 20,000

General total ..

.. £44,788,000

But while such is the important position held by
France in respect to the silk growth of the whole
world—there is another branch of the trade in
which England already holds a respectable posi-

tion beside her, one in fact in which England gives
promise of holding a still more respectable position
as time advances. Let a brief but sufficient excerpt
or two from Mr. MARSHALL'S argument in Bent-
ley here illustrate this for our reader's information :
—" The silk trade of France," says Mr. MARSHALL,
"is, of course, more important than that of Eng-
land; but it is remarkable to observe that, as far
as the insufficient nature of the information which
exists on the subject allows of a detailed compari-
son between the production of the two countries,
England is progressing more rapidly than France."
The writer then goes on to demonstrate, by the
juxtaposition of actual figures, the literal accu-
racy of this last rather startling assertion. And
he does so in the manner following :
" The importation of raw and thrown silk into England
amounted in 1860 to 4197 tons; it had just doubled since
1846; 191 tons of thrown silk were re-exported, so that the
quantity apparently loft for manufacture was 4003 tons.
The importation of the same raw material into France in the
same year was 5278 tons ; there is no mention of re .expor-
tation in the customs returns, so the whole quantity may
be supposed to have been worked up in the country. The
production of cocoons in 1860 was probably about one-third
higher than in 1856; it may, therefore, be put at 10,000
tons, which, at the average yield of 14 per cent. (it varies
from 10 to 18 per cent., ac cording to the quality of the cc
coons),lwould have given 1,400 tons of raw silk. So that the
total weight manufactured in France last year was probably,
about 6678 tons, or two-thirds more than tip:. English quan-
tity. In 1846 the yield of French grown raw silk was about
2,800 tons, while the importation amounted to 1,200 tons ;
the total for that year was, therefore, about 4,000 tons. As
it reached 6,673 tons in 1830, the trade had increased two-
thirds in tho interval. It has just been shown that the
English make has doubled in the same period ; it Coilse-
quently appears that the grog' ess of England is now more
rapid than that of France."

Any one who may be desirous of examining yet
more minutely into the relative position of the silk
trade in the two countries, but more particularly into
the condition, past and present, of the silk trade of
France, :cannot possibly do better than refer at
once to the mass of information upon the
subject accumulated together in the paper here
particularised as from the hand of this labori-
ous and luminous comp:ler. It will place every
one who consults it au courant with the history
and the statistics of the science of the cultivation
of silk worms, a science distinguished in France
under the imposing name of Orieieulture.