The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-03-04 00:00:00

italics are our contemporary's own :

" That in the finest qualities of printed calicoes, which
require not only very great taste and skill in design, but also
a very large amount of manual labour, the Swiss and French
have a preference in some markets, no man can deny ; and
the present restrictions on the import of food, by increasing
the expense of manual labour in this country, seem likely
enough to perpetuate that advantage. But every other de-
scription of cotton goods (with the exception, perhaps, of
hosiery) are made in England not only cheaper, but of better
quality, than in any other country under the sun. No doubt
there are many infeilor goods manufactured here ; but those
who desire to have the best qualities may find as many as
they want. Now, under these circumstances, supposing that
English manufacturers were foolish enough to export goods
of wretched quality, by which they get little or nothing, how
happens it that merchants—and Liverpool merchants too—
should commit the same folly ? Why do not they buy and
export better fabrics ? Even if these were not to be pur-
chased in the ordinary markets, they could be made to order,
of any quality required. Why, then, do not those very
clever and discerning merchants avoid the error into which
the manufacturers fall ? Perhaps when the Standard favours
, us with the details which he promises, and which we have
great curiosity to see, he will add some explanations on this
point."

Let us entreat the earnest attention of our readers i
to these quibbles of the oracle of the league ! We
do not, he says, rank equally with the Swiss or French'
.manufacturers in foreign markets. This fact then,
which we Contended for, is admitted. In articles
which require :" very great taste in skill and design, as
well as a very large amount of manual labour," we are
excelled by the manufacturers of these countries; and
we are told that we shall continue to be so excelled, so
long as restrictions on the price of food " increase the
expense of manual labour" in Great Britain. After all the
shuffling negation of the league, the fact then is here at
length allowed to Tome out, that free trade in corn—
the grand panacea which is to restore our manufactu-
ring interest to its former prosperity and to supremacy
in every market in the world—is to be effected by a
reduction in the price of labour ! We are not told how
manufacturing " taste and skill in design" are to be
promoted. The free trader contemplates no such te-
dious steps as would be involved in the attempt to raise
the reputation of British fabrics in foreign markets to
a level with ,that of our manufacturing competitors ;
but openly proclaims to the world that the course
which he contemplates is the reduction of the price of
manufacturing labour to the continental level, to enable
him to acquire—not superior excellence—not superior
fabric of beauty or design—but CHEAPNESS ! The
native agriculture of Great Britain is to be laid in
ruins—not to increase the comforts of the manufactu-
ring labourer—not to introduce into his wretched home
a greater quantity of food, as the reward of his inces-
sant toil—but to enable the millocrat of the league to
screw down the money amount of wages, and to deluge
the markets of the world with his cheap and trashy
commodities !

Our contemporary tells us that goods are made in
England (excluding the finest printed calicoes) " not
only cheaper but of better quality than in any other
country under the sun." We perfectly agree with
him ; and the reason why these cheapest and best goods
do not sell is because we also manufacture goods in-
trinsically,dearer and worse in quality than those of
any other country. Our contemporary admits this
fact. He is not ignorant of the flour paste and china
clay frauds practised upon the foreign buyer of our
goods ; and it is therefore a piece of gratuitous inso-
why Liverpool merchants are
lence, in him, to ask,
found expOrting these rascally compositions of plaster,
in preference to the best descriptions of manufactures ?
The reason is palpable. We cannot in any foreign
market realise the value of the best description of Bri-
tish manufactures. The very name which they bear is
a hindrance to their acceptation by the best classes of
consumers; and the merchant who would be mad
enough to attempt their introduction, although he
might perhaps, in tithe, succeed in overcoming the corn-
petition of the foreign manufacturer, would, with too
great certainty, be elbowed at every step by the un-
principled venders of British trash, whose fraudulent
practices are rife in every market. We bear through-
out the world a tainted name. We have the reputation
of dealing in miserable rags; and until that reputation
is cleansed (and it
will take years of self-denying ho-
nesty to effect it) we shall never be able to take up
that position in the markets of the world which honest
traders would wish to occupy.
We shall not fail to favour the Guardian with the
promised details about which he affects to feel so ear-
nest a longing, although, perhaps, when we have done
so he will scarcely thank. us. In the meantime, may
we request of him to mend his temper ?

The Liverpool Times has always especially prided
himself in the extent of his information upon econo-
mical and commercial questions. With all the myste-
ries and intricacies of foreign tariffs and commercial
policy—with all the secret opinions, even, of foreign
governments upon commercial questions—our sage
contemporary imagines himself to be perfectly and
exclusively acquainted ; and his readers, who, being
only the wise ones of the world, are lamentably few in
number, have, we dare say, often wondered why so
manifest a Solon was not treading in the footsteps of a
Canning or a Huskisson—illuminating the darkness of
the Board of Trade or the Foreign Office, instead of
wasting his vast stores of knowledge upon the obtuse
inhabitants of the banks of the Mersey.
Of late, however, some doubts have come over us
with respect to the quality and source of our learned
brother's wisdom. We have doubted whether he was
Minerva herself or only. Minerva's bird ; whether he
was himself the fertile source of the light which he
shed abroad, or only a dispenser of the borrowed com
modity—a sort of tin reflector of the lamp of some
other philosopher—a crammed repeater of some other
sage's profundities. The last publication of our con-
temporary has converted doubt upon this point into
certainty ; and the painful task devolves upon us of
exposing to the world the cheat which has been so
long practised upon its credulity.
. .

In a lengthy article, on Tuesday last, upon the sub-
ject of " Sir Howard Douglas's maiden speech," the
Times has succeeded in crowding within the space of
three-quarters of a column a greater quantity of con
ceited insolence and sheer ignorance than was ever be-
fore accomplished by any journalist in ten times the
compass. Upon the insolence and conceit in question
we have at present, however, no intention of remarking
at any length. The inflation of the small journalist,
who presumes to prate about the " ignorance and folly
of the honourable and gallant member for Liverpool,"
with respect to matters of international policy, is too
close an imitation of the frog in the fable to need any
other castigation than has already been bestowei upon
it by the fabulist. We shall confine ourselves, there-
fore, to the task of holding up to the observation of the
public one rare specimen of his profound ignorance of
the subject upon which he professes to be an especial
luminary.
There is no question upon which more has been said
of late by the organs of the anti-monopoly party, and
by our contemporary in particular, than the effect of
our present commercial system upon the fiscal policy
of the United States. Sir Howard 'Douglas, as have
other men before him, doubts strongly whether any
alteration of our import duties would have the effect
of inducing the government of the United States
to reduce their present almost prbhibitory tariff upon
our manufactures. On the occasion which has drawn
forth our contemporary's pert remarks Sir Howard
" asserted (very truly)" says the Times, " that the peo-
ple of the United States were anxiously looking to the
course which England would take; informed the house
(very unnecessarily) that the Americans would not
reduce their duties lower, which is likely enough to be
true, seeing that an ad valorem duty of twenty per cent.
is all that remains," &c. Could the world, we ask,
have believed that a journalist in the port of Liverpool,
professedly conversant in all the details of its foreign
commerce, and especially in those of its vast trade with
America, would give utterance to an assertion displaying
such amazing ignorance ? Would any man have ima-

gined that the utterer of such a piecp stupidity could
be the commercial philosopher of the .Liecrpool Times?
" An ad valoron duty of 20 per cent is all" the duty
which the American tariffimposes upon foreign imports!
In pity we must endeavour to throw a little light upon
our benighted contemporary with respect to this matter.
At the present moment the duty upon plain cotton
goods, imposed by Mr. Clay's tariff act of 1833; is 25
per cent. upon an assumed value of 30 cents the sqp.are
yard, which in practice is equal to about 40 per cent.,
allowing for the progressive deductions for which that
act provides. Upon the average of plain and printed
cottons, the average duty is probably 30 per cent.;
upon woollen goods the average duty, originally 50
per cent., is now reduced to 29 ; upon rod, sheet,
hoop, &c. iron, 47 9- ; upon mixed manufactures
of cotton and silk, cotton and stuff, or cotton and
linen, the cotton duty ; upon wearing apparel, 29 per
cent. ; and, by a more recent enactment, the lowest
ad-valorem duty has been raised to 20 per cent.

It is true that, on the 30th of June in the present.
year, these duties (unless legislation upon the subject
should take place in the meantime) are to be reduced
to a uniform rate of 20 per cent. apparently ; but in
practice no such happy consummation for our com-
merce is anticipated. The mode of valuation for duty
after the 30th June, with the cash payment of du-
ties and other regulations, are fully expected to add
at least 10 or 15 per cent. to this nominal duty
of 20 per cent., giving still a protection to the Ameri-
can manufacturer, including freight and shipping
charges, of 40 to 50 per cent. as against the manufac-
turers of other countries.

We stated, in our last notice of the state of trade in
this district, that the Manchester market had displayed
some symptoms of amendment; and we added as an
" on dit," which we have since the best authority for
believing to be a strict fact, that " many orders were
at that moment in the market, the holders of which
only waited until agitation had subsided to operate
freely."

This passage the Manchester Guardian—who, we
are happy to see, pays great attention to anything
which falls from us—has, in his last publication, orna-
mented with all the graces of italics and notes of ad-
miration. The conclusion, however, which he draws
from it is not quite so logical as he seems to think it,
" We cannot help expressing our admiration," writes
the Guardian, " for the philanthropy displayed by the
parties who hold orders, which at present, if we may
believe our Liverpool contemporary, they abstain from
executing, because, owing to the movements of the
League, the price of goods is too low !" With all due
deference to our sapient contemporary, our remarks
are not at all susceptible, except by a very uncandid
or ignorant reader, of being interpreted as they have
been by the Guardian. We believe that, above all
other things, a merchant dislikes to operate in an un,
steady market ; and it is not at all because prices are
at present " too low" in Manchester that the parties
to whom we alluded do not execute their orders, but
because, whilst the " Leaguers" continue their present
course of agitation, and our contemporary his present
croakings, there is no satisfactory assurance that they
will not be even lower ! •

Our contemporary may imagine that the world is
prepared to take its views of the state of affairs in
the Manchester market from his atrabilious effusions,
and that we have no means of acquiring information,
and no right to express an opinion upon the subject.
Upon this matter, however, we, and others as well, hold
a different opinion ; and we can assure him besides, that
he is quite in error if he supposes that he can be per-
mitted to blink the truth, to subserve the purposes of
the League agitation or his own interested journalism.
The public is pretty well acquainted with the.capabili-
ties and the morale of the Manchester Guardian.