HL Deb 17 June 1834 vol 24 cc479-91
Viscount Strangford

said, that the petitions which he was about to present were so very numerously signed, described with so much force and truth the unmerited sufferings of a large portion of the community, and involved considerations of such vast national importance, that he could not content himself with the mere routine process of moving that they should be read at their Lordships' Table, only to be swept away the next moment into the bag which lay beneath it. He thought, that much more was due to the petitioners, and to the unfortunate condition in which they were placed; and it was his intention, so soon as the House should have permitted them to be read, to move that they be referred to a Select Committee, for the purpose of determining what degree of relief could be afforded in the matters of which they complained. The petitions were from the city of Coventry, and from a number of places and districts connected with it, and, like Coventry, mainly dependant on the riband trade for support. They complained of the great and intolerable distress into which that trade had fallen, and they attributed it to the overwhelming importation, legal and illegal, of French ribands into the British dominions. The petitioners believed, that the only remedy to this evil was prohibition, and they maintained, that they had peculiar and distinct claims to that remedy, altogether different from those possessed by other branches of trade. The case of the silk trade in general, was submitted in 1832 to a Committee of the House of Commons; a boon, if such it might be called, for which that trade was indebted to the persevering efforts and to the talents and research displayed by a noble Earl, the member for Cheshire, who brought to the examination of the question a degree of ability which it would indeed be well for those petitioners if their humble advocate this night possessed. The labours of the Committee produced one of the largest volumes of printed evidence that ever yet was laid on the Table of Parliament. But no Report was founded on that vast mass of evidence, no recommendation nor result whatever came from it, nor benefit to any one but the printer who was paid for it. He could assert, that he had gone through the contents of that bulky volume, and he did not hesitate to aver, that four-fifths of it were as strongly in favour of actual prohibition (at least so far as the riband trade was concerned) as it was possible for human testimony to be. He stated this fact in justification of what would, he feared, appear to some of their Lordships the unreasonable exorbitance of the request made in some of those petitions. Although the whole of the silk-manufacturers of Great Britain had suffered in a greater or less degree by the overwhelming inundation of French silk goods, still, if any one branch of it had been more deeply and vitally injured than another, it had been the manufacture of the superior sorts of ribands. The description of ribands that now was, and had for years been, most in vogue, was what was called fancy gauze. In the value of that article, there was but a very small proportion of silk, and a very great proportion of labour, 41½ per cent, he believed, on the total value, and, therefore, was a most improperly-selected subject for experiment. In the fabrication of these ribands, the French had several great advantages over us—cheapness of labour, better material, (which they took good care to keep to themselves), and, above all, the privilege and the priority of prescribing the fashion, the consequence of all which was, that by far the greatest part of the gauze ribands used in this country was imported from France. The town of St. Etienne, where they were principally made, was rapidly increasing in size and prosperity. Above 500 looms were annually added to those previously in operation, while, on the other hand, Coventry and its dependencies were reduced to the very lowest ebb of distress. The French silk trade, too, had one great advantage over the English in possessing a copious supply of native silk, the exportation of which from France was strictly prohibited until lately, when, in consequence of the just representations made by the trade here of the unfairness of letting French goods come to England, while the raw silk of that country was not allowed to be exported, the prohibition as to raw silk was rescinded; but, at the same time, an export duty of 7½ per cent was put upon it. This permission to export raw silk had been greatly vaunted in another place, as having removed one of the principal complaints of our manufacturers, and a sort of Io Pæan had been sung or said for the concession thus obtained, But the fact was, that the prohibition to export the raw material was not the principal complaint, nor anything like the principal complaint, of our manufacturers. What they principally complained of was, the want of due protection against the multiplied advantages which the French possessed over us, one of the least of which, in point of value, though certainly the most unfair in point of principle, was the monopoly of the raw material. The importance of this monopoly to France, and its disadvantage to us, was a mere question of relative price. It secured to her manufacturers, the raw material at a lower rate than that at which we could obtain it; and as a question of relative price, it remained still under this export duty of 7½ per cent; so that, in the purchase of materials with which to begin the manufacture of an article wherein the French were asserted to have taste and ingenuity so far superior to us, there was also a very important preference over us in price secured to them at the very outset. And here he would beg leave to remark, that our own conduct to France in reference to the supply of the raw material was very different indeed. Their manufacturers resorted here for China and Bengal raw silks, which they obtained in England, on precisely the same terms as the English manufacturer; nor had any attempt been made to restrain their access to our market. It had been said, that this permission for the exportation of raw silk from France to this country, was the result of a strong and friendly feeling towards England which had sprung up there, and which had been manifested by a petition from the French manufacturers to the Chamber of Deputies, praying that the exportation might be allowed. But what was the fact? The exportation so permitted was not the result of this supposed friendly feeling. It was the result of nothing else (Dr. Bowring was his witness) than of an apprehension, lest an injustice so monstrous should force us again to put our own old prohibitory system in force. It would show, however, how little there was in France of a real desire to deal liberally with this country; it would prove how attentive the French Government was, to secure every possible advantage to its own subjects, when it was stated, that although there had been this great and magnanimous display of liberality in letting out the raw silk of France burthened with a duty which still made it come higher to the English than to the French manufacturer, yet that, in the case of the peculiar material necessary for the fabrication of gauzes and gauze riband (which material was called marabout, and which exceeded the sort in use in England much more than the French raw silk exceeded the raw silk which we had, and without which material these gauzes never could be made as good as theirs), the prohibition was still most rigidly enforced. So, in addition to cheapness of labour, the lead and priority of fashion, and their acknowledged or supposed superior skill and aptitude, the French were to have also an exclusive monopoly of the only material out of which the article could be fabricated. And yet we talked of competition, and called for bricks when straw wherewith to make them was denied. Competition indeed! Of the impossibility of anything like fair competition between the English and French riband manufacturers, Dr. Bowring was again his witness? Hear what Dr. Bowring said in the printed evidence before the House of Commons:—'Do you mean to say, that they are ribands and fine fancy goods?—No, I do not believe, that England can at all compete with France in ribands and fancy goods. I stated, as a general principle, that where taste and beauty form a considerable part of the cost of production, there is no present and immediate chance of competition.' And again, 'I have again to state, that the export of English goods to France consists principally of low goods. I must repeat in the strongest terms my conviction, that where competition is to be feared is precisely where taste forms a very considerable component part of the production, and that the taste in France is, by universal acknowledgment, much more advanced than that of England.' But there were other and stronger reasons for the impossibility of equal competition; and it was no less truly than pathetically stated in one of those petitions (that from the Foleshill weavers) that, bowed down to the earth by the pressure of increasing and intolerable misery, all their thoughts occupied in devising the means of procuring a morsel of bread for their perishing families, "they had little energy and spirits to devote to anticipating the caprices of fashion, or to the cultivation of taste and invention." In looking over this vast mass of evidence, nothing had struck him more forcibly than the contrast between the systematic protection and support given by the French government to their own artizans, and that afforded to those of Great Britain by his Majesty's Ministers. He thought, that the difference was in no point more plainly shown than in the disregard which had been manifested towards the adoption of any one of the safe and ingenious plans for the suppression of smuggling in foreign silks which were suggested in the evidence before the House of Commons. They involved no inconvenience, no expense, no unnecessary restriction upon trade, and yet not one of them had ever been tried. The experiment was surely worth trying. But, then, it would have benefitted the English manufacturer, and have excited complaint and remonstrance in a quarter where remonstrance, he feared, sometimes partook of the nature of command. He could tell the noble Lord what the British silk trade thought of this indifference to their interests on a most essential point. They thought that it was the fixed design of the Board of Trade to drive them to consent to a favourite scheme of that Board, namely, a still further reduction of the duties on imported silk goods. They were confirmed in this opinion by the evidence of one of the Secretaries of the Board of Trade himself (Mr. Deacon Hume), who actually argued against too much strictness in the detection of smuggling, lest the French should be provoked to retaliate. But, above all, they were confirmed in this opinion by the extraordinary, he would say the illegal, favour shown to the French by passing "figured" silk goods through our Custom House as "plain." The schedule of duties fixed a duty of 11s. per lb. on "plain" and 15s. on "figured" silks. It was discovered some months ago, that very large quantities of figured goods passed as plain on the payment of the lower duty; and it appeared, that this had been done in consequence of representations from the importers to the Board of Customs, that the goods in question, though apparently "figured," were in reality made in "plain looms," the fact being, that they were really and undeniably "figured," and that the representation was false and fraudulent, to save 4s. in the pound weight on the duty. Upon the silk-manufacturers complaining to the Board of Customs of this infraction of the law, and upon full proof being given of the fraud which had been practised, an order was immediately issued that such goods should in future pay the whole duty chargeable upon figured silks. This order was acted upon for several months, and under it the full legal duty was collected. To the astonishment, however, of the silk-manufacturers they had since learned that the Commissioners of Customs received instructions a few weeks ago from the Treasury, founded on representations from the Board of Trade, to rescind their order for the enforcement of the legal duty on figured silks. And the Board had given instructions to its officers accordingly. It was pretended that considerable doubts arose as to whether certain goods were plain or figured. No doubt, however, need be entertained, as persons well and practically acquainted with the subject could testify, that the distinction was clear and certain. But when the Board of Trade had the matter under consideration they consulted, as he was credibly informed, not with the manufacturers, but with the importers; not with the parties receiving, but with the parties inflicting, injury. The French government too had remonstrated, and had given to ours their disinterested and trustworthy testimony that the goods were plain. So the French construction of an English Act of Parliament prevailed; the English manufacturers were not consulted, the importers were; and the interests of the former were sacrificed to advance the profits of the latter. The silk trade, at least all those connected with it with whom he had conversed on the subject (and he had spoken with many of every sort and description of party and political feeling), the silk trade declared, that in addition to this general indisposition to consult their interests, and this covert desire to force, by some means or other, a further reduction of that scanty and grudging protection which they still possessed, there were two great grievances of which they had reason to complain. The first was, that the amount of protection (he was speaking of the broad silk trade) granted to them by Parliament was arbitrarily diminished by the Board of Trade directing, that less than the legal duty should be taken. The second, which applied mainly to the riband-weavers, was, that, although every facility was given to the French in bringing their goods into this market, and that the ruin of thousands of industrious families was the consequence, still they denied to us the very material out of which alone ribands as good as theirs could be manufactured. What a contrast did all this present! On the one hand, there was the French government keenly and sensitively alive to every the smallest circumstance that could benefit or injure or in any way affect their people; while, on the other, that of England, witnessing coldly and calmly the misery and desolation created by the almost total transfer of the Coventry trade to France, exposed themselves to the imputation—he would go no further—to the imputation, at least, of having, in the pursuit of a favourite theory, contrived to throw every little additional advantage in the way of the French, and every impediment and disadvantage in that of the British manufacturers. Of the result of this course of conduct, as far as France was concerned, the official document which he was about to produce, to the House would speak volumes. It was a comparative statement of the value and weight of French silk goods admitted into the port of London only during the first four months of 1833 and 1834:—

Imports of Foreign Silk Goods into the Port of London the first Four Months of 1833 and of 1834.
January By value £7,173 £32,644
By weight lbs. 649 lbs. 564
February By value £13,871 £54,706
By weight lbs. 24 lbs. 967
March By value £49,101 £90,579
By weight lbs. 341 lbs. 2,184
April By value £40,107 £41,042
By weight lbs. 928 lbs. 1,771
Total By value £110,252 £218,971
By weight lbs. 1,942 lbs. 5,486
After this palpable demonstration of French prosperity, at our expense, could we wonder that our own artizans were starving, and that they were discontented with the land they lived in, and with those who governed it? And this led him to the most painful part of the subject, the misery and wretchedness of the various towns and districts from which these petitions proceeded. He had no local knowledge of these places—he was unacquainted with any one individual there—he had never been there in his life—he could not, therefore, speak from his own knowledge; but he had endeavoured to collect the best information he could; and he would proceed to lay it before the House in the shape of sundry letters which he had received during the last month from clergymen and Magistrates residing in the places in question. [The noble Lord here read to the House a number of letters from Coventry and the parishes in its immediate neighbourhood, giving a description of great distress in those places.] These were, indeed, most frightful pictures. He would ask noble Lords whether they really thought, that such a state of things, morally and politically, could long endure? If they did, he could only say, that they had formed a larger estimate of the powers of human patience than he was prepared to make. And for whom, or for what, had these vast sacrifices of human happiness been made? The question of cui bono forced itself on every man's mind. If, indeed, it could be shown that, out of the ruins of Coventry, other cities and towns were likely to rise into eminence and prosperity—if other parts and places of the empire were to be made richer or happier by her passing away from the map of England—it might then become their duty, however painful and severe, to leave her to her fate, and to make no efforts to save her. But, in the case before them, it was not a portion of their own fellow-subjects whom they were called upon to sacrifice for the sake of bettering the condition of the remainder. The only party which could, by any possibility, be benefited neither belonged nor were connected with us; and he could not understand why, he would not say Coventry, but the meanest village in the empire, should be doomed to destruction, merely that a French town should rise triumphantly on its ruins. This might be called illiberality; but he was no professor of that liberalism which would take the very life-blood of tens of thousands of our industrious population at home to pamper the prosperity of competitors and rivals abroad. Were noble Lords able to show that, in any one point, the experiment which had led to this state of things had succeeded? For, be it remembered, that it was originally tried only as an experiment, as Mr. Huskisson's letter to his constituents proved. Were they able to demonstrate, that a greater amount of advantage had arisen to the empire at large than the amount of evil and of suffering which had been inflicted on the trade whose existence he was endeavouring to defend? If the experiment had succeeded, let it be pushed to its utmost verge and limit—let all other places share in the blessings which free trade had procured to Coventry. There was no reason why one trade should be protected and another left to destruction. If the principle were worth anything, what was good for one was good for all. But he suspected, that Ministers would pause before they ventured to apply this principle to Birmingham and Manchester in the same fatal extent as that in which it had been applied to Coventry. He suspected, too, that he well knew why they would so pause. If, on the other hand, the principle were false and erroneous, let it not be said, that it was too late for Ministers to retrace the error of their ways. He did hope, that they would yet be spared by a merciful Providence, to see and to repent of many of them. Experience should be worth something in matters of legislation. He knew of instances where a very little experience had gone a great way indeed. The brief experience of three days and three nights was sufficient to convince another assembly of the danger which would overtake the empire, and, above all, its Ministers, if the reduction of the Malt-duties were persisted in. A similar space of time sufficed to show the same intelligent body, that it was neither very wise nor very safe to make the Judges of the land the victims of party persecution and individual rancour and malevolence. He thought, therefore, that the experience of nearly thrice as many years as there had been days and nights devoted to reflection on those two memorable occasions would amply justify Ministers in reconsidering and modifying a system which had hitherto had no other result than that of spreading distress and ruin where comfort and industry had prevailed. He remembered, that a few weeks before, the noble Earl at the head of the Government was sorely dis- pleased because he had said, that we had derived no benefit whatever from what was affectionately termed our intimate connection with France, for which we had not been obliged to pay dearly, either in the shape of national honour or of national interest. The noble Earl, in a tone of virtuous and lofty indignation, then dared him to his proofs. He now gave them to him. They were embodied in those petitions, unless, indeed, the noble Earl was disposed to contend, that the condemnation of thousands of English families to pauperism and the workhouse was an augmentation of national honour, or the annihilation or transfer into foreign and hostile hands of one of our most valuable home manufactories was an advancement of national interest. The noble Viscount concluded by presenting petitions from the inhabitants of Foleshill, in the county of Warwick; from the Magistrates, Clergy, and Gentlemen residing in the county of Warwick; from the inhabitants of Bulkington and Nuneaton; from the master manufacturers of Coventry; and from the weavers of Coventry and Bidworth—all complaining of the depressed state of the riband trade, and praying the House to take measures for its protection. After the petitions (eleven in number) had been read and received, the noble Lord moved, that they be referred to a Select Committee of their Lordships' House.

Lord Auckland

opposed the Motion. In common with the rest of his Majesty's Ministers, he felt deep regret at the sufferings of the petitioners, the details of which he believed were not exaggerated, and that regret was in no slight degree exaggerated by the conviction, that it was not possible by any legislative interference to remove the evil of which they complained. The petitions demanded that an entire change should be made in the commercial policy of the country; but it should be recollected, that the Coventry trade, which was that to which the petitioners belonged, was only one branch of the silk trade, and, such being the case, he put it to the House, whether it would not be most unfair to accede to the demands of the petitioners by entirely changing the commercial policy between Great Britain and France. But, putting that consideration out of view, he was prepared to contend, that the distress of which the petitioners complained was not occasioned by any defect in the commercial system of the country which a change in its policy would remedy. It was attributable entirely to the existing high price of the raw material, and the state of the money market. The noble Lord charged the Government with indifference, not only to the sufferings of the petitioners, but to the enforcing the due execution of the laws regarding the importation of foreign silk; but he could assure their Lordships, that in neither respect was the charge capable of being substantiated. The noble Viscount had also thrown blame on the Government for not attempting to adopt any of the suggestions thrown out by the trade for the removal of those causes of complaint which the petitioners urged upon the attention of the House. He was able, however, to assure the House, that every attention had been paid by the Board of Customs to those suggestions; that two or three experiments had been made in consequence of them; and, in short, that, as far as the Government was concerned, no inattention whatever was chargeable. The experiments, however, had proved that the suggestions were not likely to effect the object had in view by those who offered them, and consequently they had not been acted upon. The best course, perhaps, to be adopted to meet the case of the petitioners, would be to revise the old rate of duties; but he had seen so much danger and alarm to the trade originate in sudden alteration in the scale of duties, that he would rather bear the inequality complained of in the present scale than hastily propose a change. For nearly a similar reason, namely, the excitement likely to be caused in the general trade by the appointment of a Select Committee of their Lordships, and the danger of exciting expectations which it would be impossible to realize, he felt called upon to oppose the Motion of the noble Viscount.

The Duke of Wellington

thought it was much to be regretted, that the petitioners should rely on a prohibitory system as likely to remedy the evils of which they complained, and if it was only to prove to them the general inconvenience to the commercial system of the country, as well as the injury to their own individual interests, that would inevitably arise from the enactment of such protection, he was sorry the noble Baron could not think himself justified in granting the inquiry moved for. The noble Baron's statement he looked upon as satisfactory in many respects, but he felt bound to say, the noble Baron failed in satisfying his mind that the protecting duties might not be increased with advantage to the British silk-manufacturers. They had heard a great deal of free trade in other countries, but, in his opinion, there was no such thing as free trade at all. The object of every country, in the arrangement of its commercial system, was the very laudable one of protecting its peculiar manufactures, and, in his opinion, it was the duty of Government to watch the progress of those manufactures, and so to alter the rate of duties from time to time, as to give protection to the manufacturers. He must say he thought foreign silk-manufacturers did enjoy advantages which were not enjoyed by those of Great Britain, and he should therefore be favourable to such an increase of duty on foreign silk, as to give a chance to the home manufacturer. He believed that such an increase would be recommended by the Committee now moved for, and on that ground, and because by granting it, the minds of the petitioners would be satisfied that their case was attended to, he regretted that the noble Lord announced his intention of opposing it. He wished, at all events, the noble Lord had given his consent to enter upon the inquiry, so far as to ascertain whether, by any alteration in the existing scale of duties, it would be possible to give a greater protection to the British manufactures.

Viscount Strang ford,

as other business was about to come on, would not take up the time of the House with many observations. He felt assured, that with respect to the details contained in the noble Lord's speech, he should have no difficulty in answering them in the Committee, if one should be granted. He would only say, that with regard to the superior machinery employed by the French, similar machinery had been in use at Coventry and elsewhere, and that it was now at a standstill. There was no use in recommending machinery unless they furnished employment for it. As to the proof of prosperity drawn from the increased price of the raw material here, he had to state that its price had increased in France in a still higher ratio than here; and yet the French manufacturers were thriving, while ours were in a state of progressive decay. The only approach to argument against the appointment of a Committee, which he had that night heard, was the one drawn from the probable shortness of the Session. The House of Commons, however, did not appear to think, that the termination of the Session was so near at hand. Not four nights ago, they had granted a Committee to inquire into the complaints of the hand-loom weavers. He only asked from the House of Lords, on behalf of the silk riband weavers, that which the House of Commons had granted to the hand-loom weavers. He had always been told, that in this happy country there existed no wrong without a remedy. He thought that the documents which he had read to the House had proved a case of grievous wrong. He was content to leave the remedy in their Lordships' hands, more particularly in the hands of those who thought, as he did, that the question involved higher, because moral, considerations; that it was not a mere matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, but that it turned upon the principle, that the more widely they threw open the paths of honest industry to our population, the more effectually they closed the avenues which led to guilt and crime.

The Motion was negatived.

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