ing precisely in this manner. To re tain a paltry portion of losing trade, you are giving up a vast portion of be neficial trade, and sacrificing fifty or one hundred millions annually. You cannot be so blind as not to see that it would be far better for your manufacturers to sell ten millions' worth of goods at ten per cent profit, than twenty millions' worth at a loss.

What would have been the case, if you had made no reduction of prices by law, and your exporting manufacturers had been compelled to reduce theirs as they have done by foreign opponents ? Those manufacturers would have obtained their raw produce generally as cheaply as they now do, and they would have paid their present wages; their profits would not have been worse than they are. Their workmen consist, in some degree, of cotton spinners and printers, power loom weavers, and the better paid hands in the woollen and hardware trades, who have much higher wages, in proportion, than the rest of the labouring orders. The masters, therefore, would not have had less profit, and a considerable part of their workmen would have had wages fully equal to those of the body of the labouring classes. The worst paid hands, from their low standard of living, draw but trifling benefit from the reduction of general prices. In your compulsory cheapness, you have therefore taken profits, property, and adequate wages from the overwhelming majority, to give unjust or nominal advantages to the insignificant minority: to save this minority from suffering, you have plunged the majority into much great er suffering; to protect the comparatively few exceptions, you have sacrificed your general population. This is too manifest to be affected by your vague denials.

But you say the cheapness is so precious to your consumers. Mr Huskisson speaks of a "British public" which benefits enormously from being thus dosed with cheap pennyworths. Where is this "British public?" Is it to be found amidst your landowners, farmers, and husbandry labourers? No. Does it exist amidst your shipowners, silk manufacturers, and makers of gloves and lace? Certainly not. Can it be discovered amidst your cotton, woollen, and iron manufacturers, or

your producers of Colonial produce? Still, no. But there is your monied interest. The cheapness destroys the employment of capital, and reduces interest; the capitalist cannot invest his capital; the fundholder can only obtain an inadequate rate of interest, and he cannot employ his money more profitably. The mass of the British population demonstrably suffers severe distress from the cheapness, and no "British public" can be seen which benefits from it. Blind as you are, you see that it is a scourge to your consumers-and, of course, we need not say what it is to your producers.

To convince you still more fully of the ruinous nature of your system, let us now enquire, what circumstances this empire would be placed in should the free trade, advocated by your economists, be established throughout the world. In doing this, we must have none of your senseless generalities; we must be guided by something better than your ignorant dogmas, that a nation ought to buy where it can buy the cheapest, &c. &c. Shake off then the bigotry, superstition, and prejudices of free trade, and co-operate with us like men of knowledge and understanding.

In the first place, the price of corn, and all kinds of agricultural produce, would be far below what it is. This would take from the property of the landowners and farmers a large part of its value, and bind them, and the husbandry labourers, to penury and distress. Ireland frequently would be deprived of its market for agricultural produce, and its misery would be intolerable. This is too evident to be questioned.

Your cotton manufacture would be greatly enlarged, but it would reap no benefit whatever from the cheapness of provisions, &c., because it would keep itself in suffering by glutting the market precisely as it now does. From its magnitude, its vast powers of production, and the circumstance that these powers cannot be stopped save at much loss, it can only be prosperous at short and distant intervals. If it be so for a few months, new machinery overloads the market, but nevertheless the enormous production continues, because it is less injurious to keep the machinery running and sell at a certain loss, than to stop it. This

manufacture has been, for some years, a very unprofitable one to the mass of those engaged in it, and in proportion as it may be enlarged, it will be the more unmanageable and unprofitable. It has this pernicious characteristic its divisions continually cut against each other. The export of twist goes far towards placing the world, in regard to natural advantage, on an equality with you in wrought cottons. The foreign wrought cottons, manufactured from your twist, aid your own in glutting the market, and continually press on the prices of your spin ners. It may be taken as an axiom, that independently of the price of food, &c., if a manufacture be of great magnitude, and its powers of production be rapid and unlimited, it will be almost always in suffering.

Your population employed in the cotton trade would be generally distressed.

Your woollen manufacture would have formidable foreign opponents, and in many respects it would be in circumstances like those of the cotton one. The population employed in it would be frequently in distress.

Your linen, silk, glove, cordage, and a great number of other manufac tures, would be wholly, or in a great measure, destroyed. Many others could only be kept in being by constant dis tress-prices.

Your colonies would lose their market for various important articles, and have it greatly narrowed for others. They would draw much of their supplies from other countries, and export much of their produce in foreign vessels. A large part of your colonial trade would be annihilated.

Your shipping would be deprived of almost half its employment.

From the use of machinery, the labour stripped of employment in the destroyed trades, on the one hand, would only be partly employed by the enlargement of the cotton, woollen, and some other trades, on the other; a very large part of your population would be unable to obtain work.

The cotton and woollen trades, from their great magnitude, and from the destruction of many of your other manufactures, would have the rest of your manufacturing and trading interests dependent on them. Their dis tress would be the bitter distress of all these interests. They would be gene

rally in suffering; and very often their suffering would be so great that it would deprive the mass of your manufacturing population of bread for several successive months. Suppose that the millions who now draw subsistence from the manufacturing of linens, silks, gloves, &c. &c., were all transferred to the cotton and woollen trades-that eight or ten millions of your population were employed either in fabricating cottons and woollens, or in supplying materials and machinery for the purpose-what effect would the severe distress of these two trades have directly, and by reaction, on every public interest-on the very means of preserving your population from famishing? As surely as ever cause produced effect, the employment of eight or ten millions of people in this man. ner would be the ruin and dissolution of your empire.

You cannot deny this-you must admit that it is sanctioned by both reason and experience. Both declare it to be morally certain, that not only your agricultural, but your whole population, would be bound to general penury and misery; and that the case would be the same if your taxes were wholly abolished. One part of the community would be continually distressed by foreign opponents, and the other part by the nature of its employment.

Your

We have looked at the matter in the most favourable point of view to the Economists, and we think in one much too favourable. You boast of your natural advantages in the cotton and woollen trades-what are they? Your superiority in machinery ;-you owe it to the prohibition of export. Your skill and capital ;-these can be carried abroad by your manufacturers, and acquired by foreigners. cheap fuel;-other nations, as a counterpoise, have their cheap food and raw produce, and their home markets. The free trade in machinery, coals, &c., would speedily enable most foreign nations to drive you, at least, out of their own markets in cottons and woollens; it would cause your own manufacturers to emigrate, and give them the power to do so. To such nations it would afford the means of having machinery, equal to yours, of their own making. America, with cheap labour, which she is rapidly gaining, would have natural advan

tages over you in cottons, and she would drive your cottons out of your own colonies, as well as out of your best foreign markets. Certain Continental states would have natural advantages over you in woollens. Your advantages you owe to art, for natural ones are almost all against you. While free trade would evidently destroy, wholly or principally, many of your other manufactures, it appears certain that it would soon destroy, to a great extent, your cotton and woollen ones. Is this refuted by the generalities and sophistries of the Economists? Is it affected by the crazy dogma, that a nation ought to buy where it can buy the cheapest ?-No. The history of the last four years proves, that if your whole population were employed in your boasted cotton trade, in which you can undersell the world, you would form one of the poorest and most distressed of civilized nations; the capitalist would be bound to the lowest average rate of profit, and would be generally in danger of bankruptcy; and the mass of the community would be bound to the lowest standard of living, and would frequently be in danger of famishing from scarcity of employment. This single fact is sufficient to overthrow all that has been said or written in favour of free trade. What, then, ought you to do? The answer is obvious-REVERSE YOUR SYSTEM. We do not ask you to do this on vague generalities, but we will prove to you that it forms an infallible means for gaining the objects of your worship-national trade and wealth.

We repeat, that the British empire at this moment possesses incalculable advantages which were never possess ed by any other great nation that it possesses what no other great nation was ever blessed with-the necessary means of commanding, under the favour of Providence, general prosperity and happiness,-continual riches and refinement for its higher classes; and intelligence, abundance, virtue, and comfort, for its lower ones. We now enter on the proofs.

What is essential for making a nation prosperous, wealthy, and happy? The individual must receive good profits on his capital, or good wages for his labour. What is essential for enabling him to do so? Prices of commodities sufficiently high to yield such

If the supply of any article be excessive, it lowers the price until profits and wages are wholly, or in great part, taken away; it is, therefore, demonstrable, that to keep general prices at the requisite point, supply must be under effectual control. In manufactures and commerce, supply, from their nature, cannot be placed under any efficient limit, and, therefore, prices must frequently be destructive to both profits and wages. If the land of a country be superabundant, it is impossible for the supply of agricultural produce to be placed under limit, and, in consequence, the prices must be generally such as will only yield the lowest profits and wages. In a country which possesses a great superabundance of land, it is impossible to preserve its agricultural inhabitants from general penury, and the remainder from being frequently visited with bankruptcy and distress.

In the United Kingdom, nature has placed an effectual limit on the supply of agricultural produce, and, in conse quence, you can in general make its prices what you please. From this you possess the peculiar and gigantic advantage-you can secure to about half your population prices which will yield it good profits and wages; which will keep it almost constantly in prosperity and happiness.

Now act the babe no longer, but, like sensible, money-getting men, make the most of this stupendous advantage. Cast your bigotry and prejudices to the winds; look at the agriculturist as you would at the cotton manufacturer, and take for your guides experimental fact and vulgar arithmetic. Give to the most numerous division of your population, without remembering the name it bears, prices which will yield it good profits and wages. Prohibit the import of foreign wheat when the price of your own is below 64s. or 668.; and of other kinds of foreign agricultural produce, when the prices of your own are proportionally low. This, with some secondary measures of which we shall soon speak, would give to about half your population good profits on capital, and good wages

prosperity and happiness. It is matter of demonstration.

Here we must be assailed with your

senseless prejudices and generalities. In the first place, the name of prohi bition throws you into agonies. What! men, and terrified by this bugbear statesmen, and wrangle about names, in perfect blindness to realities? Shame-shame! You intend your present corn laws to prohibit foreign corn when your prices are below a certain amount; and if you wish to have prohibition in effect, why this horror against having it in name? This law will not fulfil your intention. In 1827, it would, as was proved by experience, have admitted above half a million quarters of foreign wheat, when it ought, according to your in tention, to have been a prohibition. In 1828, it prohibited foreign wheat at an average of 71s., when it ought, in regard to revenue, to have admitted it at one of 64s. In the present year, it admitted two hundred thousand quarters of foreign barley to the pernicious glutting of the market, when it ought to have excluded it. It will, as we said twelve months ago, always operate in this manner. In plentiful years it will admit foreign corn in rainous abundance, when you wish it to be prohibited; and in deficient years, it will prohibit such corn when you wish it to be admitted. When you wish to have prohibition, why not have it in its only effectual form? You can make no reply.

We will notice your declarations against dear labour and food in another part of our article. Suffice it here to say, that what we advise would manifestly give prosperity to about half your population, whatever might be its effects to the remainder.

Having thus rendered about half your population wealthy and prosperous, proceed, in the next place, to your Shipping Interest. What is essential for giving to it prosperity? Good freights. Get rid, then, as soon as national honour will permit, of your reciprocity treaties-the things which, in binding it to inadequate freights, bind it to constant distress.

In your foreign trade, your imports consist of raw produce, which is bulky, and your exports consist of manufac tured goods, which occupy, in comparison, but little room; in consequence, your carrying depends principally on the imports. Upon every principle of justice, you have a right to carry what you buy of foreign nations, and pay

the carriage of. You, however, not only buy of these nations their produce, while they will not buy your manufactures, but you suffer them to carry it at your expense, to the ruin of your own ships. If you can make no arrangement with them which will secure to your shipping, in amount of freight, as well as extent of employment, its full rights, confine the importing of corn, timber, cotton, and all other bulky articles,-the importing of goods which you buy and pay the carriage of-exclusively to British vessels. When the existence of your empire depends so largely on your shipping, you have far more right to exclude foreign ships from your carrying trade, than foreign nations have to exclude your cottons, &c. from their markets.

What is there to deter you from doing this? Do you want precedent?You have it in your own history. Will foreign nations refuse to sell you their produce? This you cannot be afraid of. Will they confine the carrying of what they buy of you to their own ships? Let them do so, and then they will carry but little more of what they buy of you than they do at present. Will they refuse to take your manu factures? They already do so to the farthest point called for by their own interests. You can do it without any loss or risk worthy of notice.

This is another peculiar and gigan tic advantage which you possess. You can, sanctioned by precedent, and without any violation of national law or right, monopolize for your ships the principal part of the carrying trade of the whole world, at your own prices. Alas! that such advantages should be used as they are.

Then, in your colonial trade, confine the carrying to your own vessels. All this, aided by some minor matters, which we shall soon notice, would ma nifestly give good profits and wages, wealth and prosperity, to another large part of your population.

Now for your crazy generalities and prejudices. Here we have Mr Hus, kisson, uplifting his hands in horror, and solemnly protesting, that we are about to ruin the community-the "British public"-with exorbitant freights. We will soon silence him.

The freight of sugar from the West Indies is, we believe, a little more than a halfpenny per lb., that on rum

is little more than a halfpenny per pint; if their freights were advanced fifty per cent, what would be the effect to the consumer, supposing the advance should fall on him? Sugar would be a farthing per lb., and rum a farthing per pint, dearer. The expenses of the poor man, who drinks no rum, would be raised half a farthing, or a farthing, per week; and those of the respectable individual, would be raised a penny or twopence per week. This worthless difference to the consumer would make the difference between bad freights and excellent ones to the shipowner.

But Mr Huskisson is, on this point, as on most others, completely in error. The prices of rum and sugar are mainly governed by supply and demand, and they cannot be affected by a trifling difference of freight. If the last year's crop of sugar had been brought to this country carriage-free, the price would have been what it is. The colonial planter, and not the British consumer, reaps the gain from the low freights.

We turn to foreigners. This country is the principal customer of Ame rica for raw cotton. If a trifling re duction were made in the freight of this article, would it have any sensible effect on the price? No; the price of cotton is mainly governed by supply and demand; it continually varies, when the freight remains unaltered, and the benefit here would be reaped, not by the British consumer, but by the foreign cotton grower.

This country is almost the only cus. tomer of foreigners for corn. When the duty on foreign wheat fell so rapidly, a few months ago, did the price fall in the same degree, in your mar ket? No; it rose abroad. When the duty again rose rapidly, did this cause the price to rise in this country? No; it caused it to fall abroad. Such must be the operation of a rise or fall in freights. Two or three shil lings per quarter, more or less, in these, will not affect the prices of corn in your market; they will only cause the foreign grower to obtain two or three shillings per quarter more or less for his corn. We need not speak of other articles. We may say generally, that freight is practically one of the costs of production; and where production is on a large scale, the costs can only partially govern prices. If you add forty pounds per annum to the ex

penses of the farmer, he cannot obtain a penny more for his produce; he is, therefore, compelled to pay the sum from his profits, or beat down his rent and wages. The producers of cotton, sugar, &c., are in similar circumstances; if their costs be raised in one point, almost their sole remedy, in general, is, to reduce them in others. In some manufactures, prices can be raised by concert, when the expenses of production are raised; but this cannot be done in the more extensive ones.

In your imports, therefore, the benefit derived from low freights is reaped almost exclusively by foreigners: if freights were higher, foreigners, and not yourselves, would have to pay the advance. You thus, without benefiting your consumers, ruin your ships, merely that foreigners may both carry for you, and draw a larger profit from what they sell you. Let shame compel you to cast off the folly, if in terest cannot.

We grant that, in what you export, a rise of freight would fall chiefly on your own produce; such a rise would not enable your manufacturers to obtain higher prices abroad. But your exports consist of manufactured goods, in which a large value is carried for a trifling sum. A considerable advance would form, to your producers, a percentage perfectly insignificant.

Next proceed to your silk trade. Restore its prohibition; give it a monopoly not only of your home market, but of your colonial one: exclude foreign silks from your whole empire. After what we said so lately, we need not no tice your absurdities touching smuggling, &c. We will merely observe, that, when smuggling had far greater advantages than it can ever have again, the silk trade flourished, and seldom felt it as an evil.

You are labouring to obtain, by means of confiscation and hunger, an export trade in silks, and you are unsuccessful; suppose you try the effect of bounty. Let us have none of your generalities, but listen to arithmetic. You have an excess of population, and your economists cannot devise methods for employing it; if, therefore, by means of bounty you employ it in ma nufacturing silks, you do not take it from a more profitable calling to one less so; you only take it from idleness. Silks employ much labour, and it has been estimated that three-fourths of their value consist of it. We will re