into competition and confliction, or when the justling, deprivation, and destruction of the weaker capitalists shall be brought under the power of universal, instead of partial, action.

In the second instance, Dr. Bowring having to address the House of Commons on the principle of free trade, and having to dilate on the consequences that are entailed upon a nation, when a special branch of its trade has to be abandoned, by reason of the commodity of which the trade consists, being introduced from another nation, and made to take the place of the home-manufactured commodity, has not scrupled to admit that injury does and must result on account of the competition, confliction, and destruction of trade thus brought about. The case adduced by him was that of the trade in cotton-manufactured goods of India having been supplanted by the cotton-manufactured goods of England. Dr. Bowring truly described this course of trade, of competition, and confliction, as having the charaeter of civil warfare, eventuating in the destruction of the weaker party. In the passage which I have before quoted, he says:

"The condition of the man who has to compete with a cheaper, better, or more rapid mode of production, must be deteriorated. The national good cannot be purchased but at the expense of some individual evil. No advance was ever made in manufactures but at some cost to those who were in the rear; and of all discoveries, the power-loom is that which most directly bears on the condition of the hand-loom weaver. He is already beaten out of the field in many articles; he will infallibly be compelled to surrender many more.

"I hold, Sir, in my hand, the correspondence which has taken place between the Governor-General of India and the East India Company, on the subject of the Dacca hand-loom weavers. It is a melancholy story of misery, as far as they are

concerned, and as striking an evidence of the wonderful progress of manufacturing industry in this country. Some years ago the East India Company annually received of the produce of the looms of India to the amount of from 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 pieces of cotton goods. The demand gradually fell to somewhat more than 1,000,000, and has now nearly ceased altogether. In 1800, the United States took from India nearly 800,000 pieces of cottons; in 1830 not 4000. In 1800, 1,000,000 pieces were shipped to Portugal; in 1830, only 20,000. Terrible are the accounts of the wretchedness of the poor Indian weavers, reduced to absolute starvation. And what was the sole cause? The presence of the cheaper English manufacture,—the production by the powerloom of the article which these unhappy Hindoos had been used for ages to make by their unimproved and hand-directed shuttles. Sir, it was impossible that they could go on weaving what no one would wear or buy. Numbers of them died of hunger; the remainder were, for the most part, transferred to other occupations, principally agricultural. Not to have changed their trade was inevitable starvation. And at this moment, Sir, that Dacca district is supplied with yarn and cotton cloth from the power looms of England. language of the Governor-General is,

The

"European skill and machinery have superseded the produce of India. The Court declare, that they are at last obliged to abandon the only remaining portion of the trade in cotton manufactures, both in Bengal and Madras, because, through the intervention of power-looms, the British goods have a decided advantage in quality and price. Cotton piece goods, for so many ages the staple manufacture of India, seem thus for ever lost. The Dacca muslins, celebrated over the whole world for their beauty and fineness, are also annihilated, from the same cause. And the present

suffering, to numerous classes in India, is scarcely to be paralleled in the history of commerce." "

Here we find that injury and destruction, attendant upon that course of free trade which necessitates the abandonment of a home trade and the substitution of a foreign trade in its place, are fully admitted, and the direful consequences of the course most powerfully shown. But the deliverer of the speech had chosen to adopt the idea,--and wished Parliament also to follow him in his adoption,—that the amount of national good attained by the course was larger than the amount of evil inflicted, and that under natural law, it was not possible to attain the good, excepting by an infliction of the evil.

Now, I have shown how presumptuous it is, in these advocates of the free principle, to promulge any such destructive and abominable doctrines. I have shown that there is not one amongst them who has been able to earn a title for knowledge within the sphere of science; or to discover anything higher in the constitution of natural and divine law, than that dull, and unproviding, and destructive version of it, which their own minds have suggested, and by which they assume that men must, of necessity, act a base, covetous, and destructive part towards their fellow-men; and this part to be acted by the wealthier, richer, and more powerful, or the possessors of capital, towards the poorer and weaker, or the possessors of mere labour. But when these, together with other such formidable assertions and conclusions which they have so confidently advanced, and on so many occasions unscrupulously upheld, are duly examined, they are discerned to be mere vapid assumptions; so that, by trusting to them, the dearest interests of mankind have been mercilessly sacrificed on those two devouring altars Covetousness and Party Policy.

The third instance which I have to adduce, is furnished by Mr. Bentham. By this instance matter is supplied of a character very different from that supplied by the last advocate. The argument of this writer affords affirmative evidence of the principle and course for which I have contended: it is as follows:

"TRADE THE CHILD OF CAPITAL.*

"I will tell you a great and important, though too much neglected truth — Trade is the Child of Capital. In proportion to the quantity of capital a country has at its disposal, will, in every country, be the quantity of its trade. While you have no more capital employed in trade than you have, all the power on earth cannot give you more trade; while you have the capital you have, all the power on earth cannot prevent you having the trade you have. It may take one shape or another shape; it may give you more foreign goods to consume, or more home goods; but the quantity and value of goods of all sorts it gives you, will always be the same, without any difference which it is possible to ascertain or worth while to think about. I am a merchant, I have a capital of 10,000l. in trade; suppose the whole Spanish West Indies laid open to me, could I carry on more trade with my 10,000l. than I do now? Suppose the French West Indies shut against me; would my 10,000l. be worth nothing? If every foreign market were shut up against me without exception, even then would my 10,000l. be worth nothing? If there were no sugar to be bought, there is, at any rate, land to be improved.

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Yes, it is quantity of capital, not extent of market, that determines the quantity of trade. Open a new market, you

* Addressed to the Citizens of France, in 1793; extracted from Benthamiana, by J. H. Burton, p. 41.

do not, unless by accident, increase the sum of trade.

Shut

up an old market, you do not, unless by accident, or for the moment, diminish the sum of trade. In what case, then, is the sum of trade increased by a new market? If the rate of clear profit upon the capital employed in the new trade is greater than it would have been in any old one, and not otherwise. But the existence of this extra profit is always taken for granted, never proved. It may, indeed, be true by accident; but another thing is taken for granted, which is never true it is, that the whole of the profit made upon the capital, which, instead of being employed in some old trade, is employed in this new one, is so much addition to the sum of national profit that would otherwise have been made. What is only transferred is considered as CREATED. If after making 12 per cent. upon a capital of 10,000l. in an old trade, a man made but 10 per cent. upon the same capital in a new trade, who does not see, that instead of gaining 1200. a year, he, and through him the nation he belongs to, loses 2001. by the change? and so it is, if instead of one such merchant, there were a hundred. Instead of this 200l. a year loss, your comité de commerce and boards of trade set down to the national account 1000l. a year gain, especially if it be to a very distant and little known part of the world, such as a Southern whale fishery, a revolted Spanish colony, or a Nootka Sound; and it is well if they do not set down the whole capital of 10,000l. as gain into the bargain."

Now, although against some of the secondary matter contained in this passage, exceptions have to be lodged, so that perfect agreement cannot be accorded, yet the leading idea is, as the writer has denominated it, "a most important, yet too much neglected truth." The leading idea presents a recognition of the great fact that trade is the child of capital, by which is meant that capital must precede trade, or new