That the old policy of England, foreign, colonial, and domestic, was

thoroughly protective, and attended, on the whole, with a due care

of the interests of its subjects in every part of the world, may be

inferred with absolute certainty from the constant growth, unexampled

success, and long existence of her empire. But the matter is not left

to inference: decisive proof of it is to be found in the enactments

of our statute-book, the treaties we concluded, or the wars we waged

with foreign powers. Protection to native industry, at home or in the

colonies, security to vested interests, a sacred regard to the rights

and interests of our subjects, in whatever part of the world, were the

principles invariably acted upon. Long and bloody wars were undertaken

to secure their predominance, when threatened by foreign powers. This

protective system of necessity implied some restrictions upon the

industry, or restraints upon the liberty of action in the colonial

dependencies, as well as the mother country--but what then? They were

not complained of on either side, because they were accompanied with

corresponding and greater benefits, as the consideration paid by the

mother country, and received by her distant offspring. Reciprocity in

those days was not entirely one-sided; there was a _quid pro quo_ on

both sides. The American colonies were subjected to the Navigation

Laws, and, in consequence, paid somewhat higher for their freights

than if they had been permitted to export and import their produce

in the cheaper vessels of foreign powers; but this burden was never

complained of, because it was felt to be the price paid for the immense

advantages of the monopoly of the English market, and the protection of

the English navy. The colonies of France and Spain desired nothing so

much, during the late war, as to be conquered by the armies of England,

because it at once opened the closed markets for their produce, and

restored the lost protection of a powerful navy. The English felt that

their colonial empire was in some respects a burden, and entailed

heavy expenses both in peace and war; but they were not complained

of, because the manufacturing industry of England found a vast and

increasing market for its produce in the growth of its offspring in

every part of the world, and its commercial navy grew with unexampled

rapidity from the exclusive enjoyment of their trade.

Such was the amount of protection afforded in our statute-book to

commercial industry, that we might imagine, if there was nothing else

in it, that the empire had been governed exclusively by a manufacturing

aristocracy. Such was the care with which the interests of the

colonies were attended to, that it seemed as if they must have had

representatives who possessed a majority in the legislature. To one

who looked to the welfare of land, and the protection of its produce,

the chapel of St Stephens seemed to have been entirely composed of

the representatives of squires. The shipping interest was sedulously

fostered, as appeared in the unexampled growth and vast amount of our

mercantile tonnage. The interests of labour, the welfare of the poor,

were not overlooked, as was demonstrated in the most decisive way by

the numerous enactments for the relief of the indigent and unfortunate,

and the immense burden which the legislature voluntarily imposed on

itself and the nation for the relief of the destitute. Thus _all_

interests were attended to; and that worst of tyrannies, the tyranny

of one class over another class, was effectually prevented. It is in

this sedulous attention to _all_ the interests of the empire that its

long duration and unparalleled extension is to be ascribed. Had any

one class or interest been predominant, and commenced the system of

pursuing its separate objects and advantages, to the subversion or

injury of the other classes in the state, such a storm of discontent

must have arisen as would speedily have proved fatal to the unanimity,

and with it to the growth and prosperity of the empire.

Two causes mainly contributed to produce this system of catholic

protection by the British government to native industry; and to their

united operation, the greatness of England is chiefly to be ascribed.

The first of these was the peculiar constitution which time had worked

out for the House of Commons, and the manner in which all the interests

of the state had come silently, and without being observed, to be

indirectly but most effectually represented in parliament. That body,

anterior to the Reform Bill, possessed one invaluable quality--its

franchise was multiform and various. In many burghs the landed interest

in their neighbourhood was predominant; in most counties it returned

members in the interests of agriculture. In other towns, mercantile or

commercial wealth acquired by purchase an introduction, or won it from

the influence of some great family. Colonial opulence found a ready

inlet in the close boroughs: Old Sarum or Gatton nominally represented

a house or a green mound--really, the one might furnish a seat to a

representative of Hindostan, the other of the splendid West Indian

settlements. The members who thus got in by purchase had one invaluable

quality, like the officers who get their commissions in the army in the

same way--they were independent. They were not liable to be overruled

or coerced by a numerous, ignorant, and conceited constituency. Hence

they looked only to the interests of the class to which they belonged,

amidst which their fortunes had been made, and with the prosperity of

which their individual success was entirely wound up. With what energy

these various interests were attended to, with what perseverance the

system of protecting them was followed up, is sufficiently evident

from the simultaneous growth and unbroken prosperity of all the great

branches of industry during the long period of a hundred and fifty

years. Talent, alike on the Whig and the Tory side, found a ready

entrance by means of the nomination burghs. It is well known that all

the great men of the House of Commons, since the Revolution, obtained

entrance to parliament in the first instance through these narrow

inlets. Rank looked anxiously for talent, because it added to its

influence. Genius did not disdain the entrance, because it was not

obstructed by numbers, or galled by conceit. No human wisdom could have

devised such a system; it rose gradually, and without being observed,

from the influence of a vast body of great and prosperous interests,

feeling the necessity of obtaining a voice in the legislature, and

enjoying the means of doing so by the variety of election privileges

which time had established in the House of Commons. The reality of this

representation of interests is matter of history. The landed interest,

the West India interest, the commercial interest, the shipping

interest, the East Indian interest, could all command their respective

phalanxes in parliament, who would not permit any violation of the

rights, or infringement on the welfare, of their constituents to take

place. The combined effect of the whole was the great and glorious

British empire, teeming with energy, overflowing with patriotism,

spreading out into every quarter of the globe, and yet held together in

all its parts by the firm bond of experienced benefits and protected

industry.

The second cause was, that no speculative or theoretical opinions

had then been broached, or become popular, which proclaimed that the

real interest of any one class was to be found in the spoliation

or depression of any other class. No gigantic system of _beggar my

neighbour_ had then come to be considered as a shorthand mode of

gaining wealth. The nation had not then embraced the doctrine, that

to buy cheap and sell dear constituted the sum total of political

science. On the contrary, protection to industry in all its branches

was considered as the great principle of policy, the undisputed

dictate of wisdom, the obvious rule of justice. It was acknowledged

alike by speculative writers and practical statesmen. The interests

of the producers were the main object of legislative fostering and

philosophic thought--and for this plain reason, that they constitute

the great body of society, and their interests chiefly were thought of.

Realised wealth was then, in comparison to what it now is, in a state

of infancy; the class of traders and shopkeepers, who grow up with

the expenditure of accumulated opulence, was limited in numbers and

inconsiderable in influence. It would have been as impossible _then_

to get up a party in the House of Commons, or a cry in the country, in

favour of the consumers or against the producers, as it would be now to

do the same among the corn producers in the basin of the Mississippi,

or among the cotton growers of New Orleans.

It is in the profound wisdom of Hannibal's saying--that great states,

impregnable to the shock of external violence, are consumed and wasted

away by their own internal strength--that the real cause of the

subsequent and extraordinary change, first in the opinions of men,

and then in the measures of government, is to be found. Such was the

wealth produced by the energy of the Anglo-Saxon race, sheltered and

invigorated by the protection-policy of government in every quarter

of the globe, that in the end it gave birth to a new class, which

rapidly grew in numbers and influence, and was at length able to bid

defiance to all the other interests in the state put together. This

was the _moneyed interest_--the class of men whose fortunes were made,

whose position was secure, and who saw, in a general cheapening of

the price of commodities and reduction of prices, the means of making

their wealth go much farther than it otherwise would. This class had

its origin from the long-continued prosperity and accumulated savings

of the whole producing classes in the state; like a huge lake, it

was fed by all the streams and rills which descended into it from

the high grounds by which it was surrounded; and the rise of its

waters indicated, as a register thermometer, the amount of additions

which it was receiving from the swelling of the feeders by which it

was formed. But when men once get out of the class of producers, and

into that of moneyed consumers, they rapidly perceive an _immediate_

benefit to themselves in the reduction of the price of articles of

consumption, because it adds proportionally to the value of their

money. If prices can be forced down fifty per cent by legislative

measures, every thousand pounds in effect becomes fifteen hundred.

It thus not unfrequently and naturally happened, that the son who

enjoyed the fortune made by protection came to join the ranks of the

free traders, because it promised a great addition to the value of

his inheritance. The transition from Sir Robert Peel the father, and

staunch supporter of protection, who _made the fortune_, to Sir Robert

Peel the son, who _inherited it_, and introduced free-trade principles,

was natural and easy. Each acted in conformity with the interests of

his respective position in society. It is impossible to suppose in such

men a selfish or sordid regard to their own interests, and we solemnly

disclaim the intention of imputing such. But every one knows how the

ablest and most elevated minds are insensibly moulded by the influence

of the atmosphere with which they are surrounded; and, at all events,

they were a type of the corresponding change going on in successive

generations of others of a less elevated class of minds, in whom the

influence of interested motives was direct and immediate.

Adam Smith's work, now styled the _principia_ of economical science by

the free-traders, first gave token of the important and decisive change

then going forward in society. It was an ominous and characteristic

title: _The Nature and Cause of the_ WEALTH _of Nations_. It was not

said of their wisdom, virtue, or happiness. The direction of such a

mind as Adam Smith's to the exclusive consideration of the riches of

nations, indicated the advent of a period when the fruits of industry

in this vast empire, sheltered by protection, had become so great that

they had formed a powerful class in society, which was beginning to

look to its separate interests, and saw them in the beating down the

price of articles--that is, diminishing the remuneration of other men's

industry. It showed that the _Plutocracy_ was becoming powerful. The

constant arguments that able work contained, in favour of competition

and against monopoly,--its impassioned pleadings in favour of freedom

of commerce, and the removal of all restrictions on importation, were

so many indications that a new era was opening in society; that the

interests of _realised wealth_ were beginning to come into collision

with those of _creating industry_, and that the time was not far

distant when a fierce legislative contest might be anticipated between

them. It is well known that Adam Smith advocated the Navigation Laws,

upon the ground that national independence was of more importance than

national wealth. But there can be no doubt that this was a deviation

from his principles, and that, if they were established in other

particulars, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to succeed in

maintaining an exception in favour of the shipping interests, because

that was retaining a burden on the colonies, when the corresponding

benefit had been voted away.

Although, however, the doctrines of Adam Smith, from their novelty,

simplicity, and alliance with democratic liberty, spread rapidly in

the rising generation--ever ready to repudiate the doctrines and

throw off the restraints of their fathers--yet, so strongly were the

producing interests intrenched in the legislature, that a very long

period would probably have elapsed before they came to be practically

applied in the measures of government, had it not been that, at the

very period when, from the triumph of protection-principles during the

war, and the vast wealth they had realised in the state, the moneyed

interest had become most powerful, a great revolution in the state gave

that interest the command of the House of Commons. By the Reform Bill

_two-thirds of the seats_ in that house were given to boroughs, and

_two-thirds of the voters_ in boroughs, in the new constituency, were

shopkeepers or those in their interest. Thus a decisive majority in the

house, which, from having the command of the public purse, practically

became possessed of supreme power, was vested in those who made their

living by buying and selling--with whom cheap prices was all in all.

The producing classes were virtually, and to all practical purposes,

cast out of the scale. The landed interest, on all questions vital to

its welfare, would evidently soon be in a minority. Schedules A and B

at one blow disfranchised the whole colonial empire of Great Britain,

because it closed the avenue by which colonial wealth had hitherto

found an entrance to the House of Commons. Seats could no longer be

bought: the virtual representation of unrepresented places was at an

end. The greatest fortunes made in the colonies could now get into the

house only through some populous place; and the majority of voters

in most populous places were in favour of the consumers and against

the producers, because the consumers bought _their goods_, and they

bought those of the producers. Thus no colonial member could get in

but by forswearing his principles and abandoning the interests of his

order. The shipping interest was more strongly intrenched, because

many shipping towns had direct representatives in parliament, and it

accordingly was the last to be overthrown. But when the colonies were

disfranchised, and protection was withdrawn from their industry to

cheapen prices at home, it became next to impossible to keep up the

shipping interest--not only because the injustice of doing so, and so

enhancing freights, when protection to colonial produce was withdrawn,

was evident, but because it was well understood, by certain unequivocal

symptoms, that such a course of policy would at once lead to colonial

revolt, and the dismemberment of the empire.

The authors of the Reform Bill were well aware that under it two-thirds

of the seats in the House of Commons were for boroughs: but they

clung to the idea that a large proportion of these seats would fall

under the influence of the landed proprietors in their vicinity, and

thus be brought round to the support of the agricultural interest.

It was on that belief that Earl Grey said in private, amidst all his

public democratic declamations, that the Reform Bill was "the most

_aristocratic_ measure which had ever passed the House of Commons." But

in this anticipation, which was doubtless formed in good faith by many

of the ablest supporters of that revolution, they showed themselves

entirely ignorant of the effect of the great monetary change of 1819,

which at that very period was undermining the influence of the owners

of landed estates as much as it was augmenting the power of the holders

of bonds over their properties. As that bill changed the prices of

agricultural produce, at least to the extent of forty _per cent_, it of

course crippled the means and weakened the influence of the landowners

as much as it added to the powers of the moneyed interest which held

securities over their estates. This soon became a matter of paramount

importance. After a few severe struggles, the landowners in most places

saw that they were over-matched, and that their burdened estates and

declining rent-rolls were not equal to an encounter with the ready

money of the capitalists, which that very change had so much enhanced

in value and augmented in power. One by one the rural boroughs slipped

out of the hands of the landed, and fell under the influence of the

moneyed interest. At the same time one great colonial interest, that of

the West Indies, was so entirely prostrated by the ruinous measure of

the emancipation of the negroes, that its influence in parliament was

practically rendered extinct. Thus two of the great producing interests

in the state--those of corn and sugar--were materially weakened or

nullified, at the very time when the power of their opponents, the

moneyed aristocracy, was most augmented.

Experience, however, proved, on one important and decisive occasion,

that even after the Reform Bill had become the law of the land, it

was still possible, by a coalition of _all_ the producing interests,

to defeat the utmost efforts of the moneyed party, even when aided by

the whole influence of government. On occasion of the memorable Whig

budget of 1841, such a coalition took place, and the efforts of the

free-traders were overthrown. A change of ministry was the consequence;

but it soon appeared that nothing was gained by an alteration of

rulers, when the elements in which political power resided, under the

new constitution, remained unchanged.

Sir Robert Peel, and the leaders of the party which now succeeded to

power, appear to have been guided by those views in the free-trade

measures which they subsequently introduced. They regarded, and with

justice, the Reform Bill as, in the language of the _Times_, "a

great fact"--the settlement of the constitution upon a new basis--on

foundations _non tangenda non movenda_, if we would shun the peril

of repeated shocks to our institutions, and ultimately of a bloody

revolution. Looking on the matter in this light, the next object was

to scan the composition of the House of Commons, and see in what party

and interest in the state a preponderance of power was now vested.

They were not slow in discerning the fatal truth, that the Reform Bill

had given a decided majority to the representatives of boroughs, and

that a clear majority in these boroughs was, from the embarrassments

which monetary change had produced on the landed proprietors, and

the preponderance of votes which that bill had given to shopkeepers,

vested in the moneyed or consuming interest. Such a state of things

might be regretted, but still it existed; and it was the business of

practical statesmen to deal with things as they were, not to indulge

in vain regrets on what they once were or might have been. It seemed

impossible to carry on the government on any other footing than that

of concession to the wishes and attention to the interests of the

moneyed and mercantile classes, in whose hands supreme power, under the

new constitution, was now practically vested. Whether any such views,

supposing them well founded, could justify a statesman and a party, who

had received office on a solemn appeal to the country, under the most

solemn engagement to support the principles of protection, to repudiate

those principles, and introduce the measures they were pledged to

oppose, is a question on which, it is not difficult to see, but one

opinion will be formed by future times.

Still, even when free-trade measures were resolved on by Sir R. Peel's

government, it was a very doubtful matter, in the first instance,

how to secure their entire success. The great coalition of the chief

producing interests, which had proved fatal to the Whig administration

by the election of 1841, might again be reorganised, and overthrow

any government which attempted to renew the same projects. Ministers

had been placed in office on the principles of protection--they were

the watches, planted to descry the first approaches of the enemy, and

repel his attacks. But the old Roman maxim, "_Divide et impera_," was

then put in practice with fatal effect on the producing interests, and,

in the end, on the general fortunes of the empire. The assault was in

the first instance directed against the agricultural interest: the cry

of "Cheap bread," ever all-powerful with the multitude, was raised to

drown that of "Protection to native industry." The whole weight of

government, which at once abandoned all its principles, was directed

to support the free-trade assault, and beat down the protectionist

opposition. The whole population in the towns--that is, the inhabitants

of the places which, under the Reform Bill, returned two-thirds of the

House of Commons--was roused almost to madness by the prospect of a

great reduction in the price of provisions. The master-manufacturers

almost unanimously supported the same views, in the hope that the wages

of labour and the cost of production would be in a similar way reduced,

and that thus the foreign market for their produce would be extended.

The West India interest, the colonial interest, the shipping interest,

stood aloof, or gave only a lukewarm support to the protectionists,

conceiving that it was merely an agricultural question, and that the

time was far distant when there was any chance of their interests being

brought into jeopardy. "_Cetera quis nescit?_" The corn-laws were

repealed, agricultural protection was swept away, and England, where

wheat cannot be raised at a profit when prices are below 50s., or, at

the lowest, 45s. a quarter, was exposed to the direct competition of

states possessing the means of raising it to an indefinite extent,

where it can be produced and imported at a profit for in all 32s.

What subsequent events have abundantly verified, was at the time

foreseen and foretold by the protectionists,--that when agricultural

protection at home was withdrawn, it could not be maintained in the

colonies, and that cheap prices must be rendered universal, as they

had been established in the great article of human subsistence. This

necessity was soon experienced. The West Indies were the first to be

assailed. Undeterred by the evident ruin which a free competition with

the slave-growing states could not fail to bring on British planters

forced to work with free labourers--undismayed by the frightful

injustice of first establishing slavery by law in the English colonies,

and giving the utmost encouragement to negro importation, then forcibly

emancipating the slaves on a compensation not on an average a fourth

part of their value, and then sweeping away all fiscal protection, and

exposing the English planters, who could not with their free labourers

raise sugar below £10 a ton, to competition with slave states who

could raise it for £4 a ton--that great work of fiscal iniquity and

free-trade spoliation was perpetrated. The English landed interest

resisted the unjust measure; but it could hardly be expected that

they were to be very enthusiastic in the cause. They had not forgotten

their desertion in the hour of need by the West India planters, and the

deferred punishment, as they conceived, dealt out to them in return,

was not altogether displeasing. The shipping interest did little or

nothing when either contest was going on; nay, they in general, and

with fatal effect, supported free-trade principles thus far: they

were delighted that the tempest had not as yet reached their doors,

and flattered themselves none would be insane enough to attack the

wooden walls of Old England, and hand us over, bereft of our ocean

bulwarks, to the malice and jealousy of our enemies. They little knew

the extent and infatuation of political fanaticism. They were only

reserved, like Ulysses in the cave of Polyphemus, for the melancholy

privilege of being last devoured. Each session of Parliament, since

free trade was introduced, has been marked by the sacrifice of a fresh

interest. The year 1846 witnessed the repeal of the corn laws; the

year 1847 the equalisation, by a rapidly sliding scale, of the duties

on English free-grown and foreign slave-raised sugar; and 1849 was

immortalised by the destruction of the Navigation Laws. The British

shipowner, who pays £10 for wages on ships, is exposed to the direct

competition of the foreign shipowner, who navigates his vessel for £6.

"Perish the colonies," said Robespierre, "rather than one principle

be abandoned." Fanaticism is the same in all ages and countries. The

triumph of free trade is complete. A ruinous and suicidal principle has

been carried out, in defiance alike of bitter experience and national

safety. Each interest in the state has, since the great conservative

party was broken up by Sir R. Peel's free-trade measures, looked on

with indifference when its neighbour was destroyed; and to them may be

applied with truth what the ancient annalist said of the enemies of

Rome, "_Dum singuli pugnant, universi vincuntur._"[16]

We say advisedly, each interest has looked on with indifference

when its neighbour was _destroyed_. That this strong phrase is not

misapplied to the effect of these measures in the West Indies, is too

well known to require any illustration. Ruin, widespread and universal,

has, we know by sad experience, overtaken, and is rapidly destroying

these once splendid colonies. While we write these lines, a decisive

proof[17] has been judicially afforded of the frightful depreciation

of property which has there taken place, from the acts of successive

administrations acting on liberal principles, and yielding to popular

outcries: the fall has amounted to _ninety-three per cent_. Beyond all

doubt, since the new system began to be applied to the West Indies,

property to the amount of _a hundred and twenty millions_ has perished

under its strokes. The French Convention never did anything more

complete. Free-trade fanaticism may well glory in its triumphs; it is

doubtful if they have any parallel in the annals of mankind.

We do not propose to resume the debate on the Navigation Laws, of

which the public have heard so much in this session of parliament. We

are aware that their doom is sealed; and we accept the extinction of

shipping protection as _un fait accompli_, from which we must set out

in all future discussions on the national prospects and fortunes. But,

in order to show how enormously perilous is the change thus made, and

what strength of argument and arrays of facts free-trade fanaticism

has had the merit of triumphing over, we cannot resist the temptation

of transcribing into our pages the admirable letter of Mr Young, the

able and unflinching advocate of the shipping interest, to the Marquis

of Lansdowne, after the late interesting debate on the subject in the

House of Lords. We do so not merely from sincere respect for that

gentleman's patriotic spirit and services, but because we do not know

any document which, in so short a space, contains so interesting a

statement of that leading fact on which the whole question hinges--viz.

the progressive and rapid decline of British, and growth of foreign

tonnage, with those countries with whom we have concluded reciprocity

treaties: affording thus a foretaste of what we may expect now that we

have established a reciprocity treaty, by the repeal of the Navigation

Laws, with the whole world:

"My Lord,--In the debate last night on the Navigation Laws, your

Lordship said,--

'The noble and learned Lord opposite has spoken contemptuously

of statistics. Let me remind that noble and learned Lord that if

any statement founded on statistics remains unshaken, it is the

statement that under reciprocity treaties now existing, by which

this country enjoys no protection, she, nevertheless, monopolises

the greater part of the commerce of the north of Europe.'

As an impartial statist, as well as a statesman, your Lordship

will perhaps permit me to invite your attention to the following

abstract from Parliamentary returns, respectfully trusting that,

if the facts it discloses should be found irreconcilable with the

opinions you have expressed, a sense of justice will induce your

Lordship to correct the error:--

The reciprocity treaty with the United States was concluded in

1815.

The British inward entries from that country were--

Tons.

In 1816 45,140

In 1824, reciprocity having been

eight years in operation 44,994

--------

British tonnage having in }

that period decreased } 146

The inward entries of American tonnage were--

Tons.

In 1816 91,914

In 1824 153,475

--------

American tonnage having in }

that period increased } 61,561

During that period no reciprocity existed with the Baltic Powers;

and

Tons.

In 1815 the British entries from

Prussia, Sweden, Denmark,

and Norway were 78,533

In 1824 129,895

--------

British tonnage having increased 51,362

In 1815 those Baltic entries were 319,181

In 1824 350,624

--------

Baltic tonnage having increased 31,443

Thus, from the peace in 1815 to 1824, when the "Reciprocity of

Duties Act" passed, in the trade of the only country in the

world with which great Britain was in reciprocity, her tonnage

declined 146 tons, and that of the foreign nation advanced 61,561

tons; while in the trade with the Baltic powers, with which no

reciprocity existed, British tonnage advanced on its competitors

in the proportion of 51,362 to 31,443 tons.

From 1824 the reciprocity principle was applied to the Baltic

powers; and--

Tons.

In 1824, the British entries being 129,895

In 1846 they had declined to 88,894

--------

Having diminished during }

the period } 41,001

While the Baltic tonnage, which

in 1824 was 350,624

Had advanced in 1846 to 571,161

--------

Showing an increase of no }

less than } 220,537

And during this same period, the proportion of tonnage of

the United States continued, under the operation of the same

principle, steadily to advance, the British entries thence being--

Tons.

In 1846 205,123

And the American 435,399

--------

Showing an excess of American }

over British of } 230,276

I have (I hope not unfairly) introduced into this statement

American tonnage, because it shows that while, in the period

antecedent to general reciprocity, the adoption of the principle

in the trade with that nation produced an actual decline of

British navigation, while in the trade with the Baltic powers,

which was free from that scourge, British navigation outstripped

its competitor, it exhibits in a remarkable manner the reverse

result, from the moment the principle was applied to the Baltic

trade; while, above all, it completely negatives the statement

of the greater part of the commerce of the north of Europe being

monopolised by British ships, showing that in that commerce, in

1846, of an aggregate of 660,055 tons, British shipping had only

88,894 tons, while no less than 571,161 tons were monopolised by

Baltic ships!"

It is evident, from this summary, that the decline of British and

growth of foreign shipping will be so rapid, under the system of Free

Trade in Shipping, that the time is not far distant when the foreign

tonnage employed in conducting our trade will be superior in amount to

the British. In all probability, in six or seven years that desirable

consummation will be effected; and we shall enjoy the satisfaction of

having purchased freights a farthing a pound cheaper, by the surrender

of our national safety. It need hardly be said that, from the moment

that the foreign tonnage employed in conducting our trade exceeds the

British, our independence as a nation is gone; because we have reared

up, in favour of states who may any day become our enemies, a nursery

of seamen superior to that which we possess ourselves. And every year,

which increases the one and diminishes the other, brings us nearer

the period when our ability to contend on our own element with other

powers is to be at end, and England is to undergo the fate of Athens

after the catastrophe of Aigos Potamos--that of being blockaded in our

own harbours by the fleets of our enemies, and obliged to surrender at

discretion on any terms they might think fit to impose.

But in truth, the operations of the free-traders will, to all

appearance, terminate our independence, and compel us to sink into the

ignoble neutrality which characterised the policy of Venice for the

last two centuries of its independent existence, before the foreign

seamen we have hatched in our bosom have time to be arrayed in a

Leipsic of the deep against us. So rapid, _so fearfully rapid_, has

been the increase in the importation of foreign grain since the repeal

of the corn laws took place, and so large a portion of our national

sustenance has already come to be derived from foreign countries, that

it is evident, on the first rupture with the countries furnishing

them, we should at once be starved into submission. The free-traders

always told us, that a considerable importation of foreign grain would

only take place when prices rose high; that it was a resource against

seasons of scarcity only; and that, when prices in England were low,

it would cease or become trifling. Attend to the facts. Free trade

in grain has been in operation just three years. We pass over the

great importation of the year 1847, when, under the influence of the

panic, and high prices arising from the Irish famine, no less than

12,000,000 quarters of grain were imported in fifteen months, at a cost

of £31,000,000, nearly the whole of which was paid in specie. Beyond

all doubt, it was the great drain thus made to act upon our metallic

resources--at the very time when the free-traders had, with consummate

wisdom, established a _sliding paper circulation_, under which the

bank-notes were to be _withdrawn_ from the public in proportion as

the sovereigns were exported--which was the main cause of the dreadful

commercial catastrophe which ensued, and from the effects of which,

after two years of unexampled suffering, the nation has scarcely yet

begun to recover. But what we wish to draw the public attention to

is this. The greatest importation of foreign grain ever known, into

the British islands, before the corn laws were repealed, was in the

year 1839, when, in consequence of three bad harvests in succession,

4,000,000 quarters in round numbers were imported. The average

importation had been steadily diminishing before that time, since the

commencement of the century: in the five years ending with 1835, it was

only 381,000 quarters. But since the duties have become nominal, since

the 1st February in this year, the importation has become so prodigious

that it is going on at the rate of FIFTEEN MILLIONS of quarters a-year,

or a full fourth of the national consumption, which is somewhat under

sixty millions. This is in the face of prices fallen to 44s. 9d. for

the quarter of wheat, and 18s. the quarter of oats! We recommend the

Table below, taken from the columns of that able free-trade journal,

the _Times_--showing the amount of importation for the month ending

April 5, 1849, when wheat was at 45s. a-quarter--to the consideration

of those well-informed persons who expect that low prices will check,

and at last stop importation. It shows decisively that even a very

great reduction of prices has not that tendency in the slightest

degree. The importation of grain and flour is going on steadily, under

the present low prices, at the rate of about 15,000,000 quarters

a-year.[18]

The reasons of this continued and increasing importation,

notwithstanding the lowness of prices, is evident, and was fully

explained by the protectionists before the repeal of the corn laws took

place, though the free-traders, with their usual disregard of facts

when subversive of a favourite theory, obstinately refused to credit

it. It is this. The price of wheat and other kinds of grain, in the

grain-growing countries, especially Poland and America, is entirely

regulated by its price in the British islands. They can raise grain

in such quantities, and at such low rates, that everything depends on

the price which it will fetch in the great market for that species of

produce--the British empire. In Poland, the best wheat can be raised

for 16s. a-quarter, and landed at any harbour in England at 25s. The

Americans, out of the 250,000,000 quarters of bread stuffs which they

raise annually, and which, if not exported, is in great part not

worth above 10s. a-quarter, can afford, with a handsome profit to

the exporting merchant, to send grain to England, however small its

price may be in the British islands. However low it may be, it is much

higher than with them--and therefore it is _always_ worth their while

to export it to the British market. If the price here is 40s., it will

there be 28s. or 30s.; if 30s. here, it will not be more than 15s.

or 20s. there. Thus the profit to be made by importation retains its

proportion, whatever prices are in this country, and the motives to it

are the same whatever the price is. It is as great when wheat is low

as when it is high, except to the fortunate shippers, before the rise

in the British islands was known on the banks of the Vistula or the

shores of the Mississippi. Now that the duty on wheat is reduced to 1s.

a-quarter, we may look for an annual importation of from 15,000,000 to

20,000,000 quarters--that is, from a fourth to a third of the annual

subsistence, constantly, alike in seasons of plenty and of scarcity.

That the importation is steadily going on, appears by the following

returns for the port of London alone, down to May, taken from the

_Morning Post_ of May 7:--

Entered for home consumption during the month ending--

Wheat. Flour.

qrs. cwt.

February 5, 442,389 478,815

March 5, 405,685 355,462

April 5, 559,602 356,308

May 5, 383,395 243,154

--------- ---------

Making a total } 1,791,071 1,433,739

in four months, }

--equal, if we take 3-1/2 cwt. of flour to the qr. of wheat, to

2,200,700 qrs. of the latter. The importations of the first four

months of the year are, therefore, nearly as great as they were

during the whole of the preceding twelve months, the quantities

duty paid in 1848 being, of wheat, 2,477,366 qrs., and of flour,

1,731,974 cwt.

The reason why young states, especially if they possess land eminently

fitted for agricultural production, such as Poland and America, can

thus permanently undersell older and longer established empires in the

production of food, is simple, permanent, and of universal application,

but nevertheless it is not generally understood or appreciated. It is

commonly said that the cause is to be found in the superior weight of

debts, public and private, in the old state. There can be no doubt

that this cause has a considerable influence in producing the effect,

but it is by no means the only or the principal one. The main cause is

to be found in the superior _riches_ of the old state, when compared

with the young one, which makes money of less value, because it is

more plentiful. The wants and necessities of an extended commerce,

the accumulated savings of centuries of industry, at once require an

extended circulation, and produce the wealth necessary to purchase it.

The precious metals, and wealth of every sort, flow into the rich old

state from the poor young one, for the same reason that corn, and wine,

and oil, follow the same direction in obedience to the same impulse.

That it is the superior riches, and not the debts or taxes, of England

which render prices so high, comparatively speaking, in these islands,

is decisively proved by the immense difference between the value of

money, and the cost of living at the same time, in different parts of

the same empire, subject to the same public and private burdens,--in

London, for example, compared with Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Lerwick.

Every one knows that £1500 a-year will not go farther in the English

metropolis than £1000 in the Scotch, or £750 in the ancient city of

Aberdeen, or £500 in the capital of the Orkney islands. Whence this

great difference in the same country, and at the same time? Simply,

because money is over plentiful in London, less so in Edinburgh, and

much less so in Aberdeen or Lerwick. The same cause explains the

different cost of agricultural production in England, Poland, the

Ukraine, and America. It is the comparative poverty, the _scarcity of

money_, in the latter countries which is the cause of the difference.

Machinery, and the division of labour, almost omnipotent in reducing

the cost of the production of manufactured articles, are comparatively

impotent in affecting the cost of articles of rude or agricultural

produce. England, under a real system of free trade, would undersell

all the world in its manufactures, but be undersold by all the world

in its agricultural productions. If the national debt was swept away,

and the whole taxes of Great Britain removed, the cost of agricultural

production would not be materially different from what it now is. We

shall be able to raise grain as cheap as the serfs of Poland, or the

peasants of the Ukraine, when we become as poor as they are, but _not

till then_. Under the free-trade system, however, the period may arrive

sooner than is generally suspected, and the importation of foreign

grain be checked by the universal pauperism and grinding misery of the

country.

Assuming it, then, as certain that, under the free-trade system, the

importation of grain is to be constantly from a third to a fourth of

the annual consumption, the two points to be considered are, How is

the national _independence to be maintained_, or _incessant commercial

crises averted_, under the new system? These are questions on which

it will become every inhabitant of the British islands to ponder; for

on them, not only the independence of his country, but the private

fortune of himself and his children, is entirely dependent. If so

large a portion as a third or a fourth of the annual subsistence

is imported almost entirely from three countries, Russia, Prussia,

and America, how are we to withstand the hostility of these states?

Prussia, in the long run, is under the influence of Russia, and follows

its system of policy. The nations on whom we depend for so large a

part of our food are thus practically reduced to two, viz., Russia and

America--what is to hinder them from coalescing to effect our ruin,

as they practically did in 1800 and 1811, against the independence of

England? Not a shot would require to be fired, not a loan contracted.

The simple threat of closing their harbours would at once drive us to

submission. Importing a third of our food from these two states, to

what famine-price would the closing of their harbours speedily raise

its cost! The failure of £15,000,000 worth of potatoes in 1847--scarce

a _twentieth_ part of the annual agricultural produce of these islands,

which is about £300,000,000,--raised the price of wheat, in 1848, from

60s. to 110s.--what would the sudden stoppage of a _third_ do? Why,

it would raise wheat to 150s. or 200s. a-quarter--in other words, to

famine-prices--and inevitably induce general rebellion, and compel

national submission. After the lapse of fifteen centuries, we should

again realise, after similar Eastern triumphs, the mournful picture of

the famine in Rome, in the lines of the poet Claudian,[19] from the

stoppage of the wonted supplies of grain from the two granaries of

the empire, Egypt and Libya, by the effect of the Gildonic war. But

the knowledge of so terrible a catastrophe impending over the nation

would probably prevent the collision. England would capitulate while

yet it had some food left, on the first summons from its imperious

grain-producing masters.

But supposing such a decisive catastrophe were not to arise, at least

for a considerable period, how are _commercial crises_ to be prevented

from continually recurring under the new policy? How is the commercial

interest to be preserved from ruin--from the operation of the system

which itself has established? This is a point of paramount interest,

as it directly affects every fortune in the kingdom, the commercial

in the first instance, but also the realised and landed in the last;

but, nevertheless, it seems impossible to rouse the nation to a sense

of its overwhelming importance and terrible consequences. Experience

has now decisively proved that the corn-growing states, upon whom we

most depend for our subsistence, will not take our manufactures to any

extent, though they will gladly take our sovereigns or bullion to any

imaginable amount. The reason is, they are poor states, who are neither

rich enough to buy, nor civilised enough to have acquired a taste for

our manufactured articles, but who have an insatiable thirst for our

metallic riches, the last farthing of which they will drain away, in

exchange for their rude produce. The dreadful monetary crises of 1839

and 1848, it is well known, were owing to the drain upon our metallic

resources, produced by the great grain importations of those years, in

the latter of which above £30,000,000 of gold, probably a half of the

metallic circulation, was at once sent headlong out of the country.

Now, if an importation of grain to a similar amount is to become

_permanent_, and an export of the precious metals to a corresponding

degree to go on year after year, how, in the name of wonder, is a

perpetual repetition of similar disasters to be prevented?

We could conceive, indeed, a system of paper currency which might in

a great degree, if not altogether, prevent these terrible disasters.

If the nation possessed a circulation of bank-notes capable of being

_extended_ in proportion as the metallic circulation was withdrawn by

the exchanges of the commerce in grain, as was the law during the war,

the industry of the country might be vivified and sustained during

the absence of the precious metals, and their want be very little, if

at all, experienced. But it is well known that not only is there no

provision made by law, or the policy of government, for an _extension_

of the paper circulation when the metallic currency is withdrawn, but

the very reverse is done. There is a provision, and a most stringent

and effectual one, made for the _contraction_ of the currency at the

very moment when its expansion is most required, and when the national

industry is threatened with starvation in consequence of the vast and

ceaseless abstraction of the precious metals which free trade in grain

necessarily establishes. When free trade is sending gold headlong

out of the country, to buy food, Sir Robert Peel's law sends the

bank-notes, public and private, back into the banker's coffers, and

leaves the industry of the country without _either_ of its necessary

supports! Beyond all question, it is the double operation of free trade

in sending the sovereigns in enormous quantities out of the country,

and of the monetary laws, in contracting the circulation of paper in a

similar degree, and at the same time, which has done all the mischief,

and produced that widespread ruin which has now overtaken nearly all

the interests--but most of all the _commercial_ interests--in the

state. That ruin is easily explained, when it is recollected what

government has done by legislative enactment, on free-trade principles,

during the last five years.

1. They first, by the Acts of 1844 and 1845, restricted the paper

circulation of the whole empire, including Ireland, to £32,000,000 in

round numbers. For every note issued, either by the Bank of England or

private banks, above that sum, they required these establishments to

have sovereigns in their coffers.

2. Having thus restricted the currency, by which the industry of the

country was to be paid and supplied, to an amount barely sufficient for

its _ordinary_ wants, they next proceeded to encourage to the greatest

degree railway speculation, and pass bills through parliament requiring

an _extraordinary_ expenditure, in the next four years, of £333,000,000

sterling.

3. Having thus contracted the currency of the nation, and doubled its

work, they next proceeded to introduce, in 1846 and the two following

years, the free-trade system, under the operation of which our specie

was sent out of the country in enormous quantities, in exchange

for food, and by the operation of the law the paper proportionally

contracted.[20]

4. When this extraordinary system of augmenting the work of the people,

at the time the currency which was to sustain it was withdrawn, had

produced its natural and unavoidable effects, and landed the nation, in

October 1847, in such a state of embarrassment as rendered a suspension

of the law unavoidable, and induced a commercial crisis of unexampled

severity and duration, the authors of the monetary measures still

clung to them as the sheet-anchor of the state, and still upheld them,

although it is as certain as any proposition in Euclid, that, combined

with a free trade in grain, they _must_ produce a constant succession

of similar catastrophes, until the nation, like a patient exhausted by

repeated shocks of apoplexy, perishes under their effects.

It may be doubted whether the annals of the world can produce another

example of insane and suicidal policy on so great a scale as has been

exhibited by the government of England of late years, in its West

India measures, and the _simultaneous_ establishment of free trade and

fettered currency, and a railway mania, in the heart of the empire.

The effect of these measures upon the internal state of the empire

has been beyond all measure dreadful, and has far exceeded the worst

predictions of the protectionists upon their inevitable effect. Proofs

on this subject crowd in on every side, and all entirely corroborative

of the prophecies of the protectionists, and subversive of all the

prognostics of the free-traders. It was confidently asserted by them

that their system would immensely increase our foreign trade, because

it would enrich the foreign agriculturists from whom we purchased

grain, and who would take our manufactures in exchange; and what

has been the result, after free-trade principles have been in full

operation for three years? Why, they have stood thus:--

Exports,

Imports, Declared Value.

Market Value. British and

Irish produce.

1845, £84,054,272 £60,111,081

1846, 89,281,433 57,786,875

1847, 117,047,229 58,971,166

1848, 92,660,699 53,099,011[21]

Thus, while there has been an enormous increase going on during

the last three years in our imports, there has been nothing but a

diminution at the same time taking place in our exports. The foreigners

who sent us, in such prodigious quantities, their rude produce, would

not take our manufactures in return. They would only take our gold.

Hence our metallic treasures were hourly disappearing in exchange for

the provisions which showered in upon us; and this was the precise

time which the free-traders took to establish the monetary system

which compelled the contraction of the paper circulation _in direct

proportion to that very disappearance_. It is no wonder that our

commercial interests were thrown into unparalleled embarrassments from

such an absurd and monstrous system of legislation.

Observe, if the arguments and expectations of the free-traders had

been well founded, the immense importation of provisions which took

place in 1847 and 1848, in consequence of the failure of the potato

crop in Ireland and the west of Scotland, should immediately have

produced a vast rise in our exports. Was this the case? Quite the

reverse; it was attended with a decline in them. The value of corn,

meal, and flour imported in the following years stood thus:--

1845, £3,594,299

1846, 8,870,202

1847, 29,694,112

1848, 12,457,857[22]

Now, in the year 1847, though we imported nearly thirty millions' worth

of grain, our exports were £1,200,000 _less_ than in 1845, when we only

received three millions and a half of subsistence from foreign states.

Can there be a more decisive proof that the greatest possible addition

to our importation of grain is not likely to be attended with any

increase to our export of manufactures?

But if the great importation of grain which free-trade induces into

the British empire is not attended with any increase of our exports,

in the name of heaven, what good does it do? Feed the people cheap.

But what do they gain by that, if their wages, and the profits of

their employers, fall in the same or a greater proportion? That effect

has already taken place, and to a most distressing extent. Wages of

skilled operatives, such as colliers, iron-moulders, cotton-spinners,

calico-printers, and the like, are now not more than _half_ of what

they were when the corn-laws were in operation. They are now receiving

2s. 6d. a-day where, before the change, they received 5s. Wheat has

been forced down from 56s. to 44s.: that is somewhat above a fifth, but

wages have fallen a half. The last state of those men is worse than the

first. The unjust change for which they clamoured has proved ruinous to

themselves.

The way in which this disastrous effect has taken place is this:

In the first place, the _balance_ of trade has turned so ruinously

against us, from the effect of the free-trade measures, that the credit

of the commercial classes has, under the operation of our monetary

laws, been most seriously confused. It appears, from the accurate

and laborious researches of Mr Newdegate, that the balance of trade

against Great Britain, during the last three years of free trade, has

been no less than £54,000,000 sterling.[23] Now, woful experience has

taught the English people that the turning of the balance of trade

is a most formidable thing against a commercial nation, and that the

practical experience of mankind, which has always regarded it as one

of the greatest of calamities, is more to be regarded than the theory

of Adam Smith, that it was a matter of no sort of consequence. When

coupled with a sliding currency scale, which contracts the circulation

of bank-notes in proportion as the specie is withdrawn, it is one

of the most terrible calamities which can befall a commercial and

manufacturing state. It is under this evil that the nation is now

labouring: and it will continue to do so, till folly of conduct and

error of opinion have been expiated or eradicated by suffering.

In the next place, the purchase of so very large a portion as a fourth

of the annual subsistence--not from our own cultivators, who consume

at an average five or six pounds a-head of our manufactures, but

from foreign growers, who consume little or nothing--has had a most

serious effect upon the home trade. The introduction of 12,000,000 or

13,000,000 quarters of grain a-year into our markets, from countries

whose importation of our manufactures is almost equal to nothing, is

a most dreadfully depressing circumstance to our manufacturers. It is

destroying one set of customers, and that the very best we have--the

home growers--without rearing up another to supply their place. It is

exchanging the purchases by substantial yeomen, our own countrymen and

neighbours, of our fabrics, for the abstraction by aliens and enemies

of our money. It is the same thing as converting a customer into a

pauper, dependent on our support. It was distinctly foretold by the

protectionists, during the whole time the debate on the repeal of

the corn laws was going forward, that this effect would take place:

that the peasants of the Ukraine and the Vistula did not consume a

hundredth part as much, per head, as those of East Lothian or Essex;

and that to substitute the one for the other was to be penny wise and

pound foolish. These predictions, however, were wholly disregarded;

the thing was done; and now it is found that the result has been _much

worse_ than was anticipated--for not only has it gratuitously and

unnecessarily crippled the means of a large part of the home consumers

of our manufactures, but it has universally shaken and contracted

credit, especially in the commercial districts, by the drain it has

induced upon the precious metals. These evils, from the earliest times,

have been felt by mercantile nations; but they were the result, in

previous cases, of adverse circumstances or necessity. It was reserved

for this age to introduce them voluntarily, and regard them as the last

result of political wisdom.

In the third place, the reduction of prices, and diminution in the

remuneration of industry, which has taken place from the introduction

of free trade, and the general admission of foreign produce and

manufactures, raised in countries where production is cheap, because

money is scarce and taxes light, to compete with one where production

is dear, because money is plentiful and taxes heavy, cannot of course

fail to be attended--and that from the very outset--with the most

disastrous effects upon the general interests of the empire, and

especially such of them as are engaged in trade and manufactures.

Suppose that, anterior to the monetary and free-trade changes intended

to force down prices, the annual value of the industry of the country

stood thus, which we believe to be very near the truth:--

Lands and minerals, £300,000,000

Manufactures and commerce

of all sorts, 200,000,000

------------

Deduct taxes and

local burdens, £80,000,000

Interest of mortgages, 50,000,000

-----------

130,000,000

------------

Clear to national industry, £370,000,000

But if prices are forced down a half, which, at the very least, may be

anticipated, and in fact has already taken place, from the _combined_

effect of free trade and a restricted currency, estimating each at a

fourth only, the account will stand thus,--

Land and minerals, £150,000,000

Manufactures, 100,000,000

------------

Total, £250,000,000

Deduct taxes and

rates, £80,000,000

Interest of mortgages, 50,000,000

-----------

130,000,000

------------

Clear to national industry, £120,000,000

Thus, by the operation of these changes, in money and commerce, which

lower prices _a half_, the whole national income is reduced from

£370,000,000 to £120,000,000, or _less than a third_. Such is the

inevitable effect of a great reduction of prices, in a community of

which the major and more important part is still engaged in the work of

production; and such the illustration of the truth of the Marquis of

Granby's observation, that, under such a reduction, the whole producing

classes must lose more than they can by possibility gain, because their

loss is upon their _whole_ income, their gain only upon that portion of

their means--seldom more than a half--which is spent on the purchase of

articles, the cost of which is affected by the fall of prices.

The most decisive proof of the universality and general sense of this

reduction of income and general distress, is to be found in the efforts

which Mr Cobden and the free-trade party are now making to effect a

great reduction in the public expenditure. During the discussion on

corn-law repeal, they told us that the change they advocated could make

no sort of difference on the income of the producing and agricultural

classes, and that it would produce an addition to the income of the

trading classes of £100,000,000 a-year. Of course, the national and

public resources were to be greatly benefited by the change; and it

was under this belief adopted. Now, however, that the change has taken

place, and its result has been found to be a universal embarrassment

to all classes and interests, but especially to the commercial, they

turn round and tell us that this effect is inevitable from the change

of prices--that the halcyon days of high rents and profits are at

an end, and that all that remains is for all classes to accommodate

themselves the best way they can to the inevitable change. They propose

to begin with Queen Victoria and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, from

whom they propose to cut off £11,000,000 a-year of income. But they

consider this perfectly safe, because, as the aspect of things, both

abroad and in our colonial empire, is so singularly pacific, and peace

and goodwill are so soon to prevail among men, they think it will be

soon possible to disband our troops, sell our ships of war, and trust

the stilling the passions and settling the disputes of nations and

races to the great principles of justice and equity, which invariably

regulate the proceedings of all popular and democratic communities. We

say nothing of the probability of such a millennium soon arriving, or

of the prognostics of its approach, which passing and recent events in

India, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Sicily, and Ireland,

have afforded, or are affording. We refer to them only as giving the

most decisive proof that the free-traders have now themselves become

sensible that their measures have produced a general impoverishment of

all classes, from the head of the state downwards, and that a great

reduction of expenditure is unavoidable, if a general public and

private bankruptcy would be averted.

In truth, the proofs of this general impoverishment are now so numerous

and decisive, that they have brought conviction home to the minds of

the most obdurate, and, with the exception of the free-trade leaders or

agitators--whose fanaticism is, of course, fixed and incurable--have

produced a general distrust of the new principles. A few facts

will place them in the most striking light. The greatest number of

emigrants who had previously sailed from the British shores was in

1839, when they reached 129,000. But in the year 1847, the sacred year

of free trade and a fettered currency, they rose at once to 258,270.

In 1848 they were 248,000. The number this year is understood to be

still greater, and composed almost entirely, not of paupers--who,

of course, cannot get away--but of the better sort of mechanics,

tradesmen, and small farmers, who, under the new system, find their

means of subsistence dried up. The poor-rate in England has now risen

to £7,000,000 annually--as much in nominal amount as it was in 1834,

when the new poor-law was introduced by the Whig government, and, if

the change in the value of money is taken into account, half as much

more. A _seventh_ of the British empire are now supported in the two

islands by the parish rates, and yet the demands on private charity are

hourly increasing. Crime is universally and rapidly on the increase:

in Ireland, where the commitments never before exceeded 21,000, they

rose in 1848 to 39,000. In England, in the same year, they were 30,000;

in Scotland, 4908; all a great increase over previous years. It is not

surprising crime was so prolific in a country where, in the preceding

year, at least 250,000 persons _died of famine_, in spite of the noble

grant of £10,000,000 from the British treasury for their support. We

extract from the _Standard of Freedom_ the following summary of some

of the social results which have followed the adoption of liberal

principles:--

"STATE OF ENGLAND.--One man in every ten, according to Sir J.

Graham, a short time ago was in receipt of parish relief in this

country; but now, it appears, from a return up to June last, it

is not 10 per cent, but 11 per cent of the population who receive

parochial relief; for the persons so relieved amount to 1,700,000

out of 15,000,000. £7,000,000 was raised annually for the relief

of the poor in England, and £500,000 in Scotland; and, taking

the amount collected for and raised in Ireland at £1,860,957, it

makes a total of £9,460,957, as the sum levied annually in the

British empire for the relief of the poor, or three times the cost

of the civil government, independently of the cost of the army

and navy. Besides the regular standing force, there is the casual

poor, a kind of disposable force, moving about and exhausting

every parish they go through. In 1815, there were 1,791 vagrants

in one part of the metropolis, and, in 1828, in the same district

in London, they had increased to 16,086. In 1832, the number was

35,600, which had increased, in 1847, to 41,743. Moreover, there

is a certain district south of the Thames, in which, for the six

months ending September 1846, the number was 18,533, and which had

increased, during the same six months in 1847, to 44,937. And, in

the county of York, in one of the first unions in the West Riding,

in 1836, one vagrant was relieved, and, in 1847, 1,161. This

affords a pretty strong, dark, and gloomy picture of the state of

destitution prevailing in this country."--_Standard of Freedom._

General as the distress is which, under the combined operations of free

trade and a fettered currency, has been brought upon the country, there

is one circumstance of peculiar importance which has not hitherto, from

the efforts of the free-traders to conceal it, met with the attention

it deserves. This is the far greater amount of ruin and misery they

have brought upon the commercial classes, who supported, than the

agriculturists, who opposed them. The landed interest is only beginning

to experience, in the present low prices, the depressing effects of

free trade. The Irish famine has hitherto concealed or postponed them.

London is suffering, but not so much as the provincial towns, from

its being the great place where the realised wealth of the country is

spent. But the whole commercial classes in the manufacturing towns

have felt them for nearly two years in the utmost intensity. It is

well known that, during that short period, _one-half_ of the wealth

realised, and in course of realisation, in Manchester, Liverpool,

Birmingham, and Glasgow, has perished. There is no man practically

acquainted with these cities who will dispute that fact. The poor-rates

of Glasgow, which, five years ago, did not exceed £30,000 a-year for

the parliamentary city, have now reached £200,000; viz.

Glasgow parish, £90,000

Barony, 70,000

Gorbals, 40,000

--------

£200,000

The sales by shopkeepers in these towns have not, during three years,

been a third of their average amount. All the witnesses examined before

the Lords' committee on the public distress, describe this panic of

autumn 1847 as infinitely exceeding in duration and severity anything

previously experienced; and the state of matters, and the intensity of

the shock given to public credit, may be judged of by the following

entries as to the state of the Bank of England in June 1845 and October

1847, when the law was suspended:--

JUNE 1845.

| | ISSUE DEPARTMENT. | BANKING DEPARTMENT. |

| Date. | Notes | Gold and | Notes in | Gold and |

| | Issued. | Silver | Reserve. | Silver |

| | | Bullion. | | Coin. |

+--------+ | | | |

| June 7 | £29,732,000 | £15,732,000 | £9,382,000 | £779,000 |

| -- 14 | 29,917,000 | 15,917,000 | 9,854,000 | 696,000 |

| -- 21 | 30,051,000 | 16,051,000 | 9,837,000 | 587,000 |

| -- 28 | 30,047,000 | 16,047,000 | 9,717,000 | 554,000 |

OCTOBER 1847.

| | ISSUE DEPARTMENT. | BANKING DEPARTMENT. |

| | | | | |

| Date. | Notes | Gold and | Notes in | Gold and |

| | Issued. | Silver | Reserve. | Silver |

| | | Bullion. | | Coin. |

+--------+ | | | |

| Oct. 2 | £22,121,000 | £8,121,000 | £3,409,000 | £443,000 |

| -- 9 | 21,961,000 | 7,961,000 | 3,321,000 | 447,000 |

| -- 16 | 21,989,000 | 7,989,000 | 2,630,000 | 441,000 |

| -- 23 | 21,865,000 | 7,865,000 | 1,547,000 | 447,000 |

| -- 30 | 22,009,000 | 8,009,000 | 1,176,000 | 429,000 |

_Commercial Crisis_, 2d edition, 132-133.

Thus, such was the severity of the panic, and the contraction of the

currency, consequent on the monetary laws and the operation of free

trade in grain, that the nation was all but rendered bankrupt, and

half its traders unquestionably were so, when there were still eight

millions of sovereigns in the issue department of the bank which could

not be touched, while the reserve of notes in the banking department

had sunk from nearly £10,000,000, in 1845, to £1,100,000!

So portentous a state of things, fraught as it necessarily was with

utter ruin to a great part of the best interests in the empire, was

certainly not contemplated by the commercial classes, when they

embarked in the crusade of free trade against the productive interests.

It might have been long of coming on, and certainly would never have

set in with half the severity which actually occurred, had it not been

that, not content with the project of forcing down prices by means of

the unrestricted admission of foreign produce, they at the same time

sought to augment their own fortunes by restricting the currency. It

was the _double project_, beyond all question, which proved their ruin.

They began and flattered themselves they would play out successfully

the game of "_beggar my neighbour_," but by pushing their measures

too far, it turned into one of "_beggar ourselves_." It was the

double strain of free trade and a fettered currency which brought

such embarrassment on the commercial classes, as it was the double

strain of the Spanish and Russian wars which proved the destruction

of Napoleon. It would appear to be a general law of nature, that

great measures of injustice cannot be carried into execution, either

by communities or single men, without vindicating the justice of the

Divine administration, by bringing down upon themselves the very ruin

which they have designed for others.

The free-traders say that there is no general reaction against their

principles, and that the formation of a government on protectionist

principles is at present impossible. We shall not inquire, and have not

the means of knowing, whether or not this statement is well founded.

We are willing to accept the statement as true, and we perceive a

great social revolution, accompanied with infinite present suffering,

but most important ultimate results, growing from their obstinate

adherence to their principles in defiance of the lessons of experience.

_The free-traders are with their own hands destroying the commercial

classes, which had acquired an undue preponderance in the state._ They

must work out their own punishment before they abjure their principles.

Every day a free-trading merchant or shopkeeper is swept into the

_Gazette_, and his family cast down to the humblest ranks in society.

They go down like the Fifth Monarchy men when expelled from the House

of Commons by the bayonets of Cromwell, or the Girondists when led

to the scaffold by the Jacobins, chanting hymns in honour of their

principles when perishing from their effects:--

"They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,

And, like reapers, descend to the harvest of death."

But this constancy of individuals when suffering under the measures

they themselves have introduced, however curious and respectable as

a specimen of the unvarying effect of fanaticism, whether religious

or social, on the human mind, cannot permanently arrest the march

of events; it cannot stop the effect of their own measures, any more

than the courage of the Highlanders in 1745 could prevent the final

extinction of the Jacobite cause. Let them adhere to free trade and a

fettered currency as they like, the advocates of the new measures are

daily and hourly losing their influence. Money constitutes the sinews

of war not less in social than in national contests. No cause can be

long victorious which is linked to that worst of allies, INSOLVENCY.

In two years the mercantile classes have destroyed one-half of their

own wealth; in two years more, one-half of what remains will be gone.

Crippled, discredited, ruined, beat down by foreign competition,

exhausted by the failure of domestic supplies, the once powerful

mercantile body of England will be prostrate in the dust. All other

classes, of course, will be suffering from their fall, but none in

the same degree as themselves. It is not improbable that the land

may regain its appropriate influence in the state, by the ruin which

their own insane measures have brought upon its oppressors. No one

will regret the lamentable consequences of such a change, already far

advanced in its progress, more than ourselves, who, have uniformly

foretold its advent, and strenuously resisted the commercial and

monetary changes which, amidst shouts of triumph from the whole Liberal

party, were silently but certainly inducing these results.

Confounded at such a series of events, so widely different from

what they anticipated and had predicted from their measures, the

free-traders have no resource but to lay them all on two external

causes, for which they are not, as they conceive, responsible: these

causes are, the French and German revolutions, and the potato famine in

Ireland.

That the revolutions on the continent of Europe have materially

affected the market for the produce of British industry, in the

countries where they have occurred, is indeed certain; but are the

Liberals entitled to shake themselves free from the consequences

of these convulsions? Have we not, for the last thirty years, been

labouring incessantly to encourage and extend revolution in all the

adjoining states? Did we not insidiously and basely support the

revolutions in South America, and call a new world into existence to

redress the balance of the old? Was not the result of that monstrous

and iniquitous interference in support of the rebels in an allied

state, to induce the dreadful monetary catastrophe of December 1825,

the severest, till that of 1847, ever experienced in modern Europe?

Did we not, not merely instantly recognise the French revolutions of

1830 and 1848, but lend our powerful aid and countenance to extend the

laudable example to the adjoining states? Did we not join with France

to prevent the King of the Netherlands from regaining the command

of Flanders in 1832, and blockade the Scheldt while Marshal Gerard

bombarded Antwerp? Did we not conclude the Quadruple Alliance to effect

the revolutionising of Spain and Portugal, and bathe both countries

for four years with blood, to establish revolutionary queens on both

the thrones in the Peninsula? Have we not intercepted the armament

of the King of Naples against Sicily, by Admiral Parker's fleet, and

aided the insurgents in that island with arms from the Tower? Did we

not interfere to arrest the victorious columns of Radetsky at Turin,

but never move a step to check Charles Albert on the Mincio? Did we

not side with revolutionary Prussia against the Danes, and aid in

launching Pio Nono into that frantic career which has spread such ruin

through the Italian peninsula? Have we not all but lost the confidence

of our old ally, Austria, from our notorious intrigues to encourage

the furious divisions which have torn that noble empire? Nay, have we

not been so enamoured of revolution, that we could not avoid showing

a partiality for it in our own dominions--rewarding and encouraging

O'Connell, and allowing monster meetings, till by the neglect of

Irish industry we landed them in famine, and by the fanning of Irish

passions brought them up to rebellion;--and establishing a constitution

in Canada which gave a decided majority in parliament to an alien

and rebel race, and, as a necessary consequence, giving the colonial

administration to the very party whom, ten years ago, the loyalists

put down with true British spirit at the point of the bayonet? All

this we have done, and have long been doing, with impunity; and now

that the consequences of such multifarious sins have fallen upon us,

in the suffering which revolution has at last brought upon the British

empire, the Liberals turn round and seek to avoid the responsibility of

the disasters produced by their internal policy, by throwing it on the

external events which they themselves have induced.

Then as to the Irish famine of 1846, it is rather too much, after the

lapse of _three_ years, to go on ascribing the general distress of the

empire to a partial failure of a particular crop, which, after all,

did not exceed the loss of a twentieth part of the annual agricultural

produce of the British Islands. But if the free-traders' principles

had been well founded, this failure in Ireland should have been the

greatest possible blessing to their party in the state, because it

_immediately_ effected that transference of the purchase of a part of

the national food from home to foreign cultivators, which is the very

thing they hold out as such an advantage, and likely in an especial

manner to enlarge the foreign market for our manufactures. It induced

the importation of £30,000,000 worth of foreign grain in three months:

that, on the principles of the free-traders, should have put all our

manufacturers in activity, and placed the nation in the third heaven.

Disguise it as you will, the Irish potato-rot was but an anticipation,

somewhat more sudden than they expected, of the _free-trade rot_, which

was held out as a certain panacea for all the national evils. And now,

when free trade and a restricted currency have not proved quite so

great a blessing as they anticipated, the free-traders turn round and

lay it all on the substitution of foreign importation for domestic

production in Ireland, when that very substitution is the thing they

have, by abolishing the corn laws, laboured to effect over the whole

empire.

Then as to the state of Ireland, which has at length reached the

present unparalleled crisis of difficulty and suffering, the conduct

of the Liberals has been, if possible, still more inconsistent and

self-condemnatory. For half a century past, they have been incessantly

declaiming on the mild, inoffensive, and industrious character of

the Irish race; upon their inherent loyalty to the throne; and upon

the enormous iniquity of British rule, which had brought the whole

misfortunes under which they were labouring on that virtuous people.

Nothing but equal privileges, Catholic emancipation, parliamentary

reform, burgh reform, and influence at Dublin Castle, we were told,

were required to set everything right, and render Ireland as peaceable

and prosperous as any part of the British dominions. The conduct of

James I. and Cromwell, in planting Saxon and Protestant colonies in

Ulster, was in an essential manner held up to detestation, as one of

the chief causes of the social and religious divisions which had over

since distracted the country. Well, the Liberals have given all these

things to the Irish. For twenty years, the island has been governed

entirely on these principles. They have got Catholic emancipation,

a reduction of the Protestant church, national education, corporate

reform, parliamentary reform, monster meetings, ceaseless agitation,

and, in fact, all the objects for which, in common with the Liberal

party in Great Britain, they have so long contended. And what has

been the result? Is it that pauperism has disappeared, industry

flourished, divisions died away, prosperity become general? So far

from it, divisions never have been so bitter, dissension never so

general, misery so grinding, suffering so universal, since the British

standards, under Henry II., seven centuries ago, first approached

their shores. A rebellion has broken out; anarchy and agitation, by

turning the people aside from industry, have terminated in famine;

and even the stream of English charity seems dried up, from the

immensity of the suffering to be relieved, and the ingratitude with

which it has heretofore been received. And what do the Liberals now

do? Why, they put it all down to the score of the incurable indolence

and heedlessness of the Celtic race, which nothing can eradicate, and

cordially support Sir R. Peel's proposal to plant English colonies

in Connaught, _exactly similar to Cromwell's in Ulster_, so long the

object of Liberal hatred and declamation! They tell us now that the

native Irish are irreclaimable helots, hewers of wood and drawers of

water, and incapable of improvement till directed by Saxon heads and

supported by the produce of Saxon hands. They forget that it is these

very helots whom they represented as such immaculate and valuable

subjects, the victims of Saxon injustice and Ulster misrule. They

forget that English capitalists and farmers would long since have

migrated to Ireland, and induced corn cultivation in its western and

southern provinces, were it not that Liberal agitation kept the people

in a state of menacing violence, and Liberal legislation took away

all prospect of remunerating prices for their grain produce. And thus

much for the Crowning of the Column of Free Trade, and Crushing of the

Pedestal of the Nation.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] "No great state can long remain quiet; if it has not an enemy

abroad, it finds one at home, as powerful bodies resist all external

attacks, but are destroyed by their internal strength."--LIVY.

[16] "While each separately fights, all are conquered."--TACITUS.

[17]

Column Headings--

A - Slavery Value.

B - After Abolition.

C - After Abolition of Apprenticeship.

D - Since passing Sugar Bill of 1846.

A | B | C | D | Name of the

| | | | Estate.

---------+---------+---------+---------+

£ | £ | £ | £ |

120,000 | 60,000 | 45,000 | 5,000 | Windsor Forest.

65,000 | 32,000 | 26,000 | 5,000 | La Grange.

55,000 | 27,500 | 23,000 | 3,500 | Belle Plaine.

80,000 | 30,000 | 20,000 | 6,000 | Rabacca.

70,000 | 25,000 | 17,000 | 3,000 | Sir W. South.

45,000 | 20,000 | 15,000 | 5,000 | Richmond Hill.

---------+---------+---------+---------+

435,000 | 194,500 | 146,000 | 27,500 |

Slavery value, £435,000

Estimated present value, 27,500

--------

Depreciation, £407,500

Or equal to 93-1/2 per cent on original value.

--IN RE CRUIKSHANKS, IN CHANCERY, _Times_, June 6th, 1849.

[18]

| QUANTITIES imported into the United Kingdom in the |

| month ending April 5, 1849:-- |

| |

| | | The | |

| | | produce | |

| | | of, and | |

| Species of | Imported | imported | |

| Corn, Grain, | from foreign | from, | Total. |

| Meal, and | countries. | British | |

| Flour. | | possessions| |

| | | out of | |

| | | Europe. | |

+-----------------+----------------+------------+-----------------+

| | Qrs. Bush.| Qrs. Bls. | Qrs. Bush. |

| Wheat | 535,015 2 | | 535,015 2 |

| Barley | 150,177 5 | | 150,177 5 |

| Oats | 146,149 6 | 1 6 | 146,151 4 |

| Rye | 20,768 4 | | 20,768 4 |

| Peas | 12,313 6 | | 12,313 6 |

| Beans | 60,294 5 | | 60,294 5 |

| | | | |

| Maize or } | 184,772 4 | | 184,772 4 |

| Indian corn } | | | |

| Buck-wheat | 12 3 | | 12 3 |

| Bere or bigg | 800 0 | | 800 0 |

| +----------------+------------+-----------------+

| Total of corn } | 1,110,304 3 | 1 6 | 1,110,306 1 |

| and grain } | | | |

| +----------------+------------+-----------------+

| | | | |

| | Cwt. qrs. lb.| Cwt. q. lb.| Cwt. qrs. lb.|

| Wheat meal } | 307,617 0 7 | 753 3 11 | 308,370 3 18 |

| or flour } | | | |

| Barley meal | | | |

| Oat meal | 24 2 0 | | 24 2 0 |

| Rye meal | 1,571 1 9 | | 1,571 1 9 |

| Pea meal | 10 0 0 | | 10 0 0 |

| Indian meal | 10,707 1 10 | | 10,707 1 10 |

| Buck-wheat meal | 80 0 0 | | 80 0 0 |

| +----------------+------------+-----------------+

| Total of meal } | 320,010 0 26 | 753 3 11 | 320,764 0 9 |

| and flour } | | | |

| QUANTITIES charged with duty for Home Consumption in the |

| United Kingdom in the month ended April 5, 1849:-- |

| |

| | | The | |

| | | produce | |

| | | of, and | |

| Species of | Imported | imported | |

| Corn, Grain, | from foreign | from, | Total. |

| Meal, and | countries. | British | |

| Flour. | | possessions| |

| | | out of | |

| | | Europe. | |

+-----------------+----------------+------------+-----------------+

| | Qrs. Bush.| Qrs. Bls. | Qrs. Bush.|

| Wheat | 559,602 2 | | 559,602 2 |

| Barley | 170,343 5 | | 170,343 5 |

| Oats | 149,784 5 | | 149,786 3 |

| Rye | 22,432 1 | 1 6 | 22,432 1 |

| Peas | 17,782 0 | | 17,782 0 |

| Beans | 59,546 5 | | 59,546 5 |

| | | | |

| Maize or } | 183,604 6 | | 183,604 6 |

| Indian corn } | | | |

| Buck-wheat | 12 3 | | 12 3 |

| Bere or bigg | 800 0 | | 800 0 |

| +----------------+------------+-----------------+

| Total of corn } | 1,163,908 3 | 1 6 | 1,163,910 1 |

| and grain } | | | |

| +----------------+------------+-----------------+

| | | | |

| | Cwt. qrs. lb.| Cwt. q. lb.| Cwt. qrs. lb.|

| Wheat meal } | 353,799 1 3 | 2509 0 1 | 356,308 1 4 |

| or flour } | | | |

| Barley meal | | | |

| Oat meal | 26 2 8 | | 26 2 8 |

| Rye meal | 825 3 6 | | 825 3 6 |

| Pea meal | 10 0 0 | | 10 0 0 |

| Indian meal | 10,671 1 7 | | 10,671 1 7 |

| Buck-wheat meal | 80 0 0 | | 80 0 0 |

| +----------------+------------+-----------------+

| Total of meal } | 365,412 3 24 | 2509 0 1 | 367,921 3 25 |

| and flour } | | | |

--_London Gazette_, 20th April, 1849.

[19]

"Advenio supplex, non ut proculcet Araxen

Consul ovans, nostræve premant pharetrata secures

Susa, nec ut rubris Aquilas figamus arenis.

Hæc nobis, hæc ante dabas. Nunc pabula tantum

Roma precor. Miserere tuæ pater optime gentis,

_Extremam defenda famam_--Satiavimus iram,

Si quâ fuit. Lugenda Getis et flenda Suëvis

Hausimus: ipsa meos exhorret Parthia casus.

* * * * *

Armato quondam populo, Patrumque vigebam

Consiliis. Domui terras, urbesque revinxi

Legibus: ad solem victrix utrumque cucurri,

* * * * *

Nunc inhonorus egens perfert miserabile pacis

Supplicium, nulloque palam circumdatus hoste,

Obsessi discrimen habet--per singula letum

Impendit momenta mihi, dubitandaque pauci

Prescribant alimenta Dies."

--CLAUDIAN, _De Bello_. _Gildonico_, 35--100.

[20] In 1845, the Bank of England notes out with the public were about

£23,000,000. Since the free trade began they have seldom been above

£18,000,000, and at times as low as £16,800,000, and that at the very

time when all the railways were going on.

[21] Newdegate's _Letter to Mr Labouchere_, p. 12-13.

[22] Newdegate's _Letter to Mr Labouchere_, p. 17.

[23]

| | | | Balance of | Balance of Trade |

| | | Total | Freight | against Britain. |

| | Total | Exports. | carried by | |

| | Imports. | Home and | British |Exports and | Deducting |

| | | Colonial. | Ships. | Imports. | Freights. |

+----+------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+

|1845| £84,054,272| £70,236,726| £12,979,089| £13,817,446| £838,357|

|1846| 89,281,433| 66,283,270| 13,581,165| 22,998,163| 9,416,998|

|1847| 117,047,229| 70,329,671| 18,817,742| 46,717,558| 27,899,816|

|1848| 92,660,699| 61,557,191| 14,699,491| 31,103,508| 16,404,017|

| +------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+

| |£383,043,633|£268,406,878| £60,077,487|£114,636,675|£54,559,188|

--NEWDEGATE, 12-13.

POSTSCRIPT.

The discussion on the Canadian question, in the House of Lords, has

had one good effect. It has elicited from Lord Lyndhurst a most

powerful and able speech, in the best style of that great judge and

distinguished statesman's oratory; and it has caused Lord Campbell to

make an exhibition of spleen, ill-humour, and bad taste, which his

warmest friends must have beheld with regret, and which was alone

wanting to show the cogent effect which Lord Lyndhurst's speech had

made on the house. Of the nature of Lord Campbell's attack on that able

and venerable judge, second to none who ever sat in Westminster Hall

for judicial power and forensic eloquence, some idea may be formed from

the observations in reply of Lord Stanley:--

"I must say for myself, and I think I may say for the rest of the

house, and not with the exception of noble lords on the opposite

side of it, that they listened to that able, lucid, and powerful

speech (Lord Lyndhurst's) with a feeling of anything but pain--a

feeling of admiration at the power of language, the undiminished

clearness of intellect--(cheers)--the conciseness and force with

which my noble and learned friend grappled with the arguments

before him, and which, while on the one hand they showed that age

had in no degree impaired the vigour of that power, on the other

added to the regret at the announcement he made of his intention

so seldom to occupy the attention of the house. (Hear, hear.)

But I should have thought that if there were one feeling it was

impossible for any man to entertain after hearing that speech, it

would be a feeling in any way akin to that which led the noble and

learned lord to have introduced his answer to that speech by any

unworthy taunts. (Loud cheers.) His noble and learned friend's

high position and great experience, his high character and eminent

ability, might have secured him in the honoured decline of his

course from any such unworthy taunts--(great cheering)--as the

noble and learned lord has not thought it beneath him on such an

occasion to address to such a man. (Renewed cheering.) If the

noble and learned lord listened with pain to the able statement of

my noble and learned friend, sure am I that there is no friend of

the noble and learned lord who must not have listened with deeper

pain to what fell from him on this occasion."--_Times_, 20th June

1849.

And of the feeling of the country, on this uncalled-for and unprovoked

attack, an estimate may be formed from the following passage of the

_Times_ on the subject:--"This debate has also recalled to the scene

of his former triumphs the undiminished energy and vigorous eloquence

of Lord Lyndhurst. That it supplied Lord Campbell with the opportunity

of making a series of remarks in the worst possible taste on that aged

and distinguished peer is, we suspect, a matter on which neither the

learned lord nor any of his colleagues will be disposed to look back

with satisfaction."--_Times_, 22d June 1849.

What Lord Campbell says of Lord Lyndhurst is, that he was once a

Liberal and he has now become a Conservative: that the time was when he

would have supported such a bill as that which the Canadian parliament

tendered to Lord Elgin, and that now he opposes it. There is no doubt

of the fact: experience has taught him the errors of his early ways;

he has not stood all day gazing at the east because the sun rose there

in the morning--he has looked around him, and seen the consequences of

those delusive visions in which, in common with most men of an ardent

temperament, he early indulged. In doing so, he has made the same

change as Pitt and Chatham, as Burke and Mackintosh, as Windham and

Brougham, as Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey. There are men of a

different stamp--men whom no experience can teach, and no facts wean

from error--who retain in advanced life the prejudices and passions

of their youth, and signalise declining years by increased personal

ambition and augmented party spleen. Whatever Lord Lyndhurst may be, he

is not one of them. He has not won his retiring allowance by a week's

service in the Court of Chancery. He can look back on a life actively

spent in the public service, and enjoy in his declining years the

pleasing reflection, that the honours and fortune he has won are but

the just meed of a nation's gratitude, for important public services

long and admirably performed.

The Canadian question, itself, on which ministers so narrowly escaped

shipwreck in the House of Peers (by a majority of THREE) appears to us

to lie within a very small compass. Cordially disapproving as we do

of the bill for indemnifying the rebels which the Canadian ministry

introduced and the Canadian parliament passed, we yet cannot see that

any blame attaches to Lord Elgin personally for giving the consent of

government to the bill. Be the bill good or bad, just or unjust, it

had passed the legislature by a large majority, and Lord Elgin would

not have been justified in withholding his consent, any more than

Queen Victoria would have been in refusing to pass the Navigation Laws

Bill. The passing of disagreeable and often unjust laws, by an adverse

majority, is a great evil, no doubt; but it is an evil inherent in

popular and responsible government, for which the Canadian loyalists

equally with the Canadian rebels contended. Let our noble brethren in

Canada reflect on this. The Conservatives of England have for long seen

a series of measures pass the legislature, which they deem destructive

to the best interests of their country; but they never talked of

separating from their Liberal fellow-citizens on that account, or

blamed the Queen because she affixed the royal assent to their bills.

They are content to let time develop the consequences of these acts;

and meanwhile they direct all their efforts to enlighten their

countrymen on the subject, and, if possible, regain a preponderance in

the legislature for their own party. The Canadian loyalists, second to

none in the British empire in courage, energy, and public spirit, will

doubtless see, when the heat of the contest is over, that it is by such

conduct that they will best discharge their duty to their country.

_Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh._

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant

preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical and spelling errors were corrected.

Italics markup is denoted by _underscores_.

Bold markup is denoted by =equals=.

Greek text has been transliterated and is denoted by ~tildes~.

Provided anchor for unanchored footnote on p. 33.

In the table to the footnote to p. 119 the 1 6 for oats or rye

should likely be in the same row.

On p. 122 either the total of £9,460,957 should be £9,360,957 or

one of the summands is incorrect.