Chapter XXV (3)

And who can tell what may be at some future time the result on the happiness of one hundred millions of subjects, of sentiments like these implanted in so pure a soil? The actor's province is not far distant from the preacher's. A happy time, if it should ever arrive, when this unity of purpose will be acknowledged by both, when the "reverend gentleman" will think it no part of his calling to rail upon the stage; and the actor will not find a strong inclination to retort by accusations of Mawworm and Tartuffe. But an objection is made in many quarters more to the theatre than to what is represented there. A play in a drawing-room is very different from a play at the Haymarket. One is all correct and proper; the other wicked and intolerable. This objection must therefore arise either from the different characters of the performers or of the audience. An officer of the Guards, who is great at theatricals, is an edifying sight in the part of Joseph Surface in the hall of a great country house in the Christmas week; and the same part is revolting and dangerous in the hands of poor Bob Finings on the regular stage. And yet the Honourable Captain Muff has been before the Consistory Court, has also made a brilliant appearance in Basinghall Street, has shot his kindest friend at Chalkfarm, and is an authority in the betting-ring second only to Mr Davis. Bob Finings is a steady, dull, respectable man, who has seen hard times, and struggled manfully against them; has brought up his children to honest callings, and totters through the part with the most helpless and reassuring imbecility. Is there danger there? But if the cases were reversed, and poor Bob Finings were the _roué_, and the honourable captain the respected _pater-familias_, why should that interfere with our appreciation of their dramatic skill? Surely most inoffensive would the wildest of Bob's transgressions be to the morals or feelings of the spectators in the boxes, pit, or gallery, who were never brought into contact with him in any other character than that of Joseph Surface, and neither sup with him after the play, nor waltz with him after the supper, as might possibly be the case with the gallant Lothario Muff. Then it must be the miscellaneousness of the company assembled in a theatre. Less select, certainly, than in the county gathering to the private play; but surely quite as safe. Is there a magnetic sympathy with vice that makes one or two sinners, locked up, we will suppose, in a private box, the electro-biologists of the whole assembly? Insolent faces will occasionally be turned to where we sit, hair-covered faces, and eyes that are uncomfortable to look upon; foreign-looking men dressed in the extremest fashion of Paris or Vienna, but whether British imitation or the real article is quite immaterial;--to this vulgar and audacious stare we shall certainly be exposed. But not more than in the street, or in the park, or in the Crystal Palace, or occasionally in a Belgravian chapel of ease to Rome, where we have observed the rosaried nun by no means inconvenienced by the unmistakable glances of those whiskered pandours. But let us, for the satisfaction of all squeamish spinsters, and for the honour of the Haymarket lessee, announce a small fact which we think redounds greatly to his honour. Brazen-faced men in elegant apparel, it is, of course, impossible to exclude, but the moment the royal patronage was extended to the theatre, most rigid orders were given to the door-keepers and attendant police to exclude every brazen-faced personage of the other sex, however elegant might be her apparel. This holds good, not only on the evenings on which royalty condescends to share the gay or sad feelings of loyalty, but on all nights and on all occasions. This is a sacrifice to propriety and decorum, which persons acquainted with the interior workings of a theatre have stated to us to amount to several thousands a-year. Independent of the five-shilling payments made every night by forty or fifty of the Jezebels who used to flaunt in the upper circle, it is a moderate calculation to assume that the attraction of their presence allured to the theatre at least double that number of Tittlebats, and the other pillars of Mr Tagrag's establishment; and if any person with a competent knowledge of arithmetic will find out the sum total of a hundred and fifty crowns, and multiply it by six, he will find out the weekly effect on the treasury, of this very noble and praiseworthy conduct. The royal box brings in about two hundred a-year, and can never be let for the benefit of the theatre on the most crowded nights. Go, therefore, in perfect safety to the Haymarket. If wickedness is there, it is completely in eclipse. Go, and the farces will improve in humour and refine in plot; Buckstone will be as ridiculous as ever, and give full scope to his wit and drollery without the slightest touch of the buffoon.

In all the theatres of London, a race is run in the variety and beauty of the decorations. If actors have fallen off, the scene-painter and machinist are in the ascendant. Now, this is far from a good sign, or, in the end, of any good effect in the advancement of the drama. A decent amount of illustration is indispensable--a proper attention to truthfulness of costume is highly commendable; but truly absurd is it to see the length to which this zeal is carried. In the Elizabethan time, the spectator was informed of the scene of the play by a board with the name of the locality suspended from the roof. Side-scenes then crept in; appropriate dresses were introduced at a later period; and now there is not a button wrong, not a single anachronism in the shape of a shoe, or ribbon of a cap; gorgeous landscapes are presented to the eye; noble chambers open their treasures of furniture and vertu; and in the midst of all this internal improvement, the histrionic, art diminishes day by day. "Man is the only plant that dwindles here." Thus we find that almost every manager plumes himself on restoring Shakspeare when he surrounds the play with gorgeous accessories--when the balcony scene is painted by Stanfield, or the hall of Macbeth's castle by David Roberts. This is the mode of decoration adopted by the warriors of old, when they covered the Roman traitress with their ornaments of silver and gold. This is to smother Shakspeare, not to illustrate him. This is to bury Cæsar, not to praise him. Let us assure those enterprising caterers for the public, that a play well acted is worth all the correct dresses, and all the befitting scenery in the world. Half the money wasted on these expensive accessories would tempt men of talent and education once more to look to the stage as a profession. Rather give us Burbage as Coriolanus in Sir Philip Sidney's clothes, than a modern declaimer in the most faultless of togas. But when scenery, dresses, and decorations, from being the casual accompaniments of a noble tragedy, which they only encumber with their help, form of themselves the staple commodity with which an appeal is made to the favour of the town, the matter becomes of very serious importance, and is probably more injurious to the dramatic taste than anything that can be named. Nothing has so depreciated the drama as the frequency, during late years, of burlesques--a contemptible species of entertainment, where parody is substituted for wit, and glitter and show for interest or language. A fairy tale, that enchanted our childhood, is chosen for a theme, and soon stript, by the ruthless playwright, of all its poetry and romance. Aladdin makes puns about the Crystal Palace. Camaralzaman and Badoura are witty about the electric telegraph; and all the time their miserable jargon is illustrated by the scenery of men of genius--with landscapes that Poussin would not be ashamed to own, and wing-covered nymphs that would have been the astonishment of all the glowries. Why vulgarise the fairy mythology by mixing it up with the oratory of the cabstand? Why not leave it as they find it?--and if they are determined to lavish ornament on whatever they produce on the stage, why not give us, from end to end, a real dear old fairy story, with scenery as gorgeous as they please--strange apparitions of power or beauty--clothing the tale in language fit for the fairy interlocutors; and show us all the spouting waterfalls, and ticking clocks, and chattering pages, and lovely companions, of Tennyson's "Sleeping Beauty?" In this the airy dances, and splendid robes, and marble palaces, would all be in keeping. The eye would be pleased without the taste being offended; and there would be no tremendous burst of human passion cast into the background by the predominance of hats and feathers. "King John" at the Princess's, we pronounce, on this ground, to be a great success as a spectacle, but a failure as a play. Mr Kean has great merits; quick appreciation, sound intelligence, and occasionally a burst of something which, if it is not genius, is describable by no other word; but he is certainly mistaken in relying so much on the resources of his painter and _costumier_. The chivalrous audacity of Wigan is sufficient of itself to attract attention, which is too likely to be distracted by the magnificence of the scene in which it is displayed by that versatile and accomplished actor. John himself ceases to be the human centre figure in a group of other men--with passions, fears, remorses, all chasing each other along his cruel and haggard countenance--and becomes the centre figure of a noble historic tableau, where the words even of Shakspeare grow subsidiary to colour and effect. But let us go into that prettiest of theatres in Oxford Street, ascend the handsome steps into the dress circle, and see what entertainment is provided by the present bearer of the name of Kean. The playbills tell us the name of the drama to-night is the "Corsican Brothers;" so with vague reminiscences of old Madame Mère, and the four young Buonapartes in the attorney's mansion in Ajaccio, we wait for the drawing up of the curtain. The house is quite full. The stage is admirably commanded from all parts of the building; the boxes are most comfortable and wide; a thousand expectant faces are all turned towards the scene; a great crash takes place among the fiddles; a little bell rings, and we are in a room in the house of the Dei Franchis, a poor but noble family of Corsica. A maid is singing at her wheel--a song which was evidently not the composition of either Burns or Moore--and is interrupted by the entrance of a traveller, who brings a letter of introduction from Paris from Louis Dei Franchi, a son of the house, who has resided there for some time. The countess comes in and receives him graciously. Fabian Dei Franchi, the stay-at-home brother, also is very kind, and inquires anxiously after Louis's health. He is well, and happy; but the stranger has not seen him for three weeks! Fabian makes a motion of disappointment. "I have heard of him more recently."--"How?--when?" exclaims the mother.--"Last night," replies Fabian; "and he is ill." He takes the stranger apart; hurriedly tells him not to be incredulous, or, at all events, disdainful, of their old Corsican superstitions; informs him that he and his brother are twins, and so like each other as to be almost undistinguishable; that from their birth, absent or united, a strange sympathy exists between them; that one cannot experience joy or grief that is not in this mysterious manner shared by the other; and, seeing a smile on the gay Frenchman's countenance, he relates an anecdote of a similar case which occurred three hundred years before, and in the very house in which they then stood. A strange wild story it was, and prepares us for what is to come. To prepare us also for the bitterness of a Corsican vendetta, a tumultuous scene is introduced of the compulsory reconcilement of a quarrel between two peasants, which, in a few years, had cost nine lives, and took its origin from some indignity offered to a hen of the Orlandos. Colonna makes the _amende_ by presenting his adversary with a white cock; and Fabian is again left alone. The stage grows dark; something wild and unearthly is felt in the sudden hush of the dim hall; he sits down at the side to write to Louis. "Brother," he says, "I feel so miserable, that I am certain you are in pain. Write--write!" While he is setting down these words, a pallid, dreadful countenance rises from the boards at the other end of the stage--rising gradually and without sound--neck, shoulders, body--and advancing at the same time towards the table at which Fabian writes; it reaches its feet when it comes within touch of his shoulder. The features of the brothers are the same; the height, the figure, even the dress--for Fabian has taken off his coat before he began to write,--and all the difference is a speck of blood on the left breast of Louis' shirt; and gazing on the group before him, (for the mother has entered in the mean time,) he slowly sinks. But this is not the end. The window at the back of the hall opens, and through that vista, what do we see? The brother exactly as we saw him a moment before, lying dead beneath the stump of a tree, supported in the arms of his seconds--a gentleman in his shirt sleeves wiping his sword--two other gentlemen in attitudes of watchfulness: it is the Bois de Boulogne; a duel has been fought. Louis dei Franchi is the victim, and the drop-scene falls, leaving the Countess and Fabian transfixed with horror at this wondrous sight.

The next act takes us into the actual events of which these are but the shadowings. It is a masked ball at the opera in Paris. There are waltzes, gallops, and polkas, with shouts of demoniac revelry; women career from end to end of the enormous salle, dancing, singing, shrieking; they are dressed in all costumes--as men, as mountebanks--but in all the unmistakable presence of wild enjoyment and a spirit of depravity, worthy of the orgies of Circe. Some gentlemen come in. Among them, M. de Chateau Renaud, whose ambition it is to be considered the greatest _roué_ in Paris; when he fails to triumph over female virtue, he withers a woman's reputation with a lie. He is accused of having boasted, without foundation, of his intimacy with Madame de Lesharre. He bets he will bring her that very night into the supper-room, where there has been prepared a symposium for the prettiest of the _debardeurs_, and wickedest of the men. Louis dei Franchi is of the party, for Madame de Lesharre has been the object of his love before her marriage, and he has heard of her reported _liaison_ with Chateau Renaud. He invites himself to the supper--is cold, abstracted, severe--and keeps his eye on the boaster's face. The ball is over; the supper-room is gorgeously lighted; the clock strikes four--the appointed hour at which Chateau Renaud had betted he would introduce Madame de Lesharre. Her he had inveigled hither, under the false pretence of restoring to her some letters which she had imprudently, but innocently, written to him before her wedding, and before she had discovered the character of her admirer. He blinds her still; and as the last sound of the clock dies upon the ear, he walks in with Madame de Lesharre upon his arm. There is a shout of derision from the women assembled; a shrug of surprise from the men; the wager is acknowledged to be lost; but Madame de Lesharre, perceiving the shameful trick that has been played, indignantly pours forth her scorn on the pitiful scoundrel who had been guilty of it; recognises her old lover, Louis dei Franchi, and throws herself on his protection. He steps forward, accepts the charge, and is challenged of course by Chateau Renaud, who is the best swordsman in France. Madame do Lesharre retires supported by Louis, and a laugh of contempt and hatred resounds through the room. We are now in the Bois de Boulogne. The scene we had seen in the first act is exactly reproduced here: Louis is lying under the tree; Chateau Renaud is wiping his sword; the seconds are in attitudes of expectation--suddenly the wood opens at the back, and we see Fabian and his mother in the old hall in Corsica, gazing with rigid eyes on the scene before them; and we have now arrived at the exact position we attained half-an-hour ago. The whole of the third act passes in a glade in the forest of Fontainbleau. Chateau Renaud, flying with his second from justice, is upset on the high-road; comes into the wood in search of aid; sends a peasant for a blacksmith to repair the carriage; and sits down, depressed and feverish, on the stump of a tree. Suddenly he looks round, and recognises the scene. It is the place where, five days before, he had had the encounter with Louis dei Franchi, and he is anxious to leave the spot. He is met by Fabian dei Franchi, in form and semblance so exactly similar to Louis, that it amounts almost to identity; a similar accident has happened to his carriage. He looks around, and he also recognises the scene presented to him in the vision. On that intimation, and no other, he has hurried from Corsica, in search of Chateau Renaud; he has found him here. He is calm; there is no room for human passion in a mission so evidently laid upon him by fate. He challenges the murderer. The challenge is refused; he twits him with his crimes--with cowardice--with falsehood--with assassination; and the bravo is compelled to fight. They fence long and warily; they rest by mutual consent. In trying the sword preparatory to the next bout, it breaks in Chateau Renaud's hand. The second declares the combat at an end, for the weapons are unequal. "No!" said Fabian quietly, and breaks his across his knee. They muffle their hands in their handkerchiefs, and seize the broken weapons. The fight is renewed. One must die. Which? They hold the fragments of their blades like daggers, point downward, and at one lucky opening Fabian strikes the blow, and Chateau Renaud falls unpitied, unforgiven--a sacrifice to Corsican honour. "Now I can weep for you, dear Louis," says the conqueror, and covers his face with his hands. Again the murdered Louis crosses the stage in the same mysterious manner as before. The brothers recognise each other; vengeance is obtained, and the curtain falls.

The language contained in this play would occupy about twenty minutes; the duration of the piece is two hours. It is a ghost story put into shape--a chapter of Mrs Radcliffe, done into _tableaux vivants_. The company at this theatre comprises Mr and Mrs Kean, Mr Wigan, Mr Meadows, Mr Ryder, Mr Bartley, and last, not least, Mr and Mrs Keeley. There is not a barn in England that could not furnish quite good enough representatives of any person in the drama. The speeches are vapid and commonplace; the situations, as regards the development of character, very weak; and it possesses no strength whatever but the admirable stage management of the supernatural and the frightful verisimilitude of the carnival ball. Are these legitimate means of support to a theatre like this? Should the Princess's be reduced to a _salle de spectacle_--

"Where from below the trap-door demons rise,
And from above hang dangling deities?"

But, more than all, it certainly is no place for the production of so revolting a scene as the open license of the ball, or the more quiet but quite as offensive supper-party after it. Real water, real horses, and real elephants have been banished from the stage, it being found that the real things interfere essentially with the truthfulness of the scene. A great distinction should always be taken between mere representation and identity--a difference clearly established and rigidly preserved between the fiction and the fact, or why not have a real fight with true swords? Why not go back at once to Thurtell's gig and Weir's pistol? Now, in the instance of the carnival ball, the resemblance is carried beyond all bounds. It ceases to be an imitation, and becomes a reproduction. We will be bound to say, at no saturnalia in the opera ball-room of Paris was there ever exhibited a wilder scene of revelry and debauch--women, indelicately clothed in male attire, whirl in fantastic attitudes to a noisy crash of music--their voices in the mad excitement of the moment are joined to the noise of the orchestra; petticoats, where preserved at all, assume the dimensions of kilts; it is evidently the crowning hour of the night's festivity--modesty, decorum, propriety, all laid aside, and a grinning buffoon in white gown, with chalk-covered face and ludicrous contortions, adding a new feature of disgust to the display, which is sickening enough already. We can easily imagine that this vivid scene may have injurious effects--that it may be even more hurtful than a visit to the original meeting would have been; for there is probably here a heightening of the attractions of the show, in as much as the dancers are chosen for their beauty, and the dresses selected for the very purpose of captivation and allurement. If such a scene was required at all, it should, certainly, have been produced in a less attractive form. We should not have been so severe on this subject if we did not feel that no theatre in London less needs to depend on such displays for success. No theatre in London has it so completely in its power to show to what noble uses a stage may be applied; for on none is there so near an approach to the ancient glory of the drama in the skill and _ensemble_ of the actors. Exercising talents like these on ghosts and festivals is a mere waste of power. It is turning a steam-engine to the manufacture of pins--of pins that are useless in spite of their polished heads, and poisonous if they penetrate the skin. Let not this one departure from taste be urged against theatrical amusements in general, or the entertainments at this house in particular. It is a French importatation--this ghostly melodrama, this unmeasured ball. But Shakspeare is here with his English heart, and "empire absolute" over the feelings. The poetry of "Twelfth Nigh" alternates with the wondrous picture in the "Merry Wives of Windsor." The gentle Viola speaks in tones that never die away from the memory. Mrs Ford answers smile for smile and grip for grip to Mrs Brook--Caius, for the first time, is the perfect gentleman which only Wigan can depict; and scene after scene floats away before us, till it is only by an effort we wake from a dream of Herne the Hunter's Oak to the harsh realities of eighteen hundred and fifty-two.

In some future communication we will extend our Commissionership to the other theatres, and to various places of amusement not often brought forward 'neath the glimpses of the moon. Beware, then, ye managers and caterers of public shows; be conscious of the importance and responsibilities of your position. When we see talent, enterprise, and skill, not slow shall we be to give the word of cheer; but where we observe the smallest deviation into the coarse or the insipid, remember you have nothing to expect but rebukes sharper than swords.

"A chield's amang ye takin' notes,
And, faith, he'll print it."

THE COMMERCIAL DISASTERS OF 1851.

(TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.)

SIR,--The country is shortly to be called upon to decide the important question whether the policy, under which it has for the last few years been governed, is, or is not, susceptible of some modification; and, as one portion of this question, the soundness of our present commercial policy must undoubtedly be discussed. Indeed, it seems to be taken for granted on all hands that this must be the case; and in a great empire like our own, whose main source of strength has been conceived to rest upon the pre-eminence of its mercantile and industrial character, it would be singular if it could be otherwise. And it would be lamentable, too, and little calculated to inspire the hope of peace for the future, and confidence in the stability of our institutions, should that portion of the question at issue be discussed in any other spirit than that of an anxious and careful desire to arrive at the truth. No policy not based upon the truth has ever long prevailed in any civilised country. No Christian man, conscious as such a man ought to be of the imperfections of merely human judgment, could ever set himself up above his fellows as infallible. We have surely a perfect right to appeal to past experience in order to discover what has been the effect of our policy upon the different interests of the country; and in the following pages I shall endeavour to examine dispassionately what has been that effect upon our mercantile and trading classes, and particularly upon those engaged in conducting our large importing and exporting operations.

It is, of course, an acknowledged principle, that an increased import of foreign commodities, to be a profitable one, must be attended by increased means of consuming in the importing country, and be balanced ultimately by increased exports, at paying prices to the producer. The question, then, so far as the mercantile body is concerned, is simply this,--Have the transactions of the past year been satisfactory to that body, or not? I do not hesitate to say in reply, that, with the solitary exception of the year 1847--if indeed it be an exception--there has been no such disastrous epoch in the annals of British commerce for the past quarter of a century as the year 1851. If the year 1847 was more disastrous, it was because it was one of monetary revulsion, of potato rot, and of the collapse of absurd railway speculation. During the past year we have had nothing of this kind to encounter. We entered upon 1851 with prognostications, all but unanimous, of a coming year of prosperous business. During the course of the year we had neither civil commotion nor foreign embroilment to trouble the even tenor of our way. Yet we have closed the year with the mercantile and trading interests of Great Britain poorer than they commenced it, by, I am satisfied, at least _twenty millions sterling and upwards_. During the whole of the past year, the reports of our commercial circulars have told an unvarying tale of declining prices and unprofitable imports. Scarcely a single foreign product has remunerated the merchant, or even realised the cost at which it was purchased abroad; and stocks of all kinds, not only in our seaports, but in every retailer's shop or warehouse throughout the country, have been every week deteriorating in saleable value. In no single commodity of importance has the consumption kept pace with the increase of importations; and had we at any period of the year been visited with monetary difficulty, had the Bank of England not been full of specie, and anxious to extend its accommodation to the public, the losses upon our accumulation of stocks would have been sufficient to prostrate one-half of the mercantile community.

In endeavouring to form an estimate of the actual losses of the year upon imports, I shall commence with the important article COTTON. We entered upon 1851 with a stock, according to Mr Burn's _Commercial Glance_, of 581,120 bales in the entire kingdom, in the hands of importers, spinners, and speculators, spinners being estimated by Mr Burn to hold 60,000 bales. Messrs G. Holt and Co. of Liverpool, calculate the quantity at 100,000 bales in the hands of _spinners and dealers_. The bulk of this stock had been purchased at the high prices which had ruled during the last four months of 1850; and, in the first week of January, the price of "fair upland," which may be taken as a standard, was 7⅞d. per lb. Such were the rates ruling in the countries of its growth, it could not have been bought there within at least ¼d. per lb. of that price. Although such stock would naturally find its way gradually into the market, and its place be supplied by fresh imports, and as there was a nearly similar one--estimated by Messrs Holt at 594,000 bales--left at the close of the past year, it will simplify the process of calculation, and at the same time be correct as to the general result, if I treat the stock of January 1851 as having borne the fall of the entire year. The price, then, of fair uplands having been, in the last week of December, 4⅞d. to 5d., and other sorts in nearly that proportion, there would be a reduction of from 2⅞d. to 3d. upon those American sorts which form the bulk of the consumption, and 2⅛d. to 2¼d. upon the next in importance. Bearing in mind that the prices on the 1st of January were not remunerative to the importer, I believe I am within the mark in fixing the loss at £5 per bale of 400 lb. average weight, which, upon the stock of 581,120 bales, amounts to the large sum of £2,905,600 sterling. We now come to the imports of the year, which were, of all kinds, into the United Kingdom, 1,903,506 bales. With respect to these, the first striking fact which presents itself, on a comparison of the prices current in this country and the cotton-growing countries, is that, throughout the whole of the year, the foreign purchases of our importing merchants were made at a large advance over the prices which could be realised on their arrival here. I have gone carefully through files of the most authoritative foreign circulars, and, with respect to American cotton particularly, the unvarying result has been to find prices considerably higher than in the British market. Thus, on the 4th of January, I find "middling to fair" cotton from the Atlantic ports, corresponding with our Liverpool classification of "fair upland," quoted in New York at 13⅞ to 14 cents per lb.; on the 15th, at 14 to 14¼ cents on the 22d, the same; and on the 29th, 13⅞ cents. Assume the average of the month to have been 14 cents, and allowing a penny per lb. for freight, commission, landing charges, &c., which I am assured is too little, the cotton shipped in that month would cost in Liverpool fully 8d. per lb. Prices here, however, began to decline after the first week in January, when fair upland was quoted at 7⅞d.; and on the 31st of that month the quotation was only 7½d. to 7⅝d. On the 14th and 21st of February they were quoted at 7d. to 7⅛d.; and in all March, when the purchases of the month of January would be reaching us, the average was about 7¼d.--showing a loss on importation of ¾d. per lb. In February, prices in America commenced at 13 cents to 13⅛ cents; but on the 1st of May they had fallen to 11 cents to 11½ cents. The early purchases of February, which would cost, landed in Liverpool, about 7⅝d., would probably arrive about the middle of March, when prices here averaged about 7¼d.--a loss of ⅜d. per lb., or nearly 10s. per bale. Those of the closing week of the month--about a week's transactions--might possibly save themselves, if sold in the beginning or middle of April. Throughout March prices rallied in America; and were sustained until nearly the middle of April at from 11¾ cents to 12¼ cents--about 7⅛d. here. Prices in Liverpool, however, had been falling rapidly; and a portion of these purchases arrived in Liverpool in the middle of May, to be sold at 5¾d. to 5⅞d--a loss of above 1¼d. per lb., or £2, 5s. per bale. By the end of April, prices in America had receded slightly; but in the beginning of May there was another attempt to rally them--the quotations being, on the 7th, 11⅜ cents to 11⅝ cents, or about 6¾d. to 6⅞d. here. In the whole of June, however, when the cotton bought at these prices would arrive here, the average in Liverpool was little over 5⅞d.--showing a loss of from 30s. to 35s. per bale. From this point a gradual decline took place in all May, June, July, and August, reaching the lowest point--8¾ cents to 9 cents--on the 9th of the last month. The decline in America, however, never overtook that experienced here--the bulk of the transactions of these months resulting in a loss. A slight rally again took place in September, and prices were forced up to an average of about 10 cents, or 6d. laid down in this country. No corresponding movement, however, took place here; and the average losses of September shipments would be nearly 25s. per bale. An unprofitable result, less disastrous, however, attended the remainder of the year's arrivals.

The loss has been nearly as serious in our transactions with the East Indies, the length of the voyage operating to aggravate the unhappy position of the importer. Thus cotton orders, transmitted by overland mail in the first three months of the year, whilst prices of Surat were about 4d. to 6½d., would arrive here in June, July, and August, when the quotations were from 1¼d. to 1½d. per lb. less, or from 45s. to 50s. per bale.

The question then arises, At what are we to estimate the loss on imports for the year? And the following circumstance appears to me to have an important bearing upon its solution. The bulk of the arrivals during the year--1,212,377 bales--took place from the beginning of March to the end of August, the period in which the greatest decline below cost price occurred. Taking this and other circumstances into consideration, I cannot consider that I am exceeding the truth in averaging the loss on importation during the year at ¾d. per lb., or 25s. per bale, upon the whole quantity received, deducting the stock on hand at the close of 1851--594,500 bales. This will give upon 1,409,046 bales a loss of £1,761,307, which, with £2,905,600, previously ascertained as the difference between the value of the stock on hand at the commencement of the year, and the same quantity of the article at its close, makes up a total loss upon cotton of £4,667,000. Of this, at the very least, the British merchants' share is _four millions sterling!_

A large sum might fairly be added to this as the manufacturers' and spinners' share in the loss sustained upon their stocks from the declining prices of the raw material during the whole of the year's operations. I will not, however, enter into detail with respect to this part of my subject; but glance at it briefly when I come to estimate the losses, sustained by holders of produce generally, whilst _in transitu_ from the importers' hands to the marts of its final consumption.

Next in importance to the article of cotton is that of SUGAR, a great staple of food, which it has been the express object of our recent legislation to cheapen, regardless whether or not in doing so we inflicted ruin upon the colonial proprietor. It is not within the limits of the inquiry which I have prescribed to myself to trace the course of that legislation which, from whatever motives prompted, bids fair ultimately to reduce our once flourishing tropical possessions to their pristine condition of waste and jungle, and to throw back their coloured population into the barbarism from which, a few years ago, it was the pride of every lover of his kind to see them rapidly emerging. A brief reference to that legislation, however, is necessary, in order to render intelligible the mode in which I have calculated the extent of the past year's losses upon our imports of the article. At the period of emancipation, (1834,) our West Indian colonies, producing for British consumption 3,844,244 cwt. of sugar out of a total import of 4,743,415 cwt. for the year, were owned by a distinct class of proprietors, partly resident, but chiefly consisting of capitalists in this country. Up to that period the "West Indian Interest," as it was termed, was one of the most powerful in Great Britain, and afforded, through its import and export transactions, a most profitable source of employment to our merchants at home, as well as to their numerous branch establishments in the colonies. The measure of that year--exchanging compulsory labour for the apprenticeship system in the first instance, and shortly afterwards for free labour--precipitated the whole of this class into a fearful struggle, required from them to maintain production up to the wants of the home consumer. It was found necessary to import additional labourers to supply the place of those who, on receiving their freedom, had betaken themselves to other avocations than those of the sugar plantation; and every effort of science and improved culture had to be resorted to, in order to keep down the cost of production, and increase the yield of the soil. Whilst immersed in this struggle--a most unprofitable one, as it proved--the Free-Trader stepped in, and introduced the new element of competition with the foreign slave-grown article. The result of the much too sudden rate of reduction of the differential duties then adopted has been to render cultivation utterly unprofitable; and, so far as the original proprietors of the West Indies are concerned, the last measure directed against these unfortunate colonies may be justly termed one of direct confiscation. Under these circumstances, the bulk of the West Indian sugar and other estates have virtually lapsed to mortgagees--principally merchants in this country, who have advanced money upon them for the increased outlay required to keep up and cheapen production; and hence, so far as the West Indies are concerned, it is necessary to treat the importer and planter _as one_ in such an inquiry as the present. There can scarcely be said to be a price at all in the West Indies--the bulk of the exports coming to the British market on the planter's and merchant's account. The same remark applies to coffee, rum, and every other description of West Indian produce. With respect to the produce of the East Indies and Mauritius, there does exist a price at the port of shipment, the articles being bought for the British markets in the ordinary way; and the result of the importation, as a purely mercantile transaction, can therefore be more correctly ascertained.

The importation of sugar during the past year was, in round numbers, 400,000 tons against 330,000 in 1850, and 340,000 in 1849. Of this quantity 270,000 tons consisted of colonial, (two-thirds of which was West Indian,) 110,000 tons of foreign, and 20,000 tons of foreign refined. In a general summary of the year's proceedings, the editor of the _London New Price-Current_--an authority of high standing--of Tuesday, Jan. 6, remarks:--

"The excess in stock of all sorts is 57,000--viz., 157,000 tons
against 107,000 at the close of 1850. Prices are lower by 7s. to 9s.
per cwt. for low to mid prices of colonial, and 5s. to 6s. per cwt.
for good to fine."

Another authority, Messrs Littledale & Co., of Liverpool, remark upon this article as follows, in their circular of the 1st January:--

"Great indeed has been the disappointment during the past year of
importers and holders of nearly every description of produce; but to
no parties has it been so severe as to those interested in the
article of sugar, cotton excepted. The year 1851 opened with high
prospects--moderate stocks, an average supply, and a largely
increased consumption, arising from the satisfactory condition of
the manufacturing districts, and the great prospects which were
generally entertained of the approaching _Exhibition_; but these
hopes were soon dissipated, the imports of foreign continuing on an
unusually large scale, and the consumption, instead of increasing,
barely supporting that of the previous year. _The increased
production of sugar from beetroot on the Continent is fast
displacing all foreign, and the latter, in turn, displacing our
colonial_, or forcing it down to so low a figure that its production
will be unremunerative. In little more than two years the duties
will be equalised; and we can see no salvation for our colonies but
a complete change, both in the manufacture and curing of this
article, as it is quite evident that the taste of the large
consumers in the country is changing year by year more in favour of
crushed refined.... The decline in the value of sugar throughout the
past year has been gradual, though marked; and prices now rule 5s.
to 6s. per cwt. lower on better descriptions, and 8s. to 10s. on
the common and low brown sorts."

With respect, then, to that portion of the supply of sugar derived from the West Indies, the only question which can arise is--Can the grower have succeeded during the past year in reducing the cost of production so far as to have allowed the _Gazette_ _average_ of British plantation to fall from 29s. 2d. nett in February of last year, to 20s. 2d. in the February of this year? We know that during this period no economising of labour has been achieved to warrant a decline of 9s. per cwt.--nearly thirty per cent; and the conclusion is obvious, that the bulk of this saying to the British consumer has come out of the pockets of the colonial proprietor and the British colonial merchant. The price at the commencement of the year, it is admitted, was a barely remunerative one; and every shilling of reduction since has been positive loss.

With respect to East India sugar, which is actually purchased in the country of its growth, the loss has fallen directly upon the importer--the fact being notorious, that prices throughout the year have ruled higher in the colonial markets, and in China, Java, &c., by from 4s. to 5s. per cwt. than it could be sold for on its arrival here. Messrs Littledale & Co. quote the prices of Bengal, Madras, and Mauritius, best and good descriptions, in bond, from 6s. to 6s. 6d. lower in January this year than in January last year, and common and inferior descriptions as much as 8s. to 9s. lower. Upon China and Manilla the fall has been from 3s. to 4s. 6d.

The same authority to which I have before referred--the _New London Price Current_--remarks of Mauritius sugar, that the "rates are 5s. _to_ 8s. _per cwt. lower_, the difference being most apparent on brown and inferior qualities;" and of East India, "Stock is 6950, (in London,) and in 1850 it was 5500 tons. _Prices range_ 4s. _to_ 8s. _per cwt. under that period_, the difference being more apparent on brown and inferior qualities, of which there is a loss upon importation."

With respect to foreign sugar, a few preliminary explanations are necessary. As is the case with East India produce, the sugar which we draw from foreign countries--the bulk from Cuba and the Brazils--is purchased by British merchants at a price in the country of its growth, regulated of course by the cost of production, and the probable market price in Great Britain. The foreign planter, however, is seldom more than a nominal proprietor, working with borrowed capital, for which he pays an interest of from fifteen to twenty per cent, and living, in all respects, only like a superior servant or agent. With the question, whether of late he has been enabled to reap a profit on his cultivation, I have here nothing to do, although it is most probable that he has not done so, even at the prices which he has been able to secure from the British purchaser. He has had labour foisted upon him beyond his requirements, and at an exorbitant price, the slave-dealer being in many cases the party supplying capital for sugar cultivation, and the virtual proprietor of the soil and stock. So far as regards the operations of British merchants in the produce of Brazil, Cuba, and other foreign tropical produce, the result has been almost equally disastrous with that attending the trade with our own possessions. Prices in these countries have, throughout nearly the whole of the past year, been from 3s. to 5s. above those which could be realised in this country; and the loss upon the entire importation has been little, if at all, less than that upon British colonial produce. The _London New Price-Current_ sums up its remarks upon the trade in foreign sugar by saying,--"Prices, compared with this date last season, exhibit a decline of 3s. on the better, and 4s. to 6s. per cwt. on the brown and inferior qualities." A comparison of the prices in the country of production, with those realised here, will prove this part of my case. From the _Pernambuco Price Current_, of the 24th of February 1851, I find that the following were the prices of Brazilian sugar, free on board; and I have set opposite to the figures the price which it would command in bond, on its arrival here, as furnished by one of our leading brokers:--

IN BRAZIL, 24th February, 1851. IN LIVERPOOL, April 1851.
First white, 25s. 3d. to 26s. 3d. }
Second and third do. 20s. 7d. to 24s. 3d. } None in stock.
Fourth do. 18s. 9d. to 19s. 8d. }
Fifth and sixth do. 16s. 7d. to 17s. 5d. } 21s. to 22s. 6d.
Muscovado, yellow, 15s. 2d. to 15s. 8d. 19s. 6d. to 20s.
Brown, 14s. 8d. 16s. to 19s.

The first qualities of the above are not imported into this market; and adding to the other, for freight at 60s. per ton, 3s.--buyer's commission in Brazil, 3 per cent--insurance, interest, brokerage, and other charges, say 4s. 6d. to 5s. per cwt.--there would be a small loss upon the importation.

I select a later date, in order to ascertain the cost of the stocks on hand at the commencement of this year. On the 29th November last the quotations were--

IN BRAZIL, November. IN LIVERPOOL, January.
First and second, 24s. to 24s. 4d. }
Third, 22s. 4d. to 23s. 8d. } None in stock.
Fourth, 20s. 9d. to 21s. 6d. }
Fifth and sixth, 17s. 1d. to 19s. 4d. } 17s. 6d. to 19s. 6d.
Muscovado, yellow, 15s. 7d. to 16s. 6d. 16s. to 17s. 6d.
Brown, 14s. 7d. to 15s. 1d. 13s. 6d. to 15s.

At this period freights ruled low, 35s. to 40s.; and, as is always the case when there is an abundance of shipping seeking cargo, the foreigner advanced his rates for produce. Adding 3s. 6d. to 4s. for charges upon imports, there would be a loss of, say 3s. 6d. to 5s. 6d. upon white; 3s. 6d. upon yellow; 5s. 6d. upon low brown, and 3s. 6d. upon the better quality. The same result is found to have resulted upon Cuban and other foreign sugars.

The reduction in this article has not been so sudden as to entitle us to put down more than a portion of it as loss to either importer or producer. Bearing in mind, however, that, from the commencement of the year to the close, it has been arriving in this country at a cost considerably over what it would realise, and that we had a good stock to begin the year with, which has kept accumulating, I believe I am justified in assuming the result of the year's business to be a loss, upon the whole of our sugar imports, of at least £5 per ton; which, upon 400,000 tons of all descriptions, amounts to the sum of £2,000,000 sterling. In this I am borne out by some of our leading authorities, whose names I hand you for your own satisfaction. Having in this calculation merged the stock in hand at the commencement of the year, (107,000 tons,) which was imported at extreme prices, and lost much more than I have taken as an average, it is but fair to add something for the depreciation of the _increase of stock_ held at the close of the year, 50,000 tons, (the total stock having been 157,000 tons against 107,000 at the commencement.) If I estimate this depreciation at £3 per ton--it fell nearly £1 in the beginning of January, and has since been quoted lower--I am satisfied that I am within the mark. This will make the _total loss on sugar_ £2,150,000 _sterling_.

In the important article of COFFEE there has also been a serious loss upon the year's transactions; and this notwithstanding the fact that the import was lighter in 1851 than in either of the two preceding years, having been 22,100 tons of all descriptions against 22,700 in 1850, and 27,000 in 1849. The prices at the close of the year are stated by the _London New Price-Current_ to have been "from 8s. to 16s. per cwt. below this date last season." Messrs Littledale's annual circular shows a fall, in "native ordinary Ceylon" of 16s., and of 15s. in "middling plantation." The fall is less in some of the scarcer sorts. The greatest reduction, however, was in the middle of the year, "good ordinary native Ceylon," which was worth 57s. per cwt. in January, having fallen to 37s. in June. The total loss to importers, I am advised, cannot be estimated at less than £10 per ton, which, upon the total import of 22,100 tons, makes up an amount of £221,000 sterling. It is worth while remarking here, as an instance of the blindness of Whig legislation, that although the duties on coffee were reduced last year from 6d. on foreign, and 4d. on colonial, to a uniform rate of 3d., to the serious injury of colonial interests, and apparently with no other object in view, the consumption was very little increased, having been 31,226,840 lb. in 1850, and only 32,564,164 lb. in 1851. The actual vend by retailers of _what is called coffee_--the adulterated article--is, however, known to have largely increased; and the grocer and fraudulent dealer, by the use of chicory, the admixture of which with coffee the Chancellor of the Exchequer refused to restrict, and of other worse ingredients, have been enabled to put far more than the amount of the duty remitted into their own pockets. The stock held over from 1850 was 19,300 tons; and as this was very little reduced in December 1851, and the bulk of it was bought at even higher prices than those ruling at the commencement of the year, it will not be unfair to estimate the loss upon it at £10 per ton, the same as that upon the importations. I will, however, assume it to have been only, in round numbers, £150,000. This will make the _total loss on coffee_ £371,000.

In another important article--TEA--there have been very heavy losses. We commenced the year with prices of _congou_, the leading article of _black tea_, at 1s. to 1s. 0½d. for "ordinary to good ordinary," and better sorts proportionally higher. The year closed with the same teas at 8d. to 8½d., and a proportionate fall in other descriptions of black. In some sorts of _green_ there has not been so great a fall; but upon all kinds (two excepted, of which the consumption is not large) I find the decline estimated by Messrs Littledale & Co. _at_ 25 _to_ 35 _per cent._ The fall _per lb._ may, with tolerable safety, be set down at 4d. It has not been so gradual as in the case of other descriptions of produce, having, on the contrary, occurred rather suddenly towards the middle and close of the season; and this fact has an important bearing upon the amount actually lost by importers. In the first four months of the year prices gave way a little; but the demand was good, and no serious disaster in the trade was expected. Imports, however, flowed in freely, beyond the requirements for consumption; and the new crop arriving unusually early by the clipper ships, now engaged between this country and China, a sort of panic ensued, and reductions of 2d. to 4d. per lb. were submitted to. With a view to render my calculations with regard to this article perfectly intelligible, I subjoin the state of imports, stock, and consumption, as given in Messrs Littledale's _Circular_ of _Jan. 3_:--

The imports for the year
will be about 72,000,000 lb. against 48,300,000 in 1850.
Deliveries, do. 59,000,000 " 56,400,000 "
Stock, do. 48,000,000 " 34,500,000 "