The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-06-29 00:00:00

activity with which we have been importing the
two classes of articles :

IMPORTS FROM JANUARY 5 TO MAY 5.
1845. 1846. 1847.
15,273 450,971 333,336
100,401 44,994 323,596
48,752 87,673 293,595
295 30 16,839
6,043 31,078 51,569
36,525 76,872 132,893
19,096 128,284 1,093,364
660 572 15,737
491

Wheat, qrs
Barley
Oats.
Rye
Pease
Beans
Maize
Buck Wheat
Bere or Big.

Total grain

qrs. 227,045 820,474 2,256,414

Flour and Meal, cwts 15,764 717,632 1,893.456
Provisions, do. 43,836 61,826 115.765
Cattle, No 2,791 14,753 25,060
Butter, cwt 61,730 49,354 82,928
Cheese, do 76.229 77,936 100,739

Rice, do.
Sugar consumed, do. 1,496,404 1,617,084 1,903,942
Coffee, lbs.
Tea, do 14,191,359 15,214,805 15,750,907

There is an increase here in nearly every article.
Our importations of raw materials, however, shew
a very different result :

IMPORTS FROM STH JANUARY TO STH MAY.

1815. 1846. • 1847.
Sleeps' Wool, lbs 14,229,276 13,762,516. 7,699,419
Cotton Wool, cwt 2,335,054 1,534,715 1,399,651
Flax, do. 134,303 158,701 158,129
Hemp do 130,438 95,139 77,885
Silk raw, lbs.
-, thrown, do.

There is a further clecreast in the importations
of a number of articles used for working up these
raw materials, such as dye stuffs, gums, &c. We
shall allow our contemlorary to make his own de-
ductions from his premises :
. .

‘` It is most apparent then, that while the pantries and
larders of the United Kingdom have been supplied with
tbe most unusual quantities of foreign provisions, our
workshops and our warehouses have been greatly neg-
lected. As a nation, we resemble. an improvident shop-
keeper who lives upon his stock. His goods are sold,
and the proceeds, in place of replenishing his shelves, are
exhausted in his housekeeping-book. His purchases
(imports) are of eatables and drinkables received through
the area gate, in place of hardwares or dry wares through
his shop door. In ancient times, and in distant parts of
the country, before any village was furnished with its
shops, the wants of the country were supplied by itinerant
dealers, who visited at stated intervals the thinly scat-
tered houses in remote districts. These dealers were
called packmen. Some of the ancient accounts of this
class of dealers are amusing and instructive enough.
The thrifty and the provident are described as returning
regularly to their head quarters to replenish their packs.
They then paid for the venture with which they had
started, and were trusted with another. But it ap-
pears there were then, as now, many who were im-
provident and prodigal. The life of a packman ex-
posed him to loose and irregular habits, and it
sometimes happened that he continued upon his
journey until he spent principal and profit, and his capi-
tal stock was exhausted. In the phrase of his time, this
man was said to have "perished his pack." This is not
unlike the process which the official accounts of the trade
of the present year show to have been going forward in
this country. The United Kingdom has been "perishing
its. pack." Our goods have been exported, and not only
principal and profit, but all the ready money we could lay
hands on, have been exhausted in furnishing food for
immediate use. We are buying more and producing less
than ever. In Ireland alone, some ten millions, by this
time, have been expended, for which no return will ever
be made. In the manufacturing districts, with food at
double its usual cost, employMent is more scarce and wages
lower than ever. There is, in fact, a rapid exhaustion of
capital going forward; our means are expended in supplying
our daily wants, and not in replenishing our empty ware-
houses and idle workshops, with the materials of future
wealth. OUR MERCHANTS AND MANUFACTURERS ARE
LIVING UPON THEIR CAPITAL, AND NOT UPON THEIR
PROFITS ; AND OUR ARTIZ ANS AND LABOURERS UPON
THE REMNANT OF THEIR FURNITURE, COMMITTED TO
THE CARE OF THE PAWNBROKER, EKED OUT BY THE POOR
RATES, INSTEAD OF UPON WAGES."

The above views are precisely those which we
have all along held as to the operation of Free
Trade measures. The country is indeed "perish-
ing its pack." Our legislators say to us we will
'allow you to increase your consumption "of foreign
bread stuffs, of tea, of luxuries of every kind, for-
getful of the fact that such increased consumption
is so much abstracted from the income of the
people, which would otherwise be devoted to the
purchase of articles, the produce of the industry of
the British artisan. The Chronicle has shewn us
that our exports are not deficient this year, as
compared with last. Yet our factories are stand-
ing. The weaver is idle. Tradesmen of every
description are cramped in their means, and com-
plaining of the stagnation of their business. What
wonder, when we see how we have been gorging
ourselves with foreign produce to the extent above
shown.

IN the remarks which we have, from time to
time, felt called upon to offer upon the question of
the proposed Water supply from Rivington Pike,
we have been actuated. by no motive or feeling
other than that which doubtless actuates the mem-1,
bers of the Health Committee—viz., a desire to
advance the true interests of the town. We had
arrived at the conviction, after mature considera-
tion of the subject in all its bearings, that the com-
mittee were rushing into an expenditure greater
than the amount of henefit to be derived warrants;
that the Rivington Scheme is a hasty one, based
upon erroneous data and certain to be productive
only of disappointment. We have adduced facts
and figures to prove the correctness of these
opinions ; and as yet they have not been rebutted
in one essential particular.
An attempt has been indeed made by the Liver-
pool Times, to show that we were in error in stating
that the whole available water shed, provided by
the Bill, was not limited to 8,200 acres, This fact,
however, was deposed to by Mr. Bateman, the
engineer to the Manchester Corporation, and by
other competent parties, whose testimony, more-
over, was fully borne out by measurements made
upon the Ordnance maps; and so strongly were
the committee impressed with its truth that it was
for some time in doubt whether on this very
ground they would not he justified in rejecting the
Bill altogether, Ultimately, we believe, the pre-
amble was only passed on the quantity of water
space, 8,200 acres, being assumed by the com-
mittee.

We pointed out the large quantity of water to
be deducted from the estimated supply, for com-
pensation and for the supply of Chorley, Wigan,
&c. ; and the immense cost of maintaining the ne-
cessary works for this purpose. We have as yet
seen nothing to shake our position, with respect to
this part of the question. Again, with respect to
the estimated rain-fall of the district, we still be-
lieve that the calculations of Mr. Hawksle-y are
overstrained; and perhaps the particulars we give
in another column, as to the experience of the
Edinburgh Water Company, may tend to confirm
our views.

We observe that the Mercury has stepped for-
ward to instruct W us with respect to the missing
clause in the bill requiring a constant supply of
water to be kept in the mains at high pressure. On
this point, however, our contemporary, the Journal,
has so handsomely aided us, that we feel it mine-
cessary to say more than that we were perfectly
correct, and the Mercury as perfectly wide of the
mark.

AMONGST the addresses to Constituencies, is-
sued during the past week, one of the most inter-
esting is that of Mr. Richard Cobden to the
electors of Stockport. The public have naturally
been anxious to learn how the present posture of
affairs in the commercial world, following so closely
upon the carrying out of his favourite policy, is
viewed by the great apostle of Free Trade. The
following are Mr. Cobden's rather apologetic re-
marks upon the subject :
" I deeply regret that you will be called upon to exer-
cise the elective franchise at a periml of great manufac-
turing depression. It is no consolation to generous minds
to know that their sufferings are shared by others; but,
unhappily, almost the whole of Europe is mourning over
deficient harvests, amid privations, which, for severity
and extent, have no parallel in the present century. It
is possible that to some of my friends, who rejoiced in the
brighter prospects afforded by our recent commercial re-
forms, the existing distress may have brought feelings of
doubt and discouragement. Free trade cannot avert a
sudden and calamitous visitation of Providence ; it can
only alleviate its pressure. But the present crisis has at
least this consolation, that it has brought from all quar-
ters proofs of the soundness and beneficence of our prin-
ciples ; for we have seen the governments of the continent,
vfith hardly an exception, abolish their multiform regula-
tions of the corn trade at the moment when, if their in-
terference be ever efficacious, it was the most needed ;
nw d o see them now relying upon the energies of eman-
cipated commerce alone for saving their people from the
horrors of famine."

At last, then, we have it confessedd that there is
something which Free aanedcannotaccomplish.
cannot either
calamitous. It " cannot avert a sudden
visita-
tion of Providence."—lt
Cobden
countries.
moreeither prevent,
failing harvests visiting at once
than our own, a fact which Mr. might
have considered before pressing forward elas-es
which are calculated to render us less dependent
oa our own soil for articles of food than we have