MANUFACTURES AND COMMERCE 


London, Sept. 5, 1859 


Having considered, in a former letter,* the movement in the 
population of the Kingdom, we turn now to the movement of 
production. In the following tabular statements the exports are 
given for every year since 1844, while the figures relating to 
imports begin with the year 1854, an anomaly due to the 
circumstance that the computed real value of imports was not 
officially ascertained before 1854: 


A—EXPORTS. 


Total Declared Real Value of British and Irish Produce Exported 
from the United Kingdom>: 


Years. f. Years. £. 
1844 qhqesbadaboise ate deatanss oer 58,534,705 852 oiteeicoterailemie teehee: 78,076,854 
1845 este eee ceis 60,111,082 V85 3 tccteoveauetoschedce versuenseks 98,933,781 
1846 3 ice veut acnihasdlohtiessss 57,786,876 VB 54 ics avcesecedheceedeiteacieekests 97,184,726 
W847 escl avn Mer cohe eaeeroceds teens 58,842,377 TOS 5. cccsesseieeccgee echeasenne ess 95,688,085 
184 Bice ket aueticioes 52,849,445 L856 csccscScccccseccvetvetueatesatece 115,826,948 
1849 oo sutckcceidnteeseotkss 63,596,025 VBS Tiers co hevecivedeedieecc shel es 122,066,107 
1850 cece esicctecs Biter Reese 71,367,885 | ooo eee acer ene REE 116,608,911 
P85 be ttiienietiidonad eave ees 74,448,722 


4 See this volume, pp. 487-91.— Ed. 

6 “Commerce of the British Empire. The Result of Recent Commercial 
. Legislation. II. Declared Value of British and Irish Produce Exported from the 
United Kingdom to Various Foreign Countries and British Possessions”, The 
Economist, No. 803 (supplement), January 15, 1859; “The Customs Report. The 
Trade of 1857 and 1858”, The Economist, No. 833, August 13, 1859.— Ed. 


Manufactures and Commerce 493 


B—IMPORTS. 
Total Computed Real Value of Merchandise Imported into the United Kingdom’: 


Years. f£. Years. f. 
1854 ooo ccecceeseeeseeeeeeese 152,389,053 L857 2 scrd Bris on: 187,844,441 
P85 9 ciiccvecieneeeh. eect ks acs 143,542,850 T8598 ecco. iekivs ec etdtiediea sSeees 163,795,803 
1856203. eater ace 172,544,154 


From the first table it will be seen that exports, and consequent- 
ly production had more than doubled in the period from 1844 to 
1857, while population, as may be proved from the figures quoted 
in my former letter, had, during the same interval, hardly 
increased by 18 per cent. A curious answer this to the doctrine of 
Parson Malthus, the sinecurist. Table A moreover illustrates a law 
of production which might be proved with mathematical nicety, by 
comparing the returns of British exports since 1797. The law is 
this: That if, by over-production and over-speculation, a crisis has 
been brought about, still the productive powers of the nation and 
the faculty of absorption on the market of the world, have, in the 
mean time, so much expanded, that they will only temporarily 
recede from the highest point reached, and that after some 
oscillations spreading over some years, the scale of production 
which marked the highest point of prosperity in one period of the 
commercial cycle, becomes the starting point of the subsequent 
period. Thus the year 1845 marks the summit of productive 
power developed during the commercial cycle of 1837 to 1847. In 
1846 the reaction begins; there is a catastrophe in 1847, the 
consequences of which but fully manifest themselves in 1848, 
when the magnitude of exports falls even below 1844. In 1849, 
however, there takes place not only a recovery, but the figures of 
1845, the year of highest prosperity during the last cycle, are 
already outstripped by three millions, and this year marks now the 
level to which exports will never again sink during the new cycle. 
The highest point is again reached in 1857, the year of the crisis, 
whose agonies are registered in the diminished exports of 1858. 
But already, in 1859, the summit of the period 1847-1857 has 
been converted into the starting point of a new commercial 
cycle—a point to which the productive powers are not likely again 
to recede. 


a “Commerce of the British Empire. The Result of Recent Commercial 
Legislation. II]. Summary of the Import and Export Trade of the United 
Kingdom”, The Economist, No. 803 (supplement), January 15, 1859; ““The Customs 
Report. The Trade of 1857 and 1858”, The Economist, No. 833, August 13, 
1859.— Ed. 


494 Karl Marx 


By comparing tables A and B, it will be found that British 
exports do considerably fall below British imports, and that this 
disproportion is growing as regularly as the magnitude of the 
exports. Now, this phenomenon has been interpreted by some 
English writers as if the unhappy Britishers were running into 
debt with other nations, or selling cheap and buying dear, thus 
making a present to the outer world of part of their industry. The 
simple fact is, that Great Britain receives, in the shape of imports 
from other nations, some returns for no equivalent whatever, as is 
the case in the Indian tributes raised under different forms, and 
other returns for the interest on capital lent out at former periods. 
The growing disproportion between British imports and exports, 
therefore, does only prove that England, in regard to the markets 
of the world, develops its function as money-lender still more 
rapidly than its function as manufacturer and merchant. 

Of the articles of import, there are four which claim some 
attention, viz.: bullion, corn, cotton, and wool. On former 
occasions, the movements in the British imports and exports of 
bullion have been explained in the N.-Y. Tribune, which, at the 
time of the last commercial crisis, proved, from official figures, 
that the amount of Bank of England notes in circulation had 
rather diminished than increased since the new gold fields came 
into play.’ We shall, therefore, not recur to this subject, but limit 
ourselves to stating a fact not yet, as far as we know, noticed by 
English writers. The amount of the metallic coin circulating in a 
nation may be fairly inferred from the operations of the national 
mint. In order, then, to ascertain the movement of the metallic 
currency in Great Britain during the operation of the Californian 
and Australian diggings, we give the following table, showing the 
amount of metal coined at the royal mint: