The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-08-13 00:00:00

OUR MANUFACTURING DISTRESS

There is no small degree of indiscretion in the effort, on
the part of the ministerial press, to parade indiscriminately
before the public every commercial failure which occurs, as
the result of our present system of corn-laws. The gentle-
men of the League may imagine that the virtual mendacity
of the paragraphs which emanate from the manufacturing
districts will advance the objects which they have in view—
will induce the.growth of an opinion throughout the country
that the imputed causes of manufacturing distress, and of
the individual disasters which attend its progress, are the
real ones ; but they must not be surprised if, ultimately, the
reflecting portion of the people not only refuse to Adopt
without inquiry the conclusions which they seek to propa-
gate, but even push that inquiry with a strictness of scru-
tiny, and in a direction, for which they are at present scarcely
prepared.

It is now an established fact, that a great portion of the
embarrassment experienced by the foreign trader is attribu-
table directly to the mismanagement .and. neglect of our
commercial relations with, other nations by the present Whig
government. There is not an export merchant throughout
the kingdom, of any experience and judgment, who will
attempt seriously to maintain the converse of this proposi-
tion. So far, then, the endeavour to impute this embarrass-
ment to the operation of the corn-laws alone, is wilfully and
flagitiously dishonest. It is almost admitted, too, that ano-
ther portion of this embarrassment is attributable solely-to
causes connected with our monetary system—to the exten-
sion of manufacturing production, by means of facilities af-
forded by the fictitious capital of joint-stock banks, unat-
tended by a corresponding increase of the sources of demand.
In addition to these causes may be urged, the misdirection
of manufacturing power to the creation of fabrics unsuited
for the consumption of those markets which still remain
open to the operation of our merchants ; the cessation of the
home demand arising from the effects of political agitation ;
the drain of manufacturing capital which has taken place
during the last six years, to the amount of 30 or 10
for the purposes of the various railway schemes ; and, in
short, to causes for which the commercial and manufacturing
community are themselves mainly responsible. Ought it,
then, we ask, be matter of complaint against the journalist,
if, when he finds that all these elements of commercial dis-
tress are systematically kept out of sight by the agitators of
the commercial body, whilst the existence of that distress
itself is paraded to subserve party ends, and to direct legis-
lation in a channel adverse to the real interests of the uni-
versal people—when he sees not only general effects, but
even individual cases, draggel forth to observation for the
purpose of exciting popular ferment—he should demand a
scrutin,. into the circumstances by which those individual
cases have been attended, before allowing them to be thrust
into the general mass of evidence which is arrayed against
the principles for which he contends, as well as into the per-
tinence and justice of that mass of evidence itself ?

We have no wish ourselves to approach this description of
scrutiny, and we have no wish either to see the press gene-
rally erect itself into a court of inquiry into the circumstances
attending individual cases of misfortune. We are quite sa-
tisfied, for our own part, to allow such individuals to esteem
themselves as martyrs to our commercial system, rather
than as the victims of their own indiscretion and exorbitant
ambition. But we must protest against the encouragement,
by a party press and for purely party objects, of the growth
of such an opinion on the part of the public, not only as it
tends to the injury of commercial morality, by creating an
undue sympathy with the victim of bankruptcy, by whatever.
indiscretion produced, but also as impeding the cause of
truth. Of course our present remarks arc pointed at no
particular instance of this growing practice of the anti-corn-
law press, although the occurrence of such an instance du-
ring the past week, in which the individual sufferer is him-
self a leading member of the League, might almost counte-
nance the supposition. On the contrary, oar business is at
present with the system alone, which, however, if pressed.
will compel us ultimately, as it already challenges us, to
embark in individual inquiries. _

We maintain that no fair conclusion is deducible as to the
causes of the distress at present existing in the manufactu-
ring districts; from the fact of failures taking place amongst
them, however pertinent may be the evidence which these
afford of the internal insecurity of the gigantic system
erected there—of the rottenness of the timbers of that vast
commercial edifice, to support which we are invited to with-
draw the very pillars which alone hold up the social fabric.
We know from incontrovertiblq data, that one branch of
manufacture alone—that of cotton, has nearly doubled its
producing power within the last ten years. By a statement
laid by Lord Sandon, in one of his late admirable addresses,
before the mercantile constituency of Liverpool, we find that
the weekly consumption of cotton in British factories, which
in 1831 was 16,513 bags, had reached in 1810 to 30,089 bags,
making an increase of actual manufacture within 10 years
of 82 per cent ; and amidst the vast accumulation of
building, machinery, and capital required to effect this in-
crease, is it to be wondered at that instances are numerous,
in which individual members of the manufacturing body
have extended their operations so far beyond their means of
sustaining even the most trifling check, as to be entirely
prostrated in a crisis like the present? Imprudent and pre-
cipitate as has been the course of the entire manufacturing
body, is it to be wondered at, if tempted by the facilities af-
forded by a vicious system of banking,—seduced by the
prospect of sudden fortune, to be acquired at no commen-
surate risk—there may have been individuals, favorites
perhaps, of some Bank Directory,—allied with its members
in political principle (for political bias does find its way into
the board room of Joint Stock Banks, as not a few members
of the league could bear witness) or embarked with them in
some scheme of local aggrandizement,—who have gone be-