er, the best and cheapest methods will soon be
discovered when people set about the work with a view to profit.

Q.--The Society will want nothing from me, nor from any-body else, to
convince it of the importance of this matter; but I cannot, in concluding
these communications to you, Sir, refrain from making an observation or
two on the consequences likely to arise out of these inquiries. The
manufacture is alone of considerable magnitude. Not less than about _five
millions_ of persons in this kingdom have a dress which consists partly of
manufactured straw; and a large part, and all the most expensive part, of
the articles thus used, now come from abroad. In cases where you can get
from abroad any article at _less expense than you can get it at home_, the
wisdom of fabricating that article at home may be doubted. But, in this
case, you get the raw material by labour performed at home, and the cost
of that labour is not nearly so great as would be the cost of the mere
carriage of the straw from a foreign country to this. If our own people
had all plenty of employment, and that too more profitable to them and to
the country than the turning of a part of our own grass into articles of
dress, then it would be advisable still to import Leghorn bonnets; but the
facts being the reverse, it is clear, that whatever money, or money's
worth things, be sent out of the country, in exchange for Leghorn bonnets,
is, while we have the raw material here for next to nothing, just so much
thrown away. The Italians, it may be said, take some of our manufactures
in exchange; and let us suppose, for the purpose of illustration, that
they take cloth from Yorkshire. Stop the exchange between Leghorn and
Yorkshire, and, does Yorkshire _lose part of its custom_? No: for though
those who make the bonnets out of English grass, prevent the Leghorners
from buying Yorkshire cloth, they, with the money which they now get,
instead of its being got by the Leghorners, buy the Yorkshire cloth
themselves; and they wear this cloth too, instead of its being worn by the
people of Italy; ay, Sir, and many, now in rags, will be well clad, if the
laudable object of the Society be effected. Besides this, however, why
should we not _export_ the articles of this manufacture? To America we
certainly should; and I should not be at all surprised if we were to
export them to Leghorn itself.

R.--Notwithstanding all this, however, if the manufacture were of a
descript