London, Friday, January 14, 1853 

Lord John Russell, in receiving the diplomatic badge, at the 
Foreign Office, told them that he held the seals of that 
Department ad interim only, and that in no great length of time 
the Foreign Office would be transferred to the Earl of Clarendon. 
The fact is, that Russell has always been a perfect foreigner in the 
Foreign Department, in which he never made himself conspicu- 
ous, except by an insipid compilation on the history, I believe, of 
the treaties concluded since the time of the peace of Nymwegen,’ a 
book which, to confess the truth, is at least as entertaining as the 
“tragedy” with which the same Russell once surprised the world.” 
Lord John will, in all probability, be entrusted with the leadership 
of the House of Commons, with a seat in the Cabinet, where his 
entire activity is likely to be absorbed in framing the new Reform 

Bill. Parliamentary Reform is Russell’s traditionary field of 
action, since, by his measures in 1831, he proved such a masterly 
hand in dividing the rotten boroughs*”’ between Tories and 
Whigs. 

My predictions on the probable inefficiency of the three Irish 
purchases made by the Ministry for securing the enlistment of 
the whole “Brigade” in the cause of the Coalition Government, 
have already been fulfilled to the very letter. The attitude of The 
Freeman’s Journal and The Tablet—the tenor of the letters and 
declarations of Messrs. Lucas, Moore, and Duffy—lastly, the 
resolution adopted against Messrs. Sadleir and Keogh, at the last 

meeting of the Tenant-Right Association,” sufficiently indicate 

that the Aberdeen Administration will only dispose of a very small 
fraction of the Irish troops. 

It is known that Lord Aberdeen, the Chief of the Cabinet, will 
take his seat in the House of Lords. Now, Mr. Bright, in a speech 
recently delivered at a banquet at Manchester to your new 
Ambassador, Mr. Ingersoll, has seized an opportunity to explain 
how the total suppression of the House of Lords is the conditio sine 
qua non for the “advancement” of the industrial middle-class.* 
This first official declaration of the Manchester school since the 
formation of the Coalition Ministry will do something toward 
enabling Lord Aberdeen in discovering where that Democracy, so 
much redoubted by Lord Derby, exists. 

Thus the party warfare declared to have been abolished for 
ever, by a sanguine writer in The Times, has already burst 
forth, notwithstanding that the era of the “Millennium” had 
opened with the adjournment of Parliament until the 10th of 
February. 

The continuation and increase of the commercial and industrial 
prosperity has been loudly and unanimously proclaimed at the 
beginning of the New-Year, and confirmed by the publication of 
the revenue accounts down to the 5th inst., by the returns of the 
Board of Trade for the month, and the 11 months ending Dec. 5, 
1852,” by the reports of the Inspectors of Factories, and lastly by 
the annual trade circulars issued at the commencement of every 
New-Year, and giving a general survey of all the commercial 
transactions of the past year. 

The Revenue Returns show a total increase on the year of 
£978,926, and on the quarter of £702,776. There is an increase in 
every item on the year with the exception of Customs. The total 
sum placed into the Exchequer amounted to £50,468,193. 

The Excise, which is supposed to indicate the well-being of the 
people, amounted to £13,093,170 in the year ending Jan. 5, 1852. 
In the year ending Jan. 5, 1853, it amounted to 13,356,981. 

“ The speech was delivered on January 7, 1853. See The Times, No. 21321, 
January 10, 1853.— Ed. 

The Stamps, which indicate the increase of commercial activity, 

as in 1851-'52, yielded j.scccsssseecsicssessccocessnes 5,933,549 
Amounted in the years 1852-53, to ......... 6,287,261. 

The Property-Tax, which indicates the increase of wealth of the 
upper classes, 

amounting in 1851-52, to 0... eee 5,304,923 
Yielded in the year 1852-53. oo. 5,509,637. 

The Board of Trade Returns for the month and eleven months 
ending Dec. 5, 1852, show: 

1852 1851 1850 
Value of exports for the month 
Ending Dec. 5 icisscsvinssenevicese £6,102,694 £5,138,216 £5,362,319 
For the eleven months ending 
DGG. 5 sciehisciee adie tances 65,349,798 63,314,272 60,400,525. 

Consequently, there is an increase of nearly £1,000,000 on the 
month, and upward of £2,000,000 on the eleven months. Yet, in 
the absence of all value to the imports, we know not how far it 1s 
met or surpassed by the increased value of the latter. 

Passing to the reports of the Inspectors of Factories, Mr. 
Horner, Inspector for the Lancashire District, in his report on the 
half year ending Oct. 31, 1852, which has just been published, 
writes as follows: 

“In my district, very little change has taken place in the last year as regards 
woollen, worsted and silk factories, and flax mills remain as they were on the Ist of 
November, 1851. But the increase in cotton mills has been very large. After 
deducting those which are at present unoccupied (and many of them will, in all 
probability, be soon again at work, especially those from which the machinery has 
not been removed), there have been set to work in the last two years 129 new mills, 
with an aggregate of 4,023 horse power; and there have been 53 instances of 
additions to existing mills, with an aggregate of 2,090 horse power, so that there 
has been an increase of 6,113 horse power, which must have given employment to 
probably not fewer than 24,000 additional hands in the cotton trade. Nor is this all; 
for many new mills are at present being built. In the limited area which includes 
the towns of Ashton, Staleybridge, Oldham and Lees, there are eleven, which it is 
estimated will have an aggregate power of 620 horses. The machine-makers are 
said to be overwhelmed with orders; and a very intelligent and observing 
mill-owner told me lately that many of the buildings now going up would in all 
probability not be at work before 1854, from the impossibility to get machinery to 
them. But the above returns and those that will be given by my colleagues on the 
present occasion, however they may indicate a great increase, still they by no means 
give the whole; for there is a large and very fertile source of increase of 
productions of which it would be very difficult to obtain any account. I allude to 

the modern improvements in steam-engines, by which old engines and even new 
engines are made to do an amount of work far beyond their nominal horse power, 
and to an extent formerly believed to be impossible.” 

Mr. Horner then quotes a letter from the eminent civil- 
engineer, Mr. Nasmyth, of Birmingham, describing the gain of 
power by working the engines at greater speed, and by adapting 
to them the high pressure double cylinders of Woolf, the result of 
which is, that at least fifty per cent. more work is done by the 
identical engines still in use than was done before the improve- 
ment. 

It appears from a summary of the reports of all the Inspectors, 
that in the year ending Oct. 31, 1852, the total number of new 
factories occupied was 229, with a steam power of 4,771 horses 
and a water-power of 586 horses, and the addition to existing 
factories amounted to 69, with a steam power of 1,532 horses, and 
a water-power of 28 horses, making a grand total of 6,917 horse 
power. 

Passing next to the annual trade circulars, we find them all 
breathing the same enthusiastic style in which The Times predicted 
the political millennium, and having, at any rate, this advantage, 
that they are based on facts and not on mere expectations, as far 
as they refer to the past year. 

The agricultural interest has no cause for complaint. On the 
opening of the year the weekly average price of wheat was 37/2; at 
the close of the year it has reached 45/11. The rise in the prices of 
grain has been accompanied by a rise in the price of cattle, meat, 
butter and cheese. 

In August, 1851, an unprecedented fall in the prices of produce 
was known to have taken place, chiefly in the prices of sugar and 
coffee, and it did not cease with that year, for the panic in 
Mincing Lane* did not reach its height till the first month of the 
past year. The annual circulars indicate now a_ considerable 
advance in the prices of most articles of foreign production, 
especially of colonial produce, sugar, coffee, etc. 

As to the movement in raw materials it will be seen from the 
following: 

“The state of the wool trade” is described in Messrs. Hughes & 
Ronald’s circular, 

“as having been throughout the past year in the highest degree satisfactory.... 

The home demand for wool has been unusually large.... The export of woollen and 
worsted goods has been on a very extensive scale, even exceeding the year 1851, 

the highest rate ever before attained.... Prices have been steadily looking up, but it 
is only during the last month, that any decided advance has taken place, and at 
present they may be quoted, on the average, about 15 to 20 per cent. above the 
corresponding period last year.” 

“The wood trade,” say Messrs. Churchill & Sim, “‘has largely partaken in the 
commercial prosperity of the country during 1852.... The importation into London 
exceeded 1,200 cargoes during 1852—closely paralle] to 1851. Both years were 50 
per cent. in advance of those preceding, which average about 800 cargoes. While 
the quantity of hewn timber stands at the average of several years; the use of deals, 
battens, etc.; or the sawn wood, has taken an immense start during 1852, when 
6,800,000 pieces replaced the previous average of 4,900,000 pieces.” 

With regard to leather, Messrs. Powell & Co. say: 

“The year just concluded has doubtless been a favorable one for leather 
manufacturers in almost every department. Raw goods, at the commencement of 
the year, were at low rates, and circumstances have taken place which have given 
leather an increased value in a greater degree than for several past years.” 

The iron trade is particularly flourishing, the price of iron 
having risen from #5 per tun to £10 10/ per tun; and more 
recently to £12 per tun, with the probability of a rise to £15, and 
more furnaces continually coming into operation. 

Of the shipping, Messrs. Offor & Gamman say: 

“The year just closed has been of remarkable activity to British shipping, chiefly 
caused by the stimulus given to business by the gold discovery in Australia.... There 
has taken place a general rise in freights.” 

The same movement has taken place in the shipbuilding 
department. In reference to this branch, the circular of Messrs. 
Tonge, Currie & Co., of Liverpool, contains the following: 

“On no occasion have we been able to report so favorably for the year past of 
the sale of ships at this port—both of the amount of tunnage sold, and the prices 
that have been obtained; prices of colonial ships having advanced fully 17 per 
cent., with a continuing tendency upward, while stocks have been reduced to 48 sail 
against 76 in 1852, and 82 in 1851, without any immediate supplies being 
expected.... The number of vessels that have come into Liverpool within the year 
and sold, is 120; equal to 50,000 tuns. The number of ships launched, and in 
course of construction, in our port this year, is 39, computed at 15,000 tuns, 
against 23, computed at 9,200 in 1851. The number of steamers built, and in the 
course of construction here, amounts to 13, equal to 4,050 tuns.... As regards iron- 
built sailing vessels, the most remarkable feature of our trade is the very increasing 
favor they are growing into, and which are now occupying the builders both here, 
in the Clyde, New-Castle and elsewhere, to an unprecedented extent.” 

As regards railways, Messrs. Woods & Stubbs write: 

“The returns caused the most sanguine expectations, and far outstrip all 
previous calculations. The returns for last week show an increased mileage over 
1851 of 348 miles, 5/5 per cent., and an increased traffic of £41,426, or 14 per 
cent.” 

Lastly, Messrs. Du Fay & Co.’s Circular (Manchester) records the 
transactions with India and China for the month of December, 
1852, as extensive, and the abundance of money alluded to as 
having favored undertakings to distant markets, and as having 
enabled those interested in them to make up for losses sustained 
in the early part of the year on goods and produce. 

“Various new land, and mining, and other schemes attract speculators and 
capitalists just now.” 

The prosperity of the manufacturing districts in general, and 
particularly of the cotton districts, has been shown from the 
reports of the Inspectors of Factories. In reference to the cotton 
manufacture, Messrs. John Wrigley & Son, of Liverpool, have the 
following: 

“Viewed as a test of the general prosperity of the country, the progress of the 
cotton-trade, during the year now closed, affords results the most gratifying.... It 
has presented many striking features, but none more prominent and noteworthy 
than the extreme facility with which so unprecedentedly large a crop as upward of 
3,000,000 of bales, the produce of the United States of America, has been disposed 
of.... Preparations are [in the] making in many districts for an extension of 
manufacturing powers, and we may expect a larger aggregate quantity of cotton to be 
worked up during the approaching year than any previous one.” 

Most other branches of industry are in the same position. 

“We refer,” say Messrs. McNair, Greenhow & Irving (of Manchester), “to 
Glasgow as connected with its cotton and iron manufacture: to Huddersfield, 
Leeds, Halifax, Bradford, Nottingham, Leicester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Wol- 
verhampton, etc., as connected with their various productions—all seem in a high 
state of prosperity.” 

The only exceptions to the general prosperity are the silk-trade 
and the wool-combers in Yorkshire; and the general aspect of 
trade may be resumed in the words of a Manchester circular: 

“Our apprehensions are those of over-speculation, rather than of inactivity and want 
of means.” 

In the midst of this universal prosperity, a step recently taken by 
the Bank of England has raised a general consternation among the 
commercial world. On the 22d of April, 1852, the Bank of 
England had lowered the rate of discount to 2 per cent. On the 
morning of January 6, 1853, notice was given that the discount 
would be raised from 2 to 2'/2 per cent., an increase in the charges 
of 25 per cent. Attempts have been made to explain this increase 
by the large liabilities contracted lately by some extensive railway 
contractors, whose bills are known to be afloat in heavy amounts. 

In other quarters it was believed, as for instance by The London 
Sun,* that the Bank of England intended, in their turn, to take 
advantage of the existing prosperity by increasing discounts. On 
the whole, the act has been reprobated as “uncalled for.” In order 
to appreciate it in its true light, I subjoin the following statements 
from The Economist:° 

BANK OF ENGLAND 

Minimum rate 

1852 Bullion Securities of Discount 
POPE 2D seetcci sah uria tes bee tescate £19,587,670 £23,782,000 Reduced to 2 per ct. 
Duly 2 ag ciincite covineovenspecesdees 22,065,349 24,013,728 2 per ct. 
DGC 1B pecsneds chee state asateseany? 21,165,224 26,765,724 2 per ct. 
DIGCr 2 ness cicaticaiiascutdeaviedes 20,794,190 27,545,640 2 per ct. 
1853 
NANNY: Di ysshossslocesseeieeseataata: 20,527,662 29,284,447 
2 per ct., but 
raised to 21/, per cent. Jan’y 6 

There is, accordingly, a million of gold more in the Bank than 
in April, 1852, when the rate of interest was reduced to 2 per 
cent., but the difference is very marked between the two periods; 
for it has changed in regard to the movements of gold from a 
flowing to an ebbing tide. The afflux is peculiarly powerful, from 
its overbearing all the imports from America and Australia of the 
last month. Besides, securities were five and a half millions less in 
April than at present. Consequently, in April, 1852, the supply of 
loanable capital was larger than the demand, while now the 
reverse is the case. 

The emigration of bullion was accompanied by a marked decline 
in the foreign exchanges, a circumstance which must be accounted 
for, partly by the considerable advance in the prices of most 
articles of import, partly by the large speculations in imports. To 
this must be added the influence of the unfavorable autumn and 
winter on farmers, the consequent doubts and fears respecting the 
next harvest, and, as a result of the latter, immense operations in 
foreign grains and farinas. Lastly, English capitalists have very 
largely engaged in the formation of railway and other companies 
in France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and 

January 6, 1853.— Ed. 

Belgium, and partake very much in the general swindle now going 
on at the Paris Bourse. Paper on London is therefore more 
abundant in all markets of Europe than at any former period, in 
consequence of which there has been a continued fall in the rate 
of Exchanges. On July 24th the Exchange on Paris was 25f. 30c. 
for the pound sterling; on the Ist of January it had fallen to 25 
francs. Some transactions have even been made below 25 francs. 

In so far as the demand for capital has increased in proportion 
to the supply, the late measure adopted by the Bank of England, 
appears to be perfectly justified. In so far as it was intended to put 
a check upon speculation and upon the emigration of capital, I 
venture to predict, that it will be thoroughly ineffectual. 

Your readers having accompanied us to such a length, through 
all the testimonials of the growing prosperity of England, I request 
them to stop a moment and to follow a poor needle-maker, Henry 
Morgan, who started out from London, on his journey to 
Birmingham, in search of work. Lest I should be charged with 
exaggerating the case, I give the literal account of The Northampton 
Journal.’ 

“Death from Destitution— Cosgrove— About nine o’clock on the morning of 
Monday, two laboring men, while seeking shelter from the rain in a lone barn, 
occupied by Mr.T.Slade, in the parish of Cosgrove, were attracted by groans, 
which were found to come from a poor man, lying in a heap-hole, in a state of 
extreme exhaustion. They spoke to him, kindly offering him some of their 
breakfast, but without receiving any answer; and upon touching him, found his 
body almost cold. Having fetched Mr. Slade, who was near by, this gentleman, 
after some time had elapsed, sent him, by a boy, in a cart, with a bed and covering 
of straw, to the Yardley-Gobion union-house about a mile distant, where he arrived 
just before one o’clock, but expired a quarter of an hour afterward. The famished, 
filthy, and ill-clad condition of the poor creature presented a most frightful 
spectacle. It appears that this unhappy being, on the evening of Thursday, the 2d, 
obtained a vagrant’s order for a night’s lodging at the Yardley-house, from the 
relieving officer at Stoney-Stratford, and, having then walked to Yardley, a distance 
of three miles and upward, was accordingly admitted; he had food given him, 
which he eat heartily, and begged to be allowed to remain the next day and night, 
which was granted, and upon leaving on Saturday morning early, after his 
breakfast (most likely his last meal in this world), took the road back to Stratford. It 
is probable that, being weak and footsore, for he had a bad place on one heel, he 
was soon glad to seek the first friendly shelter he could find, which was an open 
shed, forming part of some outfarming-buildings, a quarter of a mile from the 
turnpike-road. Here he was found lying in the straw on Monday, the 6th, at noon, 
and, it not being wished that a stranger should remain on the premises, he was 
desired to go away. He asked leave to stay a little longer, and went off about four 
o'clock, once more to seek at nightfall the nearest place of rest and shelter, which 
was this lone barn, with its thatch partly off, with its door left open, and in the 

* Northampton Mercury, December 18, 1852.— Ed. 

coldest possible situation, into the heap-hole of which he crept, there to lie without 
food for seven days more, till discovered, as has been described above, on the 
morning of the 13th. This ill-fated man had given his name as Henry Morgan, a 
needle-maker, and appeared between thirty and forty years of age, and in person, 
a good-framed man.” 

It is hardly possible to conceive a more horrible case. A stalwart, 
strong-framed man, in the prime of life—his long pilgrimage of 
martyrdom from London to Stoney-Stratford—his wretched 
appeals for help to the “civilization” around him—his seven days 
fast—his brutal abandonment by his fellow men—his seeking 
shelter and being driven from resting-place to resting-place—the 
crowning inhumanity of the person named Slade and the patient, 
miserable death of the worn-out man—are a picture perfectly 
astonishing to contemplate. 

No doubt he invaded the rights of property, when he sought 
shelter in the shed and in the lone barn!!! 

Relate this starvation case in midst of prosperity, to a fat 
London City man, and he will answer you with the words of The 
London Economist of Jan. 8th: 

“Delightful is it thus to see, under Free Trade, all classes flourishing; their 
energies are called forth by hope of reward; all improve their productions, and all 
and each are benefited.” 

Written on January 14, 1853 Reproduced from the New-York 

Tribune, No. 3681, February 2, 1853;