The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-04-22 00:00:00

- -
Manchester

(Thursday) until Wednesday mor
will -

not resume work u

A similar feeling of dulness pervades nearly every
other manufacturing market, whilst the iron trade
of the country is in a state of complete prostration,
and the masters are meditating a'general reduction
•f wages. .

An—y iiiaeme 4144,c e4porta, glen, to the extent

which the emergency requires, is not available, at
all events for some months to come. Our chief
business season for exports has almost passed by;
and we must unavoidably wait for the opening of
the fall trade. Can we, then, relieve ourselves by
the other alternative, a decrease of importations ?
This desideratum, we fancy, can only be brought
about by a monetary squeeze, sufficiently sharp to
check business to this country in foreign markets.
Unprofitable, as has been the result, for months
past, of imports of nearly every description of pro-
duce, they will continue to arrive until an action
upon the currency renders specie the most profit-
able shipment. Bear in mind that there exists no
prospect of any large supply this year from Cali-
fornia, where the digging has partially failed for the
want of rain for washing. To bring gold, even
from that El Dorado, we must send out goods ; and
from the last advice* received, we learn that there
was every prospect of the market being flooded
with unsuitable importations. Russia has forbidden
the export of gold, which is either being stored in
the coffers of the Emperor, or circulated to form a
currency for his subjects, wherewith to settle the
foreign balances of trade. An action by the bank,
then, appears inevitable; and we are much mis-
taken if the question has not already been seriously
deliberated upon. Yet how can the directors resort
to a restriction of discounts, in the present state
of things, without virtually proclaiming to the world
the ruinous operation of its own inflexible system ?
We can discover no undue speculation to be re-
pressed; no heavy foreign loans negociating ; no
large railway expenditure going on ; no hoarding
by the public; none, in fact, of those errors of the
commercial world, which, heretofore, have served
as pretexts for the exercise of the banker's power
to restrict the circulation. It will have to be ad-
mitted, unreservedly, that our present monetary
system is antagonistic to the carrying out of Free
Trade. The parties to be called upon to suffer will
he shown to have been innocent of any offence
against prudent dealing. The Legislature alone
will be proved to have been blind, and wanting in
ordinary sagacity.
The Free Trader, we submit, has made a sad mis-
calculation of the country's power, under our pre-
sent currency laws, to conduct the great work
which he has undertaken. He has not accurately
measured the ability of the British nation to in-
crease its exports sufficiently to balance an import
of some twenty or thirty-five millions per annum
in the shape of grain, provisions, &c. He asserted
that, under his boasted system, Great Britain was
to he the depot for the produce of the world; and
he will be called upon to make the humiliating
confession that he has over-calculated her power.
He will have to say to the foreigner—"'Fake back
your produce; send your cargoes to Hamburg, to
Amsterdam, or keep them at home. This country
can no longer provide money to advance upon your
shipments !"