The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-09-17 00:00:00

OUR PORTFOLIO.—No. 1

Under this head we purpose preserving, for the good of
mankind, such stray thoughts and floating notions as might
otherwise run the risk of being lost for ever. We shall throw
them together as they come, and not feel over and above soli-
citous as to the order in which they are arranged, or the
style in which they may be dressed up ; in short, we shall
here keep a sort of undressed levee, and shall receive our
visitants; and p-ass -them onward, courteously, indeed, and
civilly, but with the least possible amount of form or cere-

It was with a view to the construction of this department
of our journal that we, the other day, were induced to medi-
tate a little on the subject of " style ;" and we were led into
the inquiry, whether a man can choose a style, or mode of
expressing himself, as he would choose a pen? It has been
often remarked, that one man does not differ more completely
from another than the same does himself at different sea-
sons ; and therefore we may infer that there may be a great
difference in the style of one and the same individual. Men
of great genius are known to excel in the most opposite kinds
of writing, and, from " grave to gay, from witty to severe,"
to be masters alike in all. Some can imitate the style of
others so artfully and ingeniously, that the original authors
would find a difficulty in knowing themselves. There is no-
thing which requires a nicer discernment than to discover an
author by his style ;—witness all the in-vain attempts to trace
out Junius by this process ;—and one reason for it is that
every man's style must vary with the subject matter on which
he writes. Swift was, we believe, the author of the Tale of
a Tub ; but who would undertake positively to say this from
his having written the Travels of Gulliver or the Letters to '
Stelle ? In these and all other such cases, however, it is the
artificial style adopted by the author which causes the diffi-
culty, or perhaps the impossibility of his detection. Had we
not good authority, otherwise, for knowing that the same
mind and pen produced the Merry Wives of Windsor and
Macbeth, the Midsummer Night's Dream and Lear, we
should never have been led to suspect the fact from any simi-
larity we could find in the style of these very different com-
positions. But in such productions, it is the object and bu-
siness of the author to forget himself, and to adopt the
thoughts and the language of others. The style he uses is
artificial, and we are permitted to see but little of himself :
it is, therefore, not that which we are concerned about in our
present inquiry. Our question relates to that mode of ex-
pression, and flow of language, which a man would use who
was quietly expressing his own thoughts without constraint,
and without artifice—and it asks whether a gentleman of a
certain age, whose habits and ways of thinking are pretty
well formed, is not so far the creature of education and ha-
bit, or, we might say, of existence, as to have a certain style
peculiar to himself, which belongs to him as part of his own
being, and of which he could no more divest himself than he
could of his personal identity. We are inclined to think that
such is the case, and that the renowned Dogberry was not so
much out when he said, that " to be a well favoured man is
the gift of fortune, but to read—and write comes by nature."
There are many things to distinguish each individual from
all the rest of his species. There is the outward appearance
and the voice ; there is what physicians call idiosyncracy of
bodily constitution ; there is the hand-writing—and, we may
add, style in writing also. We are pretty sure that there is
an idiosyncracy in this respect belonging to every individual,
and for this reason, in the abstract, that style is so much of
the essence of thought, that you. can scarcely separate the
one from the other ; and, as every man who thinks at all,
must think for himself, his language or style must necessa-
rily be affected by the peculiarity of his modes of thinking.
Language is an essential part of thought. We have some-
times heard that " words are things ", and we do know as-
suredly that in many instances they possess a marvellous
power ; but we add that they are a part even -of mind,
Locke says that words are the " signs of ideas " ; but
though it may be thought presumptous in us to hazard an
opinion different from the theory of that great man, we can-
not help saying that words are, in our poor judgment,
something more than the mere signs of ideas.
We would put this question—what is an idea or a thought

before it is expressed ? We do not speak of our ideas of
outward objects, or of those thoughts which come to us by

sensation—but rather of thoughts, or trains of thought
which enter the mind by reflection ; now with regard to such
thoughts we are of opinion that words are an essential part
of their being, and that until they are arrested, fixed, and
moulded by language, they can scarcely be said to have any
definite existence at all. The thought is at first but a shape.
less embryo ; it is in the mind confused, imperfect ; the
owner scarcly knows what it is, till language has developed,
and defined it ; it is exactly as Shakspear has beautifully de-
scribed it, and the phenomenon is literally true in the case of
any ordinary individual, as well as that of the poet—
The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation, and a name.
This circumstance affords another and we may say a snore
profound reason for concluding that every individual who
performs that office with the stylus which we are now doing,
must have a peculiarity—more or less marked—in his mode
of expressing himself. Every man who is not the mere reci-
pient of the ideas of others, must have his own thoughts,
and as language is, according to our theory, necessary to
thought, and absolutely a part of it, it follows that every
man must have a style, which must be as much his own as
his very thoughts.
Having thus solved our problem, we proceed to say that in
preparing the materials for this our portfolio, we have de-
termined to commit ourselves in point of style to the guid-
ance of Dame Nature, and by no means to do violence to
her dictates ; and in this respect we do in fact only follow
the lights and improvements of the age, which has long
since voted all stiffness, affectation, and mannerism in writ-

Ing to be borisb, and pedantic. The stilts of Solinsonianiorn
have beau long shies out of use, and remain upon our shelves
like the crutches of patients in the hail of the famous sham-
pooing doctor at Brighton, as memorials of what we have
escaped ; not that we are of those who would speak lightly
of that great man—far from it; but we would certainly leave
the club of Hercules to Hercules himself, and think the age
deals prudently in using weapons more easily managed; and
more suitable perhaps to its strength.
We are in more danger however at the present day of fall-
ing into the abandon of our transatlantic brother Jonathan,
than of encumbering ourselves ambitiously in the armour of
giants of the olden time, or of being over-strait-laced in our
movements. We have been already not a little infected by
his example; but the fashion of the thing is not likely to last.
John Bull may for a while be amused by the slap-dash, off-
handed, out-with-it sort of style in which free-going Jona-
than indulges himself, but Mr. Bull is by no means a fami-
liar personage ; modesty and reserve are still our national
characteristics, and democratic vulgarism will never harmo-
nise thoroughly with the genius of our constitution ; there-
fore in all probability Americanism will continue to be an
exotic. If the style of our public journal, and periodical li-
terature be susceptible of improvement, by imitation, we are
inclined to think that it is more likely to come from some
slight adoption of that which is common in the French capi-
tal, and which is rarely to be met with in any other quarter
—a style free without being familiar, easy without being vul-
gar—and nut less adapted for the discussion of the most pro-
found, than of the most trifling inquiries. If modern France
retain anything of her ancient politesse, it is to be found in
the style of the higher order of her periodical literature ; but
. we do not speak witkany enthusiasm on the subject, for we
are loth to recommend,cordially to imitation any thing that
is French.

AN ANALYSIS OF OUR EXPORTS OF COTTON
GOODS, VIEWED IN RELATION TO THE PRO-
POSED FREE-TRADE MEASURES OF LORD
MELBOURNE'S GOVERNMENT.—No. 3.

We can discover no way in which the promised benefit to
the manufacturer from the reduction of the corn, timber,
and sugar duties can arise, if it is not by lowering the wages
of the manufacturing operative to the continental standard,
and thus cheapening the production of those goods in which
he has to compete in foreign markets with the manufacturers
of other countries. This course, however, the organs of the
free traders distinctly repudiate. They have entirely dis-
claimed before parliament the wish to cheapen production ;
and require only markets for their goods—the markets of the
foreign grower of corn and timber, and of the foreign culti-
vator of sugar by slave labour.
Now let the reader mark the consequences of this dis-
claimer. In the first place, we get rid entirely of the plea
that the British manufacturer cannot compete even-handed
with the foreign manufacturer in neutral markets. For
yea' a past we have been accustomed to hear that it was labour
which was taxed by these laws ; and that, until they were
repealed, we could not compete with the " untaxed labour"
of the foreign artizan. We are now told, however, that it is
not untaxed labour—i.e., cheap labour—which the manu-
facturer requires, but only " markets" ; and if this is the
case—if the privilege to trade upon an equal footing with
the manufacturers of other countries is all that is wanted—
we do possess already that privilege in all the great markets
of the world (except as against the native manufacturer in
each); and, more than that, we possess an advantage in
some of those, viz., in our own colonial markets. The re-
duction of the corn and timber duties will not assist us one
iota in competing with the foreign manufacturer in any neu-
tral market; and if we are undersold at present in these
markets by the Swiss, the Belgian, or the French calico-
printer, the Saxon hosier, the Russian or the German linen-
manufacturer, we can derive no aid from any legislative
measures which do not embrace a reduction of the cost of
production, because manifestly our inability to compete with

the foreigner can be traced to no other source except to the
circumstance of his being in possession of cheap labour.
In the next place, the disclaimer of any connection between
cheap food and reduction of wages, whilst it limits the de-
mand of the manufacturer to " markets," defines precisely
which those markets are to be. The magnificent dream of
a prosperity extending itself over our operations in every
market of the globe, is at once dispelled ; and we have left
only a miserable figment of just so much prosperity as an
increased intercourse with the markets of a few corn and
timber-groWing countries will afford us—just so much as we
can wring from a few of the governments of Europe by ne-
gociation—just so much, and that of so valueless a charac-
ter, as a slight reduction of their duties upon our yarns or
our power-loom cloths can give us. By this disclaimer, we

virtually abandon all hopes of improving our position in
neutral markets—in the great entrepats of commerce—from
the proposed measures of free trade, and restrict, them to
what we can derive from reciprocity in the markets of the
corn and timber countries alone.

But a still more important disclosure on the part of thi
manufacturer is made, when we arc told by him that he ad
vocates the cheapening of food, by foreign importation, with
out the intention of availing himself of the facilities whicl

will he thus afforded him of procuring cheaper labour. The
most discouraging featuie of our existing import trade is the

comparatively small portion of it which consists of the export
of goods partaking largely of the labour of the artisan. The
commodity whose profitable sale in foreign markets legisla-
tion ought to direct its efforts to effect, is a commodity of
which labour is the staple. We want employment for our
working classes; and any increase of our export trade must
be comparatively valueless which does not afford this em-
ployment. Nose, why is it, we ask, that the increase i❑ our
exports of cotton goods of late has been almost exclusively
confined to articles half manufactured—to cotton yarns, to
prints and dyed goods of low quality, and to the products of
machinery rather than of human skill and labour ? The
free-trader has told us again and again that it is because we
cannot afford to sell in foreign markets an article into which
the dear labour of British artisans enters more largely.
And when we are assured that, in the reduction of the corn-
laws, he never contemplates the removal of this alleged ob-
stacle to a really valuable export trade, the conclusion is ir-
resistible that the free-trade manufacturer looks not to any
material increase in the export of finished goods—of valuable
printed and dyed fabrics; not to any largely increased em-
ployment of the labouring classes, but only to an inci eased
export of those fabrics which he can produce with his exist-
ing machinery, and into the cost of which the price of food,
and consequently of labour, scarcely enters. The conclu-
sion, we repeat, is irresistible that the millowner, and not
the working man, is the object of the free-trader's care ;
that machinery is to be stimulated by the reduction of the
corn-laws, and not that any greater portion of labour is to
be infused into our export trade.
We are not imposed upon, of course, by this flimsy pre-
tence that no reduction of wages is contemplated by the
manufacturer as inseparable from the adoption of those mea-
sures for which he is now clamouring, although we might be
a little startled at the dishonesty which it manifests. A re-
duction of wages would follow a reduction in the price of food,
by legislative means,—such a reduction, mark, does not ne-
cessarily, attend upon cheapness, when produced by the dis-
pensations of a bountiful Providence—as certainly as the night
follows the day. It would not perhaps suit the purposes of
the manufacturers to declare it ; it would not, either, advance
the popularity of the mob—courting faction to obtrude it upon
the world—to mingle the cry of " low
wanes"with that of
" cheap bread ;" but the fact is clear as the noonday that
cheap labour is the concealed object of nine-tenths of those
who know what it really is for which they are contending.
The large spinner and manufacturer looks for a reduction of
the cost of working his machinery, and for a reduction of the
cost of his machinery itself; the large export merchant looks
for a cheaper commodity, and expects beside to be able to
assume a more commanding position in the British market,
holding in his hand, as he will do under the operation of the
free-trade system, the power of coercing to his own terms the
industrial interests of the whole community. Cheap labour,
cheap goods, and a predominant influence over the commer-
cial and the social system of the empire are, depend upon it,
the true objects sought for by the manufacturing capitalists
in their proposed withdrawal of protection from the home
and the colonial producer.
We are no advocates for a reduction of the price of manu-
facturing labour. God forbid that we should be ! And yet
we regard it as an incontrovertible fact, that no material—
no valuable increase in our export trade can be derived from
a reduction in the price of food except through the medium
of reduced wages; and, more than all, that no signal benefit
can result to the working classes themselves from the pro-
posed measures, which is not accompanied with decreased
remuneration for their labour. So far as the export trade is
concerned, we are satisfied that it is quite possible, even with
reduced wages, to make that trade more profitable to the
working men. It is possible that, at a reduced price, the
foreigner may be able to emplGy more of his labour, or, in
other words, that he may for a time be more constantly em-
ployed, and proportionally as well paid, though receiving a
less nominal sum for his labour. But how materially does
this alter the whole case as between the corn law repealer and
the advocate of protection ! What becomes of the vast boon
which cheap bread is to confer upon the poor man ? Why,
so far as the benefit does accrue to him, in the increased em-
ployment offered to the export trade, it is at'once intercepted
by the manufacturer and merchant and swept into " profit ;"
and the certainty is before his eyes that, when the slightest
check takes place, his wages must be pressed down even
lower comparatively than they are at present, whilst an eager
multitude, thrown out of employment by the ruin of our native
agriculture and by the declining demand in the home markets,
are pressing forward to snatch from his lips the cheap loaf
which be has reduced the standard of his labour, and stooped
from his present position, to purchase.
We have no confidence, however, in the disposition of the
manufacturer to direct his attention to the acquisition of a
really valuable export trade. We entertain no such opinion
of his anxiety to improve the permanent position of the work-
man by whose industry he lives. His object is, primarily,
to relieve the glut under the influence of which he now la-
bours ; to draw off the stocks which have accumulated in
his warehouses, and to embark anew in the same mad race
of over-production which has led to his present embarrass-
, ments. We shall still see manufactured the same deceptive

and ;parlous goods for which already he possesses a " tisd-
eminence" throughout the world I and if we can gain at all
by being able to produce cheaper, it will be the reputation of

producing the cheapest and at the same time the moat avorth-
less fabrics in every market. It is still possible for the Bri-
tish manufacturer, by wise and prudent steps, to retrieve his

name in foreign markets and to provide employment, at re-
munerative wages, for the population which circumstances
have rendered dependent noon hiri

The measures, how-

ever, for which he now clamours are not the legitimate path

towards the achievement of such a result; and the readiness
with which he contemplates the rein of the home and the
colonial markets, which must be the certain consequence of

these measures, is sufficient to satisfy us that no such object