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Some notion may be formed of the magnitude of Britain's internal trade, by the following valuation of Meux's brewery, made in the year 1808, by order of the court of chancery. The whole of the plant, comprising the brew-houses, ware-houses, mills, coppers, vats, with the dwelling-house, counting-houses, stables, and every other building on the premises, cost the proprietors more than £.200,000. The establishment brews 190,000 barrels of porter annually; one third of which is sent into the country. The house has for ten years past, i.e. from 1798 to 1808, paid annually into the hands of their banker from half a million to eight hundred thousand pounds sterling.See also" Hints," &c. pp. 13—18.

It is supposed by many that Britain employs too large a proportion of her population in Manufacturing; and it is allowed by all who have examined the subject, that of late years her manufactures have triumphed over every form of rivalship and of hostility, and have been continually increasing. Many politicians, philosophers, and moralists have also deplored the immorality necessarily attendant upon the extension of manufactures in Britain. For a sufficient refutation of this error the reader is referred to the "Literary Panorama," Vol. 6th, pp. 97-103, where he will find some important facts and observations respecting the moral state of Manufactories in Britain; together with the insertion of a " Moral Report of Coleham Cotton-Manufactory, Shrewsbury, from June 1803 to June 1808;" proving that very extensive manufacturing processes are carried on under the auspices of religion, morals, industry, and intelligence.

The annual value of British Manufactures in the years 1800-1805, may be known by consulting Mr. Macpherson's "Annals of Commerce," Vol. 4th, pp. 549-569; and Mr. M'Arthur's "Political and Financial Facts," &c. Introduction, pp. 65-70. The

annual amount of British Manufactures for home con

sumption, on an average of five 1809, inclusive, may be valued at For exportation,

Total annual value,

years from 1805 to

£.92,607,364,

44,703,241,

£. 137,310,605.

The same observation as to the annual increase of the value of British commodities in consequence of the progressive augmentation of productive industry and national capital, applies equally to the subject of manufactures as of commerce.

The importance of the great staple of Britain; her wool and woollen manufacture, deserves a more detailed investigation than is generally compatible with the limits of this inquiry. More than three millions of souls are employed in the woollen manufacture, and its dependant trades; a piece of broad-cloth passing through more than a hundred hands before it finds its way through the different stages of its fabric from the wool-grower to the consumer. Το which add the number of persons employed in the many trades dependant on the woollen manufacture.

From the evidence of manufacturers and dealers in wool laid before the House of Commons, it appears that the average number of sheep in GreatBritain, from the year 1790 to 1809, inclusive, amounted to twenty-seven millions, nine hundred thousand; while the number of sheep in France is only eleven millions and a few hundreds; as we are informed by colonel Thornton in his "Sporting Tour through France," &c. published in London in 1807. In the year 1809, Great Britain produced seventythousand packs of wool; which at two hundred and forty pounds weight each, gave a total of one hundred and sixty-eight millions of pounds weight; constituting at the current prices a total money-value of £8,250,000, for the native wool as a raw material.

In its manufactured state the value being at least tripled, makes the annual amount of the native woollen manufacture of Britain to be

£8,250,000, × 3 = £24,750,000, to which add the annual average value of wool imported into Britain, amounting to £1,500,000; which being multiplied by 3, in order to give its manufactured value, makes the sum of £4,500,000; which added to £24,750,000, gives a total annual value of Brit- 4,500,000, ish woollen fabrics, fine & coarse, equal to

S£29,250,000.

Sir Frederic Morton Eden, Baronet, in his "Address on the Maritime Rights of Great Britain," published in London in 1808, says, that although far the greater portion of superfine cloths made in Great Britain is consumed at home, yet that manufacture must continue, even during the prohibitory decrees of Buonaparte, to furnish a considerable branch of export. The Chinese take off annually British woollen manufactures to the amount of a million sterling. Even France herself continues to buy woollen goods of Britain. The prices of supertine cloth and kerseymeres are now (in 1808) from 40 to 50 per cent. higher at Paris than in London. Of woollens exported from Britain not one fourth part goes to the continent of Europe; and much of what is sent to Spain and Portugal is destined for the colonies of those countries.

Real value of woollens exported in the years ending

5th January,

1796.

1790. 1793. 1799. £.6,290,453 5,000,279 9,724,603 10,304,681

1806.

1810.

1804. 1805. £.9,862,309 11,030,261 11,560,321 13,980,263

In the year 1806, was published "A Report from the Committee of the House of Commons on the State of the Woollen Manufacture in England." Its results are these; the laws relating to the woollen manufacture are of three classes:

1st. Regulating the conduct of masters and workmen, and preventing frauds and embezzlements by journeymen and others. This class of laws is recommended to remain in force.

2d. The acts to prevent the exportation of certain materials and implements used in the woollen manufacture. These also are advised to be retained.

3d. This class of laws controls the manufacturers in the making and selling of woollen cloths. The repeal of the general mass of these laws is recommended, they having been passed in times when statesmen were not acquainted with the comprehensive principles of political economy acknowledged and acted upon in the present age; to wit, those laws prohibiting the use of machinery in the woollen manufacture; because machinery, by improving the quality and cheapening the fabrication of articles, has enabled Britain hitherto to undersell other nations in foreign markets, and thus to increase her commerce to an unparalleled extent. The French government has succeeded in seducing artisans, and in obtaining implements and machinery from Britain, and has set up at Paris an establishment for carrying on the woollen manufacture on the most improved plan, and with all the British machinery now in use. And the people of France only require peace, industry, capital, and credit, to enable them to meet the British on equal terms with their manufactures in foreign markets.

All the acts controlling the making and selling of cloth, excepting only those which prohibit its exportation in an unwrought state, are likewise recommended for repeal. As is also the weavers act, 2d.

and 3d. Philip and Mary, which limits the number of looms that persons residing in villages may keep in one house. The reasons of recommending the repeal of this act require some explanation. There are three different modes of carrying on the woollen manufacture; that of the Master-Clothier of the West of England, the Factory, and the Domestic system. In all the western as well as the northern counties there are factories; but the master-clothier of the west of England buys his foreign wool from the importer, and his domestic wool from the wool-stapler; after which, in all the different processes through which it passes he employs as many distinct classes of persons; sometimes working in their own, sometimes in the master-clothiers' houses; but none going out of their proper line.

In the factory-system the master-manufacturers employ in buildings or factories a number of workmen under their own or their superintendent's inspection. In the master-clothier and in the factorysystem, the work is done by persons who have no property in the goods which they manufacture; this circumstance makes the essential distinction between these and the domestic system.

In the domestic or Yorkshire system, the manufacture is conducted by a multitude of master-manufacturers who buy the wool of the dealer; and in their own houses assisted by their wives and children, and from two to seven journeymen, work it through all the different stages into undressed cloth. Since the introduction of machinery, many processes formerly done by hand under the manufacturer's own roof, are now performed in the public mills which work for hire. When it has reached the state of undressed cloth, the manufacturer carries it on the market-day to a public hall or market, where the merchants repair to purchase. Several thousands of these small master-manufacturers attend the market

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