Sennaar, fixed their wages at thirty paras (less than four cents,) a day, and compelled them to labor under the bastinado; but, even in the rudest fabrics, he could not compete at home with the English and Swiss manufacturer; because his laborers were ignorant; because compulsion could not beget ambition to excel; and because rewards, (had they been offered,) which could not be safely invested, and which could be taken away by the same hand that gave, were not inducements sufficiently strong to make the indolent active or to fit the unintelligent for employments which require mental energy and mechanical care.

"And your committee are persuaded that the best service that could be rendered to the industrious classes of the community, would be to extend the field of labor, and of demand for labor, by an extension of our commerce.

"Your committee further recommend, that, as speedily as possible, the whole system of differential duties and of all restrictions should be reconsidered, and that a change be therein effected in such a manner that existing interests may suffer as little as possible in the transition to a more liberal and equitable state of things

the simplifications they recommend would vastly facilitate the transactions of commerce," &c., &c.

That is, to rely as their fathers did, and before their manufacturing age, on "the wooden walls of old England." Nature seems to have made the coasts, harbors, and estuaries of Great Britain for a peculiarly maratime people. Here is her natural strength. Her energies were partially turned aside from this interest, for half a century, by the inventions of Arkwright, Newcomen, Watt and others, and from the possession of the cheapest fuel then known, by which these inventions could be turned to profit. But it is evident that Mr. Hume and his committee think more of the fisheries and the carrying trade than of cotton cloth as the sources of future support and profit to England.

Evidence.-Extracts from the evidence of Mr. McGregor, one of the secretaries of the Board of Trade; Dr. Bowring; Mr. Hume, of the Board of Customs and Board of Trade; and J. Benj. Smith, President of the Board of Commerce of Manchester, and others:

"The German grazier now exchanges his cattle and his beef for fabrics with the home manufacturer, and the corn dealer and miller provide bread for the manufacturer, and use his goods in return; they produce, in most instances, as cheaply as we do, notwithstanding our skill and cheap coal, because they have abundance to maintain life within themselves. The artisan, in the cotton manufacture, can support himself with equal comfort in Germany at half, and in Westphalia, Bavaria, and Austria at less than half, of what it costs the English artisan."

The Germans and Bavarians come yearly to the west, in thousands, attracted by our cheap lands and cheap living-and we have far cheaper coal than can be found in England.

"The workman of England has to pay, in one way or another, more than half

his wages in taxation. A workman in Saxony, who is almost entirely free from tax, can live as well upon 5s. a week as an English artisan can live upon 9s. a week.” Yet one of the inducements that the west holds out, and which brings the Saxon emigrant, is light taxes.

"The state of Swiss manufactures is now such that their cotton goods come into competition with ours, and meet us with very great advantages, in our eastern markets: and they are sent to the United States and the Brazils in very large quantities, although the cost of carriage on the cotton must cost them double what the Lancaster and Lancastershire manufacturer pays."

Light taxes and cheap living explain the success of the Swiss manufacturer. "Of late years there is a tendency for capital and labor to quit this and settle in other countries; in so much so, that all the cotton factories in the neighborhood of Vienna, in consequence of the cheapness of provisions, are in a very fair and prosperous condition; but the directors and foremen of these manufactories are chiefly Englishmen or Scotchmen, from the cotton manufactories of Manchester and Glasgow. We find in France, that the principal foremen at Rouen and in the cotton factories, are from Lancaster; you will find it in Belgium, in Holland, and in the neighborhood of Liege; you find British capital going into France, Belgium and Germany, to a very great amount; and this very British capital employed there producing manufactures which meet us in the markets of the Mediterranean,the United States, Porto Rico, Cuba, South America, and the East Indies."

"Agents are constantly employed in the manufacturing districts, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leeds, Manchester, and Glasgow, in selecting the ablest workmen to go to foreign countries."

"We now cannot export to Switzerland Nos. of yarn under 110; the same process is going on in other countries."

"In Lancaster the wages have not increased with the price of provisions; wages never increase with the price of provisions-they always decline with a rise in the price of provisions, because a high price of food always diminishes the demand for labor, and the rate of wages is determined by the demand for labor."

In England the cotton weaver can do nothing but weave cotton; and his children are taught only to weave cotton. As the manufacturing operative, for several generations, was better paid than the agriculturist, this class has increased so as to outstrip the demand; the producers of food are now fewer than the consumers; the ratio of increase in both is the same, and, in consequence, the price of food must increase, and the means of buying food must decrease,

Here, and under our system, the demand for any particular labor regulates the supply. The four years labor in the mill, instead of incapacitating the operative for other employments, has a very decided tendency to insure him success in other employments. In England, the cotton spinner never expects to be a freeholder, or to marry a freeholder; here the proceeds of labor in the mill are gen

erally intended for the purchase of land and the necessaries in and about the house of the land owner.

The English rule will continue to obtain there, and, with the modifications suggested, is true here.

"The lower price of provisions induce many people not engaged in manufactures, to settle abroad. There are four or five millions (twenty to thirty millions of dollars,) annually drawn from the incomes of England, spent in France alone, and a great amount in Italy; the city of Naples is almost entirely supported by English expenditure."

Much of this money doubtless goes to support the vices of Paris, but still an enormous amount is paid out by those who seek cheap food abroad.

Now, if the nobleman, with a rent roll of thousands, goes to Italy to save some hundreds, what shall prevent the Manchester weaver from coming here (if he can get the means to remove,) where he can have "a chicken in the pot" every day, instead of only on Christmas and other church festivals? And here, with more and better food, he would do more and better work, and would soon catch the spirit of our own people and fit himself for independence on a farm.

Here are the facts which show us what of labor and capital we may expect from abroad, whenever we choose to take the proper means to obtain it. That but little of English capital and of this kind of labor has hitherto come to this valley, is not to be wondered at. I need not quote authorities to show how profoundly ignorant the English generally have been of the west. How few of them who have thought of Kentucky but in connection with the long rifle, and would not rather have trusted themselves to the crese of the Malay pirate than to the terrible bowie-knife of Arkansas or Mississippi. Until the last year, when they were so liberally supplied with the corn of Indiana and Illinois, how few of them had ever heard of these States! Within the last twelve months, the lower and middle classes of Europe have acquired more knowledge of us and of our country, than they ever had before. The immense quantities of breadstuffs and all kinds of provisions which we threw on them, on an unexpected demand, astonished them as much as the fall of manna did the Israelites; while the triumphs of our volunteers in Mexico gave them the highest opinion of our population. The contributions we sent them so freely, removed many of their prejudices and disposed them to think kindly of us. The bravery and success of our troops won their admiration. They see that our volunteers can fight as well before stone walls as behind cotton bales. A few years since they would have preferred employment among the French, "their natural enemies," and incurred the necessity of learning a language their class has always despised, to accepting employment here; now, thousands of them would gladly come to the land where bread is so cheap and men are so brave.

There is but little of English capital and artisan labor in New England, but the reason is obvious: it will be remembered that, until the last ten years, England

go

could profitably employ both at home, and since, New England had nearly enough of both; and, besides, the Englishmen and the Scotchmen, when they do abroad, prefer to go where they can lead, and not where they would be obliged to follow. Here, the position which their capital and skill would take, would not only gratify their pride, but command the desired profits. Our ships built at, and taking their departure from western ports, and laden with western products, will soon be well known at " Lloyd's," and every year will increase the variety and reputation of the products we ship to Liverpool and Glasgow.

The statistics of emigration are even now showing the results of the causes here enumerated.

The efforts of this committee and of the advocates of free trade, and the clamors of the people for the removal of restrictions on imports of food, have vastly changed the policy of England. The taxes on the manufacturer are now lighter and food is cheaper; but, while the church and poor rates are imposed and taxes are actually collected to pay interest on their national debt, it is preposterous to contend that Englishmen can compete with our cheaper food and cheaper power, and nominal taxes, when employed in manufacturing our peculiar staples.

Why is it that the Manchester cotton mill now is not running "full work,” when perhaps one-third of the spinners and weavers there are out of employment and would work at the very lowest rates? There is capital enough in England to take all the bonds in the markets of christendom, and, as we have some means of knowing, it asks not the very strongest security. The London Times admits that "the annual saving of the nation over and above its expenses, or in other words, its accretion of capital is not less than fifty millions ($250,000,000) annually; and the London Daily News states that "the banking deposits and lodgments on current account in Great Britain alone, cannot be estimated at less than three hundred millions;" or the enormous sum of one billion five hundred millions dollars!! Now, if the Manchester securities were good-if there was any profit in the Manchester business-we should not have seen the recent long lists of Manchester bankrupts. The iron works of Wales command the funds needed, because they pay good dividends; the railroad calls are paid up, when good dividends are expected; but the cotton dealer and manufacturer, the bankers who dealt with them, and the commission merchants who supplied them with food, were looked on with distrust, and the condition of their assets, as since disclosed, shows that the distrust was well founded.

The London Times further states, "that in the returns for 1847, the imports of flax and hemp, silk, cotton, wool, oil, tallow, &c., show a decline varying from two to thirty per cent."

Now, can a plain man of common sense, and away from the jargon and mystical terms of the writers on finance and political economy, find more than one solution to this state of things? Is not the inference irresistible that, as England has abundance of money and more than an abundance of lavor, the cotton and the

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hemp would be imported and worked up in increased quantities, if there was profit in the manufacture? The high rate of interest and the rail-road mania can be satisfactorily explained by the fact well known to every man of reflection—that speculations are often rife and that interest on money is always high in a state of transition from one great employment of labor or capital to another.

With such a state of facts, can any one doubt but that we can hire cheap in this foreign market whatever supply of cotton manufacturing labor we desire, from the superintendent and chemist down to the fireman and errand boy, and that we can obtain English capital whenever we show the field for its profitable employment?

The third requisite is-

Reputation or good will, and a condition of society and laws adapted to a manufacturing district.

In other countries the "good will" of a position is often of more value than the capital invested, and reputation of a particular article has frequently outlived for years its intrinsic worth. But, in this country, where so many changes are constantly occurring, that "good will" is rarely set down as part of one's assets, and reputation seldom passes a single generation, and neither has as much influence in fixing the price of cotton goods, bar iron, or common jeans, as of Rodgers' knives or Collins' axes. Whatever of either our western manufacturer deserves and desires to have, can be obtained by the appropriation of a small part of his savings for the use of your advertising columns.

It is admitted that no manufactory can succeed except under the protection of good laws, well administered, and with the influence of a controlling class of society favorable to such pursuits.

There are two kinds of manufacturing employments, and each requires a different position.

Of the population of London, Paris, and New York, perhaps a large majority are really manufacturers, for the jeweller, engraver, shoemaker, milliner, &c., &c., are really as much manufacturers as the weavers of cotton. This class requires and obtains å support from the classes of society who mainly distribute unproductive capital, and congregate in large commercial or fashionable cities. Many also can only find employment of really productive capital in such cities where there is an endless division and sub-division of labor, and where sales are made to order; such, for instance, as the optician, the mathematical instrument maker, &c. These classes need be under no particular discipline. They can choose their own hours for, and places of labor, and, as they work generally for money, they require no special protection from law.

Quite otherwise is it with what we usually term the manufacturing class, those who carry on, or work in, large establishments which require heavy capital, both fixed and active, and where the labor of each operative in each establishment is dependent, on, and is in immediate combination with, the labor of others.