WOOL. 49 



us should have dared to demand that the manufacturers of 

 the country should be prevented from procuring the materials 

 of their manufacture where they could be obtained cheapest 

 and best ; nay, should not only be prevented from exercising 

 this natural and necessary right, but compelled to take from 

 the wool-growers at home, and at a price enhanced by fiscal 

 regulations, what was absolutely unsuited for the purposes 

 of commerce. The disgraceful law of 1819 had already 

 shewn, that, by refusing to take the wools of other countries, 

 we depressed the price of the raw material abroad, and thus 

 gave an indirect premium to the foreign manufacturer ; and 

 that, by forcing our manufacturers to employ wools of inferior 

 quality and higher price, we directly unfitted them for com- 

 petition in the general market of the world. It was of the 

 repeal of the law of 1819 that the wool-growers thought fit 

 to complain, as having produced the depreciation which had 

 taken place in the price of the clothing wools, not perceiving 

 that, in admitting the depreciation from this cause, they ad- 

 mitted at the same time the magnitude and injustice of a 

 burden, which had been so heavily taxing the manufacturing 

 industry of our own country, and fostering that of others. 



\Vhat, k it may be well asked, did the wool-growers hope for 

 by forcing up the price of wool by such expedients ? To the 

 mere occupier of the land a forced rise of the raw material 

 could only be beneficial during a passing term. On the ter- 

 mination of the lease, the benefit would go to the owner of 

 the land in the shape of increased rent. Thus, in order to 

 raise the rent of the land, the wool-growers were prepared to 

 lay a tax on every consumer of wool, that is, on every indi- 

 vidual in the kingdom, and to cripple the trader in his means 

 to maintain his equality in the foreign markets. It is known 

 that, in these times, the great danger to the manufacturing 

 prosperity of the country is the progress of other nations in 

 those arts in which we have hitherto excelled, and that our 

 relative superiority in such arts can only be maintained by 

 our being enabled to supply the productions of them on the 



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