The Express. — 1851-07-17 (London, England)

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 17.  LANDLORDISM will quote figures and consequently get its ignorance and fully perpetually exposed. Again and again has its inaptitude for discerningblack from white been made painfully and pitiably manifest; vet again and again it repeats the exploit of statistical suicide, to the admiration of all true lovers of protectionist martyrdom. The performance of Lord Naas on Tuesday last was a signal specimen of this unhappy species of valour. Casting his eyes over the disenchanting proofs of prosperity under free trade, the noble member for Kildare lights upon two items, which put together make up, he imagines, a conclusive case against the system. The export of linen yarn from Ireland to France has greatly diminished, while the import of French flour into Ireland has considerably increased. He seeks for neither cause nor explanation in the contemporaneous facts that crowd on all sides the darling figures he has discovered; and trusting to the landlord instincts of the House of Commons, he coolly proposes these isolated incidents for their consideration,—nay, invites a decision affirming the failure of free imports on the strength of the scraps he has deliberately cut out of their context, in the returns of the Board of Trade. And we are bound in justice to the noble lord's sagacity to admit that since in the middle of July, when twothirds of the members of parliament have left town, 93 individuals can be got to vote for such a motion on such a statement, it is not perhaps unaccountable why it should be made. The quantities of flour imported into Ireland from France have during the last three years very much exceeded those previous to 1843. Therefore, says Lard SA.I4, it is clear that the Irish millers must be on the high road to ruin. He carefully omits to state that while the imports of flour have increased, those of unground wheat had gone on increasing likewise, —funnshing, as Mr. LABOUCIIERE justly argued, a demonstration that the millers had as much, if out more than ever to do. Milling is, strictly speaking, a manufacture. Most manufacturers are supposed to be served by an abundant and limitless supply of the raw material. But milling, according to the protectionist theory, is like to be extinguished by the abundance of the material which keeps its capital and labour busy. Nor was the noble lord more logical in his various subordinate arguments. An anonymous corn-factor (of course of the greatest respectability) had written hint a letter, declaring it to be his opinion that the Irish millers could never compete with the French; and his lordship proceeded then to explain how this rather singular circumstance was to be accounted for. It was not by superior machinery that the Celts of 1 Brittany were able to beat those of Leinster ; for • great portion of the mechanism used, perhaps by both, was sent from England • and amongst the former the common name made use of was " the English mill." Nobody, we presume, is likely to ascribe the superiority complained of to ;greater amounts or facilities or obtaining capital. The sole remaining cause is to he sought, we are assured, in the difference of the price of labour : as if wages in Ireland were not proverbially too low already, or as if the comparatively few hands employed in the improved system of flour-making could affect so vast a change as that which parliament was asked to declare substantiated.  The truth is, that in totally different directions are to be found the real occasion of that depression which the smaller capitalists in many districts of England, as well as Ireland, have had to sustain. The application of steam power to the grinding of corn has inevitably tended to tho concentration of the trade in the fewer and larger establishments. This must have occurred had the alteration of the tariff never taken place. During the past year there has, moreover, been a vast influx of flour from France, owing to the singular superabundance of the wheat harvest of 18.10. Already the markets of Paris show that the speculative export to these countries during the winter has been overdone; and it is no secret, we believe, that considerable purchases have begun to be made of French flour on this side of the channel fur re-shipment to France. By way of meeting this part of the case, Lord Nate assured his hearers that the French millers were by no means exclusively dependent on the produce of their own soil for supply. They might import from other countries where wheat could be grown even cheaper than at home, and grinding it in bond re-export it as flour ; a proof of the paternal and fostering care which the French government took of its industrious and enterprising subjects. But this appears to be about the climax of irrationality and non-sequence. Irish and English millers have not only the power to import at certain states of the foreign corn averages, materials for manufacture in bond, but they can import at all times and at all prices from all countries, and grind their foreign purchases into flour, without troubling their heads about Customs regulations,ofßcers, or penalties, or deducting a shilling from the net annual profits on account thereof. Herein our fellow-subjects of the milling interest have obviously all the advantage over their much-dreaded competitors. Not more successful was the attempt to show that in the article of linen yarn Ireland had been • sufferer of late years. Here likewise a single column of' figures being alone seized upon, a conclusion is drawn absolutely delusive and contrary to notorious ' fact. We do not accuse Lord Naas of mis-stating wilfully the circumstances of the export trade in yarn to France; but we shall in a few sentences convince every intelligent and impartial man, how utterly erroneous is the impression that would be created by attending to those cited by his lordship, without comparison and combination with other , facts to be found in the same documents whence the former have been drawn.  _- --About eight years ago the French government, in one of their protection freaks, placed a duty upon imported yarn, which 6s amounted, as it was intended, almost to a prohibition. The professed, and doubtless the sincere, aim of this tax on the raw material of their lawn and cambric manufactures eras to force the extension of spinning mills in ' Prance, whereby it was argued great profit and much employment would be secured to their native industry. "• By dint of smuggling, this was to some extent de