CHAPTER Ii,

JOMMERCIAL AND MENTAL PROGRESS.

1829.
Xr. 25.

Cospex had not been many months in his new partnership
before his energetic mind teemed with fresh projects. The
arrangement with the Forts had turned out excellently.
The Lancashire printers, as we have seen, sent up their
goods to the warehouse of Cobden and his two partners in
Watling Street, in London. On the commission on the
sale of these goods the little firm lived and throve from the
spring of 1829 to 1831. In 1831 they determined to enarge
 their borders, and to print their own goods. The
conditions of the trade had just undergone a remarkable
change. It had hitherto been burdened by a heavy duty,
which ranged from as much as fifty or sixty, to even one
aundred, per cent. of the value of the goods. In addition to
3xcess in amount, there was a vexatious eccentricity of
incidence; for woollens and silks were exempt, while
salicoes were loaded with a duty that, as has been said,
sometimes actually made up one half of the total cost of the
sloth to the purchasers. As is invariably the case in fiscal
history, excessive and ill-adjusted imposts led to systematic
fraud. Amid these forces of disorder, it is no wonder that
from 1825 to 1830 the trade was stationary. The Lancashire
 calico-printers kept up a steady agitation, and at one
bime it was proposed fo raise four thousand pounds for the
purchase of a seat in Parliament for a representative of their