The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-03-16 00:00:00

WHAT ARE OUR PROSPECTS ?-EFFECTS OF

FREE TRADE

(From the Times.)

While the falling off in our exports during the past year
amounted to £2,018,291, as compared with 1845, the
consumption of foreign provisions and articles of luxury
for the like periods presents the following totals :
Increase in

Cattle 34,426
Provisions (cwts ) 507,219
Grain... . . (qrs.) 1,344,675
Flour .. (cwts.) _ 632,479

140,572
84A

106,146
336,923
2,960,510
2,904,492

4,305,185

3,536,911

Cocoa
Coffee

:. (lb.) 2,589,984
.. (lb.) 34,318,095
(cwts.) 4,879,780
.. (lb.) 44,183,135

372,343
2,463,296
348,068

`Z2I-,846

46,728,208

2,545,073

Tobacco & snuff
(lb.) 26,322,251

30,001,908 .. 3,679,657

brandy, and
Geneva (gals.) 3,543,798 .. 4,239,735 .. 695,937
The excessive consumption of these and other articles
has, however, only led to a drain of bullion to the extent
of three millions and a half, while, upon a moderate com-
putation, they would appear to call for three times that
amount. This is to be accounted for by two facts—the
first being that we have not imported and paid for as
much as we have consumed, since, conjointly with our
importations, we have been steadily eating up former
reserves, so that our stocks of all kinds—coffee, sugar,
rice, &c.—are low ; and, next, because we have dimi-
nished our importations of raw material in a remarkable
degree, and hence, while paying for provisions, have
lessened our usual payments on this score. Here, too,
in like manner, we have been drawing upon our reserves.
Our manufactures have been carried on with hemp, -flax,
and cotton which had been paid for in former years, and
we have left ourselves at the present moment short of all
these articles, the stock of the latter alone on the Ist of
January last, as compared with the preceding year, being
545,790 against 1,060,560 bales.. We are not only poorer,
therefore, by all the bullion we have lost, but by all the
stock we have thus consumed.
This process cannot go on any longer. We have now
no accumulations to eat into, and must, consequently, pay
for what we use. Consequently, therefore, with our im-
portations of corn and other provisions (which are now
going on at a much greater rate and at much higher prices
than in 1846), and just in proportion as they beget a de-
mand for our manufactures, we must have importations
of raw material. Large purchases of hemp and flax are
alleged to have been made in the north of Europe for
spring shipment, and cotton from the United States is
only delayed by the want of ships. Wool from Spain
and the Mediteranean, saltpetre, oil-seeds, &c., from
India, and a host of minor articles have also been kept
back by the same cause, and will pour in upon us to make
up our deficiencies directly any relavation shall take p)ai
(if such could be foreseen) of the universal influx of
grain. In this way just as one cause of demand diminishes
the other will increase, and the balance will be kept up
against us for a period to which at present it is impossible
to fix a limit.
We thus see that no call that can possibly arise for our
manufactures can have the effect of preventing a continu-
ous drain of bullion. That a large trade will occur no
one can doubt, but at present it is scarcely even in pros-
pect. From India and China each account comes less fa-
vourable than before ; from Russia we are told that " no
great demand can be expected for British goods under the
present high duties" in that country ; while even from
the United States, the point whence relief will most
rapidly come, we hear of a shrewd conviction that we are
approaching a period of low prices, and that consequently
for the present " the less they order from us the better."

And under these circumstances we are to struggle until
August, when a favourable harvest may interpose. The
money value of the potato crop of Ireland alone is esti-
mated at £16,000,000, and the non-recurrence of a failure
similar to that of last year must depend upon the sudden
subsidence of a disease which has been gaining strength
for many seasons all over Europe,—or, turning to other
resources, and granting a favourable harvest, we have still
to tremble at the prospect of a neglect of cultivation. In
the House of Commons, on the Ist instant, Lord John
Russell " regretted to say that there was no satisfactory
evidence that that quantity of land was being sown with
corn which should be in preparation to meet the absence
of the potato," while a few nights afterwards it was found
necessary to refuse an application for a general supply of

seed to the people of Ireland, on the ground of its having
been ascertained that even what had already been done
towards that end had led the farmers to consume their
seed corn, and to trust to Government for getting more.
And even if all these difficulties could be swept away,

there could still be no chance of a low rate of interest in
England for some years. Let the slightest decline take
place in the value of money, and a week would not elapse
before France, Austria, Prussia, Portugal, and other con-
tinental states would bid a rate that would at once attract
our capital, and bring our market towards an equality with
Spain, the United States, and Mexico would also

appear among the borrowers, nui ror tne iaei, uiw Lucy
could not obtain trust on any terms. Italy would take
three millions for railways, the German States would also
come into the field, and when all these desires had been

supplied, the claims of India would remain to receive
attention.
Not to dwell upon such minor circumstances as the
effect upon the circulation consequent upon payments of
coin in Ireland, in place of payments in kind, and also of
the hoarding and departure of bullion that would result
from any extended emigration, we come finally to the one
grand point which, amidst all these considerations, has to
be kept in mind, that the amount of railway works to be
completed during this and the next is to exceed, according
to the promises of the parties interested, the extent of
construction of any former period. About six months

foil; hundred thousand. At the lowest computation we
may take this at five hundred thousand for the ensuing
Lord George Bentinck will tell us that the money

to these men vc

but he will find that, so far from being spent at home, it
will be spent at New York and Odessa for corn ; in Ohio
for pork ; and in France, Brazil, and Cuba for brandy,
rum, and sugar. The means of reparation of the bone

and muscle expended on our earth
-C tt 9, nr.,

.ks figure annu

increase in the items in the above comparative tables to a
far greater extent than the Irish famine ; and as, when
the lines are completed, they constitute a species oimanu-
facture which cannot be shipped in payment of their cost,
we have no alternative but to pay in gold.
We are thus inevitably led to the conclusion that a far
greater drain of bullion will take place than has yet
occurred. Turn where we will, it is impossible to see a

single cause to avert tras reiuu. LI LUG 11111 V LI/
greatest pressure may come, it is not easy to determine,
but at the furthest it can scarcely be deferred beyond
May, June, or July. Few persons can weigh the difficul-
_

ties'Cvhich with singular fatility seem now to press from
all sides towards one common point, without seeing• that
two or three years must pass before
position, or again recover confidence

'e can resume our