The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-02-08 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STAIVDAItIi.

have been a liquidation during the month of Jan-
uary to the extent of £1,529 6s. id.—the difference
between the two amounts. If the committee's ac-
countant had assured us that this sum had been
separated from the receipts, there would have been
no ground for observation.
But there is a further circumstance which calls
for remark. The account for the half year,
it will be remembered, gave the earnings and out-
standing on rent account at £13,600 ; and of this
it has been understood that a sum of upwards of
"3,000 of previously outstanding rent had been
-1”- included, leaving the actual rent for

erroneous)

the half year somewhere abo"ut £lO,OOO. Now, it
is a little singular, and only accounted for on the
supposition of a similar error having been com-
mitted, that the rent for the last three months
should be £9,350, or within a few hundred pounds
as great as the total rent of the half year. The one
or two additional warehouses open in the last three
months could not make the difference; and, if it is
urged that the business of the docks had sustained

so rapid an increase as to produce such a result,
we can only hope that so gratifying a business will
continue permanent.

The estimate given in the memorandum at the
foot of the statement, we must submit, appears to
us extremely fallacious in its principle, as shewing
not what the warehouses are, on the average, likely
to pay, but what they would pay if they continued
full as at present. The committee tell us that the
rent on the goods which they held on the 24th of
December last would amount to £685 16s. 9d. per
week, and multiplying that sum by 52, and adding
an item for yearly rent on rums, they assume the
probable annual rent to be £35,937 Os. 4d., which
would pay, it must be acknowledged, a very hand-
some interest upon the capital embarked. But
what was the peculiar feature with respect to these
warehouses on the 24th of December ? We know
that they were unusually filled—inconveniently so
for working. The very quays, which were to have
been open for carts to approach the vessels dis-

ith produce.
We have the reason for their being so unusually
occupied from the Dock Chairman himself. On
Wednesday last, he stated, in his place in the
Council, that " there is merchandise lying in the
Albert Dock at the present time on which actually
£107,000 remains unpaid; and unless the trustees go
to Parliament to amend that act, that amount must
remain unpaid so long as the owners of this mer-
chandise desire to let it remain there." Now, take
this £107,000 to have accrued upon an average freight
of £5 per ton, which is perhaps beyond the mark,
it represents merchandise to the extent of 21,400
tons, the bulk of which would probably never have
come there had the existing system not afforded
facilities for their placing it in pawn, and spared
the importers the necessity of making prompt pay-
ment to the shipowner. The chairman evidently
contemplates seeking for powers to compel removal
and payment; and, when such powers are obtained,
a large portion of this produce will no doubt go at
once into consumption, and cease to be tributary
to the warehouses revenue. It is not, therefore,
very fair to take the condition of the warehouses
on the 24th December as the foundation of an
estimate for a year. Put out of the estimate two-
thirds of this 21,400 tons, thus, as is admitted,
oppressively pledged by the importer to evade the
payment of his just debts, and we shall probably
arrive at something approaching to what ought to
have been our prospect of remuneration from these
warehouses. Or if it is presumed that they are
likely to remain nearly filled up as at present, we
ought to have an account on the debit side of the
balance sheet of the salaries and wages going on
whilst the various employees,—warehouse-keepers,
clerks, porters, lumpers, coopers, &c.,—will have
little else to do than to look at each other.

UNPROFITABLE RESULT OF THE COTTON
MANUFACTURE IN 1847, AS COMPARED
WITH PREVIOUS YEARS.

We gave in our last the statistics of the cotton manu-
facture for the past year, so far as regards the amount of
goods imported, in comparison with the exports of the
preceding year. These statistics exhibited a falling off most
considerable in its extent, and significant when viewed in
connexion with the policy in which the country has re-
cently embarked. In the important article of cotton yarn,
in which shape 116,512,874 lbs. were exported, or one-
third of the total manufacture, which is calculated by Mr.
Burn in his Commercial Glance, to have been 336,512,637
lbs., we had a large decrease in the exports to no less than
24 of our chief markets, amounting in the gross to
41,288,944 lbs. ; and a small increase to only six markets,
amounting in the gross to the inconsiderable quantity of
671,793 lbs. The return of our exports of more perfected
manufacture shews a similar result, ; those to the United
States exhibiting the only increase worth noting. It
must be borne in mind, too, that, with respect to the
monetary result of our shipments to America, a large por-
tion of which must have gone out on consignment, at the
risk of the British manufucturer or merchant, we have
been compelled to accept of remittances at a rate of ex-
change extravagantly high, and which will sweep away a
large portion of the margin of profit, which might other-
wise have been secured, if not the whole of it, An ex-
change of three or four per cent above the ordinary rate
is a heavy drawback against the reasonable mercantile
profit, which alone we can expect to derive from a near
market, in which we have to compete both with the fo-
reigner and the native manufacturer.
Bad, however, as has been, the condition of the manu-
facturer, as shewn in the decrease of exports, and the
compulsory resort to short time of working, it has been
even worse considering the low prices to which all classes,
but the spinner in particular, have been compelled to
submit, as compared with those of the raw material. In
proof of this fact, we give a few data from the Glance.

The prices of Upland, Orleans,. and East Indian cotton,
in the last week of December of the two years 1846 and
1847, were as follows : _ _ __ •

1846. 1847.
Upland
Orleans
Madras and Surat 44d. 6d. ad. od.
Thus we have a decline of 22d. per pound in Uplands ;
in Orleans, the decline was 2td. to 1-.1211 ; and in Madras,
of 1111. per pound. The prices of water twist at the same
dates were—

'os. 6 to 12 common seconds .
best ditto .
40 common seconds .
7, 77 best ditto.....
Mule twist.
6to 12 common seconds .
7, 1,9 best ditto .
40 common seconds .
77' 79 best ditto
80 common seconds
„ best ditto

1846. 1847,
Sd. 6d.
61d.
14d. 110.
151 d. 121 d.
1846. 1847.
70. sd.
9kd. 61d.
100. 71d.
11td. 9d.
19d. 14d.
22-0. 16d.

At these comparative prices of the raw material and the
manufactured article, it is well understood that the trade
cannot be profitably carried on ; and a glance over the
figures will show that the spinner's position at the end of
the past year, with cotton nearly at its lowest point, had
not been materially improved. It must be borne in mind,
too, as against the spinner, that during the early portion
of the year the price of the raw material was maintained
without any corresponding advance in the price of yarns,
and that at its close the yarn market exhibited a firmness,
arising from more hopeful views of things entertained by
shippers, whilst the cotton market was weighed down by
extreme commercial pressure.
A comparison of the circumstances of the trade of 1847
with that of 1844 will, perhaps, better show the extent to
which profit has disappeared. In the last week of De-
cember, 1844, Upland cotton was id, to id—per lb., Or-
leans, id. to 11d.. and other American sorts id. to id.
lower than at the corresponding period of 1847. At the
same time the price of No. 40's common seconds water
twist was ld. per lb., and of best seconds N. higher in
1844 than in 1847. The price of No. 40's mule was 11d.
higher for common seconds and ld. per lb. for best
seconds. The spinner, therefore, in December, 1847, was
working with cotton from an eighth of a penny to a penny
farthing per lb. higher than in 1844, and at the same time
receiving from five-eighths of a penny to a penny three
farthings less for his goods.
The manufacturer of some description of cloths seems to
have fared better than the spinner ; but the majority must
have suffered severely. Thus a s 27 in. 72 reed printed
cloth was worth, on the Ist January, ss. 9d..t0 6s. 3d. per
piece, and on the 31st December 4s. 101 d. to ss. 3d. ;
9-Bths in same proportion. In shirtings, and especially
those calculated for the China markets, the depression has
been most severe. _ _ _ .