ment in foreign manufactories, of division of labour in their work, of skill and perseverance in their workmen, and of enterprise in the masters, together with the comparatively low estimation in which the master-manufacturers are held on the Continent, and with the comparative want of capital, and of many other advantageous circumstances detailed in the evidence, would prevent foreigners from interfering in any great degree by competition with our principal manufacturers; on which subject the Committee submit the following evidence as worthy the attention of the House:—
'I would ask whether, upon the whole, you consider any danger likely to arise to our manufactures from competition, even if the French were supplied with machinery equally good and cheap as our own?—They will always be behind us until their general habits approximate to ours; and they must be behind us for many reasons that I have before given.
'Why must they be behind us?—One other reason is, that a cotton manufacturer who left Manchester seven years ago, would be driven out of the market by the men who are now living in it, provided his knowledge had not kept pace with those who have been during that time constantly profiting by the progressive improvements that have taken place in that period; this progressive knowledge and experience is our great power and advantage.'
"It should also be observed, that the constant, nay, almost daily, improvements which take place in our machinery itself, as well as in the mode of its application, require that all those means and advantages alluded to above, should be in constant operation; and that, in the opinion of several of
