TAX ON FOREIGN WOOL. (Hansard, 28 April 1828)

§ Mr. Ward
presented a petition from the merchants of London, engaged in the Wool trade, against the imposition of a Tax on Foreign Wool. The petitioners submitted, that the imposition of such a tax would prove ruinous to the manufacturing and commercial interests of the country.

Mr. Alderman Thompson
supported the prayer of the petition. At present we were, he said, enabled to carry on a competition, in the continental markets, with Silesia, and the Netherlands; but the effect of the proposed tax, would be, to destroy the competition which we had hitherto kept up and to transfer our foreign woollen trade into the hands of continental manufacturers.

§ Sir T. Lethbridge
thought the proposed tax was a necessary protection due to the agricultural interest. At present, the price of British wool was ruinously low, and the only way to raise that price was by the imposition of a duty.

§ Lord Milton
opposed the petition, and hoped that the conversation would not terminate without some expression by parliament of its feeling upon the subject. If we were to revert to the times of poverty and barbarism, then it might be well to impose a duty upon raw commodities; but if the advance of prosperity was our object, no course could be more destructive of it.

§ Sir M. W. Ridley
thought, that whatever might be their object,—barbarity or prosperity,—the existing system could have only one end—the total ruin of the agriculturists. The importation of foreign wool into this country was daily increasing, while our export of manufactured goods was proceeding in the contrary direction. It ought to be recollected, too, how large a proportion of that imported wool was worked up into manufactures for home consumption.

§ Sir G. Philips
said, that those gentlemen who considered themselves the protectors of the agricultural interest adopted very unfair and vulgar views, both as to their own interests, and those of the country. They first sought to obtain a high tax upon corn, and were anxious to follow that measure up by procuring a high tax upon wool. That was their plan. As to the said produce, most of it was 188 used in manufactures which were consumed at home, so that the effect of an increased duty upon it must necessarily be to increase the expense of the manufactured article to the consumer at home; that was, to the people of the whole country. Thus the agricultural interest sought for protection for itself, regardless of the mischievous effect of the measure to the general interests of all other classes; and they even seemed insensible in this instance, that their own interest would be depressed by the very means by which they would fain uphold it.

Mr. Heathcote
said, that gentlemen on the opposite side were continually asserting that those who espoused what was called the agricultural interests knew nothing about their own concerns, and they were always begging the agriculturists to let the other side manage their affairs for them. He had not been long in that House; but he had always heard this doctrine, not only upon the question of wool, but upon all similar occasions. For his part, all he deduced from such language was, that the landed interest ought to be on their guard when gentlemen on the other side told them that they intended any measure for their benefit. It would be found, that the price of inferior kinds of wool had fallen in greater proportion than cotton or any other article. He would not pledge himself to support either long wool or short wool; for he wished to do that which was substantially just to the whole country. The noble lord had said, that if the House reverted to the former law, it would be going back to a period of barbarism; but he begged to remind the House, that the change in the law respecting wool had taken place only two or three years ago. He would maintain, that the consumers would not be benefitted by taking off the tax. The House ought to strike a balance between the manufacturing and agricultural interests, and to go into the question at once; as the petitioners only asked for inquiry.

§ Mr. P. Thompson
said, that if inquiry could be gone into for any good purpose, he, for one, would not urge its refusal; but when it was known that the bare mention of inquiry had caused a considerable alarm in the country, and as he was satisfied that no case could be made out in the committee, he thought it would be uselessly adding to the alarm that existed, to go into the committee. His hon. friend 189 had said, that the agriculturists knew their own interests, and therefore ought to be allowed to take the case into their own hands. The hon. member might be right, as far as the interests of the class to which he belonged were concerned; but there were other interests to be considered, and for the sake of those interests he trusted the Committee of Inquiry would not be granted. It could not be denied that great benefit had been derived to the country from the introduction of foreign wool. The manufacturers admitted that a great quantity of British wool was exported by mixture with the foreign wool. Now, if it could be proved that the quantity of British wool thus exported was greater than the importation of foreign wool, no case could be made out to justify the claim for a Committee of Inquiry, on the ground that injury was sustained by the home-grower. What was the case since 1824? It could be proved, that we had double the quantity of wool exported, compared with former years, when the duty did exist; and looking at the returns for 1827, it appeared that the value of woollens exported to Germany, from which we got so much wool, was not less than one million sterling.

§ Sir C. Burrell
said, he hoped that government would concede the committee, for the purpose of doing justice to all parties. The agriculturists had not been fairly dealt with on this occasion. They had been represented as hostile to the manufacturers. The fact was not so: they sought only for that fair protection to which they were entitled. He would beg the attention of the House to the present condition of the growers of long wool to what it was before the tax on foreign wool was removed. At that time it was urged, that as there was not such wool in the world, the growers of long wool in Yorkshire and the middle counties would obtain a ready market for their commodity by exportation: but what was the fact? The French government had laid on a tax of 30 per cent on all wool of that kind sent to that country. So that the purses of, the landed interest here were not only drawn for the benefit of the foreign agriculturist, but also for the benefit of the French revenue. He hoped the right hon. gentleman opposite would pause before he pushed too far his principles of free trade; which he could not but think were, in some respects, a curse to the country.

Mr. C. Grant
begged the House to recollect, that there stood on their paper a notice of a motion for Monday, on the general question of the Wool trade. This being the case, he should abstain from entering into the subject, or from giving any opinion of the course which ministers intended to pursue, until the whole question was fairly before the House.