illicit traffic was never at a lower point than at present. The autumnal quarter is always a dull one for manufactures, but we can state that Paisley at present is in a satisfactory state, as far as regards all its branches of industry. In Nottingham, where the hosiery and lace trades are chiefly carried on, the distress was so great in the spring of 1826, that most of the manufacturing houses were discharging the greatest part of their hands. In the December following trade began to revive; in the spring and summer of 1827 it further improved; and in the spring and summer of the present year, master manufacturers have been selling goods, and operatives have been making them, at remunerating rates of payment in the hosiery branch. The lace trade being completely a fancy one, is subject to all the temporary fluctuations that affect the silk manufacturer; and it has been especially subjected to speculation, increased by the operations of country bankers, who had at one time (those at least in the neighbourhood of the manufacture) lent their local notes to such an extent, that a machine for making lace, that originally cost probably 801., has been sold for 400.; to adventurers, flushed with the money they had borrowed at the local bankers, and desirous of becoming lace manufacturers; the consequence was, that when the panic came, the provincial bankers stopped their advances; these men of straw had no means of paying their workmen, and the distress among the operatives was dreadful. The effects of these difficulties have now passed away; and the lace manufacture is in a sound condition; machines are got down to their natural value; and workmen are earning a more steady rate of wages, 30s. to 35s. per week, instead of 61. and 71. The trade at Norwich consists chiefly in the manufacture of articles of luxury, and is unconnected with exportation, with the exception of a small portion of it to Spain; so that it is a fabric for home consumption, almost exclusively; and when that manufacture is flourishing, it is fair to infer, even if we had no other proofs, that others, which produce articles of greater necessity, cannot be generally in a bad state. In 1826, upon an average, not one in a family was employed, (it must be stated that the women are all engaged in the manufacture.) In 1827, and to the present period, every member of a family, able and willing to work, could, and can, procure employment. The trade in brass and copper, hardware and cutlery, iron and steel, wrought and unwrought, exhibits a most satisfactory proof of the prosperity of these important branches of commerce. In the year ending 5th January, 1826, the exports of the former manufacture were 485,118.; to 5th January, 1827, 571,1491.; to 5th January, 1828, 786,8037. In the year ending 5th January, 1826, the amount of hardware and cutlery exported was 1,391,1127.; to 5th January, 1827, 1,169,1057.; and to 5th January, 1828, 1,390,428. Iron and steel, wrought and unwrought, exported in the year ending 5th January, 1826, amounted to 1,048,0637.; in 1827, to 1,105,618.; and in 1828, to 1,214,9487. The operatives in the iron manufacture may be considered more in the light of colonists on their employers' property. It occupies a length of time to make them good workmen, and their wages do not generally fluctuate. The great panic, however, affected wages and prices in this trade materially, which depression is still felt; but operatives are working at wages which enable them to maintain their families with comfort. A common labourer earns from 12s. to 14s. per week, a miner 18s., a collier 21s., and a manufacturing operative from 30s. to 35s. We stated, in an earlier stage of this article, that it was not our intention to enter into minute details; but there are two or three facts that ought to be given, we think, in common justice to the subject upon which we are treating, in a more detailed form than we have previously applied to it. The imports for the year ending 5th January, 1828, were 44,887,7741.; for the year ending 5th January, 1827, they were 37,686,1177. The exports to 5th January, 1828, were 62,050,0081.; to 5th January, 1827, only 51,042,0221. The exports of foreign and colonial merchandise were, within about 100,000l., the same in both years, so that the difference is in the produce and manufactures of the United Kingdom. The following table, shewing the quantities of raw and thrown silk imported, and also of the quantities entered for home consumption, in each of the last five years, and continued to April 5, 1828, does not exactly prove the total destruction of this great branch of British industry so confidently anticipated by restrictionists, but little understanding their own interest : The consumption of indigo is another accurate index of the true state of some of the leading manufactures of the country; and the increased consumption of that article, since 1826, is a satisfactory proof, if we had adduced no other, of their present condition. As compared with the year of excitement, 1825, the increased consumption is extraordinary. The following statement shews the amount entered for home consumption and export, in the first seven months of the years 1825, 6, 7, and 8: The last column shews that, whilst British manufactures are progressing, our neighbours are also prosperous,-a fact, satisfactory to all, excepting those who fancy their country can only flourish through the ruin of others; as if poverty were the ingredient most necessary to form a good customer. Dye-woods are in equal demand. The Navigation question is very much too large to be discussed incidentally; but as it is part and parcel of the new commercial policy, we may be pardoned in giving the following Table, which does not quite bear out the assertion of the poor ruined shipowners-that foreign vessels are everywhere superseding those of Great Britain. An Account of the total number of Vessels, with the Amount of their Tonnage, and the number of men and boys employed in navigating the same, that entered inwards, and cleared outwards, from and to all parts of the world, in the several Years from 1823 to 1827, both inclusive; distinguishing the British from the Foreign: 1823 20,303 2,469,053 154,958 | 3,806 | 534,674 31,329 38,642 48,943 5,439 643,922 37,137 41,508 1823 19,177 2,297,975 140,291 3,179 515,774 1824 20,732 2,492,402 152,584 4,717 690,374 1825 21,384 2,633,524 160,725 5,753 851,354 1826 21,874 2,676,263 163,027 5,129 641,106 1827 22,049 2,828,869 171,586 5,505 | 732,481 A favourite doctrine with the shipowners is that Great Britain destroyed her old Navigation Laws, which had done so much for the 26,844 35,823 44,431 34,600 39,566 country, chiefly for the purpose of preserving an export trade to Prussia, of 5 or 600,000l. per annum. The Imports into Prussia direct, may not exceed that amount; but her Imports of English manufactures through the Elbe, Rhine, Ems and Weser, amount to more than five or six millions. As we are not now going to discuss the propriety of the new Navigation Laws, we merely state this to put the shipowners right in a matter of fact. Faint as is the sketch, compared with the vast extent of the question, that we have drawn of the working of the new commercial principles, it is sufficient, we think, to shew their soundness, and to excite surprise in the mind of every unbiassed person, that individuals, calling themselves statesmen, should suffer, as the present cabinet has done, those principles to linger in their operation in this stage of their progress towards maturity. From their first application to practical purposes to the period of Mr. Huskisson's extraordinary retirement from office(extraordinary, as to the course he adopted upon that occasion, and more extraordinary, as regards the indecent anxiety of the Premier to get rid of the most efficient member of his administration ;)—obstacles of the most embarrassing description, because of an indirect tendencyproducing, as it were, internal warfare, when the minister, whose especial purpose it was to contend against monopolists, was manfully fighting the battle-met him at every turn. He was prepared for the chicanery of foreign statesmen,-for the clamour of monopolists at home; but he was not prepared for the perplexing hostility he met with in certain quarters, upon the ground that the opinions of a minority are merged in those of a majority. These obstacles apparently were removed upon the accession of Mr. Canning to the premiership-but, in reality, they were not; so widely had they extended themselves, although materially softened down by that event. They were, however, gradually weakened, and the new commercial system was in its best state, when the Duke of Wellington took the reins of power. His Grace, too, was in the enviable situation, as far as his official influence was concerned, of standing well with the aristocracy, and of never having attempted to frustrate Mr. Huskisson's views in commercial affairs; for his Amendment on Lord Liverpool's Corn Bill, introduced by Mr. Canning in the Session of 1827, was considered only in the character of a sacrifice of his consistency, as a member of the Cabinet that had introduced it, to the prejudices of the aristocracy, whose favour he was at that time notoriously courting. The system was every day becoming more matured when the founder of it retired from office. The steady progress towards improvement made in almost every branch of commerce, since the stagnation of 1826, shewed that this system contained elements that must ultimately produce extensive prosperity, inasmuch as it had righted itself under difficulties, both directly and collaterally bearing upon it, and had steadily brought the trade of Great Britain from a state of most fearful stagnation to one of progressive improvement. It may be said that this stagnation is not the first that has occurred in our commercial annals, and that we have equally recovered from others; but in answer to that, it should be recollected, that the circumstances consequent upon the change of commercial policy did much to produce the distress, created by the folly of individuals; and if the principle of liberal trade had been unsound, or if, in short, it had not been in accordance with the circumstances of the country, how could prosperity have returned? We are aware of the enterprise and perseverance of British merchants, but these qualities, under a vicious system, would rather have aggravated than relieved distress. The corn-laws, as at present constituted, must render mercantile freedom imperfect; but still, with this weight upon it, the policy of Mr. Huskisson has led to commercial improvement with reference to every former period, and placed the commerce of Great Britain on a footing that it never had before attained, because it is not receiving the casual aid of fortunate and accidental circumstances, but the well-regulated support of sound principles. The opposition raised against the change in the commercial policy had died away; traders of all descriptions were accommodating themselves to it; every further change was prepared for, when, by a fatality the most extraordinary that ever seized, we will not say statesmen, but men of common sense, the cabinet in their blank paper declaration, which simile might probably be more aptly applied to another circumstance than their impartiality, virtually advertised for the advice of every designing knave in the kingdom, on the affairs of commerce. We can understand men overweighed with an intricate subject, whose minds are but of moderate calibre, shifting their ground and shewing distrust of themselves; but for men of the most moderate capacity, or the most timid minds, throwing open a well established course of policy, proved sound in practice under the most untoward circumstances, to another ordeal of clamour, is the most inexplicable conduct we remember even in the history of modern politicians. But if impartiality induced the promulgation of the White Paper figure of speech, (which, by the way, in a fortnight after its announcement, led to the most mischievous consequences,) we would ask, is a question never to be settled? Is the sanction of Parliament, maturely given to measures which were to come into progressive operation, to be subservient to the dogmas of interested, and, in many instances, needy adventurers, preaching up the ruin of the empire to the ministers, if commerce be not fettered? Is eternal vacillation to pervade that paramount object, the management of our trade? When the present ministers took the direction of the vessel of the state, they found her, as far as her commercial relations were concerned, in the haven where she should be; and they have thought it necessary to cast her again into a sea of perplexity and difficulty. Mr. Sheridan's celebrated simile of building a wall for the purpose of knocking your head against it, is strikingly applicable in the present instance. Ministers have shewn, that they are deficient in that very plain tact, of following a course previously marked out for them with the nicest precision. The late Colonial Secretary guarded the members of the cabinet, more immediately connected with the affairs of trade, not to give way to noisy declamation and idle clamour; but his advice was unheeded: they have yielded to the efforts of the self-interested, and amidst a variety of minor acts of weakness, have thrown into confusion two of the principal manufactures of the kingdom, silk and woollen, which must, inevitably, more or less affect the other great commercial interests. In the one instance, all the respectable silk weavers, and |