The Sun.
London, England, 1829-04-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE LONDON JOURNALS.

One question, and an important one among many
which are included under the general description of
commercial subjects, was discussed in the House of
Commons during Monday and yesterday. We
mean the question of continuing the system of pro-
tecting the British silk-manufacture by duties, or of
resorting to the old and abortive, as well as tyran-
nical, system of supporting that branch of industry
by direct prohibitions. We do not know whether
the silk-manufacture is one in which a long-sighted
capitalist would like to risk his money, ur in the ten-
dency of which to diffuse happiness among those who
tarry it on, a cautious Government would be apt to
place much confidence. Most luxuries are matters
of mere caprice, and the demand for them rests
upon the vicissitudes of fashion. Silks are luxuries
slit over Europe,—they are luxuries not embracing
personal comfort of any kind, but merely serve to
please the eye. When their price is high, the de-
sire for them is general, since the ability to purchase
them affords a gratification to vulgar vanity; but
the use of them is confined to the rich. When the
price fills, the use becomes general, but the esti-
mation for that reason, ceases, or at least dimi-
nishes; and just when they have called into employ-
ment the greatest amount of industry, and given
bread to the greatest number of mouths, the demand
cools, and the consequent suffering spreads the
wider, as the precious activity (misnamed prospe-
rity) of the trade was more conspicuous. This, we
think, may fie considered no unfair representation of
the progress and changes of a manufacture which,
like that of silk, belongs to luxury, as contrasted
with the trades. in cotton, woollen, and iron, which
minister to the real wants of mankind. It seems
doulesrul, therefore, we repeat, whether such a ma-
..aufactere as that of silk ought to be keenly en-
taateateed by Government, or treated with more than
it tacit attention. It has at best no guarantee but
caprice—the most irregular of all human attributes;
and may flotnish, or may perish, from causes over
which neither power nor policy can possess any
certain sway. Mr. Fyler's motion for a Com-
mittee to i,,cluire into the present condition of
the silk trade was coupled with an avowal
by the Honourable Gentleman, that the object
of his motion was to revive the proh-bition of foreign
silks. His argument was comprised in two asser-
tions,—lst, that there is extreme distress among the
silk-weavers; 2d, that the opening of the trade has
been the cause of it; and his inference, though kept
rather ought of sight, is meant to be, that a return
to prohibition would be a cure for the distress. The
answer of Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald (who, we must ob-
serve in passing, made a powerful, instructive, and
decisive speech against the motion) resolves itself
into--Ist, an acknowledgment of the distress; and
'ed, into a satisfactory denial both of the cause and
remedy. Says Mr. Fyler, "we have lost the fancy
trade in silks :" the reply is, that we never had it—
that our silk-manufacture, before the relaxation of
the monopoly, was the " laughing stock of the whole
world,"—that since that period, the taste, skill, and
workmanship of our manufacturers have been most
wonderfully improved, and that neither in the article
of broad silks or ribands can British articles be
now distinguished from the foreign. But if our
filmy goods be inferior, then lower the duty on the
thrown silks of Piedmont, which are indispen-
sable to all finer goods,—therefore, to the general
spiced of the manufacture, and thence to the
interest of the British throwster himself. Mr. Fitz-
gerald clearly proved that • the distress was attri-
butable to other causes than the substituting of pro-
tectien for prohibition,—that the grant of a com-
mittee would first disturb, then suspend the tnanu-
facturer, and, finally and infallibly, disappoint him;
—that prohibition must extend and perpetuate the
contraband trade ;—that five years before the change
of the law gave an import of the raw material to
the extent of ten millions, and the five subsequent
years gave eighteen millions; and that if the pre-
sent consumption can be maintained no otherwise
than by low prices, a rise of price, produced by mo-
nopoly, must of course diminish the comumption.
With regard to this complaint of low price for
goods, we must remark that it is quite distinct
from that of a low rate of wages. By the won-
derful improvement of machinery, five yards of
in some branches of the manufacture, may now be
produced by less manual labour than formerly was
employed in making up a single yard. A reduc-
tion, therefore, in the price of silk, may directly
justify no other inference than that of great mecha-
nical perfection ; but we admit that it authorizes a
tehef of many hands having, in the first instance,
been thrown out of work, by the unlooked-for in-
crease of supply thus suddenly found for the market.
The argument for a reduction in the duty on foreign
thrown silk has been already stated in this Journal,
and we rejoice to see that Government has deter-
mined to reduce that duty, by taking of ls. 6d. from
Picdmontese organzine, ls. from tram, and 6J. from
single. The present high duty on foreign thrown
keeps up the price of the thrown silk of England, and
of, in some respects, raw silk likewise. Mr. Fitzgerald
scribes the principal proportion of the existing dis-
tress to the eagerness and confidence of immense capi-
tal, launching into inordinate speculation, forcing
over-production, and leading. to a paralysis of the
market. Mr. Huskisson emphatically concurred
with the President of the Board of Trade in
this opinion, and blended an irresistible argument
against the prohibitien, with a masterly arid complete
defence of his own commercial principles arid mea-
sures. We have no doubt that this discussion, and
the result of it, will tend to tranquillize much un-
easiness among the manufacturers, and help to esta-
blish in the public mind some respect and considera-
tion for another party, which, strange to say, the
wautifacturer is not the only person to forget,—viz.
the consumer,—that is to say, the body of the
nation. It is not probable that we will hear so
much peremptory nonsense talked in future upon
this question of the silk trade,—always saving the
privilege of the Hon. Member for Newark, whose
practical zeal for bigotry and monopoly so well suits
the verbose pomp of his sentimental and bistc:ical
dissertations.—Tinlea.
We have done with articles on the subject of Ca-
tholic emancipation. While yet struggling for a
place among those questions which were to be
deemed worthy of a specific notice by Englishmen,
arid while it was to many speculators more than pro-
bable that Iceland, with her grievances, would be
but the argument of an hour, this Journal•saw clear
through the vista of political necessities, and took
its stand on the solid principle, that nothing short of
full arid perfect justice would or could ever suffice
to tranquillize a people rendered turbulent by op-
pression. The Bill for receiving cur Catholic
brethren within the shelter of the British Constitu-
tion became yeSterday the law of the land. Away,
then, to the flames with that parchment Union,
which heretofore was null, and is hencefor-th need-
less ; the two islands are no longer united,
but identified. • Past Irish grievances may from
this hour be described and recorded by
the historian as a painful duty ; the States-
man may study them as an instructive les-
son ; the Englishman may recall them with
generous eagerness to heap every day some more
ample reparation upon that which he has thus man-
fully and wisely tendered ; but for the placable and
kindly race whose wounded honour has now been
stanched, and their decent" pride respected, the
grievance, and the memory of it, are already blot-
ted our ; nor would a parchment separation be
to-day more effectual to tear asunder the joint
hearts of this incorporate people, than was its pen-
and-ink antagonist of the year 1800 to blend them.
Such must ever be the final power of truth, when
judiciously and perseveringly addressed to the mind
of an enlightened nation. But final results, how-
ever certain, may he waylaid and obstructed by num-
berless intermediate chances. The difference be-
tween a prompt and a procrastinated issue of a ques-

Mr. Fyler's motion for a Committee of Inquiry was
lost by a majority of US, there being for it 31, against it
i ,es,lutions of Mr. Fi.zgeralti were then agreed
to in cvauxittvc wituvut OFriiti9n.