CAVEAT YENDITOR.
A YORTRITTRy, paper contains a timely warning to the cloth-manu- facturers of England. The most important of our markets un-
questionably is that of the United States ; one of the most import- ant of our exports is that of woollen cloth ; and in this trade some of our Continental rivals are gaining upon us rather seriously.
The.American import-tables show an increase of Belgian cloth from 93,185 dollars in 1840 to 478,532 in 1851; while the increase of German cloth is still more remarkable—it was, from 16,612 dollars in 1840 to 1,411,282 dollars in 1851. In the same period English cloth actually sank from 4,490,380 dollars to 3,785,070 dollars. It would be a very ungenerous commercial bigotry which should re- gard with dislike the advances even of a rival ; and our trade has been upon the whole so good, that we might view these successes of our Belgian and German neighbours without displeasure if it were simply the advance of their commerce. A decline of English commerce is a more unpleasant matter, but still worse when we have ground to suppose that there is a reason for it of a very ugly kind. When Mr. Busfeild Ferrand made his great denunciation of "devil's dust" and "shoddy cloth," he was met by a shout of de- rision and denial. It was quite natural that even a truth stated by a man so vehement in his partisanship, and so wanting in self-command, should be easily discredited : never- theless, in spite of the indifferent credit due to the channel by which the fact reached us, it was to a great extent true ; and the words of Busfeild Ferrand have since been remem- bered by many an angry customer, who has found his clothes giving way while they were yet new. Indeed, it has been known that cloth has been torn in the simple act of trying on, without any undue violence. The reason has been, the very general adulteration of the tissue with precisely the material denounced by Mr. Fer- rand—shoddy cloth; old materials made up again, or other ex- pedients to pass off rubbish under the appearance of well-made cloth.
There used to be a time when to say of any manufactured com- modity that it was " English" implied ipso facto that it was sterling—sound to the heart—made to stand wear and tear, and defying scrutiny to prove any falsity in its pedigree. That time has passed ; and we may well say that the decline of English repute in that respect has reached an alarming point, when even the manu- facture of woollen cloth, so long identified with our national name, has ceased to be sterling. The adulteration, which en- deavours to steal an additional profit for the vendor by a decep- tion upon the purchaser, may filch a dishonest gain for the vendor in the first instance ; but after a time the purchaser learns the trick, and then the vendor has to pay for his dishonest lucre by seeing his trade abandon him. Such things have happened as the loss of trade, not only to individuals but even to communities and to nations. Some years ago there was a stuff well known in this country as Nankin cloth, colloquially "nankeen," which had the recommend- ation of being a wholesome summer wear, and of being exces- sively durable. It was much used in various classes for jackets, trousers, and children's clothing, as combining lightness and dura- bility; and those qualities extended a use which could not have
been accorded to any beauty that it possessed. The consumption was great, and at a certain period it expanded considerably. The merchant and the manufacturer probably thought that their pro- fits should be increased by diminishing the original cost and sub- stituting an inferior article; at all events it was found in practice that nankeen did not possess the quality of durability, which was originally thought to be implied in the very name : the article fell into discredit, into disuse; and the trade declined. Attempts were made to recover it by the only legitimate means—by restoring the sterling quality of the stuff; and that was done, but the lost traffic was not regained : other commodities had been substituted for ' nankeen ; and the trade, which was once as sterling as the cloth itself, is extinct.
; There is no imperishable immunity for English trade ; its tenure can only be fairly earned by doing suit and service in the way of sterling work ; and if English commodities follow the example of nankeen in foreign markets, the trade will undergo a like fate. We could parallel the story of nankeen cloth in anec- dotes of needles without eyes, or of watches warranted to go for twenty-four hours, with other examples of sharp practice ; and in- deed these tricks, although not hazarded to the same degree, are to a certain extent copied very extensively through the deterioration of English wares in other things than woollen cloths. Much of the iron manufacture has been observed of late years to show traces of flaws in the manufacture, at which the vendor must have winked. The frauds in the building trade are notorious ; but as we do not export houses, the discredit and the discomfort are luckily kept at home. It is in the export commodities that the deterioration is most mischievous ; and while we look with pride to the enormous expansion of our exports during the present year, we may well ask ourselves whether it is safe to send abroad so many samples, as there must be in these exports, of a fraudulent cheapness? We are the more induced to call attention to these circumstances since there are evident signs of a better spirit in the staple trade which gave its name to the English weapon of old. The Germans, we are told by the Halifax Guardian, which imports this "hint from Berlin," attribute their success " to the superior excellence of their blue-black dye, to their production of a firm close-woven body of cloth, mellow, and a short nap, bearing a natural gloss, not due to too much dressing and devilling, and affirm that the Americans prefer light cloths possessing the above desiderata to thick heavy goods." Now, ingenuity certainly is no want in the English manufacturer; we can make up an article, if it is to be a question of manufacturing skill, to suit the fancy of any people ; and we could of course hit the notion of the Yankee " to a t." The only doubtful point is, whether we can convince him that the article is what it looks like ; and with a comparatively little time that also can be done. There has been reaction even at home against the fraudulent cheapness ; and a demand for better kinds of cloth has been noticed in Yorkshire, as a characteristic of the trade of this year. It is a wholesome characteristic, and it is one that the manufacturers cannot do too much to encourage ; for al- though a fictitious cheapness may give a sudden expansion to a trade, it carries with it the seeds of destruction ; and we are con- vinced that a few years more of " flash " exports would tend to bring one of those crashes from which we might find more diffi- culty in recovering than we did from the railway crash of 1847, or the glut in foreign markets of 1842—as insePerable a difficulty, perhaps, for some important branches of our trade, as was expe- rienced in the manufacture of nankeen cloth.
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