The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-05-02 00:00:00

TIIE IRON TRADE.—The iron and metal trade gets worse
and worse. It is in it that the want of the American market
is principally felt. This will readily be believed when it is
considered that in 1839 our exports to the United States of
iron and steel, copper and brass, and tin plates, amounted to
£1,227,808, besides hardware and cutlery, amounting to
£840,610: making a total of £2,077,448 worth of metals and
their manufactures, exported in one year to America. Fur-
ther, when we consider that of this prodigious sum no less
than £1,650,838 was for iron and its manufactures, and that
this extensive trade has fallen off to about one-third, we shall
have an important fact to assist us in guessing at the causes
of the depression of the iron trade. In Staffordshire, out of
111 furnaces, 53 are now lying cold, and have been blown
out for 12 months, and their non-production withdrawn at
least 220,480 tons weekly from the market; notwithstanding
this, the price of iron continues to fall, the demand to become
less, and the worst, but clearly inevitable, evil follows—
wages are reduced, and industrious men are driven out of
em ployment.— TVoreater Herald.

PROSPECTS OF THE RETURNING PROSPERITY

OF :r H E COUNTRY.

During the last month, if not within the last fortnight, we
have encountered so many complaints of public distress in
retail trade, in industrial occupation, in commerce, in manu-
factures, and we lament to be be compelled to add, in agri-
culture also, both as regards farmers and their labourers ;
and the question has been so often suggested to us, how long
this is to last, and whether there is any reasonable expecta-
tion of an improvement taking place, and from what quarter,
and at what time, that we can in truth scarcely direct our
thoughts to any other subject.
We admit the circumstances of the distress, and its gene-
ral existence among all classes. to the fullest extent in which
we find it alleged, as the proofs before us amount to evidence
admitting of no doubt. In retail trade, even in the very ne-
cessaries of household life, consumption has very greatly
fallen off; smaller profits are made even upon what is sold,
and thus the large class of our shopkeepers are suffering their
share in the common distress. In the industrial occupations
of great towns—we are not speaking here of manufacturing
towns, but of cities like London,—the wages of labour, such
as that of mechanics, has not been proportionately reduced,
and therefore this class of people is suffering less than the
shopkeepers. In shipping and commerce we have had occa-
sion to know that the suffering is very great, and merchants
and shipowners can no longer find a due employment for
their capital. It is needless to say anything of manufactur-
ing distress as it existed about a month from the present
date. In agripulture the low price of corn and cattle has
spread a panic amongst the farmers, and their labourers are
necessarily suffering under its effect. So much as to the fact
of the distress.

As to the causes, they are almost equally obvious with the
existence of the distress itself. The manufacturers have been
depressed, not to say ruined, by the three concurrent causes
of the total failure of the American market ; of the prohibi-
tory system of the continent of Europe ; and of overproduc-
tion, and senseless competition, in the very jaws of ruin,
amongst themselves. Our shipping and commerce have suf-
fered from the state of the foreign, European, and American
markets ; our retail trade has suffered in like manner from
the impoverishment of its customers, and from the reduced
income and wages of the middle and labouring classes. in
the very midst of all this we have the income tax, which has
put all the higher and middle classes, from whom expendi-
ture mainly proceeds, each in itself, under the necessity of
saving the amount of the tax from their establishments, and
has thus still further reduced general consumption and em-
ployment. The weight of this has fallen chiefly upon the in-
dustrial and mechanic bodies, and has thus involved them in
the common distress of their masters and superiors. Again,
the vast proportion of the poor, who are now supported in
unions and by the parish, has also had a twofold operation in
adding to the common suffering ; first, by the increased bur-
den of parish rates ; and secondly, by the reduced consump-
tion of the poor in unions from what such consumption would
be upon the wages of their own labour. All these causes
and their operations are so obvious and evident as not to re-
quire a further word in explanation of the causes of public
distress.

In what we have above said, we must be understood as
speaking of the state and condition of the country as it ex-
isted a short time ago. We think we arc not disposed to be
too sanguine, but our present impression is, that some light
is now beginning to dawn upon us, and we perceive plain
symptoms of approaching improvement.
The springs seem to be again rising ; and channels, which
have been hitherto dry, begin to exhibit the signs of the re-
turning waters. Our sources of production are, indeed, all
unimpaired. No country in the world is so rich in realised
and treasured capital, and in accumulated machinery—two
of the first instruments in trade and commerce. In agricul-
ture, our soil was never so fertile, and our mode of tillage,
and employment of manure, never so skilful and so diffused.
Ir, minerals also—iron, copper, tin, lead, &c.—our mines
were never more productive, or better and more scientifically
worked. In manufactures also, so far as workmanship goes,
we maintain our superiority over all the nations of the world.
Thus all our resources are unquestionably entire, and thus
the continuance or termination of the present stage of distress
is a question of markets only,
The main point of inquiry, therefore, comes to this :—is
there any reasonable ground for expecting that our markets
are improving, and that in the failure of the foreign manu-
facturing market of Europe, of which we fear we must nearly
take our final leave, other sources are about to open upon us,
which may in a great measure supply this defect, and restore
the former demand for British manufactures ?

So large a portion of our national industry, or, in simpler
words, our labouring class, has been hitherto competently
and comfortably supported upon the extent of our foreign
commerce, that we feel a great and natural reluctance to
abandon all hope of the re►urn of foreign trade. It affords
us, therefore, great satisfaction to be enabled to hold out
what we deem a very reasonable hope of the return of a great
portion of trade with the United States of America. Upon
general and obvious principles, we entertain no manner of
doubt that these states, in despite of themselves, will be com-
pelled to return to their former trade with Great Britain,
and after a very short trial to abandon their present restric-
tive system. America, with her new lands, and, what neces-
sarily accompanies such a state of society, her dear labour,
and her scattered population, cannot, with all her efforts,
manufacture for herself for some centuries to come, and
must therefore be driven by her natural necessities and phy-
sical circumstances to resort to the old states of Europe.
Another circumstance peculiar to her situation, that of her
common origin, and therefore common tastes and habits with
ourselves, must also as necessarily give us the preference
above the other nations of Europe. As these are indisputa-
bly first principles, and indeed natural and physical necessi-
ties, which it is impossible to resist, we cannot hesitate to
come to the conclusion, that the present condition of trade
between England and America is merely temporary ; in other
words, that, in despite of her present perverse policy, nature
and necessity will ultimately force their way, and that the
Americans will again be compelled to resort to the British
market. All experience shows that no nation can violently
force itself from one stage of occupation to another. All
new states must commence with the agricultural stage, and
can only pass into the second or manufacturing stage when
their lands are fully occupied and cultivated, when their po-
pulation becomes condensed into cities, and when the com-
petition in the labour market between agriculture and manu-
factures shall cease. Dear labour, which is always the ne-
cessary accompaniment of cheap lands, can never consist and
stand together with prosperous manufactures.
Again, even as regards our European market, although
we
fear we must take our leave of a great part of it, there is still
some portion remaining, which, according to present appear-
ances,verpeo seems to promise fairly. A circular !'rorn Liverpool
is now before us, signed by rising,
and Buchanan and Co.,
which states that the cotton market is now obviouslyre ,
exceedingly
and that our prospects for the comingseason are
foreign de-
good. There has been a great increasefor
mand for yarns, many of the German manufacturers.. having
increased their orders. The same circular gives a still more
flattering account of the increased demand of our home mar-