Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66, No 405, July 1849

"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 —

The inward entries of American tonnage were —

During that period no reciprocity existed with the Baltic Powers; and

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 —

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 —

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 - – London Gazette, 20th April, 1849.]

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 —

– equal, if we take 3½ 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 - "Advenio supplex, non ut proculcet AraxenConsul ovans, nostræve premant pharetrata securesSusa, nec ut rubris Aquilas figamus arenis.Hæc nobis, hæc ante dabas. Nunc pabula tantumRoma precor. Miserere tuæ pater optime gentis,Extremam defenda famam– Satiavimus iram,Si quâ fuit. Lugenda Getis et flenda SuëvisHausimus: ipsa meos exhorret Parthia casus.Armato quondam populo, Patrumque vigebamConsiliis. Domui terras, urbesque revinxiLegibus: ad solem victrix utrumque cucurri,Nunc inhonorus egens perfert miserabile pacisSupplicium, nulloque palam circumdatus hoste,Obsessi discrimen habet – per singula letumImpendit momenta mihi, dubitandaque pauciPrescribant alimenta Dies."– Claudian, De Bello. Gildonico, 35 – 100.] 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 - 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, nd that at the very time when all the railways were going on.]

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: —

Newdegate's Letter to Mr Labouchere, p. 12-13.

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: —

Newdegate's Letter to Mr Labouchere, p. 17.

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.[21 - – Newdegate, 12-13.] 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: —

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, —

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.

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.

October 1847.

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,