The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-08-06 00:00:00

OUR MANUFACTURING SYSTEM

A series of crushing articles, in exposition of the foreign
commercial policy of Lord Palmerston, which have appeared
within the past fortnight in the columns of the Morning
Herald, have demonstrated sufficiently how large a portion
of the distress, which our i` liberal" merchants and manu-
facturers attribute solely to the operation of the existing
corn-laws, may be placed to the imbecile and criminal negli-
gence with which the foreign department of the government
has of late years been administered. The result of the re-
cent elections in London, Liverpool, Hull, and even Glas-
gow, may be attributed in part to the existence of such an
opinion in the minds of the enlightened merchants of these
great outlets of our export trade. These gentlemen were too
well acquainted with the impediments which whig legislation
has thrown in the way of their daily operations in foreign
markets to be deluded by any attempts to raise the cry of
" free trade" as a bait to entrap their votes in favour of men
whose policy has been so ruinous to trade throughout; and
whatever might be their opinions with respect to the revision
and remodification of our commercial tariff, those opinions
they have been quite prepared to wave, as secondary in im-
portance to the necessity of rescuing the affairs of the nation
from this incapable faction. " Out with the whigs !" has
been the cry of the foreign merchant, whether Brazilian or
Baltic, whether East or West Indian, whether African or
Chinese ; and Sir Robert Peel, when insisting upon this as
the leading demand of conservatism, evinces a perfect un-
derstanding of the sentiments of the commercial portion, at
least, of the constituency.
There is another direction, however, in which we must
look, before we can arrive at the seat of the evil which affects
in particular our manufacturing interest. Undoubtedly a
wise foreign policy can do much to give an impulse to the
demand for British goods abroad—to open new markets and
facilitate commercial operations in old ones—but it cannot
do all which is required. The glut created by over-production
and over-trading may be created for a time. A fleeting
prosperity may again cause our factories to work full time,
and restore plenty to our over-tasked factory population ;
but a permanent prosperity legislation can scarcely achieve,
unless aided by the co-operation of our manufacturers them-
selves. We have no right to demand, even if we had the
power to extort, tariffs or commercial treaties in favour of
British manufactures as against those of other countries ;
and if it be—as the league-men tell us it is—that we cannot
successfully compete with the continental manufacturers in
foreign markets, we can point to no remedy except one which
the manufacturer has within his own hands. The abolition
of the corn-laws, the favourite specific, can afford only a
temporary stimulus, granting all the advantages which its
advocates contend for, unless the inherent evil, which exists
in the manufacturing system itself, be first corrected.
We do not at present—we admit the fact—maintain the
ground which we formerly held in foreign markets generally.
But we must demur to the assertion, that it is on the ground
of cheapness merely that we fail in doing so. On the con-
trary, we produce the cheapest—i. e. the lowest priced—
goods of any manufacturing nation. Our goods are notori-
ously the rubbish of half the markets of the world, and the
least in estimation. It is no longer a recommendation for
any article to be of British manufacture ; but, on the con-
trary, the term stamps it to be of doubtful and spurious qua-
lity. We have become quack imitators of other men's wares,
and pirates of other men's patterns and fabrics. We steal
even their labels and adopt their names ; and, as a natural
result, when we do produce and offer for sale an article of our
own it is viewed with suspicion, and purchased :only at a de-
preciated price. From the consequences of such a system of
carrying on our operations in foreign markets, it is that we
are now suffering. To this cause at least is to be attributed
'a great portion of our distress. We have for years been
inflicted with a mania for producing at a cheap rate ; and as
is the case of all venders of cheap wares, the buyers have be-
come tired of exchanging their money for trash.

We know that the men of the league have a ready way of
meeting this view of the case. The British manufacturer,
they tell us, cannot afford to manufacture an article of which
labour is a large component part. He cannot afford to sell a
good article. In part we disbelieve them ; and for the rest
we are quite aware of the reason. The British manufacturer
bears a tainted name; and for this very reason his goods,
even when of equal quality to those of other manufacturers,
will not bring an equal price. There are merchants in Li-
verpool well acquainted with the fact that some British ma-
nufacturers, who have never stooped to those tricks which
have injured the reputation of British goods generally, can at
all times command a remunerating sale. We could ourselves
particularize many such. But it is not the men who form the
Anti-Corn-Law League—the men whose ambition it is to
make large returns from small capital, and grow rich in a
day, who enjoy this favoured preeminence in foreign markets.
These men it is, on the contrary, who, whilst stimulating an
already bloated manufacturing system to an extent which
every day threatens to engulf us in civil commotion, unless
we consent to throw down every bulwark of our internal
prosperity to give it scope, are step by step sapping the very
vitals of our great commercial system.
The manufacturing interest must reform this suicidal sys-
tem if it wishes to attain any permanent and really valuable
prosperity. The reputation of British manufactures in Fo-
reign markets must at least be attempted to be retrieved be-
fore we can safely make any great concessions in their favor.
In such an endeavour the legislature can aid them in many
ways, which we may hereafter point out; but we can disco-
ver no propriety—no safety even—in adventuring upon mea-
sures for the advantage of a class who seek only present ex-
orbitant gain to the certain ultimate ruin of those whose
interests and whose very existence thay drag along with them
into peril. It is nothing to us that a few individuals, who
assume to brawl in the name of the manufacturing body in
general, have invested their hundreds of thousands in build-
ings and machinery, with money borrowed from joint stock
banks, and now threaten us with civil commotion unless we
will aid them in their giant schemes of aggrandisement. We
will not be bullied into the notion that the commerce which
these men wish to further is that by which a nation is made
great and a people happy ; and we are not disposed to peril
England's permanent welfare for such. The commerce
which we recognise as valuable is one which will diffuse more
widely its advantages ; which erects itself upon more stable
foundations ; which has in view the welfare of the many and
not the few; and, in short, is not the commerce which a
greedy millocracy is anxious to build upon the ruins of
England's aristocracy and local yeomanry; upon the loss of
her commercial good name, and upon the wreck of the com-
forts of her honest and industrious working population.

SIR WM. BURNETT'S PATENT FOR THE
PRESERVATION OF TIMBER, &c.

We observe that an establishment has been opened in
Fazakerley-street, for the purpose of submitting canvas,
cordage, and other materials connected with the construction
of ships to .a preparation discovered by Sir 'William Burnett,
Physician-General to the Navy, by means of which they
shall be enabled to resist the action of decay, mildew, and
dry rot. -

The result of previous attempts to obtain this object would
in some degree render us sceptical in placing an entire faith
in the efficacy of the plan now proposed, but we are obliged
to confess that the testimonials which we have had an oppor-
tunity of seeing are of such a character, and constitute so
favourable a body of evidence, that we really believe we are
likely to do our fellow-townsmen a service by drawing their
attention to the subject.

We may mention, en passant, that the Admiralty, (albeit
slow to adopt improvement) has taken steps for the con-
struction of tanks in the dock yards, and for the erection of
an hydraulic machine at Portsmouth.

The following is a copy of a report made to the Superin-
tendent of Woolwich Yard, by order of the Lords Commis-
sioners of the Admiralty, on six pieces of wood which had
remained in the fungus pit of that yard nearly five years :
Important Official Documents respecting the condition of
some prepared and unprepared TIMBER, WHICH HAD
BEEN IN TILE FUNGUS PIT NEARLY FIVE YEARS.

Admiralty, 26th July, 1841.
am commanded by my. Lords Commissioners of
the Admiralty to send herewith, for your information, a copy
of a Report received from the Officers of the Woolwich
Yard, on the state of the timber prepared under your Patent,
which had been deposited in the fungus pit.—l am, Sir,
your most humble servant,
(Signed) J. PARKER.
To SIR WILLIAM BURNETT, K.C.H., F.R.S., &c. &c.

Woolwich Yard, 15th July, 1841.
SlR,—Agreeably to your memo. of this day's date, we
have to acquaint you, that we have examined the several
specimens of timber which have been prepared by Sir William
Burnett, and deposited in the fungus pit at this Yard, and
find their state to be as follows, viz. :

PREPARED. UNPREPARED.
ENGLISH OAK.—Perfectly ENGLISH OAK.—Has a small
sound. spot of fungus on the end.
ENGLISH ELM.—Perfectly ENGLISH ELM.—Doaty.
sound. I DANTZIC FlR.—Has fungus
DANTSIC FIR. Perfectly on the outside, and is de-
sound. I caged in the heart.
—We are, Sir, your most obedient servants,
0. LANG, Master Shipwright.
R. ABETHELL, Assistant to the Master Shipwright.
P.S.—The prepared and unprepared deposited in the pit
the 25th August, 1836.

TO CAPT. SUPERINTENDENT HORNBY, C.B.
N.B.—Some pieces of prepared and unprepared canvas
and calico were also placed in the fungus pit at the same
time, and, on its being opened in May, 1838, for the inspec-
tion of its contents, the Official Report stated, that, as re-
garded the canvas and calico, the experiment was decisive
and conclusive, the prepared being but slightly injured, and
in some cases not at all, whilst the unprepared was entirely
destroyed.

The tests to which both canvas and cordage have been put,
in order to compare their strength with that of similar un-
prepared materials, exhibit also very striking results. The
following is a letter from the Lords of the Admiralty on this
head :

Particular attention is requested to the following inwortant
Letter from the LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF THE AD-
MIRALTY, relative to some of the trials made at PORTS-
MOUTH DOCKYARD. _

-•
Admiralty, 13th July, 1841.
SlR,—With reference to your letter of the 29th of last
month, I am commanded by my Lords Commissioners of
the Admiralty to acquaint you, that from the report of the
trials of the strength of the Cordage and Canvas prepared
with the solution on your plan, as compared with that un-
prepared, it appears that after both were equally exposed to
wet and damp, as well as to the effects of the atmosphere,
the prepared Co> dage* is on the average about one-twelfth
stronger, and the Canvas about two-thirds stronger than
the unprepared.—l am, &c. &c.
H. E. AMEDROZ, Pro-Secretary.
SIR WILLIAM BURNETT, K. C. H., F. R. S., &c. &c.
* The Cordage, in this instance, was submitted to the

Condition in whi

Patent

Solution as Rope, previously tarred
Cordage cannot derive the full benefit of the
It should be prepared in the state of yarn.
The following certificates have reference to the sa
quality :

Two pieces of prepared and two of unprepared Canvas were
submitted to the usual test, to ascertain their comparai
strength, at Messrs. Huddart and Co.'s, Limehouse, 2
August, 1840.
The prepared broke at
214 lbs.)
The unprepared broke
169 lbs.)

strain c

strain tl (190 111

Showing a differ
Or 22 per cent. in favour of the prepared Canvas

.ence of,

e unprep