Exports, Imports, Declared Value. Market Value. British and Irish produce.
1845, £84,054,272 £60,111,081 1846, 89,281,433 57,786,875 1847, 117,047,229 58,971,166 1848, 92,660,699 53,099,011[21]
Thus, while there has been an enormous increase going on during the last three years in our imports, there has been nothing but a diminution at the same time taking place in our exports. The foreigners who sent us, in such prodigious quantities, their rude produce, would not take our manufactures in return. They would only take our gold. Hence our metallic treasures were hourly disappearing in exchange for the provisions which showered in upon us; and this was the precise time which the free-traders took to establish the monetary system which compelled the contraction of the paper circulation _in direct proportion to that very disappearance_. It is no wonder that our commercial interests were thrown into unparalleled embarrassments from such an absurd and monstrous system of legislation.
Observe, if the arguments and expectations of the free-traders had been well founded, the immense importation of provisions which took place in 1847 and 1848, in consequence of the failure of the potato crop in Ireland and the west of Scotland, should immediately have produced a vast rise in our exports. Was this the case? Quite the reverse; it was attended with a decline in them. The value of corn, meal, and flour imported in the following years stood thus:--
1845, £3,594,299 1846, 8,870,202 1847, 29,694,112 1848, 12,457,857[22]
Now, in the year 1847, though we imported nearly thirty millions' worth of grain, our exports were £1,200,000 _less_ than in 1845, when we only received three millions and a half of subsistence from foreign states. Can there be a more decisive proof that the greatest possible addition to our importation of grain is not likely to be attended with any increase to our export of manufactures?
But if the great importation of grain which free-trade induces into the British empire is not attended with any increase of our exports, in the name of heaven, what good does it do? Feed the people cheap. But what do they gain by that, if their wages, and the profits of their employers, fall in the same or a greater proportion? That effect has already taken place, and to a most distressing extent. Wages of skilled operatives, such as colliers, iron-moulders, cotton-spinners, calico-printers, and the like, are now not more than _half_ of what they were when the corn-laws were in operation. They are now receiving 2s. 6d. a-day where, before the change, they received 5s. Wheat has been forced down from 56s. to 44s.: that is somewhat above a fifth, but wages have fallen a half. The last state of those men is worse than the first. The unjust change for which they clamoured has proved ruinous to themselves.