The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-04-21 00:00:00

1844.
Countries. Population. Gross
Exports.
Russia
Prussia 14,330,145 505,334 Sid.
Germany and Switzerland 45,1 00,0. 0 6,151,525 2s. gd.
France.
Holland
Belgium ....
Denmark..
Sweden and Norway
United States 20,000,000 7,938,079 7s. ltd.
North American Colonies
West Indies

Ido not deprecate foreign trade. I only desire to show
that, even wet() we certain to increase it, we should not
wontonly cast away our surer Colonial outlets.
But I complain that it has not been shown that the in-
crease of our imports from foreign countries will neces-
sarily increase our exports, and I assert that the greatest
fact is against any such conclusion, seeing that in the
twelve years cited above we had no increase of our exports
to the United States, though our imports of their produce,
which we payfor, has doubled in its yearly amount.
You, Colonists, must just coolly make up your minds
as to what is your interest, and act accordingly on your
own responsibility.
_ _ _

. .
If Free Trade is adopted in England, I see nothing
which you can do but demand Free Trade with the
United States.

This may bring the Minister to a clearer insight into his
dangerous position, as be must know that Free Trade is
only a step to Canada becoming politically connected with
the American Union.

Your movement must, however, be in bodies or masses,
and unanimously.
Individual colonists, like myself, have no influence here.
You talk to a public man, or write to a newspaper,
about our simple and practical trade, and they tell you that
your position is an offence to science.
Instead of entering with you into the marrow of your
Colonial interests, they try to generalise your premises,
and thus prove the reductio ad absurdum, as if your bu-
siness with them was a matter of pure mathematics, in-
stead of the simple and practical question, how, in our
circumstances, to give most beneficial employment to
those who labour for their bread in the mother country
and the Colony. _ _

The language of the Free Traders, in fact, just amounts
to PERISII THE COLONIES, BUT SAVE OUR PRINCIPLES 1

But it is not the Colonial interests alone that they treat
in this way ; and thus I have some gleam of hope that
the cotton-weavers of Lancashire may be awakened to a
sense of the heartless game being played by the Anti-
Corn-Law League, by feeling the same iron obtruding it-
self into their vital and immediate interest, that now is
edging for the stab to the Colonies.
In answering the Manchester Guardian, you will ob-
serve I grappled with the facts of the present precarious
position of the cotton trade in Lancashire. I selected,
not "two particular descriptions of manufacture," as the
Guardian says, but its two staples, forming 194,080,492
lbs. of 202,360,687 lbs., which is the total weight of yarn,
in manufactured cotton goods, in 1845.
It is also insinuated by the Guardian that I said that
" a foreign trade is valuable because it takes off one pro-
duct of British industry rather than another."
What I said and proved, for the information of the
manufacturers of Manchester and Lancashire, was, that
the Colonial are the most increasing markets.
It may be " a point of perfect indifference to the people
at large (or for the tables of the Board of Trade) whether
the exports to a particular colony consist of printed cali-
coes or of woollens and hardware," but it surely is a
matter of considerable importance to those whose labour
produces printed and other calicoes, whether they lose (to
enable the theory of political economy to be carried rut)
a market, and that their best market for those articles,
or not.

My argument was, that although the aggregate exports
increase, the cotton weaver, spinner, or calico printer
may starve, if his interest is overlooked, as will now be
the case, by the SUPPLY OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA
AND THE WEST INDIES BEING MADE A PRESENT OF
TO THE MANUFACTURERS OF NEW ENGLAND.

I cannot agree that it is a matter of national indifference
that the present or any other public measures should in-
terfere injuriously with any branch of the national industry,
far less the all-important cotton manufacture, in the car-
rying on of which vast masses of population have been
collected together, and whose industry cannot be directed
in the manufacture of hardware or woollen cloth without
involving sacrifices and sufferings from which humanity
shrinks back.
I must, however, refer you to my answer to the Man-
chester Guardian, for a more minute detail of my view,
which is, THAT FREE TRADE, IN ITS VERY NATURE,
BEING A VIRTUAL ABANDONMENT OF THE COLONIAL
SYSTEM,MUSTLOSE ENGLAND HER COLONIES, GREATLY
LESSEN THE EMPLOYMENT OF HER ARTISANS, AND
LEAD, BEFORE LONG, TO A NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY,
AND THE OVERTHROW OF EVERY INSTITUTION IN THIS
COUNTRY.
I am, dear sir, your obedient humble servant,
ISAAC BUCHANAN.

Sir Robert and Lady Peel left their residence in White-
hall gardens, on Saturday afternoon, for Windsor Castle,
on a visit to her Majesty.
The Marquis of Salisbury, who is rod-fishing in the
Teviot and Tweed near Kelso, caught an enormous sal-
mon. of above 401bs. weight, which the noble marquis for-
warded to the Duke of Wellington on Thursday.
CAUTION TO BUILDERS.—On Saturday, Mr. John
Griffiths appeared before Mr. Rushton to answer an in-
formation lodged against him for having built five houses
in Napier-street, Toxteth-park, in a manner contrary to
the local act. That act required that the ground floor
should contain 108 superficial feet clear of the staircase.
In this case the lower rooms contained only 97 feet
4 inches, superficial, on the average. It appeared, on the
defence, by the evidence of the surveyor, that some of the
rooms contained 112 feet, and others an average of one
inch short of 108 feet; and that the latter might be
altered so as to meet the provisions of the act by altering
the staircases. Mr. Rushton ordered this to be done, and
bound over the defendant in the sum of £5O to complete
the alterations within six weeks, under the inspection of
the town surveyors.