Page:Speech of Sir Hussey Vivian, Bart. M.P. on the Corn Laws, Thursday March 14, 1839.djvu/20

16 equally uncalled for. What then has been the effect of the law admitting the importation of foreign ores? In the years 1826, 1827, and 1828, the quantity of copper ore raised in the county of Cornwall, was, on an average, 126,331 tons per annum. The average quantity of copper contained in this was, 9,885 tons per annum. The sum produced was, on an average, 735,693l. per annum; and the average price was 109l. 11s. per ton per annum. Since that period the introduction of foreign ore has gone on increasing from year to year; notwithstanding which I find, in the three last years, 1836, 1837, and 1838, the Cornish mines produced annually, on an average, 145,036 tons of ore, containing 11,398 tons of copper, of the value of 909,882l., and bearing a price per ton of 114l. 16s.; and this latter period, it must be observed, containing in it the year of American panic, during which the average price of copper per ton was reduced so low as 107l. 6s. and during which the export to America, and indeed the commerce of the country generally, was very considerably diminished. Between the periods I have stated also, the number of mines in the county of Cornwall producing above five tons per annum of copper, had increased from sixty-two to seventy-two; and all this, as I have already said, against an annually increasing importation of foreign copper ore, amounting in the year 1838,