"During the war the average quantity of wheat required to be sold to pay one million of taxation amounted to 220,791 quarters. The quantity required to be sold to pay one million of taxation, according to the prices of 1850, amounts to 497,925 quarters, or 56,343 quarters more than double the quantity required to be

sold during the war. The enormous increase in the burdensomeness of taxation may be thus clearly estimated."

Comment is unnecessary, illustration superfluous, on such a result. In the next place, prodigious as was the addition which this great

grs. bus.

52

1801

50

1802

36,368,149

69 10

85

1803

38,609,392

58 10

101

1804

46,176,492

62 3

96

1805

66

1806

1807

59,339,321

75 4

79

1808

1809

63,719,400

97 4

1810

67,144,542

106 5

1811

65,173,545

95 3

1812

65,037,850

126 6

1813

68,748,363 109 9

1814

71,134,503

74 4

1815

72,210,512

65 7

1816

62,264,546

78 6

1817

52,055,913

96 11

61

1818

1819

52,648,847

74 6

1820

54,282,958

67 10

1821

55,834,192 56 1

1822

1823

57,672,999

53 4

63 11

1825

57,273,869 68 6

1826

54,894,989 58

1827

54,932,518

58 6

1828

55,187,142 60 5

1829

50,786,682 66 3

90

1830

50,056,616 64 3

1831

46,424,440 66 4

1832

1833

1834

46,425,263 46 2

1835

45,893,369

1836

48,591,180

48 6

1837

1838

47,333,460 64 7

1839

47,844,899 70 8

1840

47,567,565

66 4

1841

1842

1843

52,582,817 50 1

1844

54,003,754 51 3

1845

53,060,354

1846

53,790,138 54 8

1847

1848

1849 1850

51,546,265 69 9 53,388,717 50 6 52,951,749

44 3 40 2

54 10

1848

53 0

1849

51 6

1850

T

change made to the burdens, public and private, of the nation, the change was attended with an alteration at times still more hurtful, and, in the end, not less pernicious. This was the compelling the bank to pay all their notes in gold, the restraining them from issuing paper beyond £14,000,000 bond on securities, and compelling them to take all gold brought to them, whatever its market value was, at the fixed price of £3, 17s. 10 d. the ounce. This at once aggravated speculation to a most fearful degree in periods of prosperity, for it left the bank no way of indemnifying itself for the purchase and retention of £15,000,000 or £16,000,000 worth of treasure but by pushing its business in all directions, and lowering its discounts so as to accomplish that object; and it led to a rapid and ruinous contraction of the currency the moment that exchanges became adverse, and a drain set in upon the bank, either from the necessities of foreign war in the neighbouring states, the mutation of commerce, or the occurrence of a large importation of grain to supply the wants of our own country. Incalcuable as the distress which those alternations of impulse and depression have brought upon this great manufacturing community, and immeasurable the multitudes whom they have sunk, never more to rise, into the lowest and most destitute classes of society, their effect has by no means been confined to the periods during which they actually lasted. Their baneful influence has extended to subsequent times, and produced a continuous and almost unbroken stream of distress; for, long ere the victims of one monetary crisis have sunk into the grave, or been driven into exile, another storm arises which precipitates fresh multitudes, especially in the manufacturing towns, into the abyss of ruin. The whole, or nearly the whole, of this terrific and continued suffering is to be ascribed to the monstrous principles adopted in our monetary system-that of compelling the banks to foster and encourage speculation in periods of prosperity, and suddenly contract their issues and starve the body politic, when a demand for the precious metals carries them in con

siderable quantities out of the country. A memorable instance of the working of that system is to be found. in the Railway mania of 1845 and 1846, flowing directly from the Acts of 1844 and 1845, which landed the nation in an extra expenditure of nearly £300,000,000 on domestic undertakings, at a time when commerce of every kind was in a state of the highest activity, followed by the dreadful crash of October 1847, which, by suddenly contracting the currency and ruining credit, threw millions out of employment, and strained the real capital of the nation to the very uttermost, to complete a part only of the undertakings which the Currency Laws had given birth to. And the example of the years 1809 and 1810-when the whole metallic currency was drained out of the country by the demands for the war in the Peninsula and Germany, but no distress was experienced, and the national strength was put forth with unparalleled vigour, and, as it proved, decisive effect-proves how easily such a crisis might be averted by the extended issue of a paper currency not liable to be withdrawn, when most required, by a public run for gold.

In the third place, to crown the whole, and as if to put the keystone in the arch of public distress, FreeTrade in every department was forced upon the country by Sir Robert Peel and his successors in 1846, 1847, and

1849, under the dictation of the Manchester school, and to promote the interest of master-manufacturers by lowering the wages of labour and of realised capital, by cheapening the price of everything else, and raising the value of money. We see the effects of this already evinced in every department to which the system has applied; and we see the commencement only of the general ruin with which it is fraught. In agriculture, Great Britain and Ireland, which were, practically speaking, in ordinary seasons self-supporting, have come already to import from nine to ten millions of foreign grain for the support of the inhabitants, besides sheep and cattle in an equal proportion. At least fifteen millions yearly is sent out of the country, for the most part in hard cash, to buy food, which formerly was nearly all spent in it,

and enriched all classes of its people. The exchangeable value of what remains has been lowered by at least £75,000,000 annually, and of course so much taken away from the means of supporting domestic labour, and paying the national defences and the interest of public and private debt. The West Indies, formerly the right arm of the naval strength of England, and no small source of its riches, have been totally ruined; and, as a necessary consequence, the exports of our manufactures to those once splendid settlements, which, prior to the commencement of the new measures in 1834, had reached £3,500,000 a-year, had sunk in 1850 to £1,821,146! Canada has been so much impoverished by the withdrawing of all protection to colonial industry, which has annihilated its intercolonial trade with the West Indies, and seriously injured its export trade in grain and wood to this country, that the British exports to that country, which in 1839 amounted to £3,047,000, had sunk in 1850, notwithstanding the subsequent addition of above 50 per cent to its population, to £2,280,386.

that prolific esculent, should have tended to an increase of cereal crops as the only thing that could be relied on, and undoubtedly would have done so, but for the blasting influence of Free Trade, which deprived the farmer of all hope of a profitable return for agricultural expenditure. As a necessary consequence, above 200,000 cultivators have disappeared from the soil of the Emerald Isle in the four last years; about 250,000 of them or their families are immured, idle and miserable, in the Irish workhouses, and above 40,000 in its prisons; while above 200,000 persons from that island alone, and 300,000 from the two islands, are annually driven into exile! Lastly, as if Free Trade had not worked sufficient mischief on the land, it has invaded the sea also; no longer can the Englishman say

"His march is on the mountain wave,

His home is on the deep."

The ocean is fast becoming the home for other people, to the exclusion of its ancient lords. One single year of Free Trade in shipping, following the repeal of the Navigation Laws, has occasioned, under the most favourable circumstances for testing the tendency of the change, so great a diminution in British and increase in foreign shipping in all our harbours, that it is evident the time is rapidly approaching, if the present system is continued, when we must renounce all thought of maintaining naval superiority, and trust to the tender mercies of our enemies and rivals for a respite from the evils of blockade and famine.*

The vast emigration of 300,000 annually, which is now going on from the United Kingdom, might reasonably be expected to have alleviated, in a great degree, this most calamitous decrease in the staple branches of industry in our people; and so it would have, certainly, had a wise and paternal Government taken it under its own direction, and sent the parties abroad who really were likely to want employment, and whose removal would at once prove a relief to the country from which they were sent, and a blessing to that for which they were destined. But this is so far from being the case, that there is perhaps no one circumstance in our social condition which has done more of late years to aggravate the want of employment, and enhance the distress among the working-classes, than the very magnitude of this emigration. The dogma of Free Trade has involved even the humble cabins of the emigrant's ship: there, as elsewhere, it has spread nothing but misery and desolation. The reason is, that it has been left to the unaided, undirected efforts of the emigrants themselves.

Government was too glad of an excuse not to interfere: the constantly destitute condition of the Treasury, and the ceaseless clamour against taxation, in consequence of the wasting away of the national resources under the action of Free Trade and a contracted currency, made them too happy of any excuse for avoiding any payments from the public Treasury, even on behalf of the most suffering and destitute of the community. This was found in the plausible

excuse

plea, that any advances on their part would interfere with the free exercise of individual enterprise-a plea somewhat similar to what it would be if all laws for the protection of paupers, minors, and lunatics, were swept away, lest the free action of the creditors on their estates should be disturbed. The consequence has been that the whole, or nearly the whole, of the immense stream of emigration which general distress has now caused to flow from the British Islands, has been sustained by the efforts of private individuals, and left to the tender mercies of the owners or freighters of emigrant ships. The result is well known. Frightful disasters, from imperfect manning and equipment, have occurred to several of these misery-laden vessels. A helpless multitude is thrown ashore at New York and Montreal, destitute alike of food, clothing, or the means of getting on to the frontier, where its labour could be of value; and the competition for employment at home has been increased to a frightful degree by the removal of so large a proportion of such of the tenantry or middle class as were possessed of little capitals, and had the means either of maintaining themselves or giving employment to others. At least L.3,000,000 yearly goes abroad with the emigrant ships, and that is drawn almost entirely from the lower class of farmers, the very men who employ the poor. The class who have gone away was for the most part that which should have remained, for it had the means of doing something in the world, and

employing others; that which was left at home, was that which should have been removed, because they were the destitute who could neither find employment in these islands, nor do anything on their own account from want of funds. Hence above a inillion and a-half of persons in Great Britain, and above seven hundred thousand in Ireland, on an average of years, are constantly maintained by the poor-rates, for the most part in utter idleness, although the half of them are able-bodied, and their labour-if they could only be forwarded to the frontier of civilisation in America-would be of incalculable service to our own colonies or the United States.

The very magnitude of the trade employed in the exportation of the emigrants, and the importation of food for those who remain, has gone far to conceal the ruinous effects of Free Trade. Between the carrying out of emigrants, and the bringing in of grain the exportation of our strength, and the importation of our weakness our chief seaports may continue for some time to drive a gainful traffic. The Liverpool Times

observes :

It was precisely the same in the declining days of the Roman empire -the great seaport towns continued to flourish when all other interests in the state were rapidly sinking; and when the plains in the interior were desolate, or tenanted only by the ox or the buffalo, the great cities were still the abodes of vast realised wealth and unbounded private luxury. We are rapidly following in the same path. The realised capital of Great Britain was estimated in 1814 at L.1,200,000,000; in 1841, Mr Porter estimated it at L.2,000,000,000; the capital subject to legacy duty in Great Britain, on an average of fortyone years, from 1797 to 1841, was L.26,000,000; in the single year 1840 it was L.40,500,000. The increase of realised capital among the rich has been nearly as great as that of pauperism, misery, and consequent emigration among the poor-the wellknown and oft-observed premonitory symptoms of the decline of nations.

It is in the midst of these numerous and overwhelming evils, the result mainly of theoretical innovation and class government in the country-when above two millions of paupers in the two islands are painfully supported by public assessment; when three hundred thousand are annually driven into exile, and a hundred and fifty thousand more are constantly supported in jails, one-half of whom are committed for serious crimes; when all classes, excepting those engaged in the export trade of human beings and the import of human food, are languishing from the decline of domestic employment, and the constantly increasing influx' of foreign goods, both rude and manufactured that we are assured by one benevolent set of philanthropists that all will be right, if we only give the starving working-classes model houses, rented at L.8 each, to