The truth, as well as the importance of this principle, is so well established in the Report of a Committee of the House of Commons ‘On the Export of Tools and Machinery’, that I shall avail myself of the opinions and evidence there stated, before I offer any observations of my own: 

Supposing, indeed, that the same machinery which is used in England could be obtained on the Continent, it is the opinion of some of the most intelligent of the witnesses that a want of arrangement in foreign manufactories, of division of labour in their work, of skill and perseverance in their workmen, and of enterprise in the masters, together with the comparatively low estimation in which the master manufacturers are held on the Continent, and with the comparative want of capital, and of many other advantageous circumstances detailed in the evidence, would prevent foreigners from interfering in any great degree by competition with our principal manufacturers; on which subject the Committee submit the following evidence as worthy the attention of the House: 

I would ask whether, upon the whole, you consider any danger likely to arise to our manufactures from competition, even if the French were supplied with machinery equally good and cheap as our own?  They will always be behind us until their general habits approximate to ours; and they must be behind us for many reasons that I have before given.

Why must they be behind us?  One other reason is, that a cotton manufacturer who left Manchester seven years ago, would be driven out of the market by the men who are now living in it, provided his knowledge had not kept pace with those who have been during that time constantly profiting by the progressive improvements that have taken place in that period:  this progressive knowledge and experience is our great power and advantage.

It should also be observed, that the constant, nay, almost daily, improvements which take place in our machinery itself, as well as in the mode of its application, require that all those means and advantages alluded to above should be in constant operation:  and that, in the opinion of several of the witnesses, although Europe were possessed of every tool now used in the United Kingdom, along with the assistance of English artisans, which she may have in any number, yet, from the natural and acquired advantages possessed by this country, the manufacturers of the United Kingdom would for ages continue to retain the superiority they now enjoy.  It is indeed the opinion of many, that if the exportation of machinery were permitted, the exportation would often consist of those tools and machines, which, although already superseded by new inventions, still continue to be employed, from want of opportunity to get rid of them:  to the detriment, in many instances, of the trade and manufactures of the country:  and it is matter worthy of consideration, and fully borne out by the evidence, that by such increased foreign demand for machinery, the ingenuity and skill of our workmen would have greater scope; and that, important as the improvements in machinery have lately been, they might, under such circumstances, be fairly expected to increase to a degree beyond all precedent.