The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-07-04 00:00:00

EVIDENCE BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON SUGAR
AND COFFEE PLANTING- OF MR. BURN, THE
COMPILER OF THE " COMMERCIAL GLANCE,"
AS TO'THE. EFFECT ON THE COTTON TRADE,
OF THE DISTRESS IN OUR SUGAR GROWING
COLONIES.

We have had occasion to present to our readers abstracts
of the vrluable labours of Mr. Burn, of Manchester ;
and we have now the pleasure of laying before our readers
a detail of some important evidence, on a subject upon
which he, above most other men is well informed, given
before the Select Committee on Sugar and Coffee Plant-
ing. We may mention that it is introduced in the Com-
mittee's Report in the most complimentary manner:—

" Mr. Burn gave information to the Committee, derived from
the most industrious research, of the deepest interest and the
greatest value. He presented to the Committee a Table, by
which he showed that the total value of cotton goods exported
to the British West Indies, Mauritius, Bombay, Madras, and
Calcutta, in the 19 months from the 22nd of January, 1845,
to the 22nd of August. 1846, was £5,988,544; that in the same
period the total value of goods exported to Cuba, Porto Rico,
and Brazil, amounted to £2,490,776,• making a sum total of
£8,479,320. That in the 19 corresponding* months after the
passing the Act of 1846, from the 22nd of August to the 22nd
of March, 1848, the total value of goods exported to the British
Colonies was £4,856,286, showing a decrease of £1,132,268.
To counterbalance which, the exports to the slave-holding
countries increased to .t 1,946,151, showing an incense of
£455,381 to *Mance against the larger decrease to the British
Colonies; showing, as the general result, a decreasAl trade to
the sugar-growing countries, slave holding and free, of
£676,887.

" But Mr. Burn did not stop here, having shown to the Com-
mittee that the weight of Cotton consumed in the goods ex-
ported in the first period was 114,224,977 lbs., and that the
price in the former period was 41d. per lb. ; that the value of
the raw material was but .€2,854,452, which would have to be
deducted from the .€8,479.324, leaving £5,624,572 for wages,
and profit, and working, in the period of 1845.46, while the
price of Cotton having risen in the period between the 22nd
August, 1846, and 22nd March, 1848, to 6d. a lb., the di-
minished weight of Cotton, amounting only to 121.768,590 lbs.,
constituted a value of .€3,119,214, which, deducted from
.€7,802,437, the value of the manufactured goods exported in
the latter period, left only £4,683,223, being a diminution of
-€941,649 in the sum left for wages, and profit, and working,
in the period of 1846-48, as compared with 1845-46; and whi:st
thus he showed that instead of bringing wealth and pros-
perity, a diminished trade and diminished amount of wages
to the extent of .€911,649 had followed upon the passing of the
Act of 1848, he went into a calculation, by which, having
shown that there were employed in 1846, 617,252 hands, in
1847 there were but 431,727 hands employed in the manufac-
ture of Cotton in England, leaving unemployed in 1847, as
compared with 1856, 16i,527 hands. And thm he went on to
show that, assuming even that the Act of 1846 had a right to
take credit for the cheapening of sugar to the extent of 11 a'b.,
which your House is aware would be equal to £l4 a ton, and
allowing that the whole 617,554 persons, employed and out of
employment, had consumed 231 lbs. of Sugar per head per
annum, they would only have gained by this reduction
.€144,702 to set off against their loss in wages, and profit, and
working, of .€941,619; so that upon the balance of gain and
of loss, it would seem that the Cotton manufacturers of En-
gland, in wages, profit, and working, have lost .€796,947,
simultaneously with the change of policy which was to confer
such mighty benefits and such unbounded prosperity upon
them. Now, taking the wages of the operatives at 9s. a week
upon the average, .€791,947w0u1d be equivalent to the wages
of 18,533 operatives in full employment for 95 weeks, and for
34,976 operatives for one year. Asked if in the history of
Lancashire a period had ever been known when for so very
long a time so many operatives had been out of employment
and working short time: he answered, he never recollected
so many; that it was decidedly worse now than it was in 1840
and 1841 ; that they had decreased in quantity more Cotton in
1847 than they consumed altogether in 1826. That in 1826 there
were only entered for home consumption 376,733 bags of Cot-
ton; -he decrease in 1847 was 441,053 bags of Cotton as com-
pared with 1846. 'The greatest decrease that had ever ap.
',eared having occurred in 1839, when the decrease in the
manufacture amounted to 221,605 bags of Cotton. And with
respect to the state of Manchester he said, that in 1896 the
casual and Irish poor amounted to but 72,3112 persons, and the
cost of their maintenance to £10,475, whilst in 1847 their
casual and Irish poor amounted to 149,504, and the cost of
their maintenance to £45,218 lls. 2s. That the poor rate in
1826 amounted to ss. in the pound 't-ion assessment of 7-16ths
only of the rental that the l 00r-rate in 1846 was ss. in the
pound; in 1847, 4s. 6d. upon au asse ,sment of 5-6ths of the
rental. The practical result was this, that 4s. Ed. has raised
in 1847, .€120,000, which the guardians have already had. The
Corporation have had £37,000, which the overseers have bor-
rowed, and it will require a Is- 6d., rate to pay it back, which
will make a sum equal -to something like 103. 6d. in the pound.
If, therefore, the Brit'sh West Indies and Mauritius, and-the
.sugar-growing interests in the British Fast Indies. present one
dark picture of irrecoverable ruin. Your Committee has not
the consolation of thinking that those, to benefit whom this
law was passed, have reaped any profit from the change of
policy which they so successfully advocated."