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OBSERVATIONS ON THE SILK TRADE IN GENERAL, AND ITS OPERATION ON THE SILK MANUFACTURE OF THE METROPOLIS.

BY JOSEPH MOSER, ESQ

(Continued from Page 352.)

AT a period when peace is happily

established, and mankind have leifure and opportunity to contemplate their relative fituation in the calm lights of philofophy, there is (faith an author who wrote foon after the American War), perhaps, reafon to expect that fuch cultivated nations as England and France will be the first to instruct the world, by their example, in the advantages of a more liberal fyftem of policy. They will meafure their interets on a lefs contracted fcale, and, in commercial ftipulations, rife fuperior to thofe national preju. dices, which, to the detriment of both countries, have been cherished for

ages.

Thefe fanguine expectations, though founded upon the broad bafis of felfevident principles, are eafy in fpeculation, but the event has fhown, like many other theories, extremely difficult in practice; Natural Philofophy may, nay muft, be applied to commerce, or rather to the manufactures upon which it is erected; but I fear that it is next to impoffible to bend Moral Philofophy to its dictates. When we confider the

thirt for extenfion and domination too frequently visible in the rulers of kingdoms and ftates, and mercantile jealousy too frequently ready to take the alarm upon every change in the politics, upon every alteration in the circumftances, of rival nations; who fhall fay that thete paflions, like animal instinct, are not implanted in the human bofom for wife, though, perhaps, with refpect to the firft, infcrutable purpofes? Who fhall aver, that it is not both proper and neceffary to use the fame precaution, to endeavour to make the fame advantage of our fituation in the commercial as in the polical world? Therefore, if upon this principle it does appear that trade in general, or any particular branch of it, is likely to be fubject to a mutation, and that our neighbours, instead of opening their ports and inviting to an amicable interchange of commodities, mean to adopt in peace the warlike expedient of prohibiting the exportation of thofe fupplies which might caufe the arts of peace to flourith; fearful that our manufactures fhould rival, and probably outvie, theirs; it is cer

An original and interefting Memoir of Mr. HASTINGS will be found (embellished with a fine Engraving of his Buft) in Mr. Seward's "Biographiana," page 610-628.

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tainly our duty to endeavour to foil and counteract them with fuch weapons as Providence has put into our hands. There is little doubt, as my esteemed friend Mr. Colquhoun (when writing on the fubject of the Cotton Manufac ture in the year 1789) has most ably and accurately stated, but, with the means in our poffeffion, the improvements in contemplation, the new channels into which it had been and was ftill about to be turned, and the new markets about to be opened, by the medium of which piece goods, the produce of Indoftan, might, with the fabrics of England, find a circulation from the fouth to the north poles, from the torrid to the frigid zones; that, under proper regulations, our ingenuity and refources of materials would be equal to any demands made upon them; fo that our national revenue and individual wealth would be increased to a degree which, at the time that it eftablished our commercial fuperiority upon the best and fureft foundation, would difcourage and deter other nations from attempts to counteract us, by the uncertainty of their fuccefs.

Thefe fpeculations have, notwith ftanding the many difadvantages, both local and general, which the adventurers in this branch have had to encounter, been fully verified. The Cotton Manufactory, subject to thofe accidents and changes to which all human exertions are fubject, has been progreffively fuccefsful. The attempt that was made to establish works of the fame nature in Switzerland, and I do not think that it was an attempt which indicated any traits of the ufual prudence of the natives of Helvetia, would, had not the projectors been counteracted by political events, long before this period have been crushed by its own weight that those establishments were fome years fince in a very languid ftate, I have reafon to believe. The only branch of them that flourished was the printing, which was kept alive by large fupplies of plain piece goods purchafed in this country, which the tafte of the Swifs induced them to ornament by ftamping upon them very beautiful, though they would here be termed broad and glaring, patterns.

The French, in this refpect more cautious than their neighbours (I am forry now to fay than their fubjects), have not very confpicuously exerted themselves to rival us in the Cotton

Manufactory. A compages of efforts, of which, when I contemplate all the fubordinate parts; the eafy operation of diverfified and apparently complex machinery; the different preparations of materials diffimilar in their natures, properties, and ufes; the various pro cefles through which the fabrics pafs in their transformation from the raw fubftance, till they come from the hands of the calenderer, or other finish. ing workman; with the infinite variety of articles produced; they feem to compofe fuch a stupendous fyftem of inventive power, art, and ingenuity, that the mind is loft in attempting to difcriminate the integral principle, and independant or dependantly to trace the progrefs of the whole.

In the Silk Manufactory, our Gallie rivals have been more fuccefsful, and have, as has been already fhown in these papers, established that kind of monopoly that depends rather upon ce lebrity than folidity, and has its redence in the human mind, where, by the influence of fashion and falfe tafte on that organ, it has been divided into two branches; the first of which was a prejudice in favour of the productions of French looms, which was not, at a former period, to be repreffed even by a conviction of its futility; and the fecond, in favour of the fame kind of materials, i. e. French and Italian silks, which, I am forry to obferve, still exifts in the opinions of the artificers, and which, I fear, nothing but the circumstances of the times is likely to eradicate.

That the circumstances of the times, to which I allude, has caufed a mot enormous advance in the price of the Raw, or Organzined Silk of Italy, is too well known to the Manufacturers in this country, to require any illuftration; and, from this article being drawn into, and centring in France, where, from fome late transfactions, it is apparent that every nerve will be trained, and every mean exerted, to encourage and ftimulate the artificers, and to create and exercife a monopoly over the unwrought material, the reason for witholding it is equally apparent.

What has lately been the motives which induced the Chief Conful to vifit the Manufacturing Cities? Certainly to inspect their different branches; to give to the workmen employed af furances both of protection and reward;

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Pedestal in the Mindoo Temple at Melorer

Published by J.Sowell Cornhill, Jan. 1-1807.

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