The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-01-15 00:00:00

Elie Riberpoot ietanbarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, JANUARY 15, 1841

We have been favoured with extracts from a private
letter, dated Monte Video, October 28. It appears
that the steamer from Buenos Ayres had arrived on
the day previous, bringing 220 passengers and accounts
that the conferences between Admiral Mackau and
Rosas had terminated on the 25th of October, when
the admiral presented an ultimatum which was to be
replied to on the 28th, so that certain accounts migh
be expected, in a day or two, whether there would bet
peace or war. Up to the date received nothing was
known as to what had been proposed. There were no
preparations made among the French vessels of war,
of which 18 were lying at Monte Video. It was
therefore concluded that peace was to be made if pos-
sible. The next accounts will probably announce the
final adjustment of the affairs of Beunos Ayres.

According to the last advices from Buenos Ayres no
man was safe there that possessed any money, when a
want for it was felt. It was no uncommon thing to
see in the morning a dozen dead bodies, with their
throats cut, thrown into the public ground.

In our publication of last Friday we intimated the
probability that a considerable increase of taxation
must shortly be submitted to; and, at the same time,
expressed our firm conviction that, even whilst impos-
ing new burdens, it was in the power of a wise govern-
ment to make such modifications of our existing sys-
tem of taxation as would give a material impetus to
the manufacturing and commercial industry of the
country. We shall now proceed, according to our
promise, to point out a few of those duties to which we
then alluded, the modification or abolition of which
would, we conceive, be desirable, and the amount of
which we would gladly see levied in some other and
less objectionable form.

The first to which we shall advert is the duty upon
cotton wool—the staple of our most important manu-
facture. 'The impolitic nature of this tax—of all taxes,
in fact, upon the raw material of articles of export—
was fully admitted by Lord Althorp, when conceding
the abolition of the duty upon printed calicoes ; and a
distinct promise was then held out that its continuance
was to be merely temporary. Yet a period of nearly
ten years has now elapsed, and no effort has been made
to procure its repeal. The duty is one of that nature
which does not press itself upon the attention of the
masses, but effects its portion of mischief silently and
unobserved. Its pressure affords no handle by which
hired agitators or an incendiary press can work upon
the passions of the many-headed multitude; and
hence, it is left out of the catalogue of grievances with
which these ingenious gentlemen, from time to time,
enliven the dullness of this dull world. It yields a
considerable revenue to government; and hence the
consideration of its repeal is gladly postponed by the
philosophers of Downing-street, whose concessions
are generally regulated in accordance with the amount
of popular clamour which can be brought to bear upon
them, and uniformly take the direction which is pointed
out to them by trading agitators and political quacks,
in preference to that which a careful regard to the
permanent interests of the community would dictate.
By the superficial observer it may, indeed, be said
that a tax of one-eighth of a penny per pound upon
raw cotton cannot press very heavily upon, the commu-
nity, individually, or even upon any particular classes.
We admit that it does not press very severely upon the
British consumer of cotton goods; yet, so far as its
pressure is felt, the cotton duty may with perfect pro-
priety be designated a poor man's tax. The rich can-
not estimate it in the very triflingly advanced price of
the few fabrics of cotton which they consume; but it
enters more largely into the price of the working man's
clothing—into the price of his fustian trowsers, his
cotton shirts, and the wearing apparel of his wife and
family, which, in nine cases out of ten, are exclusively
composed of that fabric.

It is not, however, this inequality of which we com-
plain. It is not as it affects the consumers at home
that the tax is impolitic, but as it affects the manufac-
turing interest, from the merchant downward to the
operative classes. It is impolitic, inasmuch as at least
three-fourths of the whole amount which it produces
is levied upon the export trade of the country, and is
extracted from the profits of the merchant and the ma-
nufacturer, or—which, we fear, is nearer the truth—
from the wages of the labourer. It is a direct bonus
given to the foreign producer at the expense of native
industry—if not of native capital ; and it operates
precisely against those fabrics most—(the coarse and
heavy descriptions of cloth and yarns)—in which we
are the least able to bear competition with foreign ma-
nufacturers.

On this ground alone, a due regard for the com-
merce of the country imperatively demands the remo-
val of the duty. It is a fact, well known to most of
our exporting merchants, that for years past the foreign
demand for our heavy cloths has been gradually de-
creasing, and that the profits upon these articles have
now almost entirely disappeared ; and although the
decline of this branch of commerce may, to some extent,
be irremediable,—owing to the rapid growth of manu-
facturing industry amongst other nations, and the
adaptation of their tariffs to protect that growth by
excluding those fabrics which require the smallest por-
tion of skill, and are within the scope of their infant
manufacture,—yet it is evidently the duty of the go-
vernment of this country to take care that such decline
is not accelerated by the impolitic continuance of this
tax upon the raw material.

We might instance, along with the cotton duty, a
number of other imposts, levied upon articles almost
exclusively used for manufacturing purposes, and from
which a very inconsiderable amount of revenue is de-
rived, the reduction of which would be received as an
mportant boon to the manufacturing interest, as well