This speech has been printed by the Shipowner's Society, and no speech ever better deserved it-it ought to have been in letters of gold. But why, in truth's name, did they not print and publish beside it-in juxtaposition-the reply of the Right Hon. Poulett Thomson? How finely would the facts and figures, plain, easy, and comprehensible so that a child might expound the simple sterling English of the one, contrast with the threadbare, economical trash, the tawdry would-be fine diction (for neither facts nor figures were stated or appealed to) of the other-after months of preparation, too? We trust yet that the Shipowner's Society may be induced to reprint, with the addition suggested-in a cheaper form, for the present pamphlet is too high priced for general circulation; a sixpenny or threepenny edition would be the thing. They say Mr Young is a Radical; if that speech be Radicalism, we care not how soon the radical dealer in such sound English stuff is at the head of the Board of Trade. + We find, on a more careful reading of the Prussian Memoirs, that we have committed an unintentional error, rather in favour of than against Prussia. It would appear that the poundage was raised so lately as 1831—that is, after Hesse Darmstadt, Hesse Cassel, and some other small states had acceded to the union. The words of the author are " The increase of the duties in 1831 is only illusory, and to be looked upon as an equivalent for the payment in gold coin, which, if not paid in kind, must be calculated in silver." We do not profess clearly to comprehend the exact bearing of this, and as the Memoir was transmitted to us in English, which the writer understands very well-but writes somewhat in the involved style of his own language, we have had no opportunity of comparing it with the corresponding German phraseology. We presume that some difference of relative currency values was pretended, under cover of which to advance the duties. VOL. XXXIX. NO. CCXLIII. E Cotton prints are tariffed from 40 to 50 per cent. The duty on counterpanes would be 140 per cent. Cambrics and muslins for gentlefolks are, however, tariffed in not quite 30 per cent. We need not extend the list, but it may be useful to remark, that cotton manufactories si milar to ours, and making these and all our other descriptions of fabrics, exist to a very considerable extent, especially in Prussian Rhineland and Saxony, where wages are not more than one half, perhaps, those of Lancashire and Lanarkshire. Yet our tariff admits foreign cotton manu- "On worsted stuffs the duty, though nominally the same, will not operate as a prohibition, but it will certainly diminish the quantity sent." In Hardwares : Hardware, low, from cast iron. Ditto, 3s. Od. per 110 lbs. low, from beat iron 188. Od. per 110 lbs. Ditto, fine 30s. Od. per 110 lbs. Mr Becher owns to some difficulty in instituting a parallel between the two tariffs on these goods. We advise him to ascertain the value of the goods here, and then he will be at no loss to estimate the difference between our twenty per cent ad valorem and the above duties. In like manner, let the Memorialist compare the fifteen per cent on woollen manufactures, and the twenty per cent (not thirty as he has it) on woollens," wholly or in part The able and industrious author of Burn's Commercial Glance, averages the price of all fustians at 11d., and the length as above. But as the best and heaviest descriptions are retained for home consumption, because the prices are too high for foreign markets, and as, besides, the great bulk of that make is taken off by what is technically called the "town and country trade," we believe our average price for the exports yet even too high. A short, but most effective letter to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, in reply to an article in his ninety-second number on the Corn Laws, by John Wright, Esq., of Lenton House, near Nottingham, dated in 1834, now before us, has the following MS. note appended to it : "Saxony stockings, fashioned, bleached, and trimmed as well as our own, are now selling in London, after paying the duty of twenty per cent, at from ten to fifteen per cent lower than English cost, though the makers of ours are at starvation wages," made up," with the Prussian ten per cent ad valorem poundage, amounting, as he confesses, to eleven per cent on an average, and he will be able to ascertain the prohibitory extent of his "moderate" duty. This gentleman confesses that on cottons the duty operates 66 somewhat higher than any other legal one, amounting to about sixteen per cent on the average value of cotton goods." So much for the ten per cent ad valorem system of Prussia. The same rule holds good, in a less degree, with linens and silks, but we have not room for exemplifications. Silk goods indeed, Mr Becher owns, are "valued at the lowest possible rate," and we believe him. The lower orders in Prussia are down, and the rule is to keep them down; an aristocracy of silks and satins must be fostered against them; their sumptuary laws are only for the poor. Our silk duties are a fair thirty per cent upon value, yet our Memorialist commits the grievous mistake of assuming, and reasoning upon it in words and figures, that the duty upon figured silks here is L.1, 15s. a pound; it is, however, 15s. only. We have said the Prussian tariff is for the rich and noble; let us show how this is effected so as to exhibit a specious adherence to the ten per cent ad valorem principle. The prices of the finest and most expensive goods (of which few are consumed comparatively), comprising very many varieties nevertheless, are averaged with those of the vast bulk of the lower kinds for common use, of few diversities, and the mean value taken for equal taxation. For example, take the prices of each of one hundred various sorts of fine and expensive goods, and those of ten descriptions of low and coarser kinds, of fifty times the consumption of the former: add them together, and frame a ten per cent code upon the average value. We presume this to be the method, as most people will, from the extraordinary discrepancy between the ten per cent ad valorem of her tariff on paper, and the poundage system as viewed in practice in Prussia. Of course the poor pay the enormous balance chalked against them for the benefit of the rich, and save it up out of black bread at id per lb., and sour wine-sour trash-at d a bottle. Mr Gregg, of somewhere near Manchester, who is a mortal foe to corn laws, and considers the wages of Bonne and Rouen the ne plus ultra of operative perfection, cites those facts as a model of sobriety of living, we presume, for the British labourer. Mr Becher, in his zeal to exaggerate the importance of Prussia (for Germany is but a secondary consideration with him), commits some grie vous errors regarding her imports of British manufactures which we cannot now expose in much detail. He assumes that the greater proportion of our cottons exported to Hamburgh, Rotterdam, and Antwerp were not for German, Swiss, Belgian, or French account, but chiefly for that of Prussia. Instead of vague and general assertion, why did not he, why has not our Prussian Memorialist given us the official returns of imports of the Prussian customhouses? It is singular enough that Baron Maltzahn made a lame excuse for the omission of the same conclusive data when asserting the like facts, or something approaching to them, in 1826. We have no official documents to show for a contrary conviction, but we are disposed to consider, nevertheless, and others better informed are of the same opinion, that of the twenty-three and a half million lbs. spun yarn exported to Hamburgh and Bremen, in 1833, three fourths, at the least, were for the consumption of Saxony, Austria, and divers parts of Germany, not then subject to the Prussian tariff, and not one-sixth part for Prussia herself. Some of it probably found its way into Sweden. Of the 36,800,000 yards of fustians, plain and printed goods to the same. places, the great bulk must have been for the Leipsic and Frankfort or Oder fairs, and no inconsiderable portion of the residue for the consumption of Hanover and the Hans Towns themselves. We question whether Prussia was a consumer to any considerable extent, except of the finer descriptions of prints, cambrics, and muslins. No doubt, however, an additional contraband introduction of all sorts was effected, through the temptations of her prohibitory tariff along the line of her Saxon frontier. Of the 43,000,000 yards of net and lace entered into the same ports, it is probable that Prussia took her share for the pleasure of the little taxed court and fashion of Berlin. Of the 11,500,000 lbs. cotton twist exported via Rotterdam and Antwerp, and the 13,000,000 yards of printed and plain fabrics and fustians, and the 18,000,000 yards of net and lace to and through the same ports, we know that a very consider able proportion, with respect to yarns, was destined for Switzerland, and of all the descriptions for the German States bordering on the Rhine, in quantities comparatively much greater than what was taken, illicitly at least, for the use of Prussian Rhineland. It is not so difficult to imagine a very simple plan by which pounds value may be reduced into pounds avoirdupois, with substantial benefit to revenue or monopoly-or to salve even that odious word-prohibition. Take one piece of lace, for example, weighing half a pound, and one piece of fustian, weighing twenty pounds-here weight overbalances value, and therefore a poundage will tell of some fifty or sixty per cent, when the ad valorem would only have made its legal 10 per cent. We shall shortly show how it works on a large scale. The primary object of Mr C. C. Becher, in his exhibition of the extent of our trade in cottons to Germany, is, to swell the preponderating importance of Prussia; secondarily, he remembers Germany as a means to an end. We doubt, and we have more reasons for doubting than those we have already given, or than we can stop to give now, the pretended great consumption of our cottons by Prussia-how could it be with her tariff? By and by, perhaps, we shall be able to edge in a hint of what Eastern Prussia does. But in order that Prussia may ride on some, no matter whose shoulders, to factitious consequence, he classes the whole of our exports of cotton yarns and piece goods to France, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Hanover, the Hanse Towns, Brunswick, and other small states, as if all, or nearly all, for Germany-and therefore Prussia. Incidentally he does indeed allude to two or three of these states, but France and others he omits to reckon on altogether. With about as much reason might he swell the grand total by pressing into the service our exportations to China. However, we shall humour him in the extravagance, that he may have no cause to object to calcula tions founded on his figures rather than our own. Our object is to bring the Prussian poundage system and the Prussian 10 per cent ad valorem system face to face, and make them answer the charge of our supposed inordinate timber duties. The pair do not run well in harness; in spite of all our training, timber-toes will shoot ahead and have the best of mule and power-loom. The following memoranda, loosely and in haste put together, will, perhaps, make the thing more intelligible to our readers. We have taken the exports for 1833, the year selected in Mr Becher's pamphlet, adding merely the calicoes which he had left out, and discarding cotton yarns, which are there, as wool, a raw material from Germany is here, almost duty free. The prices and weights are taken from, or based upon, Burn's Commercial Glance for the same year. We only profess, however, to give approximate calculations in round numbers. Supposed Imports of Germany by the Hanse Towns, Rotterdam, and Antwerp, Yards. in 1833. Ad valorem system. 38,800,000 of printed cottons, 5,800,000 cambrics and muslins, Value. L.800,000 160,000 L.1,055,755 255,000 Poundage at 1s. 6d. per lb. as per Prussian tariff, over and above the 10 per cent ad val. That is, in the vocabulary of Prussia, L.800,755 to English cottons, it signifies, as we see, at the least 40 per cent. It is not unlikely, however, that for the finer kinds of cotton, such as lace, the poundage is made to change hands with the ad valorem, by way of greater convenience and profit. For example :— L. 8. d. Average value of one piece of lace, 40 yards long, 1 1 8 10 per cent ad valorem would be As it weighs 8 ounces only, the poundage, at 18. 6d. per lb., comes only to Loss to the Treasury, As we have shown, the Treasury is rightly recompensed for this apparent loss-indeed this is the secret of the art of smuggling an enormous revenue-by clubbing lace and fustians together. We are told the Board of Trade is in possession of the plan and details on which this nefarious Prussian system is founded; we stigmatize it as nefarious, because it pretends justice and executes robbery-if so, why is it not published for the benefit of manufacturers and merchants, instead of being locked up in the bureau of Mr P. Thomson, where to the day of judgment it will be forgotten, unless the Manchester rump chance to have an interest in ask ing for it? Our readers will understand that the foregoing calculations suppose that, as Mr Becher would almost make it appear, all the goods actually go to Germany and Prussia, which they do not. But the part that is exported to those countries has been or will be taxed in that proportion, and the whole, 8. d. 2 2 9 15 should exportation, which is very unlikely now, ever reach that amount. We have consorted corn and salt, timber, cottons, and woollens; we have shown our own manly and up. right mode of dealing-that we do not sneak a 10 per cent into 50 or 100-our price is there, and no abatement; let the Prussian free trade manoeuvre speak for itself. Our Prussian friends boast of their trifling taxation of cotton yarn-so may we with more cause of ours on Saxon and Silesian wool. Six shillings per centzner upon yarn is not so low as 1d. per lb. on wool. They are both raw material for England, as for Prussia-articles of first necessity; how would the weavers of Germany live without our thirty-five million pounds weight of yarns, when the importation of raw cotton wool for the whole of the spinneries of Germany, Switzerland, and parts of other States, was for the year 1833 no more than 8 millions of lbs. -so far as North American cotton, the great bulk of consumption, is |