The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-04 00:00:00

STATE OF TRADE.

There has been a great degree of quietness in
business for the last week, yet we have every reason
to believe that the present year will progress with
more advantage to the mercantile community than
they have experienced for a considerable period.
Prices of produce are low, and the means of the
people are sufficient to warrant calculations founded
on a very extended consumption of the great
staple articles. Just now, we see no reason to
fear any unnatural speculative investments in eoods,
and as our present stocks, and the supplies we have in
prospect, are generally adequate to the requirements
of the trade, we may confidently expect a continu-
ance of moderate prices, which, it is to be hoped,
will be further insured by a liberal policy on the
part of the Government, when dealing with those
great questions, which will occupy so much atten-
tion on the re- assembling of Parliament. The ac-
counts we receive from the manufacturing districts are
very satisfactory, and both the manufacturer and the
operative have every reason to be content with the
present position of affairs, as contrasted with the state
in which they were up to the beginning of last year.
There has been no excitement in the cotton market ;
a moderate business has been got through, and
prices are not so firmly supported as they were
a week ago. The American accounts have had
no influence beyond, perhaps, inducing sales, on
the ground that imports at present rates
leave a handsome result. The rate of exchange
continued high, and specie had been again
shipping even from the southern markets. There is,
however, no lack of money here, and just now we
need not the dollars of our transatlantic creditors
yet here again we refuse many of their commodities,
and with cotton and tobacco we are as well supplied
as with money. We are yet anxiously waiting
arrivals, kept back in the Channel by the un-
favourable weather of the past week, to the very
serious loss and inconvenience of the owners both
of ships and cargoes. In guano, of which we shall
here immediately heavy arrivals, there is little
doing for consumption, and although there is no diffi-
culty In selling at about 51. 10s. per ton, yet it seems
as if the buyers were only speculating for a rise as
the season advances. The share market is very
buoyant, and prices advance nearly every day, under
the influence, as it would seem, of deep speculative
excitement; however, the proceedings of the railway
branch of the Board of Trade have dealt a severe
blow ; which must have time to work before we can
judge of the probable result. It is now too clear that
many of the new schemes will be officially opposed in
Parliament. —Liverpool Mercury.
STATE OF THE HOSIERY AND LACE TRADES.—The
condition of the principal branch of the hosiery trade,
namely, the manufacture of cotton hose by forming
the articles of a continued thread, and shaping them
by removing the loops, is still extremely dull,
the hands in the surrounding manufacturing
villages being put to great inconvenience in
obtaining a scanty supply of material, they
having in many instances not more than half work.
As a matter of course, this dearth of employment
affects the general prosperity of the district, and
many complaints are heard from the shopkeepers of
want of business.—The cut-up cotton hose trade is
much in the same situation.—The drawer branch,
though not improved, is not considered worse, though
the hands are very short of employment.—The cotton
glove branch is rather dull, but not to the same extent
as other branches.—There is no real improvement in
any of the branches of tbe silk hosiery manufactures,
notwithstanding many small floating orders, which ex-
cite hope,"the forerunner of dieappointment —The bob-
bin-net lace trade continues very dull. Some few de-
scriptions of goods are in demand, but they are very
limited in number. There has been a little excitement
respecting the new patent invention for making lace with
scolloped edges. A person of Snenton has offered his
method to a portion of the machine owners, who have
been for some time averse to taking licenses from
patentees, concurring that all inventions nueht to be
thrown open to the public, for which they have given
him 1001. His method, we understand, is to accumu-
late the warp threads one upon the other, and to gather
up the unemployed bobbin threads by the pearl thread,
which is actuated upon by a worm and wheel, on the
beam which draws the pearl thread the required tight-
ness to form the scollop. By this method, we arc told,
he can only make the indentation from four to six holes
deep. He does not use extra point bars. Upon this
latter fragile ground the subscribers hope the patent is
evaded ; but the patentees claim the method of using
the whole number of threads, as in scolloped cushion
laces, by whatever arrangement of machinery effected ;
therefore the using of extra traversing point bars by
the patent method is only a secondary claim. Several
parties, aware of this, have already taken out licenses,
for which the patentees charge 7s. 6d. per in. per an.
—The warp lace trade is further improved.—The
sill( blond branch, which has suffered so much for a
long period, has revived, and many frames are set on.
The lap, press, and tatting branches are in a very
healthy state. The dispute respecting the warp
jecquard patent, which seemed likely to occupy our
courts of justice, is amicably settled, by the manu-
facturers and frame-owners taking licenses under 100
inches, at 3s. ; above 100 inches in width, at 3s. 6d.
per inch. Frames being built after this time, above
100 inches, are to pay 4s. per annum.—Arottingtham
Review.

CHIPPENIIAM.—We are sorry to learn that a re-
duction to 7s. per week has been made in the wages of
some agricultural labourers in this neighbourhood. We
trust the parties reducing to so low a sum the earnings
of their workmen are few ; we should be happier were
they none at all. A distribution of coal, meat, and bread,
has been made from the subscribed fund for the relief of
the poor during the winter. 401. has been thus distri-
buted out of the 1051. subscribed.— Wilts Independent.
Dispatches were sent off yesterday evening from the
Colonial-office for the Governor of the North Ame-
rican Provinces. Dispatches were received from the
Governor of Hong-Kong.