have not done a single thing of their own accord to mitigate it; but, on the contrary, have increased it an hundred fold. It is an incomprehensible matter that the only thing which has been done to alleviate this suffering, originated with the simple and factious, who actually compelled ALL THE TALENTS to do it in direct opposition to their own wishes and opinions, and to the commands of Political Economy and Philosophy. If these stupendous talents, in conjunction with Political Economy and Philosophy, can neither preserve a nation from bitter distress, nor do anything when such distress visits it, except what will greatly aggravate its sufferings, we really think that the splendid character which they give themselves, ought to be listened to by Old England with much incredulity.

The Speech before us contains about all the argument that the mighty abilities of Ministers could put forth in defence of the new system. Of Mr Grant's oration, we need only say, that THE TALENTS Out of Parliament have thought good to be silent respecting it; and in regard to that of Mr Canning, it did not even attempt anything in the way of calculation and reasoning; it was a piece of declamation and vituperation, which left Free Trade exactly as it found it. The Right Honourable Secretary would, we imagine, have better employed his great powers if he had defended the principles of Free Trade by fair calculation and manly argument, instead of attacking absent opponents, who, in integrity, consistency, independence, and patriotism, are no way inferior to himself or colleagues.

We have already spoken of the liberality of these liberal monopolists of talent towards all those who differ from them in opinion. Mr Canning is not content with denying them understanding, but he must blacken their motives-he must blast their character, not only for capacity, but for honesty. The liberal Mr Huskisson begins his speech in the same liberal spirit. He ascribes the sound and manly speech of Mr J. Williams-to what? Conscientious conviction-a sense of duty? Oh no! How could any man possibly oppose the unerring Mr Huskisson and Mr Canning from honest motives? He ascribes it to electienee intentions! We bigots must

not go to these liberal people for lessons of liberality.

MrWilliams's quotation from Burke told tremendously; it stuck to Mr Huskisson and his colleagues; and in spite of all their efforts to shake it off, it sticks to them still. Each carries it on his forehead. Certainly those who a short time since employed the public money in maintaining the runaway revolutionists of other countries, might have been thought tender-hearted in excess; but no claim to humanity must be set up by those who have brought the silk-manufacturers into their present situation, and who obstinately refuse to do anything to relieve them. The facts are before the eyes of all, that the change of law was the chief cause of ruining many of the masters, and reducing tens of thousands of the workmen to starvation-that this change was called for by no public necessity-that the re-enactment of the old law would have given a large portion of immediate relief to the tradeand that this re-enactment has been positively refused. Granting that a law may be a wise one that brings hundreds of thousands to want, and that he may be a skilful general who intentionally sacrifices ten thousand of his men to win a battle; still, neither the parents of the law, nor the general, must boast of humanity. If Ministers will carry measures, whether wise or unwise in principle, which prove on the face of them that they must plunge multitudes into ruin and distress, let them swagger as they please touching their talents, but, in Heaven's name! let them be silent touching their feeling for their fellow-creatures. He who reduces others to distress, and who will not remove this distress when he has the means, is an unfeeling, barbarous man, and no sophistry can prove him the contrary. It is essential for the weal of society that these efforts to change the definition of the virtues should be firmly resisted.

Mr Huskisson introduces a petition which was presented to Parliament in 1820, by the Merchants of London. As he afterwards employs its reasonings in his defence, we shall have an opportunity of noticing them as we examine the defence, and we will therefore say nothing of the petition separately.

The Right Honourable Gentleman states: Year after year have we

been urged by the force of public opinion out of doors, and by the earnest remonstrances of honourable members within, to adopt the very measures against which a senseless clamour is now attempted to be excited."

Senseless clamour! What modesty and humility! What clamour can be other than senseless which is opposed to the measures of Mr Huskisson? How is it possible for the clamour of the thriving masters and well-fed, fully-employed workmen in the silktrade to be other than senseless?

Let us place the new system fully before us as a whole, and not divide it into parts, as Ministers have done, to induce one part of the community to consent to the sacrifice of another. This system is to make trade free in every thing-in corn as well as manufactures. It is to place the foreign farmer and manufacturer on a level with the English ones in the English market. Now, will any one say that the Agriculturists called for this system, in so far as it affects agriculture? Will any one say that the Manufacturers, as a whole, wished their respective trades to be placed under it, when Mr Huskisson and Mr Robinson again and again declared, that every manufacturing interest opposed them so far as regarded its own trade? If the nation had been polled touching this system, as a whole, it would almost to a man have voted against it.

What then was the public opinion

which Ministers found so irresistible? Was the voice which said-" Open another trade for my benefit, no matter what injury it may do to others, but keep mine closed"-worth attending to? In truth, the mercantile interest was almost the only one that asked for a change, and it evidently did this for the sake of its own separate profit. The London petition broadly admits that particular interests might suffer from free trade. The merchants are as respectable a body of men as any in the universe, but they are contemptible in respect of numbers; and in their trading capacity they are merely the agents of the rest of the community. When they asked for a thing manifestly for the sake of personal profit, and which, according to their own confession, might injure others, we think their request ought not to have been mistaken for public opinion.

Touching the remainder of " public opinion out of doors, and the remonstrances of honourable members within"-they proceeded solely from the men who called, not only for Free Trade, but for the abandonment of our colonies-the destruction of our Church as a national one-Parliamentary Reform-the division of the great estates, &c. &c. If these men ought to be obeyed in one thing, why not in all ? The Tories called not for any change. Putting out of sight the merchants, the public opinion, which operated so potently upon Ministers, was merely the opinion of the wild, theoretic, contemptible, and, in some points, wicked Minority. That the Ministry was followed by many of its prints and friends, is true; and the causes cannot need explanation. We will tell Mr Huskisson and his colleagues, that at present they look to very erring sources for information touching British opinion and feeling; that they know very little of either; and that if their ignorance continue, they will soon cease to be Ministers.

So much for public opinion, and now for public necessity. Trade was flourishing-all was prosperity and contentment-Ministers had nothing whatever to do but to rest upon their oars, and rejoice over the magnificent spectacle before them. None but wild and rash projectors would ever have dreamed of making experiments on the prosperity, happiness, and harmony of a great empire.

Mr Huskisson takes great pains to show that Mr Baring has recently changed, in a considerable degree, his opinion touching Free Trade. If this be true, it forms a very powerful argument against the new system. No one will suspect that a man of Mr Baring's high character, sound and vigorous understanding, and great practical knowledge, would ever alter his opinions, except from honest conviction and pretty just conclusions. Mr Baring, however, has not changed his sentiments in regard to the silk

trade.

The Right Honourable Gentleman quotes the following from a speech delivered by Mr Baring some years ago:

"It was really absurd to contend, that if a country, by selling any article of manufacture, could purchase the produce which it might require, at one half the expense at which that

produce could be raised, it should nevertheless be precluded from doing so." He adds" This is unquestion ably sound doctrine, and I readily admit it."

If this doctrine be sound, why are not foreign corn and manufactures admitted at once without protecting du ties? Why impose such duties, when they raise foreign produce to the price of English produce? Either the doctrine is false, or protecting duties are about as pernicious as prohibitions.

If this nation were exclusively an agricultural one, and had scarcely anything to sell save agricultural produce, it would then only be able to sell its corn for the same price that corn fetches in the cheapest corn countries. If it should establish a manufacture, its manufacturers would have, for a long period, to charge far higher prices than those of other countries. Yet, if the doctrine be sound, it ought to continue in its wretched poverty, rather than attempt to enrich itself by beginning to manufacture. This doctrine is false, or England was guilty of very ruinous conduct, when she established very many of her manufactures ; it is false, or this country ought immediately to buy all its corn, and very many of its manufactures, abroad, free from protecting duties.

If an agricultural nation could not begin to manufacture, unless its manufacturers should charge double the prices charged by those of other nations, our conviction is, that it ought still to begin. Cheapness and dearness must be determined by the means of the buyer, as well as the terms of the seller. Such a nation would have to pay double prices for its manufactures; but this would be more than counterpoised by its being enabled to sell much of its useless labour, to ob❤ tain much higher prices for, and sell much more of, its corn, &c. and to support a much larger population. Corn is dear in this country, because manufacturers abound; and manufacturers abound because corn is dear.

The Economists unfortunately can find nothing to build upon in this country but false assumptions. If we were attempting to produce bad and dear wine, sugar, &c. their doctrines might apply to us; but we are not. We only attempt to establish such manufactures, as, after due time, may be fairly expected to thrive about as VOL. XIX.

well here as in other countries. The reason why almost any manufactured article is dearer here, than it is abroad, is, our manufacturers pay higher duties, taxes, rates, and rents, pay higher for provisions, and consume much more of necessaries and luxuries than the foreign ones.

The history of this nation proves incontestably, that if a country cannot establish a manufacture, unless it raise for a period the price of this manufacture very greatly to itself, still it ought to establish it. Now, who is to fix the length of this period? Who is to say-This manufacture is this day commenced, and if the manufacturers cannot, at the end of so many years, sell at as low a rate as those of other nations, it must be abandoned? Our cotton manufacture at one period gave no hope that we should excel in it as we do; it was not in nearly so promising a condition as the silk manufacture was in, twelve months since ; yet if the new doctrines had been then applied to it, in all probability it would have been destroyed. Luckily, our fathers were neither so economical, nor philosophical, as their crack-brained children. If the silk manufacture had been duly protected for five or ten years longer, it is possible enough that some unlooked-for invention might have given us as much superiority in silks as we possess in cottons. Suppose we were now for the first time to attempt to manufacture woollens, and that we could not begin without constraining ourselves to buy our woollens for an uncertain period at a much dearer rate; will any man, looking at our woollen manufacture at present, say, that we ought not to commence it? Under the new doctrines, no new manufacture must be established in this country, unless the manufacturers can, in the first moment, produce as good and cheap an article as foreign ones, and history shows this to be an impossibility. Of course, we must never have any additional manufactures; and, moreover, our old ones are all to be lost if ever foreigners can surpass us.

It is, we believe, pretty generally admitted that our manufactures are of great value to us, and we are convinced that the more we have of them the better. If we had never had any, we cannot think that England would have been the country that it is; and

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if foreigners could greatly undersell us in all, we cannot be persuaded that we should profit much from buying all our manufactures abroad with wheat, at perhaps twenty shillings the quarter. What is true touching the whole, is, in our poor judgment, true touch ing the part. Suppose we had only three manufactures at present-the woollen, cotton, and silk ones, and that we could be greatly undersold in two of them by foreigners; we cannot be lieve those people who say, that by abandoning these two we should make the third larger than the whole, and better our condition. It is distinctly refuted by the history of this and all other countries. On this point we shall say more presently.

But Ministers go much beyond the doctrine that Mr Huskisson quotes. This doctrine says-buy such produce as the nation might require with an article of manufacture. The doctrine of Ministers is-the nation may buy produce and manufactures, which in reality it does not require, with raw produce.

Mr Huskisson then says, "But how is it (this doctrine) to be reconciled with the doctrine which is now maintained by great authorities out of doors, as that which ought to be the rule of our commercial policy. According to these authorities-to which we have now to add that of the honourable and learned seconder of the present motion -prohibition is the only effectual protection to trade. Duties must be unavailing for this purpose; because, the influence of soil and climate, the price of labour, the rate of taxation, and other circumstances, are constantly varying in different countries, and consequently, the scale of protection would require to be varied from month to month."

Well, does he refute this? Does he prove that wages, provisions, taxes, &c., must always rise or fall at the same time, and in the same degree, in every country? Does he prove that the same protecting duty must always afford the same protection; or that it is a matter of no consequence whether our manufacturers can be undersold or not? He does not attempt it. His very next words-yes, his very next words -are, "But what is the legitimate inference to be drawn from this exclusive system? Can it be other than this-that all interchange of their re

spective commodities between different countries of the world, is a source of evil to the one or the other? That each country must shut itself up within itself, making the most of its own resources, refusing all commerce with any other country, barbarously content to suffer wants which this commerce might easily supply, and to waste its own superfluous productions at home; because, to exchange them for the superfluities of that other country, instead of being an exclusive advantage to either party, would afford an equivalent benefit to both. This is the short theory of prohibitions, which these said declaimers against all theory, are so anxious to recommend to the practical merchants of this country.”

This is an exquisite morsel! Rotten -rotten to the very core-must that cause be, which has to be thus defended!

Mr Huskisson may possess the gigantic abilities which Mr Canning declares he possesses, but certainly he is the poorest hand at a "legitimate inference" that we ever met with. This attempt to retort in respect of theory, is a very miserable performance. He has invented a theory which no man living ever before heard of. If the manufacturers, when they escape from his tuition, be not better inventors and discoverers than himself, they will make a sorry piece of work of it by inventing and discovering.

We object to the importing of such things only as this country does not want of such as it possesses in abundance; ergo, we object to all importing whatever; we "refuse ALL commerce with ANY other country, barbarously content to suffer wants which this commerce might easily supply." We say to France, you shall not send us manufactured silks; ergo, we say to her, you shall not send us wine and brandy: we say to America, you shall not send us flour; ergo, we say to her, you shall not send us raw cotton and tobacco: we say to England, export all that you can, and import everything you please, with the exception ONLY of such articles as you do not need, and of which the importing would diminish your ability for both exporting and importing; ergo, we say to her, shut yourself up within yourself, making the most of your own resources, and refusing all commerce with any other country. Beautiful logic, Mr

Huskisson, beautiful logic! But, alas ! not exactly calculated for the present condition of the intellect of Britain. Well may a speech that contains such inferences and reasoning, be called eloquent and unanswerable!

That no one may be bewildered by the Right Honourable Gentleman, we will say that the only question between us and him is-SHALL SUCH MANUFACTURED, AND OTHER COMMODITIES AS WE PRODUCE IN ABUN

DANCE, BE ADMITTED INTO THE MARKET OF THIS COUNTRY FROM

ABROAD? This is the question. We are as friendly to the admission of timber, cotton, wine, sugar, tallow, and every other article that this country does not produce, either at all, or in sufficient quantities, as Mr Hus kisson himself. He knows in his own heart, that the opinions which he has imputed to his opponents are not entertained by one of these opponents. Either let the new system be abandoned, or let it be supported in a less unfair manner.

To this question, we reply, No! solely and simply because we conscientiously believe that the admission of such commodities will injure, not only the home, but the foreign trade; that it will not only do great harm to certain classes of our fellow-subjects, but materially diminish the ability of the nation as a whole for both im porting and exporting.

Mr Huskisson proceeds to say, that our system, to be "wise and just in itself," ought to " prohibit all commercial intercourse with Ireland,-we must revive those laws which forbade the_manufactures, and repelled the productions of her soil." The newspapers made him say that this system ought to go farther; it ought to prohibit the manufactures and other produce of one English district from entering another English district. If he really did utter such transcendent nonsense, he has wisely expunged it from the corrected copy of his speech.

Our readers know, that his opponents, one and all, limit their opposition to the produce of foreign countries. Is, then, Ireland a foreign country, or is it not that part of the united kingdom called Ireland? He says that no country in Europe differs more from Great Britain than Ireland, in matters affecting their commercial relations. We say that this is perfectly

erroneous. Is not Ireland somewhat more under the control of Great Britain, in regard to taxation, than foreign countries? Must not the price of corn, &c. always fluctuate at the same moment, and be about the same, in both islands? Whatever may be the case with agricultural labour, is not manufacturing labour about as dear in Ireland as in many parts of Britain? Must it not continue so, and must not its price fluctuate at the same moment in both Britain and Ireland ? With regard to repelling the produce of Ireland's soil, it might at one time be very wise to do it, and it may now be very wise to do the contrary; it is now very wise to repel foreign corn, and as our island cannot be enlarged, a time may come when it will be very wise to receive it.

Mr Huskisson says,-" I have no desire to disturb the partizans of the opposite system in the enjoyment of their favourite theory. All I ask of them is, a similar forbearance towards us. Let each system be fully and fairly tried. For the sake of freedom of trade and industry, and for the sake of England, let England be the field of trial for our system. For the sake of prohibition and monopoly, let the system of our adversaries also be fairly tried; only let the trial be made upon some other country."

His ingenuity is not of a very imposing character, and he will not suffer us to praise him for fair dealing. He first, by his "legitimate inference,' as he calls it, assumes that his opponents wish to close the ports of this country against all foreign produce whatever, although he knows in his own heart that they wish no such thing; and then he reasons upon it as an established fact. He, in substance, boldly declares to Parliament and the country, that these opponents wish to establish a new and untried systemthat they wish to change and abolish. He does this, when he is as fully cognisant of the fact as the whole world is, that these opponents merely protest against any new system, or change, and only ask for the retention of that old and tried system under which this country has become the first in the world, and which he and his colleagues, on other occasions, boast that they are destroying. Although he is high in office, we must tell him that this is very unworthy conduct-we must