Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/184

182 replies, "I have had the curiosity to inquire into the paper manufacture, and I find that five pair of hands are employed at every fat; that so many hands are necessary in England, and that more cannot be employed in France. I am taught, too, by our own manufacturers, that they do not dispatch here above eight reams of paper in a day at a single fat, and that they dispatch above nine in France with the same number of hands; and yet I believe there is not any man in England so hardy as to affirm that either ours, or indeed any paper in the world, exceeds that of France." He accounts for this on the principle, that there is a slight of hand in almost every manufacture which is more effective than mere strength. "Before the Revolution," the account proceeds, "there was hardly any other paper made in England than brown; but, the war ensuing, and duties being laid from time to time on foreign paper, it gave such encouragement to the paper-makers, that most of them began to make white paper fit for writing and printing; and they have brought it by degrees to so great perfection, both for quantity and goodness, that they make now near two thirds of what is consumed in Great Britain; and several of them make it as white and as well-bearing as any comes from abroad, as Sir William Humphreys, Mr. Baskett, and several others can witness. And I make no doubt, if further encouragement was given them by taking off the twelve per cent, excise which was lately laid upon home-made paper, and which, by the multitude of officers, brings in little or nothing to the queen, and the said twelve per cent., for an equivalent to the fund, was laid upon outlandish paper, but that they could in a little time make enough to supply all the occasions of the nation; there being above 120 fats within sixty miles of London, besides several more in Yorkshire and Scotland, which all, more or less, make white paper, and will undoubtedly go on daily improving and increasing that useful manufacture, if the present high duties be kept on French paper, being that which they dread most, by reason of its extraordinary cheapness." Then follows a description of the process of paper-making, which it is