The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-11-11 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

trs-T1 MAYNOOTII came too late for insertion this week.
~AV.—His letter will appear next week.
I,atEoA.—His communication is unsuited to our columns,
A Correspondent states, that "in consequence of the Vicar's
Puseyit e practices, there has not been one couple married
for the last three months in the Parish Church of Leigh,
although thepoptilal ion of the parish is about 27,000; whereas
in the district parish church of Tyldesley, Lady Huntingdon's
Chapel, Tyldesley Unitarian Chapel, Chowbent, and the Re-
gistrar's Office, there are from 12 to 18 marriages per week."
t--;" We shall be happy, at all times, to receive communications
on subjects of local or general interest; and if our friends
Will be good enough to authenticate the same by their signs-
,tures, for our own satisfaction, we shall feel obliged.

Xtberpoot :-;stattbarb,

SDAV MORNING, NOV. 11, 1851.

THE FRENCH IMBROGLIO

THE French National Assembly has at last met,
and the Message of the Prince President has been
duly communicated to it. This State document is
long enough to satisfy even a transatlantic demo-
crat, but the political substance of it may he
compressed into two very small paragraphs. The
President propcses the repeal, pure and simple,
of the elective law of May, and at the same time
declares his intention to persist in the policy of
order and resistance to anarchy which the Parlia-
mentary majority has supported during the last
three years. The difficulty of reconciling these
two opposite principles seemed so forcibly to strike
all parties in the Assembly, that they could not
resist giving expression to their feelings,—some
going the length of laughing outright at the
impossible scheme. The Mountain party alone
received the Message with anything like form.
They seemed to think that though the words were
against them, the conclusions and the spirit of
the President's programme were in their favour;
arid that the policy chalked out in the document
Was the re-establishment of universal suffrage as a
teParation, and the partial revision of the Constitu-
tinn
„•- as a solution. The bill prepared by the
'holsters, and founded on the President's Message,
'as, after a debate, refused the claim of urgency
hY the Assembly. The Executive has thus received
the first check, and a most important one it is.
BY the rejection of this demand of urgency for
their bill, the combined Orleanists and Legitimists
have managed to obtain a delay of two months ;
and they thus hope to prevent the President of the
',Public from profiting by his movement in favour
of Universal Suffrage for the revision of the Con-
lititution without any absolute discredit thereby
Falling on the Conservative party. The Conserva-
lye journals have violently attacked the Message
at all points ; but there exists a strong feeling that
after a while the majority of the Assembly will rally
round the President, and prevent him from throw-
'n,g. himself into the arms of the Red Republic,
Inlch he will do if they drive him to extremity.
commencement de la fin has only just been seen;
we must wait in patience for what is to follow.

THE KAFFIR HOSTILITIES.
kORE MEN AND MONEY SENT TO THE

GREY ACCOUNT.
ANOTHER mail has arrived from the Cape, and has
brought intelligence of military operations described
as being highly satisfactory by the Commander-in-
Chief, but which appear to us to be anything but
Satisfactory, and to leave the issue of the war as
4ilincertain as before. Strong patrolling parties have
'ueen despatched to drive away the marauding bands
.44f Kaffirs dispersed along the colonial frontier, and
t°,elear the bush of the swarms of enemies lying
there in concealment. These parties, under Colonel
Zackinnon and Colonel Eyre, have so far performed
'e duties assigned to them as to scour the fast-
4tesses of the hostile tribes, and to rout them for
the moment, but without gaining any military ad-
intage„ and at the price of a loss to our troops of
Men, including three officers, either killed or
b2tlnded. That our gallant soldiers have well and
Cvely fought against the combined forces of
and Hottentots, is what this and every succeed-
InMail will assure us ; but of what use is the gal-
Ittl tY of a comparatively small body of troops to
4tiretny that actually swarms in every kloof and
tilei--that lies in ambush to surprise our Lattait de-
ti4v Inents—that rushes down upon them dis-
tikei:nage—that disperses and vanishes when at-
the eu,—and that reappears in greater numbers,
vu Instant British bayonets have withdrawn, to
that ler, to devastate, and to seduce from allegiance
4cLeie. kindred tribes who still profess a doubtful
41;414' to the Crown ? The war, instead of draw-
o a close, seems to be farther than ever re-
tttß,,,'eq from any termination that will be advan-
to4;llB to us and to the colony. It has now be-
bet: beyond all question a struggle for supremacy
ee° the countless hordes of black barbarians
tot'nrest the interior, combined with the Hotten-
,,trlhom we have instructed in the arts of war,
41)0 the use of the weapons we ourselves employ,
e white inhabitants of the Cape Colony.
4 e°er 'd we encounter the banded black tribes in
~° etu ,_ll engagement, we would, doubtless, be able
tiorni:.n them effectually, and subdue them to our
1"; but they are too crafty to give us that I

chance, well knowing that in a protracted contest
of ambuscades they have all the advantages in
fighting, and all the incitement in maurauding.
We may go on for ever scouring the bush, killing
great numbers of the savages, and retaliating upon
them by capturing cattle, but we will be no nearer
the conclusion of the invisible warfare ;—their
numbers will increase, while ours will decrease,
and their audacity and skill will improve, while our
troops, native and colonial, will be jaded by fatigue,
and dispirited by the hopelessness of the contest.
Two powerful chiefs, Kreli and Umballa, are, it is
said, meditating defection, .and the nondescript
sava es of " the Sovereignty" are all hurrying
to take part with the native tribes, and to obtain
their share of plunder and of military renown. In
the meantime, our troops are compelled to remain
strictly on the defensive, making those occasional
patrolling expeditions which result in so little solid
success, and such serious loss of life and limb, but
without being able to strike any definite blow, or
make any combined general movement that would
bring the warfare to a close. While, with the Com-
mander-in-Chief. we express our marked approba-
tion of the conduct of our gallant soldiers in these
hazardous and fatiguing encounters, we cannot for-
bear from censuring those who brought upon us
this disastrous struggle, from which we cannot, in
any case, derive either glory or power, which will
positively cost us an incalculable amount of trea-
sure and of life, and which may possibly even result
in the tarnishing of our arms, and the lowering of
our national reputation. The Earl Grey—the Earl
Grey,—deliver us from the Earl Grey !

THE MANUFACTURES OF ENGLAND.-
THEIR DECLINE AND FALL.

A FEW years ago the constant boast of the manu-
facturers of Great Britain was, that they had made
her the workshop of the world, and that her textile
fabrics in cotton, woollen, linen, and silk, especially,
were vastly superior to those of all other countries,
and took the lead in every foreign market. It was,
at the same time, the glorious naticnal feeling that
England was the mistress of the seas, and that her
maritime preeminence, commercial and military,
was undisputed and indisputable. In order to
maintain this manufacturing supremacy, and to
perpetuate it, it was resolved to sacrifice the very
foundation of the empire's strength, solidity, and
patriotism, her home and colonial agricultural in-
dustry; and it was determined to imperil her naval
power. The legislatureof the country,and the states-
men who dictated to it, yielding to the demands of
those manufacturers who represented that England's
destiny was to become the great clothier of the
whole human race, civilised and uncivilised, passed
laws avowedly with the intention of giving a heavy
blow and great discouragement to agricultural pro-
duction, and made a declaration that " English
supremacy on the seas" was nothing better than
an old song out of date, simply ridiculous, and that
it should be heard no more. We have now had
several years' trial of the manufacturers' principles
of commercial policy, and of the new legislation
framed upon them; and the question naturally
arises, have we gained, or are we likely to gain the
end for which we strove at so terrible a sacrifice ?
Our important colonial producers have been anni-
hilated,—our home agricultural interests have been
ruined,—our population has been driven from our
shores to seek employment in other lands, not sub-
ject to the British Crown,—our maritime supe-
riority has been injured, and "Rule Britannia"
is no longer sung ; but, in return for all these
deplorable consequences, are our manufacturers
flourishing ?—have we secured the preeminence of
our textile fabrics in all the markets of the world ?
—are we likely to be the clothiers of the human
race ? Judging of the results already ascertained,
we must answer all these questions decidedly in the
negative. Enquire in what quarter we may, the
reply received is invariably that British manufac-
tures are languishing, and trade declining ; that
commercial enterprise is lifeless, and no indications
of coming hope appear on the horizon. If we look
abroad we find that other people, far from adopting
the cosmopolitan principles we have unhappily put
into operation, and far from allowing us to enjoy
the advantage of manufacturing articles for their
use, are strenuously developing their own industry
in the making of textile fabrics,—are driving us out
of the several markets,—and are using the ma-
chinery which we so generously send to them, to
beat us in the race of competition. A correspond-
ent of the Morning Herald, who subscribes himself
" Civis," has been at the pains to collect some
facts that throw light on this subject, and show
to what an extent the foreigner is increasing on the
English manufacturer, and how little solid founda-
tion there exists for supposing that our cotton ma-
nufacture will long maintain even its present posi-
tion. It appears that the whole quantity of cotton
imported into England in 1787 was about
23,250,0001b5., and that the importation went on
rapidly increasing, until in 1849 it reached
754,741,2751b5., the largest quantity ever imported
in any one year. But the exports of raw cotton
from England to foreign countries had increased in
equal proportions, though not of equal amount, the
average annual quantity exported from 1799 to
1800 having been 915,8041bs ; and from 1841 to
1850, 65,497,6411b5. But to this should be added
the exports of cotton direct from the United States
to other countries, exclusive of Great Britain, which
increased from 276,271 bales in 1839, to 689,943 bales
in 1849 ; while the quantity consumed in the United
States increased from 276,018 bales, in 1839, to
531,772 bales in 1848. From these figures it will
be seen that other countries are making great and
progressive strides in the manufacture of cotton
articles, and that they are determined to clothe
themselves, to the displacement of the English
manufacturer. Then with regard to yarn, which
can hardly be classed with manufactured articles,
so little manual labour is expended on it, it appears
that while Russia, in 1837, took 6,622,159 lbs. of
raw cotton, and 23,910,019 lbs. of yarn, she took,
in 1850, 42,722,244 lbs. of raw cotton, and only
4,211,063 lbs. of cotton yarn—that, in fact, she
took, in 1850, almost seven times the quantity of
raw cotton she did in 1837, and only about one-
sixth the quantity of yarn : thus proving that
countries, like Russia, which can produce their own
yarn, take a greater proportion of the raw material.
It further appears that the value of the machinery
exported from this country from 1827 to the pre-
sent, was not less than £13,600,967 ; whereas the
whole amount of the machinery in operation for
the process of the manufacture of cotton in the
United Kingdom, in 1833, was only £10,800,000. It
will thus be seen how immensely we have aided the
foreigner in rivalling us in cotton manufactures,
and how well they have availed themselves, and are
still willing to avail themselves to the utmost, of
the advantages we foolishly persist in giving them.
This export of our machinery, it should he remarked.,
is totally independent of what foreigners have
invented and produced among themselves ; and a
glance at the prizes awarded at the Great Exhibi-
tion will convince any one that they have not been
backward in making and improving machinery for
the manufacture of textile fabrics. Taking thesefacts
into consideration, and looking at the past and pre-
sent circumstances of the cotton trade, we think that
any impartial Judge will not hesitate to declare that
British manufacturing superiority is on the wane,
and that other countries have greatly progressed
in making articles of clothing for themselves, to the
displacement of our manufactures. We have, in
an evil hour, destroyed our markets at home, and
there is every prospect that foreign markets will
gradually, and ere long, be closed against our
cotton fabrics.