1814, L. 7,567,507 1815, . . . . 10,198,884 1816, . . . . . 8,404,481 We select 1815, a year of large export, for the purpose of showing the proportion in which our woollens are sent to different countries.
stance which would be of very serious Import to a country so much more loaded with taxation than its neighbours, were it not in a considerable degre,: counterbalanced by the raw material being of home growth.
1 t Ns as computed in 1800, that of the whole wool lens made in England, more than a third was manu factured in the West Riding of Yorkshire; a pro portion which, from the advantages of this quarter over others, is now, we imagine, not far below one half. Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Somersetshire, are the other seats of this manufacture. For ship ping our woollens, London was long the only con siderable port. About the year 1700, the usual ex ports were to the value of a million from the out ports, and of two millions from London, where the business was managed by the Blackwell hall factors; but since inland navigation has become extensive, the Yorkshir. woollens, even when bought up by London mercnants, are in general exported from Liverpool.
Extensive as are our sheep pastures, our manu facturers find it necessary to make an annual impor tation of foreign wool. This takes place from dif ferent parts of Europe.
The year 1799 was one of unexampled demand and high price. An inquiry, instituted the year after by Parliament, into the state of the woollen manu facture, afforded a variety of useful data relative to the extent of capital and number of persons em ployed. The result, as far as the name of result can be given to inferences founded on a partial know ledge of facts, was, that the Total annual value of woollens manu factured in England was . . L.20,000,000 And the value of the raw material, 6,000,000 leaving a much larger proportion for wages than in the case of our cotton manufacture ;—a circum These importations being duty free, and operat. ing materially to keep down the price of English wool, the venders of the latter, or, as they are termed, the wool-growers, have of late years been very urgent with Government to impose a duty on foreign wool, not on the Spanish, which they admit to be necessary as a mixture with our own, but on those species of foreign wool which come more immediately into competition with their own growth. They took oc
casion, under the auspices of Lord Sheffield, to bring their claim before Parliament during the agricultural distress in 1816 ; but the committee appointed to consider of it made no difficulty in declaring, that no part of that distress arose from an inadequate price of wool ; and the evident impolicy of burden. ing a raw commodity which employs the labour of so many thousand individuals, prevented mini sters from listening to such applications, until the financial difficulties of the present year led at last (Mr Vansittart's Speech, 7th June 1819) to the proposition of a small duty calculated to produce L.100,000. The importations are a full tenth of the total con sumption, having in 1818, as in 1814, exceeded 15,000,000 lbs. The wool-growers complain of the great pressure of taxation, but the price has also ENGIEngi risen considerably since the beginning of the wars which aggravated our financial burdens.
In the twelve years that elapsed from 1789 to 1800, there took place a rise of 20 per cent. : of the subsequent prices, an idea may be formed from the following table : Price: of Fleece Wool is the years Wien 1801 and 1815. (Evidence before the Canmnittee on Seeds of Wool, in 1816.) The quantity of wool grown, on an average, in England is 144,000,000 lbs.° two-thirds of :which consist of short clothing wool, and one-third of a much more valuable kind, called long combing wool: the latter has, it seems, never been produced on the Continent of aquality equal to ours, except in some small districts in Flanders. The ordinary i of the staple of foreign wool is about two in that of our long combing from five to seven inches. Without the latter, the continental manu facturers cannot • ual us in the stuff goods and others made from ... e worsted ; and hence the im. portance, say our woollen manufacturers, of keeping the law as it stands ; that is, not only of receiving foreign wool, but of preventing the export of our long wooL The progressive augmentation in the import of Spanish wool I. of importance, as indicating the in. creased fineness of our cloth.