Читать книгу: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851», страница 3

This argument of the increase of our exports last year (1850) having been owing to Free Trade, has been so admirably disposed of by that able and intrepid man to whom the nation is under such obligations for the light he has thrown on these subjects, and the courageous way in which he has everywhere asserted them, in a late public meeting at Rugby, that we cannot do better than quote his words: —

"The Free-traders had boasted much of their system as having increased the amount of our exports; and he (Mr Young) had been continually trying for a long period to get from them the names of the countries to which those increased imports went. At length he had the fact; and the result would be most startling as applied to the arguments and predictions of that party before the corn law was repealed. The countries he would take were Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Prussia, Germany, Holland, Belgium, and France; and he found that in the year 1845 the quantity of corn imported from all these countries, comprising, as they did, the whole of northern and central Europe, amounted to 1,741,730 quarters, whilst the declared value of British and Irish manufactures exported to those countries was L.17,504,417. But last year the corn imported from those countries had increased in quantity to 6,857,530 quarters, whilst our exports to them had decreased to L.15,274,639. These figures showed that from the whole of northern and central Europe we took last year no less than 5,115,800 quarters of corn more than in 1845, and that there was a decrease in the value of our exports of L.2,229,778. Again, last year the declared value of our gross exports amounted to L.63,596,025, but in 1845 it reached the sum of L.60,111,082; so that in the course of these four years the increase was only L.3,484,943. He found also that our exports in 1830 were L.35,842,623, and in 1835, L.47,372,270, being an increase on the five years of L.11,529,647, or 32 2-10ths per cent. That was an increase under the operation of protection. In 1840 the exports amounted to L.51,406,430, or an increase upon 1835 of L.4,634,160, or 8 5-10ths per cent. In 1845 they were L.60,111,082 – an increase on 1840 of L.8,704,652, or 16 9-10ths per cent. In 1849, L.63,596,025, an increase on 1845 of L.3,484,943; and in the present year, supposing the increase continued in the same ratio, he calculated that that increase would on the year 1845 be about L.4,350,000, or 7 2-10ths per cent. Would Free-traders boast of their exports after that? They talked upon this question as if the country had, under the system of protection, been in a perfectly dead and stagnant condition, and that the agriculturists were like the clods of the earth, and less capable of improvement. Why, it was under protection that our ships were employed to go to the island of Ichaboe, from which guano was first imported into this country; and it was under protection that that island had disappeared from the face of the ocean, and every cwt. of its guano had been brought here and spread upon the soil. He rejoiced and exulted in the march of science as much as any man; but it was an arrogant and an unfounded assumption on the part of the Free-traders to monopolise to themselves, as the result of their system, those improvements in agriculture which were going on under protection with railroad speed, and to which, in truth, their measures had only given a check, and not an impetus. But then he was asked, what have you to say to the United States? He would tell them. He found that the exports to the United States amounted to L.11,971,028 in 1849; but in 1836 they were not less than L.12,425,605; so that the exports in the former exceeded those in the latter year by L.454,577. Surely facts like these would dispose of a few of the Free-trade fallacies, and we should not hear them again repeated, at all events." —Morning Herald, Nov. 28, 1850.

The restoration of peace on the Continent was the principal cause which again raised the amount of our exports to the Old World. This appears decisively in the returns: the exports of Great Britain to Germany alone, which, in 1848, had sunk to less than £4,000,000, rose, in 1850, to £6,078,355. The cessation of purchases to the Continent, during the two preceding years, in consequence of the alarm consequent on the French and German revolutions, only made the rush for English manufactures greater when the restoration of tranquillity reopened the Continent to our industry. In America the change was equally great, and equally irrespective of Free Trade: our exports to the United States, in 1850, exceeded £12,000,000. This extension arose from the general rise of prices, and extension of credit, from the opening of the treasures of California. It not only created a new market for exports on the reverse of the Rocky Mountains, but so vivified and animated every part of the Union, as rendered them capable of purchasing a much larger quantity of the manufactured articles of this country than they had done for a great number of years.⁶

But by far the most important and beneficial effect of Californian gold hitherto experienced has been in the extension of credit and increase of accommodation at home. This effect is obvious and important. The notes of the Bank of England in circulation, have risen in the last year to L.20,000,000 or L.21,000,000 from L.16,500,000, which they had fallen to during the panic. The circulation of every other bank has, as a matter of course, been proportionably augmented. What produced this great increase in the circulating medium? The influx of bullion into the country, which augmented the treasure in the Bank of England to above L.16,000,000. There is the secret of the whole thing; of the activity in the manufacturing districts, and the general extension of credit and rise of prices through the districts. It is Californian gold which has done the whole; for it has at once filled to overflowing the vaults of the Bank of England, and relieved its officers, and those of all similar establishments, from all dread of a drain of specie setting in. Gold was abundant; the banks no longer feared a collapse: therefore notes were abundant also; the terrors of the holders of them were abated. Prices rose, and credit was extended. We are far from thinking that it is a wise and judicious system to make credit of every kind entirely dependent on the amount of metallic treasure in the vaults of the Bank of England: we only say, having done this by Sir R. Peel's monetary system, we have to thank California for having put at least a temporary stop to the evils with which it was pregnant. It is not surprising that the addition of even so small a sum to the metallic circulation of the commercial world should produce, in a single year, so great a result. The discovery of two millions of bank-notes, in an old chest of the Bank of England, stopped the panic of December 1825; the mere issuing of Lord J. Russell's letter, announcing the temporary repeal of the Bank Charter Act, put a period to the far severer crash of 1847. The addition of five millions to the metallic treasure of this country is quite sufficient to vivify every branch of industry, for it will probably put fifty millions, in bank-notes and private bills, into circulation.

As the influx of Californian gold, however, is an element of such immense importance thus let into the social world, it is material to observe what evils it is adequate to remedy, and to what social diseases it can be regarded as a panacea. This is the more necessary, because, while it tends by its beneficent influence to conceal for a time the pernicious effects of other measures, it is by no means a remedy for them; nor has it a tendency even, in the long run, to lessen their danger. It induces immediate prosperity, by the extension of credit and rise of prices with which it is attended; but it has no tendency to diminish the dreadful evils of Free-Trade and a currency mainly dependent on the retention of the precious metals at all times in the country.

On the contrary, it may, under many circumstances, materially aggravate them.

As the effect produced by a great addition of the metallic treasures of the earth is universal, it must affect prices equally in every part of the world. The largest part of the bullion, indeed, will be brought to the richest country, which is best able to buy it, and has most need of it to form the basis of its transactions. But still, some part will find its way into every country; prices will be everywhere raised, and the relative proportion between them in different countries will remain the same, or even be rendered more unfavourable to the richer state. That is the material circumstance; for it shows that it must leave the greatest and most lasting evils of Free Trade untouched. Supposing gold to become so plentiful that the sovereign is only worth ten shillings, and the effect on general prices to be such that the average price of the quarter of wheat is raised from forty to sixty shillings – which, in a course of years, is by no means improbable – still the relative position of the British with the Polish and American cultivator will remain the same. The price of the wheat may be raised from 15s. to 25s. a-quarter, on the banks of the Vistula or the Mississippi; but still the ability of their cultivators to undersell our farmers will remain the same, or rather be augmented. Prices will still be so much higher in the old rich and heavily-taxed country, which absorbs the largest part of the metallic circulation of the earth, than in the young poor and untaxed one, that in the production of the fruits of the earth, to which machinery can never be made applicable, the inability to carry on the competition will only be rendered the more apparent by the increasing, or at all events, permanent difference of the prices.

In the next place, how cheap soever gold, from its augmented plenty, may become, there will be no cessation, as long as our paper circulation remains on its present footing, of those dreadful monetary crises which now, at stated periods recurring every five or six years, spread such unheard-of ruin through the industrious classes. Let gold, from its greater plenty, become of only half its value, or a sovereign be only worth ten shillings, and prices, in consequence, rise to double their present amount, the danger of a monetary crisis, as long as our currency is based on its present footing, will remain the same. Still, any considerable drain of the metallic treasure of the country, such as it is – either from the necessities of foreign war, the adverse state of foreign exchanges, or a great importation, occasioned by a deficient home harvest – will send the specie headlong out, and, by suddenly contracting the currency, ruin half of the persons engaged in business undertakings. It is the inconceivable folly of making the paper circulation dependent on the retention of the metallic; the enormous error of enacting, that, for every five sovereigns that are drawn out of the country, a five-pound note shall be drawn in by the bankers; the infatuated self-immolation arising from the gratuitous negation of the greatest blessing of a paper circulation – that of supplying, during the temporary absence of the metallic currency, its want, and obviating all the evils thence arising – which is the real source of the evils under which we have suffered so severely since the disastrous epoch of 1819, when the system was introduced. The increased supply of gold, so far from tending to obviate this danger, has a directly opposite effect; for, by augmenting the metallic treasures of the country, and thus raising credit during periods of prosperity, it engages the nation in a vast variety of undertakings, the completion of which is rendered impossible when the wind of adversity blows, by the sudden contraction of its currency and credit. And to this danger the mercantile classes are exposed beyond any other; for as their undertakings are always far beyond their realised capital, and supported entirely by credit, every periodical contraction of the currency, recurring every five or six years, exposes one-half of them to inevitable ruin.

Let not the Free-traders, therefore, lay the flattering unction to their souls, that California is to get them out of all their difficulties, and that after having, by their ruinous measures, brought the nation to the very brink of ruin, and destroyed one-half of its wealth engaged in commerce, they are to escape the deserved execration of ages, by the effects of an accidental discovery of metallic treasures on the shores of the Pacific. Californian gold, a gift of Providence to a suffering world, will arrest the general and calamitous fall of prices which the Free-traders have laboured so assiduously to introduce, and thus diminish in a most material degree the weight of debts and taxes. So far it will undoubtedly tend to relieve the industrious classes, especially in the rural districts, from much of the misery induced on them by their oppressors; but it cannot work impossibilities. It will leave industry in all classes, and in none more than the manufacturing, exposed to the ruinous competition of foreigners, working, whatever the value of money may be, at a cheaper rate than we can ever do, because in poorer and comparatively untaxed countries. It will leave the commercial classes permanently exposed to the periodical recurrence of monetary storms, arising out of the very plenty of the currency when credit is high, and its sudden withdrawal from the effect of adverse exchanges, or the drain consequent on vast importations of food. It will leave the British navy, and with it the British colonial empire and our national independence, gradually sinking from the competition, in shipping, of poorer states. Nature will do much to counteract the disasters induced by human folly; but the punishment of guilty selfishness is as much a part of her system as the relief of innocent suffering; and to the end of the world those who seek to enrich themselves by the ruin of their neighbours will work out, in the very success of their measures, their own deserved and memorable punishment.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. – PART V

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON

BOOK III. – INITIAL CHAPTER, SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE CALLED "MY NOVEL."

"I am not displeased with your novel, so far as it has gone," said my father graciously; "though as for The Sermon – "

Here I trembled; but the ladies, Heaven bless them! had taken Parson Dale under their special protection; and, observing that my father was puckering up his brows critically, they rushed boldly forward in defence of The Sermon, and Mr Caxton was forced to beat a retreat. However, like a skilful general, he renewed the assault upon outposts less gallantly guarded. But as it is not my business to betray my weak points, I leave it to the ingenuity of cavillers to discover the places at which the Author of Human Error directed his great guns.

"But," said the Captain, "you are a lad of too much spirit, Pisistratus, to keep us always in the obscure country quarters of Hazeldean – you will march us out into open service before you have done with us?"

Pisistratus, magisterially, for he has been somewhat nettled by Mr Caxton's remarks – and he puts on an air of dignity, in order to awe away minor assailants. – "Yes, Captain Roland – not yet awhile, but all in good time. I have not stinted myself in canvass, and behind my foreground of the Hall and the Parsonage I propose, hereafter, to open some lengthened perspective of the varieties of English life – "

Mr Caxton. – "Hum!"

Blanche, putting her hand on my father's lip. – "We shall know better the design, perhaps, when we know the title. Pray, Mr Author, what is the title?"

My Mother, with more animation than usual. – "Ay, Sisty – the title?"

Pisistratus, startled. – "The title! By the soul of Cervantes! I have never yet thought of a title!"

Captain Roland, solemnly. – "There is a great deal in a good title. As a novel reader, I know that by experience."

Mr Squills. – "Certainly; there is not a catchpenny in the world but what goes down, if the title be apt and seductive. Witness 'Old Parr's Life Pills.' Sell by the thousand, sir, when my 'Pills for Weak Stomachs,' which I believe to be just the same compound, never paid for the advertising."

Mr Caxton. – "Parr's Life Pills! a fine stroke of genius! It is not every one who has a weak stomach, or time to attend to it, if he have. But who would not swallow a pill to live to a hundred and fifty-two?"

Pisistratus, stirring the fire in great excitement. – "My title! my title! – what shall be my title!"

Mr Caxton, thrusting his hand into his waistcoat, and in his most didactic of tones. – "From a remote period, the choice of a title has perplexed the scribbling portion of mankind. We may guess how their invention has been racked by the strange contortions it has produced. To begin with the Hebrews. 'The Lips of the Sleeping,' (Labia Dormientium) – what book do you suppose that title to designate? – A Catalogue of Rabbinical writers! Again, imagine some young lady of old captivated by the sentimental title of 'The Pomegranate with its Flower,' and opening on a treatise on the Jewish Ceremonials! Let us turn to the Romans. Aulus Gellius commences his pleasant gossiping 'Noctes' with a list of the titles in fashion in his day. For instance, 'The Muses' and 'The Veil,' 'The Cornucopia,' 'The Beehive,' and 'The Meadow.' Some titles, indeed, were more truculent, and promised food to those who love to sup upon horrors – such as 'The Torch,' 'The Poniard,' 'The Stiletto' – "

Pisistratus, impatiently. – "Yes, sir; but to come to My Novel."

Mr Caxton, unheeding the interruption. – "You see, you have a fine choice here, and of a nature pleasing, and not unfamiliar to a classical reader; or you may borrow a hint from the early Dramatic Writers."

Pisistratus, more hopefully. – "Ay! there is something in the Drama akin to the Novel. Now, perhaps, I may catch an idea."

Mr Caxton. – "For instance, the author of the Curiosities of Literature (from whom, by the way, I am plagiarising much of the information I bestow upon you) tells us of a Spanish gentleman who wrote a Comedy, by which he intended to serve what he took for Moral Philosophy."

Pisistratus, eagerly. – "Well, sir?"

Mr Caxton. – "And called it 'The Pain of the Sleep of the World.'"

Pisistratus. – "Very comic indeed, sir."

Mr Caxton. – "Grave things were then called Comedies, as old things are now called Novels. Then there are all the titles of early Romance itself at your disposal – 'Theagenes and Chariclea,' or 'The Ass' of Longus, or 'The Golden Ass' of Apuleius, or the titles of Gothic Romance, such as 'The most elegant, delicious, mellifluous, and delightful History of Perceforest, King of Great Britain,'" – And therewith my father ran over a list of names as long as the Directory, and about as amusing.

"Well, to my taste," said my mother, "the novels I used to read when a girl, (for I have not read many since, I am ashamed to say,) – "

Mr Caxton. – "No, you need not be at all ashamed of it, Kitty."

My Mother, proceeding. – "Were much more inviting than any you mention, Austin."

The Captain. – "True."

Mr Squills. – "Certainly. Nothing like them now-a-days!"

My Mother. – "'Says she to her Neighbour, What?'"

The Captain. – "'The Unknown, or the Northern Gallery' – "

Mr Squills. – "'There is a Secret; Find it Out!'"

Pisistratus, pushed to the verge of human endurance, and upsetting tongs, poker, and fire-shovel. – "What nonsense you are talking, all of you! For heaven's sake, consider what an important matter we are called upon to decide. It is not now the titles of those very respectable works which issued from the Minerva Press that I ask you to remember – it is to invent a title for mine – My Novel!"

Mr Caxton, clapping his hands gently. – "Excellent – capital! Nothing can be better; simple, natural, pertinent, concise – "

Pisistratus. – "What is it, sir – what is it! Have you really thought of a title to My Novel?"

Mr Caxton. – "You have hit it yourself – 'My Novel.' It is your Novel – people will know it is your Novel. Turn and twist the English language as you will – be as allegorical as Hebrew, Greek, Roman – Fabulist or Puritan – still, after all, it is your Novel, and nothing more nor less than your Novel."

Pisistratus, thoughtfully, and sounding the words various ways. – "'My Novel' – um – um! 'My Novel!' rather bald – and curt, eh?"

Mr Caxton. – "Add what you say you intend it to depict – Varieties in English Life."

My Mother. – "'My Novel; or, Varieties in English Life' – I don't think it sounds amiss. What say you, Roland? Would it attract you in a catalogue?"

My Uncle hesitates, when Mr Caxton exclaims imperiously —

"The thing is settled! Don't disturb Camarina."

Squills. – "If it be not too great a liberty, pray who or what is Camarina?"

Mr Caxton. – "Camarina, Mr Squills, was a lake, apt to be low, and then liable to be muddy; and 'Don't disturb Camarina' was a Greek proverb derived from an Oracle of Apollo; and from that Greek proverb, no doubt, comes the origin of the injunction, 'Quieta non movere,' which became the favourite maxim of Sir Robert Walpole and Parson Dale. The Greek line, Mr Squills, (here my father's memory began to warm,) is preserved by Stephanus Byzantinus, de Urbibus—

'Μὴ κίνει Καμάριναν, ἀκίνητος γὰρ ἀμείνων.'

Zenobius explains it in his Proverbs; Suidas repeats Zenobius; Lucian alludes to it; so does Virgil in the Third Book of the Æneid; and Silius Italicus imitates Virgil —

 
'Et cui non licitum fatis Camarina moveri.'
 

Parson Dale, as a clergyman and a scholar, had, no doubt, these authorities at his fingers' end. And I wonder he did not quote them," quoth my father; "but, to be sure, he is represented as a mild man, and so might not wish to humble the Squire over much in the presence of his family. Meanwhile, My Novel is My Novel; and now that that matter is settled, perhaps the tongs, poker, and shovel may be picked up, the children may go to bed, Blanche and Kitty may speculate apart upon the future dignities of the Neogilos, taking care, nevertheless, to finish the new pinbefores he requires for the present; Roland may cast up his account-book, Mr Squills have his brandy and water, and all the world be comfortable, each in his own way. Blanche, come away from the screen, get me my slippers, and leave Pisistratus to himself. Μὴ κίνει Καμάριναν – don't disturb Camarina. You see, my dear," added my father kindly, as, after settling himself into his slippers, he detained Blanche's hand in his own – "you see, my dear, every house has its Camarina. Man, who is a lazy animal, is quite content to let it alone; but woman, being the more active, bustling, curious creature, is always for giving it a sly stir."

Blanche, with female dignity. – "I assure you, that if Pisistratus had not called me, I should not have – "

Mr Caxton, interrupting her, without lifting his eyes from the book he has already taken. – "Certainly you would not. I am now in the midst of the great Puseyite Controversy. Μὴ κίνει Καμάριναν – don't disturb Camarina."

A dead silence for half an hour, at the end of which

Pisistratus, from behind the screen. – "Blanche, my dear, I want to consult you."

Blanche does not stir.

Pisistratus. – "Blanche, I say."

Blanche glances in triumph towards Mr Caxton.

Mr Caxton, laying down his theological tract, and rubbing his spectacles mournfully. – "I hear him, child; I hear him. I retract my vindication of Man. Oracles warn in vain: so long as there is a woman on the other side of the screen, – it is all up with Camarina!"