of peace signed at Amiens, by which the colonial produce went again direct to the Continent, which sufficiently explains the disparity between the amounts in 1802-3, in col. 4.-War again declared in 1803.

(d) In the autumn of 1810, the army of Napoleon spread itself along the whole line of coast, from the Elbe to the Gulph of Riga,and confiscated about seven millions value of British merchandize, and proscribed all future intercourse; which explains the disparity between the years 1809-11.

(e) In 1813, the Custom-House in London, with all its records, was destroyed by fire. The amounts in that year are therefore conjectural; but are believed to be tolerably near the mark of correctness, as the operations of the year were more considerable than in 1812, although not so considerable as in 1814.

(f) June 18, 1815, Napoleon defeated at Waterloo, which led immediately to a general peace. Indeed, with the exception of France, peace may be said to have been established in 1814; and the extraordinary excess of exports in 1815 is to be accounted for by the very large amount to the United States of America, with which for two years previous all commercial intercourse had been suspended.

(g) The harvest of 1816 was one of the most unfavourable ever remembered, which gave rise to great activity in importing foreign grain during the years 1817-18; and in the latter year an effort was made to establish and render permanent a high moneyprice for all the great staple commodities of agriculture and commerce; which completely failing, together with the re-establishment of an intrinsically valuable currency in 1819, renders the years (h) 1819-20 the commencement of a new era; to the peculiar and important circumstances of which it is intended to lead the attention of your numerous and intelligent readers, and to implore their most serious consideration thereto.

Value being a relative rather than a definite term, it will be necessary, to a right understanding of the statement and subject in question, in the first place to define the relation which the value bears to the merchandize, or things represented: fluctuating in price as all articles of merchandize have done, in the proportion of 1 to 3, and 3 to 1, during the eventful period

since 1792; and artificial and nominal as price has been, especially under the circumstances, of at one time being represented in a currency intrinsically valuable, and at another time in a currency completely valueless; it is obvious that, without a complete definition of value, it will be impossible to draw any correct conclusions on the subject.

It is fortunate, however, for the elucidation of the present Statement, that it is not involved in the necessity of entering into a definition of value; for, although the amounts represented are denominated values, they would have been more correctly expressed if denominated quantities.

The amounts refer to one uniform standard, adopted as far back as 1694; whilst, therefore, the amounts represented in each year have no reference to the value of the time, they are uniform and consistent in reference to each other, as representing quantity; with the year 1798 a declaration of the real value of British produce and manufactures exported commenced; and, as such declaration of value was subject to an ad valorem duty, to defray the expenses of convoy, it led to a tolerably correct estimate of the real value of property exported; and, in contradistinction to the declared or real values, the amounts in the Statement herewith are denominated official values.

With this explanation of the amounts represented, I shall now proceed to call the attention of your readers to the excess of quantity exported over the quantity imported, and the proportions of quantity imported and exported at different periods. The total excess of quantity exported over and above the quantity imported, commencing with the year 1789, will be found to amount to no less than 396,764,7221. in the proportion of 263,940,0807. up to the final termination of the war in 1815, and 163,824,642/. from the commencement of 1816, down to the end of 1822; but there is another important circumstance, which it is necessary to take into account, with respect to the total excess of export over import: for,whilst to all parts of the world in the aggregate there is a great excess of exports, from the East Indies and China, and from the West Indies and Fisheries, there is a great excess of both quantity and value imported over and

above the quantity and value exported. By a return laid before Parliament in the session of 1822 (Paper No. 274), the excess of quantity imported from the East Indies and China, West Indies and Fisheries, in the three years 1818-20, over and above the quantity exported thence, is represented at no less than 24,644,818/. or an average of 8,214,939/. per annum ; and, taking that as the average of the seven years, since the final termination of the war in 1815, it will make an aggregate excess of export, to all other parts of the world, over and above the imports, of upwards of 190,000,000l.; and, taking the annual average excess of imports from the East Indies and China, the West Indies and Fisheries, during the twentyseven years, 1789-1815, at 6,000,000l. per annum, which will be certainly under the mark, it will make an aggregate excess of quantity exported to all other parts of the world, over and above the quantity imported from thence, of upwards of 426,000,0007.

It naturally will be asked, How has the inordinate excess of export been equalized? What equivalent have we received for it? Before I offer any observations on this part of the subject, I will first call the attention of your readers to the proportion of quantity imported and exported at different periods.

On an average of the six years, 1798-1803, the anual imports will be found to amount to 29,578,4907.; and the annual average of British produce and manufactures exported in each year, during the same period, to amount to 23,840,8651. Whilst in 1822, the quantity of British produce and manufactures exported will be seen to have amounted to no less than 43,558,4907., nearly double the average of the former period; whilst the quantity of merchandize imported in 1822 is actually less than the annual average of the former period, being only 29,401,8071. There are, nevertheless, those who contend, that the manufactures and commerce of the country are in a flourishing and prosperous condition. The fact is, as far as the statement in question justifies an inference being drawn, that, on a comparison of the two periods, only twenty years distant from each other, we have given two, or nearly so, for one received; and, if such a result can be deemed a favourable and prosperous

one, it must depend on some contin. gent or collateral circumstances for its solution. Let us see, then, if any such contingent or collateral circumstance can be brought to bear upon the ques-" tion favouring such a conclusion.

It appears, by the same parliamentary documents from which the Statement herewith has been compiled, that the declared real value of British produce and manufactures exported annually, on an average of the six years, 1798-1803, was 40,322,381/.; that is, 23,840,8657. of quantity or official value was declared to amount in real value to 40,322,3814. Whilst the quantity of 43,558,4907., in 1822, was declared to amount in real value to only 36,176,8971. or in the proportion of only 19,800,7007. real value, instead of 40,322,3817. for a quantity of 23,840,865l. as on an average of the six years, 1798-1803. As far, therefore, as the real value seems to bear on the question, the disparity seems to diminish; and, if it can be made to appear that the imports have increased in value in proportion as the exports have decreased, and if it can be further made to appear that the imports have not merely increased in value nominally, but that they have actually increased in value intrinsically, and that the exports have actually decreased in intrinsic value ;-wby, then, it is possible that we may have obtained our quid pro quo in quality, instead of quantity; and, as such, it is possible that a flourishing and prosperous conclusion may be drawn,—that is, if it should be made to appear that we have been increasing our quantity given in something proportionably valuable to silver only, whilst we have been receiving something proportionably valuable with gold: why, then, a good probable case is made out.

To come, however, at an incontrovertible conclusion on the subject, we have not merely to take into consideration the terms quantity and value, but that we have also to consider quality. There is another circumstance, also, which perhaps will have some relation to the subject, and that is taxation. The annual average amount of the taxes in the six years, 1798-1803, was 33,670,1957. whilst on an average of the six years, 1818-1823, they will be about 55,000,000l.; with this difference, that in the first period they were payable in a valueless or paper currency, and in the latter period again in a

currency

currency intrinsically valuable. Let us see, then, in the next place, if the imports have really become more valuable, and the exports less valuable. Flax, hemp, tallow, hides, timber, wines, tobacco, cotton-wool, sheep's-wool, and silk, form the most prominent and intrinsically valuable commodities, (except sugar, rum, coffee, indigo, tea, which are colonial,) which constitute the bulk of the sum of imports. Are then these commodities intrinsically more valuable in 1822 than they were in the six years 1798-1803? On the other hand, manufactured cotton, woollens, linens, silk, iron, hardware, brass, copper, tin, cutlery, leather, glass, &c. constitute the more prominent items and intrinsically valuable commodities which make up the sum of the exports. Are these, then, less valuable in 1822 than in the six years 1798-1803? By the comparative declaration of real value of the two periods, it would seem that they are. But the next question is, Why are they less valuable? Their value is composed principally of labour: if, therefore, the commodities are really less valuable, it can only be, -labour constituting so great a proportion of their value, that labour is less appreciated, and less remunerated; or it may be said, as perhaps it will, that the depreciation in value is the result of the application of machinery. Grant that position, and to what does it lead? it leads to this, that it enables us to give two for one; to give more, and receive less, without our deriving any benefit. We have invented machinery, racked the brain, and strained every nerve, to give it every possible application; and for what? To impoverish the great mass of our own people, to make a widespread distribution of their products, without our obtaining any additional equivalent, either directly or indirectly.

Having thus far stated in the aggregate the excess of quantity exported, over and above the quantity imported; and the proportions of quantity imported and exported at different periods,-I will now proceed to ascertain the real values, and to show how the excess has been equalized.

The total quantity or official value imported in the twenty-three years, 1793-1815, as stated in col. 2, will be found to amount to 659,361,4217. out of which 253,008,1617. appear to have

been again exported, as per col. 3, leaving 406,353,260l. as the proportion for home-consumption; against which the British produce and manufactures exported to all parts, during the same period, will be found to amount to 586,544,565l. as per col. No. 4, in the proportion of 82,961,2087. in the first five years, 1793-1797, and 503,583,3571. in the last eighteen years, 1798-1815; and by the same documents, from which these official amounts have been extracted, the declared real value of the 503,583,3571. is stated at 762,872,6437.; and, allowing the real value of the 82,961,2087. in the first five years, to have been only 142,961,2087. which would prove below the real amounts, could the values have been accurately ascertained, it will give a total real value of British produce and manufactures exported in the twenty-three years, of 905,833,8517. Then, if we allow the same proportion of increase in the real value of the im ports as the British produce and manufactures have been declared at, it will give an amount of 627,554,256l. viz. if 586,544,565l. give 905,833,8517. the proportion of 406,353,2607. is 627,554,2567. making an actual excess of value exported to all parts of the world, over and above the actual value imported, of no less than 278,279,595l.; to which must be added the excess of import over export from the West and East Indies, and China and the Fisheries, which, on an average of the twentythree years, 1793-1815, will be underrated at 6,000,0007. per annum; when it will give a total excess of value exported to all other parts of the world, over and above the value received, to be equalized and accounted for, of no less a sum than upwards of 416,000,000l.! The more than 30,000 commissions of bankruptcy, and five times that number of other cases of insolvency, that took place during the period in question, together with the repeated confiscations under the Berlin and Milan decrees, and the more general confiscation in 1810, may serve in some measure as a set-off against 100,000,000l. or SO of the amount; but, on the other hand, it cannot, I believe, be denied but that great profits accrued to some from the commercial operations of the period in question. It is therefore obvious, that some extraneous equivalent must have been brought to bear on the account, to sustain the disparity between the

valu

value of commodities exported and the value imported. The expenses of the army, navy, and ordnance, during the same period, will be seen to have amounted to upwards of 800,000,000l.; increasing from 4,226,000l. in 1791, to upwards of 60,000,000l. in 1814; and, as is well known, a great portion of this expense was incurred externally, and bills drawn on account of government were forced into circulation in every part of the globe where British produce and manufactures were offered for sale. And, although I believe there is no official account before the public of the actual amount of such bills, there is no doubt but that they exceeded in amount, in the aggregate of the twenty-three years, the excess of value of British produce and manufactures exported over and above the value imported. The subsidies alone, including the loans to Austria and Portugal, (which resolved themselves into subsidies,) amounted to no less than 60,000,000%.

These bills, then, let the amount have been more or less, constituted so much equivalent in value against the excess of merchandize exported, and afford a very satisfactory solution to the disparity between the value of exports and value of imports, up to the close of the year 1815, as far as equalizing, or tending to equalize, merely the commercial part of the question: but a higher consideration will arise, as to the effect it has already produced, and has still to produce, on the general interests of the country; which effects will show themselves in some degree in the following illustration of the results of our commercial operations since the termination of the war in 1815.

The total quantity of imports, it will be seen, in the seven years, 1816-1822, amounts to 212,409,810l. as per col, No. 2, out of which 74,765,0167. has been again exported, as per col. No. 3, leaving 137,644,7941. as the amount of quantity retained for home-consumption, against which British produce and manufactures have been exported to the amount of no less than 270,468,4381. as per col. No. 4.; but, as previously stated, it proves, by the same parliamentary returns from which the present account has been compiled, that, instead of the real value excceding the amount stated in quantity or official value, as was the case during the whole of the period 1798-1815,

the real value since that period is actually less, being only 267,674,451. in the aggregate decreasing in value year by year, whilst the quantity has progressively increased; however, it tends to make the disparity between the value of imports and the value of exports apparently somewhat less, but for the fact, that the imports have decreased in value in equal proportion, consequently the disparity, in point of fact, is not diminished. What, then, is the result? The quantity of imports retained for home-consumption being 137,674,7947. and the total quantity of exports to all parts of the world 270,468,4387.; from which deduct the excess imported from the East Indies and China, the West Indies and Fisheries, over and above the exports to thence, which in the seven years amounted to not less than 57,504,573) making an absolute excess of quantity. as previously stated, of upwards of 190,000,000l.! How has this been equalized? That is now the question. Answer, ye presumers to legislative attainment. The balance-sheets of the 4648 bankruptcies in 1816-1817 may suffice to account for some tens of millions. Oh! but they will say, perhaps,

the specie, the specie, is not included in the imports,-granted; but what does it amount to, does it amount to 10,000,000/ or 15,000,000L; or take it at 20,000,000/, which is beyond the reality, and what else can be brought to bear against the excess?— Absentee expenditure, be its amoget more or less, 2,000,000l. per annum, or 5,000,000l. per ann., certainly resolves itself into so much equivalent un commercial account towards equalizing the excess of exports; as such, it may be contended, that absenteeship is a good thing; so it is commercially, but it is injurious to the internal interests of the country in the proportion of 4, 5, 6, or 7, whilst it is beneficial to the external interests of the couptry in the proportion of 1 only; and, after all these extraneous aids are brought to bear on the account against the excess of exports, they will still leave a minus of several millions per annum. What, then, it will be asked perhaps, are our merchants such tools as to give away their commodities without equivalents? and is the government so indifferent to their duty, so blind to the interests of the commumity, as not to interfere; but, on the other hand, continue from year to

year

year to expatiate on the increase of quantity exported as an evidence of prosperity, whether we get equivalents for it or not. Whatever may be the motives that influence, or the blindness that precludes; the fact is incontrovertible, that at least 100,000,000l. value of property, within the last seven years, has been distributed all over the world, without one farthing equivalent, directly or indirectly, having been received for it; and instead of the government regarding the consequences, and adopting that comprehensive order of enquiry which might have led to measures tending to equalize the disparity, they have prostituted their time to self-sufficiency and vain conceit, and yielded themselves secret and coward panders to the accursed leagues of knaves, against the march of intellect and the just rights of mankind; and the manufacturer and merchant, influenced equally by mistake and selfishness, and impelled onwards by that speculative impetuosity, which the extraordinary events of the twenty-three years of war had engendered; instead of reflecting upon the consequences of their career, and regulating their supplies to a level with the diminished equivalents or means of payment, and calling upon the government to adopt those measures, with the several states of the world, which the great change of circumstances had rendered so imperiously necessary, that would have opened the way for progressively enlarging the sphere of their operations, with mutual and reciprocal advantage; instead of doing this, they as rashly as falsely ascribed the fatal results which immediately followed the cessation of the issue of government-bills in 1815, to causes which had no existence but in their mistaken imaginations, competition of low prices, and immediately forced a reduction in the rate of wages for labour, and that to a degree, which (as a necessary consequence,) at once paralyzed all the active and productive resources of the country, retarding all the channels, and diminishing the means, of internal consumption in a corresponding ratio to the reduction in the rate of wages; they seemed, and still continue, as insensible to the fact as callous to the consequences; that an unequitable remuneration for labour as necessarily as inevitably diminishes the means of purchasing the products of Jabour in a greater ratio, than the MONTHLY MAG, No. 388.

reduced price of the commodity, tended to increase profitable demand and consumption; whilst, on the other hand, although a high remuneration for labour as necessarily tends to enhance the price of the products of labour, (resolving itself even into a species of indirect taxation,) it is as indubitable as it is obvious, that the higher the remuneration for labour, in so much greater. ratio will the means of purchase of the products of labour be increased; and, consequently, all the varied interests of the great social compact be improved. But instead of regarding this plain, this obvious, this incontrovertible, conclusion, both government and employers persisted in the opposite extreme; first reducing the wages of manufacturing labour, the first effect of which was to cause a reduction in the wages of agricultural labour; and, in proportion as the principle was persisted in, agricultural productions of necessity yielded to depreciation, which, again, as necessarily compelled all other productions to yield to corresponding depreciation. In the midst, however, of the devastation amongst all the productive classes of society, which the pertinacious adherence to the false and unjust principle of preying on the physical labour of the people occasioned, all the participators and dependants on that ideal, valueless, and nominal, something, which some denominate wealth, and others debt, and all other fixed nominal money incomes were benefited in a corresponding degree to the injury and injustice inflicted upon all the labouring, active, and productive, classes of the community; and thus all the solid and substantial interests of this great country, and all the energies of its people, have become sacrificed and rendered victims to the caprice, the speculation, and avarice, of a posse of tricksters, jugglers, and jobbers, in an ideal nominality of amount, founded on principles as fallacious as they are unjust; and which is as contemptible for the foolery and trickery with which it is sustained, as it is reprehensible for the injury which it inflicts on all without the pale of its participation, and as it will ultimately prove fatal (if the consequences are not speedily averted) to all that is dear and valuable to the country as a nation. I am aware, sir, how much an individual, in elucidating the affairs of nations, is exposed to the obloquy, the conceit, and presumption, 2 T

of