The Statesman.
London, England, 1815-09-02 00:00:00

I MR.

ON HIS

--A.—
LETTlitt IV.
Inte.ided to Shoe; that so ex •. MI .e is the. griiwiti of airierirme
Wool, Mit some of tha Wool is esprit-led to bigiatid, and
that, though the importation of Wool is great 10 pruportiuti
In She whale quantity used; to impose it tai upon hoputta• ,
Min would be injurious to the entintry:
My Loaci,—ln proceeding to apply to the slit):
ject before us the Matter contained ifs thy loot Let:
ter, I matt beg your Lordship to observe; that it ii
not Only proved, that almost every tort of mania;
factory was going on in America during the war;
but, that, as appears from the date of many of the
advertisements; if not from all of them, they were
neither dropped, nor likely to be either disconti.;
Slued, or, apparently, to be rendered less smite, by
file peace; all the advertisements being silted after
the peace was proclaimed in America, and many of
them in the month of May.
You see, in No. 33, that sugar and indigo are pro.:
;doced on the binks of the M ssissippi and in the ter.:
! ritory of the United States; you know that cotton it
1.. one of the great staple coniniorliles of Caroline and
Georgia; that tobacco is the native of Virginia ; you
see that hemp and flu are largely cultivated anti
manufactured; you know that Indian corn, the cal..
tivation of which chaaaciarizea the fairett And richest
! part of Europe, and is the criterion of fertile and
good climate, is produced in abundance, throughout
the whole country, fourteen hundred toilet itx
length ; you know that timber is every where in
' abundance; you see that Batt, iron, leddi copper.,
and' coal mines, are there, and stone and marble arid
' slate quarries ; you see, that machinery of every
sort, acid worked by every kind of power, it in
motion; and, have you still the expecta'ion; or the
hope, that America is dependent on England for the
[ ismeatis of tilling her land, cl;;thing her people, of
Ifurnishing her dwellings, or fighting her enemies ?
Bit, the objects more immediately before be are
WOOL and WOOLLEN:4.-1 h.ve thriwti; I
'think, pretty clearly, that there is siO retain' td
' expect your hoped-for extraordinary demard for Engl.
lish Wool from the change of affairs Its Europe,—...
And, on what does that hope rest when you Wok at
, . America ?—No. 11. shows you that Merino Sheep
are, its flocks in America. And, obser*e, that Penn:
' ' sylvania, a very few years ago, had scarcely Kul
' sheep of any sort. The States to the Northward,
' according to Mr. Livingstone's account, abound much
mote its sheep of all sorts. No. XIV. shows you
that Wool, in all its tarieliei, is a great article of
commerce; and, No. XVI. shows you, net only
that Wool is a great article of commerce, bat that
it is sent from America to be sold in England ! Yost
' see here, that there are Merchants, who take con-
sienments of Wool with orders to ship to England;
' and this is at Boston ; not at New York, which
State Mr. Livingstone belongs to and resides hi. I
know, that several cargoes of American fine Wool
were sent to England more than four years agog I
saw the samples Myself. But, this advertiserMinto
which proves the frequency of the thing, is worth
the personal observation and testimony of a hundred
i witnesses sworn upon the Chapels.
Now, my Lord, when I come to treat of the et:
• lent to which American manefactures will be car-
ried in peace, and which will depend, perhaps, in a
great measure, upon the laws that shall be paa.ed
t.emp, I ,hall speak with great diffidence; because
the sahjeci, on the score of foreign policy, as well
es on the reo,e of internal prosperity, demands art
' extent of knots:edge as to the w hide of the interests
of o.er c siel-aniiiy, which it would be presumption
in me, or iii oily matt tit;t 'Ton the, spot, to pretend
to possess. But, with regard to the capacity of
; America to grow Wool, and export it to Erglititd,
I can speak with nearly as much confidence as JE
should upon her capacity to semi us Cotton or To.
bacco.
That the soil of America is fertile is Well known;
and, it has now been proved, that it is well adapted
to the breeding and keepitig of sheep. It has been
proved, because such numerous flocks already exist.
The only question, then is, whether the Ansericaa
farmer cats grow wool cheaper than the English far-
mer, and, from that cause, can afford to sell it at a
lower price. Lower it must he sold, in order to
open a market for it here, because it mast come
' loaded with the charges of freight, a,rl other Or.
peaces, from which our wool is exempted. The •
price at which the American farmer dues sell wool,
I hate nothing to prove; hut, I know, that the
price of wheat is the criterion, whereby to judge of
the price, at which he can afford to sell wool. Now.
we see from No. XXXVIII., that the price of
wheat is one dollar and twenty cents a bushel.—
' That is to say, a dollar and a fifth. Call it six shit-
. ling; of our money. This is at Pittsburgh ; but, it
must be a pretty fair average. If, then, our far-
mers are sinking into ruin with wheat at nine shit.
lings a bushel, it is clear that the produce of the
earth can be raised one-third cheaper there titan it
can here. A third, or 33 1.3 per centum, will, I
should suppose, amply meet all charges on a raw
material like wool. So that, at this moment, wills
our low prices, our ruinous prices, the American
farmer can meet us in our own market, even in the
iufancy of his flocks.
But, we must not stop here. We cannot stop
here. Produce must rite in England, or the taxes
cannot be paid. Wheat cannot stand at 9s. a bushel.
Upon an average of the last ten years, it has been
12,. a bushel ; •iiiirl, to enable us to pay the taxes, it
must go even higher than that. Wool, however,
must keep an even pace with the wheat, or wool
will not he grown ; and, how is it to keep that pace,
if importations of " untaxed" wnoi be permitted,
without a lax imposed on it here?
" Well," you will say, " and do I pot recoils.
mend the lasing of foreign vreol ?" Yes ; but, what
would that effect? Why, just as much evil to the
manufacturers of cloth, as pod to growers of wool?
Indeed, in the end, it would be an evil to the for-
mer es well to the Miter.
But, before I proceed to show to what exteat
your proposed measure would affect the mosaic-.
tarn, it is necessary to make a few obserntioas as

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COBB ETT'S lATTP, R.; TO LORD
• SIiEFFIRLD, 1
1 SPEECH AT LEWES WOOL FAHt, JULY
26, ISO.

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