in its early stages by the governing power; _secondly_, that if it had
attained a large development unprotected, the proportions of such
development shall have been at the least equal, as upon the theory of
free trade they should be superior, to the ratio of progression
manifested in other countries where protection has been the ruling
principle; _thirdly_, that free trade was not a necessity imposed by
circumstances and position, not the result of a barter of value for
value, but of free and spontaneous choice, and as the result of the
profound conviction of the superior excellency and adaptability of the
abstract principle. We shall deal briefly with the subject, because it
has been discussed more at length heretofore in those special articles
in which we have treated of the rise and progress of the cotton
manufacture in this and other countries. In regard to the first
condition, it was established on a former occasion, that the ruling
powers of one or more of the Cantons, did advance large capitals, and
offered more, in order to encourage and assist in the establishment of
cotton-spinning mills, with machinery of the most perfect construction,
under the superintendence, and with a share in the profits, of persons
duly skilled from England. Happily, one of the individuals to whom such
offers (on the basis of a L100,000 capital) were made, and by whom
declined, then and subsequently one of the largest exporting merchants
of Lancashire to Switzerland, and the Continent generally, still lives,
and we have had the statement confirmed by himself within the last two
or three years. This was somewhere between 1795 and 1800, further our
memory does not serve for the precise date at present, nor is it
indispensable. A manufacture thus, as may be said, artificially created
and bolstered up, we do not say unwisely, does not assuredly answer the
first condition required. With respect to the measure of the
manufacturing development, the data are unfortunately wanting for
precise verification; for Switzerland possesses no returns of foreign
trade at all, nor can any satisfactory approximation be arrived at from
inspection of the official tables of the foreign and transit commerce
now before us of Holland, Belgium, and France, through which all the
transmarine intercourse of Switzerland must necessarily pass. The
exports and imports of Holland, by the Rhine, are not so classed as to
show what proportion appertains to Germany and what