Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCLXII. APRIL, 1854. VOL. LXXV.

CONTENTS.

THE COMMERCIAL RESULTS OF A WAR WITH RUSSIA, 381
THE PUPPETS OF ALL NATIONS, 392
THE QUIET HEART.—PART V., 414
CHRONOLOGICAL CURIOSITIES: WHAT SHALL WE COLLECT? 426
THE REFORM BILLS OF 1852 AND 1854, 441
THE BLUE BOOKS AND THE EASTERN QUESTION, 461
LIFE IN THE SAHARA, 479
THE COST OF THE COALITION MINISTRY, 492

EDINBURGH:
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PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCLXII. APRIL, 1854. VOL. LXXV.

THE COMMERCIAL RESULTS OF A WAR WITH RUSSIA.

After the enjoyment of nearly forty years of peace, during which two generations of men, whose fate it was to live in more troublous times, have passed to their account, we are entering upon a war which will inevitably tax all the energies of the country to conduct it to a successful and honourable conclusion. The enemy against whom our arms are directed is not one whose prowess and power can with safety be slighted. A colossal empire possessed of vast resources, wielded by a sovereign of indomitable character and vast ambition, who has for years been collecting strength for a gigantic effort to sweep away every barrier by which the realisation of that ambition has been impeded, is our opponent. The issue to him is most momentous. It is to decide whether he is hereafter to be a controlling power in Europe and Asia, to rule absolutely in the Baltic, to hold the keys of the Euxine and the Mediterranean, and to push his conquests eastwards, until he clutches Hindostan,—or to be driven back and confined within the limits of the original empire which Peter the Great bequeathed to his successors. Such a struggle will not be conducted by Russia, without calling forth all the vigour of her arm. An issue so far beyond her contemplation as defeat and extinction as a first-rate power in the world, will not be yielded until she has drained her last resources, and exhausted every available means of defence and procrastination. Russia possesses too in this, the climax of her fate and testing-point in her aggressive career, a mighty source of strength in the enthusiasm of her people, whom she has taught to regard the question at issue between herself and Europe as a religious one, and the war into which she has entered as a crusade against “the infidel” and his abettors. The result may be seen in the personal popularity which the Emperor enjoys, and the ready devotion with which his efforts are aided by the Christian portion of the population of his empire.

On the other hand, Great Britain enters into the struggle with every recognised prestige of success in her favour. She has, as her active ally, the greatest military nation in the world, whose soldiers and sailors are about, for the first time for many centuries, to fight side by side against a common enemy. Little as we are disposed to decry the strength of that navy which Russia, by her wonderful energy, has succeeded in creating during the past few years, it would be absurd to compare it with the magnificent fleets which England and France combined have at present floating in the waters of the Black Sea, and about to sail for the Baltic. A comparison of our monetary resources with those of our opponent would be still more absurd. Another feature in our position as a maritime country at present, is the vast facilities which we possess, by means of our mercantile ocean steamers, of transporting any required number of troops to the locality where their services are required, with a rapidity and comfort never dreamt of during the last European war. A veteran of our Peninsular Campaigns, witnessing the splendid accommodation provided in such noble vessels as the Oriental Company’s steamer _Himalaya_ at Southampton, the Cunard Company’s steamer _Cambria_ at Kingston Harbour, Dublin, and the same Company’s steamer _Niagara_ at Liverpool, and acquainted with the fact that each of these vessels was capable of disembarking their freight of armed men within five or six days of their departure hence in any port of the Mediterranean, must have been struck by the marked difference between such conveyances and the old troop ships employed in former days. Moreover, there is scarcely a limit to the extent of this new element of our power as a military nation. We enter, too, upon the approaching struggle with Russia backed by the enthusiastic support of all classes of our population. It is not regarded with us as a religious war, or one into the incentives to which religion enters at all. It is scarcely regarded by the mass as a war of interest. With that sordid motive we cannot as a nation be reproached. It is felt only that an unjust aggression has been committed by a powerful state upon a weak one; that the tyranny of the act has been aggravated by the gross breaches of faith, the glaring hypocrisy, amounting to blasphemy, and the unparalleled atrocity, by which it has been followed up; and that we should prove ourselves recreant, and devoid of all manhood, were we to stand tamely by and see a gallant people, differing though they do from us in religion, overwhelmed by brute force, and exterminated from the face of Europe by such butcheries as Russia has shown us, in the memorable example of Sinope, that she is not ashamed to perpetrate in the face of the civilised world, and in the name of Christianity.

There is one consideration, however, connected with the present warlike temper of our population, which cannot with safety be permitted to escape remark. We have already stated that two generations of men have passed away since this country was in actual war with an enemy in Europe. The bulk of the present race of Englishmen have never experienced the inconveniences, and occasional privations, which attend upon war even in countries, like ours, which are happily free from the affliction of having an armed enemy to combat upon its own soil. We believe most firmly that we are not a degenerate people. We see evidence of this in the ready zeal with which large numbers of our hardy and enterprising youth are everywhere flocking to be enrolled under the flag of their country, both for land and sea service. We trust that this feeling will endure, and that we shall be found willing to bear up cheerfully under any temporary sacrifices which we shall be called upon to make; but we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that a great change has taken place in our social condition, in our traditionary instincts, in our pursuits, and in our institutions, during the forty years of peace which we have enjoyed. We have become more essentially a manufacturing and commercial people. A larger number of our population than formerly are dependent for their daily bread upon the profitable employment of capital in our foreign trade. The more extensive adaptation of machinery to manufacturing processes of every kind has led to the aggregation of large masses of our population in particular districts; and such masses, ignorant as we have unfortunately allowed them to grow up, are notoriously subject to the incendiary persuasions of unprincipled and bad men, and have been sedulously taught that cheapness of all the necessaries of life can only be secured by unrestricted communication with foreign countries. Moreover, we have had a large infusion of the democratic element into our constitution. Our House of Commons no longer represents the yeomanry and the property classes of the country; but, instead, must obey the dictates of the shopkeeping and artisan classes of our large towns. It is no longer the same body of educated English gentlemen, whose enduring patriotism, during the last war, stood firm against the clamours of the mobs of London, Manchester, and other large centres of population, and turned a deaf ear to the persuasions of faction within its own walls; but a mixed assemblage of a totally opposite, or, at all events, a materially changed character, so far as regards a considerable number of its members. We have in it now a larger proportion of the capitalist class—men suspected of being rather more sensitively alive to a rise or fall in the prices of funds, stock, railway shares, &c., than to any gain or loss of national honour; more wealthy manufacturers, who would be disposed to regard the loss of a fleet as a minor calamity, compared with the loss of a profitable market for their cottons, woollens, or hardwares; and, lastly, more Irish representatives of the Maynooth priesthood, ready to sell their country, or themselves, for a concession to Rome, or a Government appointment. The honourable member for the West Riding—Mr Cobden—showed a thorough appreciation of the character and position of a portion of the House, and of his own constituents, when he wound up his speech on the adjourned debate upon the question of our relations with Russia and Turkey, on the 20th ult., with these words, which deserve to be remembered:—“He would take upon himself all the unpopularity of opposing this war; and, more than that, _he would not give six months’ purchase for the popularity of those who advocated it on its present basis_.”

Under such circumstances it is material to examine what is the amount of interruption to the commerce of the country, which may be assumed as likely to occur, as the result of a state of war with Russia. What, in other words, is the amount and the nature of the pressure, to which the masses of our population may be called upon to submit, to prepare them for the purposes of those persons—happily few in number at present—whose voice is for peace at any sacrifice of the national honour, and any sacrifice of the sacred duties of humanity? We shall perhaps be excused if we examine first _the nature_ of the pressure which is relied upon by such persons; and we cannot exemplify this better than by a quotation from the speech already referred to by the same Mr Cobden—their first volunteer champion in the expected agitation. The honourable gentleman remarked:—

“He could not ignore the arguments by which they were called upon by
honourable and right honourable gentlemen to enter into a war with
Russia. The first argument was one which had been a dozen times
repeated, relative to the comparative value of the trade of the two
countries. We were to go to war to prevent Russia from possessing
countries from which she would exclude our commerce, as she did from
her own territory. That argument was repeated by a noble lord, who
told the House how insignificant our trade with Russia was, compared
with that with Turkey. Now, that opinion was erroneous as well as
dangerous, for we had no pecuniary interest in going to war. Our
interests were all on the other side, as he was prepared to show. The
official returns did not give him the means of measuring the extent of
our exports to Russia, but he had applied to some of the most eminent
merchants in the City, and he confessed he had been astonished by the
extent of our trade with Russia. He used to be told that our exports
to Russia amounted to less than £2,000,000. Now, Russia was still
under the Protectionist delusion, which had also prevailed in this
country in his recollection. (A laugh.) Russia still kept up her
protective duties upon her manufactures, but he would tell the House
what we imported from Russia, and they might depend on it that
whatever we imported we paid for. (Hear, hear.) He had estimated the
imports from Russia as of much greater value than most people thought,
and he was under the impression that they might amount to from
£5,000,000 to £6,000,000 per annum. Now, here was a calculation of our
imports from Russia which he had obtained from sources that might be
relied upon,—

_Estimated Value of Imports
from Russia into the United
Kingdom._
Tallow, £1,800,000
Linseed, 1,300,000
Flax and hemp, 3,200,000
Wheat, 4,000,000
Wool, 300,000
Oats, 500,000
Other grain, 500,000
Bristles, 450,000
Timber, deals, &c., 500,000
Iron, 70,000
Copper, 140,000
Hides, 60,000
Miscellaneous, 200,000
———————————
£13,020,000

Now, last year our imports from Russia were larger than usual, and
another house, taking an average year, had made them £11,000,000. In
that calculation, the imports of wheat were taken at £2,000,000
instead of £4,000,000, and that made the difference. He was also
credibly informed that Russian produce to the value of about
£1,000,000 came down the Vistula to the Prussian ports of the Baltic,
and was shipped thence to this country; so that our imports from
Russia averaged about £12,000,000 sterling per annum, and included
among them articles of primary importance to our manufactures. How was
machinery to work, and how were locomotives to travel, without tallow
to grease their wheels? (A laugh.) Look, too, at the imports of
linseed to the value of £1,300,000. No persons were more interested
than honourable gentlemen opposite in the reduction of the price of
the food of cattle. Then take the articles of flax and hemp. There
were districts in the West Riding which would suffer very serious
injury and great distress if we should go to war and cut off our
intercourse with Russia. (Hear.) Even with regard to the article of
Russian iron, which entered into consumption at Sheffield, he was told
it would be hardly possible to manufacture some of the finer
descriptions of cutlery if the supply of Russian iron were interfered
with.”

We shall not here take the trouble of criticising Mr Cobden’s figures, but take them as they stand, although they are exaggerated enough. His argument is obviously, that we must submit to any amount of aggression which Russia may choose to make upon neutral countries, and even upon our own Indian possessions, because that country supplies us yearly with thirteen millions’ worth of raw materials and food! The same was the humiliating position which the men of Tyre and Sidon, as recorded in Scripture, occupied towards Herod, when “they came of one accord to him, and having made Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, their friend, desired peace, _because their country was nourished by the king’s country_.” How, asks Mr Cobden, is machinery to work without tallow to grease the wheels? We are to have an anti-war cry from the farmers for the lack of Russian linseed; the West Riding of Yorkshire is to be stirred up into insurrection by the want of flax and hemp; and the fine cutlers of Sheffield cannot get on without the £70,000 worth of iron which they import from Russia! The main reliance of the peace-at-any-price party, we have no doubt, rests upon the probability of high prices of food, and their hope of producing in the minds of the masses the impression that the cause of those high prices is mainly the interruption of our usual imports of grain from the Russian ports of the Baltic and the Black Sea.

It is rather singular that it should not have struck so astute a man as Mr Cobden, that Russia is very likely to feel the loss of so excellent a customer as England appears to have been to her, quite as much as we are likely to feel the want of her tallow, her flax and hemp, her linseed, or even her wheat. The vendor of an article is generally the party who feels most aggrieved when his stock is permitted to accumulate upon his shelves. The Russian landowners cannot very conveniently dispense with the annual thirteen millions sterling which they draw from this country. Mr Cobden may depend upon it that, if we want it, a portion of their growth of staple articles will find its way to this country, through intermediate channels, although Russian ships no longer gain the advantages derived from its transport. The fact, however, of our absolute dependence upon Russia for these articles is too palpably a bugbear, either of Mr Cobden’s own creation, or palmed upon him by his friends, the “eminent merchants of the City,” to be worthy of serious notice, did it not betray the direction in which we are to look for the agitation, by which that gentleman and his friends hope to paralyse the hands of Government during the coming crisis of the country.

In the effort to form a correct estimate of the extent of interruption to our commerce to be anticipated from the existence of a state of war between this country and Russia, we must have, in the first place, reliable facts to depend upon, instead of the loose statements of Russian merchants, who are, as a class, so _peculiarly_ connected with her as almost to be liable to the imputation of having Russian rather than British interests nearest to their hearts. We have a right also to look at the fact that, so far at least as present appearances go, Russia is likely to be isolated on every side during the approaching struggle, her principal seaports, both in the Baltic and the Black Sea, to be commanded by the united British and French fleets; whilst that produce, by the withholding of which she could doubtless for a time, and to a certain extent, inconvenience our manufacturers and consumers, may find its way to us either direct from Russian ports in neutral vessels, or through those neighbouring countries which are likely to occupy a neutral position in the quarrel. We have also to bear in mind that, with respect to many of the articles which we have lately been taking so largely from Russia, other sources of supply are open to us. It is remarkable to observe the effect produced by even temporarily enhanced prices in this country in extending the area on every side from which foreign produce reaches us. A few shillings per quarter on wheat, for example, will attract it from the far west States of America, from which otherwise it would never have come, owing to the inability of the grower to afford the extra cost of transport. All these considerations have to be borne in mind; and although it will perhaps have to be conceded that somewhat enhanced prices may have to be paid for some of the articles with which Russia at present supplies us, we think we shall be enabled to show that the enhancement is not at all likely to be such as to amount to a calamity, or cause serious pressure upon our people.

Before proceeding further, it may be desirable to explain the mode in which our trade with Russia, both import and export, is carried on. Russia is, commercially, a poor country. The description of her given by M‘Culloch, in an early edition of his _Dictionary of Commerce_, published two-and-twenty years ago, is as appropriate and correct as if it had been written yesterday, notwithstanding the vast territorial aggrandisement which has taken place in the interim. Her nobles and great landowners hold their property burdened by the pressure of many mortgages; and they are utterly unable to bring their produce to market, or to raise their crops at all, without the advances of European capitalists. These consist chiefly of a few English Houses, who have branch establishments at St Petersburg, Riga, and Memel on the Baltic, and Odessa on the Black Sea. The mode of operation is the following. About the month of October the cultivators and factors from the interior visit those ports, and receive advances on the produce and crops to be delivered by them ready for shipment at the opening of the navigation; and it is stated that the engagements made between these parties and British capitalists have rarely been broken. This process of drawing advances goes on until May, by which month there are large stocks ready for shipment at all the ports, the winter in many districts being the most favourable for their transport. The import trade is carried on in a similar manner by foreign capital; long credits, in many instances extending to twelve months, being given to the factors in the interior. A well-known statistical writer, the editor of the _Economist_, Mr John Wilson, in his publication of the 25th ult., says, upon the subject of the amount of British capital thus embarked in Russia at the period when her battalions crossed the Pruth: “The most accurate calculations which we have been able to make, _with the assistance of persons largely engaged in the trade_, shows that at that moment the British capital in Russia, and advanced to Russian subjects, was at least £7,000,000, including the sums for which Houses in this country were under acceptance to Russia.” We can perfectly believe this to have been the fact, under such a system of trading as that which we have described. We can believe, too, that a considerable number of British ships and sailors were at the same time in Russian ports, and would, in case we had treated the occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia by Russian troops as a _casus belli_, very probably have been laid under embargo. We could sympathise with those “persons largely engaged in the trade,” in rejoicing that, as one effect of a temporising policy, the whole of this capital, these ships, and these sailors, had been released from all danger of loss or detention. But we cannot bring ourselves to consider it _decent_ in a gentleman holding an important office in the Government, whilst admitting, as he does, that we have been bamboozled by Russian diplomacy, to point triumphantly to this saving of “certain monies”—the property of private individuals, who made their ventures at their own risk and for their own profit—as in any sort balancing the loss of the national honour, which has been incurred by our tardiness in bringing decisive succour to an oppressed ally. Ill-natured people might suggest a suspicion that Mincing Lane and Mark Lane had been exercising too great an influence in Downing Street. And the public may hereafter ask of politicians, who thus ground their defence against the charges of infirmness of purpose and blind credulity, or “connivance,” as Mr Disraeli has, perhaps too correctly, termed it, upon this alleged saving of a few millions of the money of private adventurers—Will it balance the expenditure of the tens of millions of the public money which the prosecution of this war will probably cost, and which might have been saved by the adoption of a more prompt and vigorous policy in the first instance? Will it balance the loss of life—will it support the widows and orphans—will it lighten by one feather the burden upon posterity, which may be the result of this struggle? It would be a miserable thing should it have to be said of England, that there was a period in her history when she hesitated to strike a blow in a just cause until she had taken care that the offender had paid her shopkeepers or her merchants their debts! We pass over this part of the subject, however, as scarcely belonging to the question which we have proposed to ourselves to discuss.

Our imports from Russia, upon the importance of which so much stress has been laid, were in 1852 as given below, from official documents. We have ourselves appended the value of the various items upon a very liberal scale; and we may explain that we select that year instead of 1853, for reasons which we shall hereafter explain.

_Quantities of Russian Produce imported into Great Britain
during the year 1852._
Corn, wheat, and flour, qrs. 733,571 value £1,540,499
Oats, „ 305,738 366,855
Other grain, „ 262,348 327,935
Tallow, cwts. 609,197 1,187,700
Linseed, and flax seed, &c. qrs. 518,657 1,125,000
Bristles, lbs. 1,459,303 292,000
Flax, cwts. 948,523 1,897,046
Hemp, „ 543,965 861,277
Wool (undressed), lbs. 5,353,772 200,390
Iron (unwrought), tons 1,792 17,920
Copper (do.), „ 226 20,000
Do. (part wrought), „ 1,042 120,000
Timber (hewn), loads 28,299 94,800
Do. (sawn), „ 189,799 759,196
——————————
£8,810,618

We have taken for the above estimate the prices which prevailed in the first six months of 1852, after which they were raised above an average by peculiar circumstances. The year selected, moreover, was one of larger imports than usual of many articles. For example, our imports of Russian grain in 1852 amounted, in round numbers, to £2,235,300 sterling, against only £952,924 in 1850. Yet we have less than nine millions as the amount of this vaunted import trade from Russia, the interruption of which is to be fraught with such serious consequences to our internal peace, and to the “popularity” of the liberal representatives of our large towns.

But fortunately for the country, and rather _mal apropos_ for those who would fain convert any diminution of our supplies of produce from Russia into the ground of an anti-war agitation, we have succeeded in procuring from that country during the past year supplies unprecedented in quantity. The following have been our imports from Russia in 1853, as compared with the previous year:—

Corn, wheat, and flour, qrs. 1,070,909 against 733,571 in 1852.
Oats, „ 379,059 305,738
Other grain, „ 263,653 262,238
Tallow, cwts. 847,267 609,197
Seeds, qrs. 785,015 518,657
Bristles, lbs. 2,477,789 1,459,303
Flax, cwts. 1,287,988 948,523
Hemp, „ 836,373 543,965
Wool, lbs. 9,054,443 5,353,772
Iron, tons 5,079 1,792
Copper (unwrought), „ 974 226
Copper (part wrought), „ 656 1,042
Timber (hewn), loads 45,421 28,299
Timber (sawn), „ 245,532 189,799

If mercantile opinions are at all to be relied upon, these extra supplies ought to have a tendency to bring down prices, which the prospect of war has enhanced beyond what existing circumstances seem to warrant, even presuming that we had no other dependence than upon Russia for the articles with which she has heretofore supplied us. For example, we have paid during the past year, if we take present prices, for our imports of wheat alone from Russia, about £6,470,000 sterling, whereas, at the prices of the early part of 1852, we should have paid for the same quantity of wheat just half the money. And at the present moment, and since war has been regarded as inevitable, we have had a downward tendency in all our principal markets. It has been discovered that we hold more home-grown wheat than was anticipated; and, with a favourable seed-time and a propitious spring, hopes are entertained that we shall not in the present year be so dependent upon the foreigner as we have been during that which has passed. Tallow also is an article for which we have been lately paying the extravagant prices of 62s. to 63s. per cwt. In the early part of 1852, the article was worth about 37s. 6d. for the St Petersburg quality. No English grazier, however, ever knew butcher’s meat or fat at their present prices; and a propitious year for the agriculturist will most probably bring matters to a more favourable state for the consumer.

It is not, however, true that a state of war with Russia can shut us out from our supply of the produce of that country. It will come to us from her ports, unless we avail ourselves of our right to blockade them strictly, in the ships of neutral countries. A portion of it—and no inconsiderable portion—will reach us overland, Russia herself being the greatest sufferer, from the extra cost of transit. There can be no doubt of every effort being made by her great landowners to make market of their produce, and convert it at any sacrifice into money; for it must be borne in mind that they are at the present moment _minus_ some seven or eight millions sterling of British and other money, usually advanced upon the forthcoming crops. We need scarcely point at the difficulty in which this want must place Russia in such a struggle as that in which she is at present engaged. The paper issues of her government may for a time be forced upon her slavish population as money. But that population requires large imports of tea, coffee, sugar, spices, fruits, wines, and other foreign products; and it is not difficult to predict that there will be found few capitalists in Europe or Asia, willing to accommodate her with a loan wherewith to pay even for these necessaries, much less to feed her grasping ambition by an advance of money for the purchase of additional arms and military stores. Moreover, we are not by any means so absolutely dependent upon Russia for many of the principal articles with which she has heretofore supplied us, as certain parties would wish us to believe. We could have an almost unlimited supply of flax and hemp from our own colonies, if we chose to encourage the cultivation of them there. In the mean time, Egypt furnishes us with the former article; and Manilla supplies us with a very superior quality of both. Belgium and Prussia are also producers, and with a little encouragement would no doubt extend their cultivation. Our own colonies, however, are our surest dependence for a supply of these and similar articles. An advance of seeds and money to the extent of less than one quarter of the sums which we have been in the habit of advancing to the Russian cultivator, would bring forward to this country a supply of the raw materials of flax and hemp, which would be quite in time, with our present stock, to relieve us from any danger of deficiency for at least a season to come. With respect to tallow, we have a right to depend upon America, both North and South, for a supply. Australia can send us an aid, at all events, to such supply; and we may probably have next year a larger quantity within our own resources. With respect to seeds, we shall be able to derive these from the countries whence flax and hemp are cultivated for our markets; and our timber, derived at present from Russia, we can certainly dispense with. There is nothing valuable in Russian timber except its applicability for the masting and sparring of ships requiring large growth; and, with our modern method of splicing yards and masts, we can do perfectly well with the less tall timber of Norway and Sweden.

The real fact is, that the alleged short supply of the raw materials to be expected from Russia is a perfect bugbear. We could dispense with Russia as a country of supply, were we to employ British capital to assist our own colonists, and other countries, to provide us with such supply. There was once, however, a Russian Company; and the trade seems to have been conducted as a monopoly ever since.

But we must get rid of this strange argument, that the value of the trade with a country consists in the large amount of indebtedness which we contract with its dealers. We have now to consider the relative value of Russia and Turkey as _consumers_ of British manufactured goods and produce. The following we find to have been the value of British and Irish produce and manufactures exported to the two countries for the five years from 1846 to 1850:—

1846. 1847. 1848. 1849. 1850.
Turkey, £2,141,897 £2,992,280 £3,116,365 £2,930,612 £3,113,679
Russia, 1,725,148 1,844,543 1,925,226 1,566,575 1,454,771

Turkey thus took from us in 1850 £1,658,908 in excess of Russia’s purchases, having increased that excess from £416,719 in 1846. The increased imports of the former country amounted in the five years to nearly a million sterling, or 50 per cent, whilst the imports of Russia fell off by £370,377, or above 20 per cent. There is this great difference, too, in the imports from this country of Russia and Turkey—The former takes from us raw materials, which we do not produce ourselves, deriving merely a mercantile or brokerage profit upon the supply; manufactured articles which contain the smallest amount of British labour; and machinery to aid the progress of her population as our rivals in manufacturing pursuits. The latter takes our fully manufactured and perfected fabrics. So far as our cotton and woollen manufacturers are concerned, Russia took in 1850—

Cotton yarn, £245,625
Woollen and worsted do., 304,016
Machinery and mill-work, 203,992

The remainder of her imports from us consisted of foreign produce. Turkey took from us, however, a large amount of labour and skill, or its reward, as will be seen from the following table:—

_Imports of Manufactured Textiles to Russia and Turkey in 1850._
Cotton. Woollen. Linen. Silk. Total.
Turkey, £2,232,369 £154,558 £22,500 £13,221 £2,422,348
Russia, 61,196 66,256 5,414 8,579 140,455
——————————
Total excess to Turkey, £2,280,903

Our exports to Russia have certainly increased in amount within the last two years, although our customs’ reports do not convey to us the full truth as to their character. We have been feeding that country with materials of mischief. She has had not only mill machinery, but the machinery of war-steamers from us; but most likely either Sir Charles Napier, or Admiral Dundas, will be enabled to render us a profitable account of the property thus invested.

But a comparison of our exports to Russia and Turkey respectively does not by any means meet the true facts of our position. Within the past few years we have been carrying on a vast and increasing trade with those Asiatic countries which draw their supplies of merchandise from the various ports of the Levant, and from the Adriatic. Smyrna has become a commercial station so important that we have at this moment three lines of powerful steamers running to it from the port of Liverpool alone; and a very valuable trade is also carried on by English houses in the port of Trieste. Egypt, too, is largely tributary to us commercially. There is, in fact, no portion of the world whose transactions with Great Britain have expanded so greatly in amount and value within the past few years as those very countries which Russia is seeking to grasp and bring within her own control. Our “Greek houses,” through whose agency the bulk of this trade is carried on, are now regarded throughout the manufacturing districts as second to none in the extent and importance of their business; and, what is more, that business must rapidly extend, as increased facilities of communication are provided from the shores of the Levant and the Black Sea with the interior countries of Asia. Notwithstanding all the faults of the Turkish character and rule, we are inclined to believe that from the reign of the present Sultan, Abdul Medjid, a vast amelioration of the condition of her people, and the cultivation by them of increased dealings and friendships with the more civilised communities of Western Europe will take place. Be these expectations, however, fulfilled or not, we cannot afford to lose such a trade as the following figures, which we take from Mr Burns’ _Commercial Glance_, show that we are at present carrying on with Turkey in the article of cotton goods alone:—

_Exports of Cotton Goods to Turkey and the Levant in 1851 to
1853._
1851. 1852. 1853.
Plain calicoes, yards, 49,337,614 57,962,893 51,224,807
Printed and dyed do., 40,433,798 39,394,743 47,564,743
Cotton yarn, lbs. 8,015,674 12,171,045 10,563,177

These markets, in fact, have taken, during the past year, one-sixteenth of our entire exports of plain calicoes, and one-eleventh of our exports of printed and dyed calicoes, whilst her imports of yarn—the article upon the production of which in this country the least amount of labour is expended—have been comparatively insignificant. The imports of cotton goods into Russia are, on the contrary, almost entirely confined to yarn for the consumption of the Russian manufacturer.

So far, therefore, as our export trade is likely to be affected during the coming struggle, we have manifestly got by the hands a more valuable customer than we are likely to lose in Russia; and we cannot discover in what way, with the means at present at her disposal, she can interrupt, or limit, that trade further than by destroying for a time the consuming power of those provinces of Turkey east of the river Pruth, which she has occupied with her troops. Our shipowners and manufacturers may lose for a time some portion of the valuable trade with the population of Wallachia and Moldavia which is carried on through the ports of Galatz and Ibrail upon the Danube. It will probably, however, be one of the earliest aims of the combined powers of England and France to clear that portion of Turkey of the presence of the invader, and to maintain the long-established inviolability of the two eastern mouths of the Danube—the St George’s and Sulina—as outlets for her commerce with neutral countries. The remainder of our trade with Turkey must remain impervious to the efforts of Russia, unless her fleet, at present shut up in Sebastopol, first achieve the exploit of destroying, or capturing, the magnificent navies which England and France have assembled in the Black Sea, or her Baltic fleet succeeds in forcing its passage through the Cattegat or the Sound, and in making its way to the shores of the Mediterranean. Neither of these contingencies can be regarded as very likely to be realised by Russia in the face of the superior power which will shortly be arrayed against her.

There is certainly the possibility that our commerce with Turkey may suffer to some extent through the drain upon the resources of her population, created by a necessarily large war-expenditure. No material symptoms of such suffering have occurred thus far, notwithstanding she has been for months past actually engaged in hostilities, the preparation for which must have been very costly. Her imports of textile fabrics fell off very little in 1853 from their amount in former years; and even this may in part be accounted for by the unsettled prices, in this country, which have resulted from strikes throughout our manufacturing districts, and other causes of an accidental or a purely domestic character. Moreover, to balance any such falling off in her ordinary imports, Turkey will most probably require from us large supplies of stores, munitions of war, arms, &c., as well as of produce of various kinds, to fill up the vacuum created by the partial interruption of her own foreign trade.

We have a further guarantee of commercial safety during this struggle, unless it should assume new features, in the fact that the commercial marine of Russia is blocked up, like her fleets, in the Baltic and the Black Sea. There is not at this moment a single Russian merchantman in the ports of Great Britain or France—the few vessels which were shut out from their usual winter quarters having been sold some time ago, to escape the risk of seizure. She is thus without the materials for inflicting the annoyance upon our colonial and foreign trade which she might have possessed, could she have armed any considerable portion of her mercantile navy for privateering purposes. It has been reported, indeed, that two of her cruisers have been met with somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Pacific, and suggested that their object may be to waylay and capture some of our gold ships. But that the report in question is not believed—and that any serious interference with our vessels engaged in the carrying trade, to and from the various ports of the world, is not feared by our best informed capitalists—is evident from the fact, that there has as yet been no marked advance in the rates of insurance upon such property. It has been reported, too, that Russian agents have been lately engaged in the United States of America in negotiating for the purchase, or building, of large ships capable of being converted into vessels of war. Be this so, although we greatly doubt the fact. We cannot be taken off our guard, in the event of any such purchase being made, or such conversion taking place. Our fast-sailing ocean steamers will bring us the necessary information quite in time to enable us to take the steps most proper for the occasion; and whilst mentioning those noble vessels, we must remark upon the important change which the application of steam to navigation will effect in all future struggles between maritime countries. We do not refer here to the power which it gives of taking fleets into action, or of making more rapid sail to the localities where their services are required, although the effect of this power is incalculable in value. We allude merely to the advantage which we shall derive in such struggles from the vastly increased rapidity and regularity with which we are at present supplied with information of an enemy’s movements, from all quarters of the world. We shall no longer have to witness the spectacle of rival fleets seeking each other in vain—proceeding from sea to sea only to discover that they have missed each other on the way. Traversed as the ocean is now in every direction by fast-sailing steamers, there can be little fear of such fleets, if their commanders are really anxious for an engagement, being unable to procure tolerably accurate information of each other’s whereabouts. We shall no longer require the aid of powerful fleets as convoys of our merchantmen, in seas where it can be so readily known that an enemy is not to be met with; and, as another result, we shall probably see an end put to the injurious system of privateering. Few parties will be found to risk life and property in assaults upon the commerce of a powerful maritime country, with the certainty before them that every movement which they make must be so promptly made known, and every offence which they commit must bring down upon them such speedy punishment.

There is, however, one element of commercial mischief which may make itself felt during the coming struggle, although such mischief, if it unfortunately should occur, could not be attributed properly to the mere fact of the existence of a state of war. It may, and very probably will, be proved that we cannot carry on a free-trade system, which involves the necessity of providing for enlarged imports concurrently with expensive military and naval operations both in the north and south of Europe, and possibly in Asia as well, with a currency restricted as ours is by the mistaken legislation of 1844. Already the note of alarm of this danger has been sounded from a quarter whose authority cannot be treated lightly on such a subject. Mr William Brown, the eminent American merchant, and member for South Lancashire, emphatically warned her Majesty’s Government, during the recent debate on the Budget, of the probability, and almost certainty, of a severe monetary crisis as the consequence of persistence in carrying out in their full stringency the measures passed, at the instigation of Sir Robert Peel, in that and the following year. But for the operation of those measures, Mr Brown contended that the calamity of 1847 would never have occurred. The country, he says, was paralysed by the effect which they produced; and the seven or eight millions sterling in bullion, held at the time in the coffers of the Bank, “might as well have been thrown into the sea,” as retained there unproductive during a period of pressure. Should the same state of things occur again, therefore, during the approaching struggle—should the commerce and industry of the country be prostrated, and the government be rendered incapable of prosecuting with the required energy a just war, to which we are bound alike by every consideration of national honour, sound policy, and good faith towards an oppressed ally—we must not be told that the suffering and degradation which will be brought down upon our heads are the results of a war expenditure merely, or have been caused by any natural interruption of our ordinary trading pursuits. The true cause of the calamity, it must become obvious to all the world, will be our dogged maintenance of an impracticable crotchet; and should the nation submit to be thus thwarted and fettered in its determination to maintain its high prestige—should it submit to sink down from its position as a leading power,—we may with reason be asked the question, “Of what avail is your possession of the noblest fleet which ever rode the seas in ancient or in modern days—of what avail is the possession of the best-disciplined and bravest soldiers which ever marched to battle—of what avail is your vast mercantile marine, your vast accumulations of capital, your almost limitless command over all the improved appliances which modern science and ingenuity have constructed for the purposes of war, if you cannot resent a national insult, or oppose the aggressions of an enemy, without commercial ruin, suspended industry, and popular disaffection and outrage being spread over the face of your whole empire?” We hope, however, for better things. We feel confident that a high-minded and honourable people will not submit to be thus stultified and degraded in the eyes of the world. We entertain, too, a reasonable hope that the unpatriotic faction, who would gladly involve the country in that degradation, will not be favoured in their unworthy efforts by the possession of the instrumentality—a suffering and dissatisfied working population—upon which they calculate to insure success. By the blessing of a bountiful Providence, clothing our fields and those of Western Europe and America with luxuriant harvests, we may this year be snatched from our position of dependence upon the growth of an enemy’s soil for the food of our people, and be enabled to enter upon a period of plenty and cheapness, instead of that scarcity and high prices of all the necessaries of life from which we have been suffering during the past twelve months—certainly without such suffering being attributable to a state of war, or to any but ordinary causes.

THE PUPPETS OF ALL NATIONS.[1]

The history of Puppets and their shows may at first appear but a trivial subject to fix the attention and occupy the pen of a learned academician and elegant writer. The very word history may seem misapplied to a chronicle of the pranks of Punchinello, and of the contortions of fantoccini. Puppet-shows! it may be said; troops of tawdry figures, paraded from fair to fair, to provoke the laughter of children and the grin of rustics—is that a theme for a bulky octavo at the hands of so erudite and _spirituel_ an author as M. Charles Magnin? Had M. Magnin chosen to reply otherwise than with perfect candour to anticipated comments of this kind—the comments of the superficial and hastily-judging—he might easily have done so by saying that, whilst studying with a more important aim—for that history of the stage of which he has already published portions—he found the wooden actors so constantly thrusting themselves into the society of their flesh-and-blood betters, so continually intruding themselves, with timber joints, invisible strings, and piping voices, upon stages where human players strutted, that, to be quit of their importunity, he was fain to shelve them in a volume. This, however, is not the motive he alleges. He boldly breasts the difficulty, and stands up for the merits of his marionettes, quite deserving, he maintains, of a separate study and a special historian. He denies that time can be considered lost or lightly expended which is passed in tracing the vicissitudes of an amusement that, for three thousand years, has been in favour with two-thirds of the human race. And he summons to his support an imposing phalanx of great men—poets, philosophers, dramatists, musicians—who have interested themselves in puppets, taken pleasure in their performances, and even written for their mimic theatre. He reminds his readers how many pointed remarks and precious lessons, apt comparisons and graceful ideas, have been suggested by such shows to the greatest writers of all countries and ages, and heads the list of his puppets’ patrons with the names of Plato, Aristotle, Horace, Marcus Aurelius, Petronius, in ancient times; and with those of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Ben Jonson, Molière, Swift, Voltaire, and Goethe, amongst the moderns; to say nothing of Charles Nodier, Punchinello’s laureate, the assiduous frequenter of Parisian puppet-shows, who has devoted so many playful and sparkling pages to that favourite study of his literary leisure. M. Magnin begins to be alarmed at the shadows he has evoked. Is it not presumption, he asks himself, to enter a path upon which his predecessors have been so numerous and eminent? The subject, for whose frivolity he lately almost apologised, appears too elevated for his range when he reviews the list of illustrious names more or less connected with it, when he recalls the innumerable flowers of wit with which their fancy has wreathed it. So he marks out for himself a different track. Others have played with the theme; he approaches it in a graver spirit. “I am not so impertinent,” he exclaims, “as to seek _to put_ (as the Greeks would have said) _my foot in the dance of those great geniuses_. Too well do I see the folly of attempting to jingle, after them, the bells of that bauble.” Following the example of the learned Jesuit, Mariantonio Lupi—who wrote a valuable although a brief dissertation on the Puppets of the Ancients—but allotting to himself a much broader canvass, M. Magnin purposes to write, in all seriousness, sincerity, and simplicity, a history of the “wooden comedians,” not only of antiquity, but of the middle ages, and of modern times.