BRITISH COMMERCE 


London, Nov. 2, 1861 


The English Board of Trade Returns for the nine months 
ending Sept. 30, 1861, show in exports a large diminution, and in 
imports a still larger increase. A comparison between the export 
lists of the last three years gives the following general result: 


Value of Exports for the nine months ending Sept. 30. 


1859......... £98,037,311 
-1860........ 101,724,346 
1861 ...3.. 93,795,3324 


Consequently the exports of this year, if compared to the 
corresponding period of 1860, have decreased by £7,929,014; of 
which total decrease the by far larger portion, viz.: £5,671,730, is 
accounted for by the sudden contraction of the American trade. 
The rates in which the general loss derived from this source has 
affected the different branches of British industry may be seen 
from the annexed table: 


Value of Exports to the United States in the nine months 
ending Sept. 30. 


1859. 1860. 1861. 
5 £ £ 
Beer and alle .........ccccceeeessccesseeeess 78,060 76,843 25,642 
Coals and culm ............eeeceeeeseeeeeee 144,556 156,665 200,244 
COUIOTIS s ewhascades sateuthesSesst tease ecaetine 2,753,782 2,776,472 1,130,973 
Earthenware and porcelain ......... 448,661 518,778 191,606 


a Here and below the tables are quoted from “The Board of Trade Returns”, The 
Economist, No. 949, November 2, 1861.— Ed. 


58 Karl Marx 


Haberdashery and millinery ....... 1,204,085 1,083,438 542,312 
LARENS 23 hens iiiedccdpevevetaseepresscdoxerinns 1,486,276 1,337,778 493,654 
Hardwares and cutlery .............. 865,066 776,772 446,095 
Metals — Iron — Pig ......... seen 205,947 165,052 79,086 
Bar, bolt, and rod .............006 642,822 546,493 148,587 
Railway of all kinds................ 744,505 665,619 168,657 
Cast co siaiuec-sidontiareuiioua sale 16,489 17,056 9,239 
Wrought of all kinds ............. 357,162 378,842 125,752 
Steel, unwrought ........ eee 372,465 457,490 216,246 
Copper, sheets and nails ............. 99,499 44,971 10,005 
ISG AG DIG Sersactancussel seca nes veomn 53,451 66,015 1,451 
With PLACES) asec cdeneuns Si tceratactonnavraendls 935,692 833,644 274,488 
Oil SOO 65. cs sccesdeesecaieedivesadesterectdones 122,570 72,915 1,680 
Salticeaieescccwen aves a menanias 63,876 84,818 59,809 

Silk stuffs, handkerchiefs, and 
HIDDOHS 45.4. aces 197,605 102,393 88,360 
Other silk articles ..........ccccceeeeee 129,557 93,227 22,984 
SOC Bcc acndin eich teatasaksyeaae 439,584 399,153 142,311 
Spirits, (British) 0.0.0... eee eee 53,173 56,423 12,430 
Woolens—Cloths of all kinds ..... 586,701 535,130 250,023 

Mixed stuffs, flannels, blankets, 
Cle Fee aerated ee tetaderastes 1,732,224 1,612,284 652,399 
Worsted Stuffs ............ceececeeseceeeees 1,052,053 840,507 377,597 
OVAL csuaxscdeacsea somoaeuten peta 15,785,784 13,698,778 74 5,671,730 


Beyond the diminution due to the decrease of the American 
trade, the general exports show, moreover, a decline of 
£2,257,284. The greater part of this loss was incurred during the 
month of September, when the high price of cotton, and the 
consequent rise in cotton manufactures and yarns, had begun to 
powerfully react on the markets of British North America,’ East 
India, and Australia. During the whole period of nine months 
ended September, 1861, Turkey and Germany were, next to the 
United States, the countries foremost in restraining their absorp- 
tion of British merchandise. The export trade to France has not 
grown in any observable degree, the only striking instance of 
increase being: limited to an agricultural article, viz., sheeps’ and 
lambs’ wool. During the first nine months of 1860, England 
exported to France 4,735,150 pounds of wool, worth £354,047.° 


4 Canada.— Ed. 

b The figures here and below are quoted from the Accounts relating to Trade 
and Navigation for the Nine Months ended September 30, 1861 (The Economist, No. 949, 
November 2, 1861).— Ed. 


British Commerce 59 


During the corresponding period of this year, that export has 
risen to 8,716,082 pounds, valued at £642,468. The only other 
remarkable feature in the export returns refers to Italy. British 
exports to the new kingdom are evidently enlarging, which fact 
will go a great length in accounting for English sympathies with 
Italian liberty.’> Thus, for instance, the export of British cottons to 
Sardinia, Tuscany, Naples, and Sicily, has increased from 
£756,892 in 1860, to £1,204,287 in 1861; the export of cotton 
yarns from £348,158 in 1860 to £538,373 in 1861; the export of 
irons from £120,867 in 1860, to £160,912 in 1861. 

The import tables extend only to the first eight months of the 
current year. Their general result is shown by the subsequent 
figures: 

Real Value of Imports. 


EBD sicced ooudsincusccsnustctacteuneseeMtesenmicenss £ 88,993,762 
PS GO ihe oria bs ey euketiae tag tehssantnndaaeiacetiys 106,894,278 
POG D sed ctcotsstisccclt achat scout eiiendeta wees ee 114,588,107 


The principal part of that increase of imports is due to a large 
addition in the purchase of foreign wheat, which, from £6,796,131 
in the first eight months of 1860, had risen to £13,431,487 in the 
corresponding period of 1861. As to raw cotton, the quantity 
imported had, during the period referred to, only slightly fallen 
off, while the price of the article had largely increased, as will be 
seen from the annexed figures: | 

Quantity of Cotton imported (during the first eight months). 


Cwts.? Value. 
1: (eee Oe eT 8,023,082 £24,039,197 
PAGO ietescier denon tan ccun, 10,616,347 28,940,676 
| << eC Cn 9,616,087 30,809,279 


There exist no general politics at the present moment in 
England. Everything and everybody are absorbed in the industrial 
question and the American crisis. I called your attention in a 
former letter to the feverish state of the Liverpool cotton market.” 
For the last two weeks it has exhibited, in fact, all the symptoms of 
the railway mania in 1845.”° Surgeons, dentists, physicians, 
barristers, cooks, workingmen, clerks and lords, comedians and 
parsons, soldiers and sailors, newspaper writers and boarding- 


a The figures in this column are given for the period of nine months.— Ed. 
b See this volume, pp. 17-20.— Ed. 


60 Karl Marx 


school mistresses, males and females, all were speculating in 
cotton. Many of the lots purchased, sold and resold amounted to 
only one, two, three, or four bales. More considerable quantities 
remained in the same warehouses, although changing their 
proprietors twenty times. One who had purchased cotton at 10 
o'clock offered it for sale at'11 o’clock, and realized a profit of 
‘/9d. on one pound. Many lots circulated in this way through 
several hands in 12 hours. This week, however, a sort of reaction 
has taken place, due to the single circumstance that a shilling is a 
round number, being composed of 12d., and that most people had 
resolved upon selling out so soon as the price of the pound of 
cotton should have been pushed to one shilling; consequently, 
there set in suddenly a great increase in the offers of cotton, and 
hence a reaction in its price. This, however, can be only transitory. 

The British mind once become familiar with the idea that a 
pound of cotton may cost 15d., the temporary barrier to 
speculation will break down, and the speculating mania reappear 
with redoubled fury. There is one thing favorable to the United 
States in this movement. It is hostile to the breaking-of-blockade 
party. Already there have been published protests on the part of 
the speculators, in which it is reasonably said that any warlike 
movement by the British Government would be an act of direct 
injustice to those merchants who, on the faith of the British 
Government’s adherence to its recognized and avowed principle of 
non-interference, had made their calculations, speculated at home, 
sent out their orders abroad and purchased cotton on an estimate 
of the price which it would reach under the operation of natural, 
probable and foreseeable courses. 

This day’s Economist publishes a very foolish article, in which, 
from statistics given as to the population and the area of the 
United States, he arrives at the conclusion that there would be 
room enough for the establishment of at least seven vast empires, 
and that, consequently, “the dream of universal dominion” ought 
to be banished from the hearts of the Unionists.* The only rational 
inference which The Economist might have drawn from its own 
statistical statements, viz., that the Northerners, even if they liked 
to do so, could not desist from their claims without sacrificing to 
Slavery the vast States and Territories “in which Slavery still 
lingers, but cannot maintain itself as a permanent institution” — 
this only rational conclusion he successfully contrives not even to 
touch upon. 


a “Motives of the Federalists in Coercing the Secessionists”, The Economist, 
No. 949, November 2, 1861.— Ed. 


British Commerce 61 


Apart from its own commercial difficulties, England is simul- 
taneously bothered by the critical state of the French finances. The 
maneuvers of the Bank of France to stay the bullion drain to 
England by accommodation bills, obtained from the Rothschilds 
and other great firms, have, as was to be foreseen, resulted in a 
but temporary mitigation of her embarrassments. She has now 
successively applied for succor to the banks at Berlin, Hamburg, 
and St. Petersburg; but all these tentatives, instead of procuring 
relief, have only betrayed despair. The straits to which the French 
Government is actually put appear from two measures recurred to 
in the course of a fortnight. The interest on the Treasury bills, in 
order to keep them afloat, had to be raised to 7 Us per cent, while 
Victor Emmanuel was commanded to partially postpone the 
instalments of the new Italian loan, of which French capitalists 
hold a very large amount. He, of course, acceded to the 
application of his patron. 

In the Tuileries there are now two opposite influences, 
proposing two opposite nostrums for the temporary cure of the 
financial disease. The real Bonapartists, Persigny, and the Crédit 
Mobilier,” cherish a project by which to subject the Bank of 
France to the direct and complete control of the Government, to 
convert her into a mere dependency on the Treasury, and to use 
the power thus obtained for the unrestricted emission of 
inconvertible State paper money. The other party, represented by 
Fould, and other renegades of former regimes, propose a new 
loan, whose amount is variously estimated by the most modest at 
£16,000,000, by the more daring at £30,000,000. 


Written on November 2, 1861 Reproduced from the newspaper 


First published in the New-York Daily 
Tribune, No. 6440, November 23, 1861