It was said in the debate on the Navigation Laws, in the best speech made on the Liberal side, by one of the ablest of the Liberal party, that the repeal of the Navigation Laws was the crowning of the column of free trade. There is no doubt it was so; but it was something more. It was not only the carrying out of a principle, but the overthrow of a system; it was not merely the crowning of the column, but the crushing of the pedestal. And what was the system which was thus completely overthrown, for the time at least, by this great triumph of Liberal doctrines? It was the system under which England had become free, and great, and powerful; under which, in her alone of all modern states, liberty had been found to coexist with law, and progress with order; under which wealth had increased without producing divisions, and power grown up without inducing corruption; the system which had withstood the shocks of two centuries, and created an empire unsurpassed since the beginning of the world in extent and magnificence. It was a system which had been followed out with persevering energy by the greatest men, and the most commanding intellects, which modern Europe had ever produced; which was begun by the republican patriotism of Cromwell, and consummated by the conservative wisdom of Pitt; which had been embraced alike by Somers and Bolingbroke, by Walpole and Chatham, by Fox and Castlereagh; which, during two centuries, had produced an unbroken growth of national strength, a ceaseless extension of national power, and at length reared up a dominion which embraced the earth in its grasp, and exceeded anything ever achieved by the legions of CÆsar, or the phalanx of Alexander. No vicissitudes of time, no shock of adverse fortune, had been able permanently to arrest its progress. It had risen superior alike to the ambition of Louis XIV. and the genius of Napoleon; the rude severance of the North American colonies had thrown only a passing shade over its fortunes; the power of Hindostan had been subdued by its force, the sceptre of the ocean won by its prowess. It had planted its colonies in every quarter of the globe, and at once peopled with its descendants a new hemisphere, and, for the first time since the creation, rolled back to the old the tide of civilisation. Perish when it may, the old English system has achieved mighty things; it has indelibly affixed its impress on the tablets of history. The children of its creation, the Anglo-Saxon race, will fill alike the solitudes of the Far West, and the isles of the East; they will be found equally on the shores of the Missouri, and on the savannahs of Australia; and the period can already be anticipated, even by the least imaginative, when their descendants will people half the globe. It was not only the column of free trade which has been crowned in this memorable year. Another column, more firm in its structure, more lasting in its duration, more conspicuous amidst the wonders of creation, has, in the same season, been crowned by British hands. While the sacrilegious efforts of those whom it had sheltered were tearing down the temple of protection in the West, the last stone was put to the august structure which it had reared in the East. The victory of Goojerat on the Indus was contemporary with the repeal of the Navigation Laws on the Thames. The completion of the conquest of India occurred exactly at the moment when the system which had created that empire was repudiated. Protection placed the sceptre of India in our hands, when free trade was surrendering the trident of the ocean in the heart of our power. With truth did Lord Gough say, in his noble proclamation to the army of the Punjaub, on the termination of hostilities, that "what Alexander had attempted they had done." Supported by the energy of England, guided by the principles of protection, restrained by the dictates of justice, backed by the navy which the Navigation Laws had created, the British arms had achieved the most wonderful triumph recorded in the annals of
and steadily advanced through a hundred years of effort and glory, not unmixed with disaster, from the banks of the Hoogley to the shores of the Indus—from the black hole of Calcutta to the throne of Aurengzebe. "Nulla magna civitas," said Hannibal, "diu quiescere potest—si foris hostem non habet, domi invenit: ut praevalida corpora ab externis causis tuta videntur, suis ipsis viribus conficiuntur." The secret of the long duration and unexampled success of the British national policy is to be found in the protection which it afforded to all the national interests. But for this, it must long since have been overthrown, and with it the empire which was growing up under its shadow. No institutions or frames of government can long exist which are not held together by that firmest of bonds, experienced benefits. What made the Roman power steadily advance during seven centuries, and endure in all a thousand years? The protection which the arms of the legions afforded to the industry of mankind, the international wars which they prevented, the general peace they secured, the magnanimous policy which admitted the conquered states to the privileges of Roman citizens, and caused the Imperial government to be felt through the wide circuit of its power, only by the vast market it opened to the industry of its multifarious subjects, and the munificence with which local undertakings were everywhere aided by the Imperial treasury. Free trade in grain at length ruined it: the harvests of Libya and Egypt came to supersede those of Greece and Italy,—and thence its fall. To the same cause which occasioned the rise of Rome, is to be ascribed the similar unbroken progress of the Russian ter That the old policy of England, foreign, colonial, and domestic, was thoroughly protective, and attended, on the whole, with a due care of the interests of its subjects in every part of the world, may be inferred with absolute certainty from the constant growth, unexampled success, and long existence of her empire. But the matter is not left to inference: decisive proof of it is to be found in the enactments of our statute-book, the treaties we concluded, or the wars we waged with foreign powers. Protection to native industry, at home or in the colonies, security to vested interests, a sacred regard to the rights and interests of our subjects, in whatever part of the world, were the principles invariably acted upon. Long and bloody wars were undertaken to secure their predominance, when threatened by foreign powers. This protective system of necessity implied some restrictions upon the industry, or restraints upon the liberty of action in the colonial dependencies, as well as the mother country—but what then? They were not complained of on either side, because they were accompanied with corresponding and greater benefits, as the consideration paid by the mother country, and received by her distant offspring. Reciprocity in those days was not entirely one-sided; there was a quid pro quo on both sides. The American colonies were subjected to the Navigation Laws, and, in consequence, paid somewhat higher for their freights than if they had been permitted to export and import their produce in the cheaper vessels of foreign powers; but this burden was never complained of, because it was felt to be the price paid for the immense advantages of the monopoly of the English market, and the protection of the English navy. The colonies of France and Spain desired nothing so much, during the late war, as to be conquered by the armies of England, because it at once opened the closed markets for their produce, and restored the lost protection of a powerful navy. The English felt that their colonial empire was in some respects a burden, and entailed heavy expenses both in peace and war; but they were not complained of, because the manufacturing industry of England found a vast and increasing market for its produce in the growth of its offspring in every part of the world, and its commercial navy grew with unexampled rapidity from the exclusive enjoyment of their trade. Such was the amount of protection afforded in our statute-book to commercial industry, that we might imagine, if there was nothing else in it, that the empire had been governed exclusively by a manufacturing aristocracy. Such was the care with which the interests of the colonies were attended to, that it seemed as if they must have had representatives who possessed a majority in the legislature. To one who looked to the Two causes mainly contributed to produce this system of catholic protection by the British government to native industry; and to their united operation, the greatness of England is chiefly to be ascribed. The first of these was the peculiar constitution which time had worked out for the House of Commons, and the manner in which all the interests of the state had come silently, and without being observed, to be indirectly but most effectually represented in parliament. That body, anterior to the Reform Bill, possessed one invaluable quality—its franchise was multiform and various. In many burghs the landed interest in their neighbourhood was predominant; in most counties it returned members in the interests of agriculture. In other towns, mercantile or commercial wealth acquired by purchase an introduction, or won it from the influence of some great family. Colonial opulence found a ready inlet in the close boroughs: Old Sarum or Gatton nominally represented a house or a green mound—really, the one might furnish a seat to a representative of Hindostan, the other of the splendid West Indian settlements. The members who thus got in by purchase had one invaluable quality, like the officers who get their commissions in the army in the same way—they were independent. They were not liable to be overruled or coerced by a numerous, ignorant, and conceited constituency. Hence they looked only to the interests of the class to which they belonged, amidst which their fortunes had been made, and with the prosperity of which their individual success was entirely wound up. With what energy these various interests were attended to, with what perseverance the system of protecting them was followed up, is sufficiently evident from the simultaneous growth and unbroken prosperity of all the great branches of industry during the long period of a hundred and fifty years. Talent, alike on the Whig and the Tory side, found a ready entrance by means of the nomination burghs. It is well known that all the great men of the House of Commons, since the Revolution, obtained entrance to parliament in the first instance through these narrow inlets. Rank looked anxiously for talent, because it added to its influence. Genius did not disdain the entrance, because it was not obstructed by numbers, or galled by conceit. No human wisdom could have devised such a system; it rose gradually, and without being observed, from the influence of a vast body of great and prosperous interests, feeling the necessity of obtaining a voice in the legislature, and enjoying the means of doing so by the variety of election privileges which time had established in the House of Commons. The reality of this representation of interests is matter of history. The landed interest, the West India interest, the commercial interest, the shipping interest, the East Indian interest, could all command their respective phalanxes in parliament, who would not permit any violation of the rights, or infringement on the welfare, of their constituents to take place. The combined effect of the The second cause was, that no speculative or theoretical opinions had then been broached, or become popular, which proclaimed that the real interest of any one class was to be found in the spoliation or depression of any other class. No gigantic system of beggar my neighbour had then come to be considered as a shorthand mode of gaining wealth. The nation had not then embraced the doctrine, that to buy cheap and sell dear constituted the sum total of political science. On the contrary, protection to industry in all its branches was considered as the great principle of policy, the undisputed dictate of wisdom, the obvious rule of justice. It was acknowledged alike by speculative writers and practical statesmen. The interests of the producers were the main object of legislative fostering and philosophic thought—and for this plain reason, that they constitute the great body of society, and their interests chiefly were thought of. Realised wealth was then, in comparison to what it now is, in a state of infancy; the class of traders and shopkeepers, who grow up with the expenditure of accumulated opulence, was limited in numbers and inconsiderable in influence. It would have been as impossible then to get up a party in the House of Commons, or a cry in the country, in favour of the consumers or against the producers, as it would be now to do the same among the corn producers in the basin of the Mississippi, or among the cotton growers of New Orleans. It is in the profound wisdom of Hannibal's saying—that great states, impregnable to the shock of external violence, are consumed and wasted away by their own internal strength—that the real cause of the subsequent and extraordinary change, first in the opinions of men, and then in the measures of government, is to be found. Such was the wealth produced by the energy of the Anglo-Saxon race, sheltered and invigorated by the protection-policy of government in every quarter of the globe, that in the end it gave birth to a new class, which rapidly grew in numbers and influence, and was at length able to bid defiance to all the other interests in the state put together. This was the moneyed interest—the class of men whose fortunes were made, whose position was secure, and who saw, in a general cheapening of the price of commodities and reduction of prices, the means of making their wealth go much farther than it otherwise would. This class had its origin from the long-continued prosperity and accumulated savings of the whole producing classes in the state; like a huge lake, it was fed by all the streams and rills which descended into it from the high grounds by which it was surrounded; and the rise of its waters indicated, as a register thermometer, the amount of additions which it was receiving from the swelling of the feeders by which it was formed. But when men once get out of the class of producers, and into that of moneyed consumers, they rapidly perceive an immediate benefit to themselves in the reduction of the price of articles of consumption, because it adds proportionally to the value of their money. If prices can be forced down fifty per cent by legislative measures, every thousand pounds in effect becomes fifteen hundred. It thus not unfrequently and naturally happened, that the son who enjoyed the fortune made by protection came to join the ranks of the free traders, because it promised a great addition to the value of his inheritance. The transition from Sir Robert Peel the father, and staunch supporter of protection, who made the fortune, to Sir Robert Peel the son, who inherited it, and introduced free-trade principles, was natural and easy. Each acted in conformity with the interests of his respective position in society. It is impossible to suppose in such men a selfish or sordid regard to their own interests, and we solemnly disclaim the intention of imputing such. But every one knows how the ablest and most elevated minds are insensibly moulded by the influence of the atmosphere with which they are surrounded; and, at all events, they were a type of the corresponding change going Adam Smith's work, now styled the principia of economical science by the free-traders, first gave token of the important and decisive change then going forward in society. It was an ominous and characteristic title: The Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations. It was not said of their wisdom, virtue, or happiness. The direction of such a mind as Adam Smith's to the exclusive consideration of the riches of nations, indicated the advent of a period when the fruits of industry in this vast empire, sheltered by protection, had become so great that they had formed a powerful class in society, which was beginning to look to its separate interests, and saw them in the beating down the price of articles—that is, diminishing the remuneration of other men's industry. It showed that the Plutocracy was becoming powerful. The constant arguments that able work contained, in favour of competition and against monopoly,—its impassioned pleadings in favour of freedom of commerce, and the removal of all restrictions on importation, were so many indications that a new era was opening in society; that the interests of realised wealth were beginning to come into collision with those of creating industry, and that the time was not far distant when a fierce legislative contest might be anticipated between them. It is well known that Adam Smith advocated the Navigation Laws, upon the ground that national independence was of more importance than national wealth. But there can be no doubt that this was a deviation from his principles, and that, if they were established in other particulars, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to succeed in maintaining an exception in favour of the shipping interests, because that was retaining a burden on the colonies, when the corresponding benefit had been voted away. Although, however, the doctrines of Adam Smith, from their novelty, simplicity, and alliance with democratic liberty, spread rapidly in the rising generation—ever ready to repudiate the doctrines and throw off the restraints of their fathers—yet, so strongly were the producing interests intrenched in the legislature, that a very long period would probably have elapsed before they came to be practically applied in the measures of government, had it not been that, at the very period when, from the triumph of protection-principles during the war, and the vast wealth they had realised in the state, the moneyed interest had become most powerful, a great revolution in the state gave that interest the command of the House of Commons. By the Reform Bill two-thirds of the seats in that house were given to boroughs, and two-thirds of the voters in boroughs, in the new constituency, were shopkeepers or those in their interest. Thus a decisive majority in the house, which, from having the command of the public purse, practically became possessed of supreme power, was vested in those who made their living by buying and selling—with whom cheap prices was all in all. The producing classes were virtually, and to all practical purposes, cast out of the scale. The landed interest, on all questions vital to its welfare, would evidently soon be in a minority. Schedules A and B at one blow disfranchised the whole colonial empire of Great Britain, because it closed the avenue by which colonial wealth had hitherto found an entrance to the House of Commons. Seats could no longer be bought: the virtual representation of unrepresented places was at an end. The greatest fortunes made in the colonies could now get into the house only through some populous place; and the majority of voters in most populous places were in favour of the consumers and against the producers, because the consumers bought their goods, and they bought those of the producers. Thus no colonial member could get in but by forswearing his principles and abandoning the interests of his order. The shipping interest was more strongly intrenched, because many shipping towns had direct representatives in parliament, and it accordingly was the last to be overthrown. But when the colonies were disfranchised, and protection was withdrawn from their industry to cheapen prices at home, it The authors of the Reform Bill were well aware that under it two-thirds of the seats in the House of Commons were for boroughs: but they clung to the idea that a large proportion of these seats would fall under the influence of the landed proprietors in their vicinity, and thus be brought round to the support of the agricultural interest. It was on that belief that Earl Grey said in private, amidst all his public democratic declamations, that the Reform Bill was "the most aristocratic measure which had ever passed the House of Commons." But in this anticipation, which was doubtless formed in good faith by many of the ablest supporters of that revolution, they showed themselves entirely ignorant of the effect of the great monetary change of 1819, which at that very period was undermining the influence of the owners of landed estates as much as it was augmenting the power of the holders of bonds over their properties. As that bill changed the prices of agricultural produce, at least to the extent of forty per cent, it of course crippled the means and weakened the influence of the landowners as much as it added to the powers of the moneyed interest which held securities over their estates. This soon became a matter of paramount importance. After a few severe struggles, the landowners in most places saw that they were over-matched, and that their burdened estates and declining rent-rolls were not equal to an encounter with the ready money of the capitalists, which that very change had so much enhanced in value and augmented in power. One by one the rural boroughs slipped out of the hands of the landed, and fell under the influence of the moneyed interest. At the same time one great colonial interest, that of the West Indies, was so entirely prostrated by the ruinous measure of the emancipation of the negroes, that its influence in parliament was practically rendered extinct. Thus two of the great producing interests in the state—those of corn and sugar—were materially weakened or nullified, at the very time when the power of their opponents, the moneyed aristocracy, was most augmented. Experience, however, proved, on one important and decisive occasion, that even after the Reform Bill had become the law of the land, it was still possible, by a coalition of all the producing interests, to defeat the utmost efforts of the moneyed party, even when aided by the whole influence of government. On occasion of the memorable Whig budget of 1841, such a coalition took place, and the efforts of the free-traders were overthrown. A change of ministry was the consequence; but it soon appeared that nothing was gained by an alteration of rulers, when the elements in which political power resided, under the new constitution, remained unchanged. Sir Robert Peel, and the leaders of the party which now succeeded to power, appear to have been guided by those views in the free-trade measures which they subsequently introduced. They regarded, and with justice, the Reform Bill as, in the language of the Times, "a great fact"—the settlement of the constitution upon a new basis—on foundations non tangenda non movenda, if we would shun the peril of repeated shocks to our institutions, and ultimately of a bloody revolution. Looking on the matter in this light, the next object was to scan the composition of the House of Commons, and see in what party and interest in the state a preponderance of power was now vested. They were not slow in discerning the fatal truth, that the Reform Bill had given a decided majority to the representatives of boroughs, and that a clear majority in these boroughs was, from the embarrassments which monetary change had produced on the landed proprietors, and the preponderance of votes which that bill had given to shopkeepers, vested in the moneyed or consuming interest. Such a state of things might be regretted, but still it existed; and it was the business of Still, even when free-trade measures were resolved on by Sir R. Peel's government, it was a very doubtful matter, in the first instance, how to secure their entire success. The great coalition of the chief producing interests, which had proved fatal to the Whig administration by the election of 1841, might again be reorganised, and overthrow any government which attempted to renew the same projects. Ministers had been placed in office on the principles of protection—they were the watches, planted to descry the first approaches of the enemy, and repel his attacks. But the old Roman maxim, "Divide et impera," was then put in practice with fatal effect on the producing interests, and, in the end, on the general fortunes of the empire. The assault was in the first instance directed against the agricultural interest: the cry of "Cheap bread," ever all-powerful with the multitude, was raised to drown that of "Protection to native industry." The whole weight of government, which at once abandoned all its principles, was directed to support the free-trade assault, and beat down the protectionist opposition. The whole population in the towns—that is, the inhabitants of the places which, under the Reform Bill, returned two-thirds of the House of Commons—was roused almost to madness by the prospect of a great reduction in the price of provisions. The master-manufacturers almost unanimously supported the same views, in the hope that the wages of labour and the cost of production would be in a similar way reduced, and that thus the foreign market for their produce would be extended. The West India interest, the colonial interest, the shipping interest, stood aloof, or gave only a lukewarm support to the protectionists, conceiving that it was merely an agricultural question, and that the time was far distant when there was any chance of their interests being brought into jeopardy. "Cetera quis nescit?" The corn-laws were repealed, agricultural protection was swept away, and England, where wheat cannot be raised at a profit when prices are below 50s., or, at the lowest, 45s. a quarter, was exposed to the direct competition of states possessing the means of raising it to an indefinite extent, where it can be produced and imported at a profit for in all 32s. What subsequent events have abundantly verified, was at the time foreseen and foretold by the protectionists,—that when agricultural protection at home was withdrawn, it could not be maintained in the colonies, and that cheap prices must be rendered universal, as they had been established in the great article of human subsistence. This necessity was soon experienced. The West Indies were the first to be assailed. Undeterred by the evident ruin which a free competition with the slave-growing states could not fail to bring on British planters forced to work with free labourers—undismayed by the frightful injustice of first establishing slavery by law in the English colonies, and giving the utmost encouragement to negro importation, then forcibly emancipating the slaves on a compensation not on an average a fourth part of their value, and then sweeping away all fiscal protection, and exposing the English planters, who could not with their free labourers raise sugar below £10 a ton, to competition with slave states who could raise it for £4 a ton—that great work of fiscal iniquity and free-trade spoliation was perpetrated. The English landed interest resisted the We say advisedly, each interest has looked on with indifference when its neighbour was destroyed. That this strong phrase is not misapplied to the effect of these measures in the West Indies, is too well known to require any illustration. Ruin, widespread and universal, has, we know by sad experience, overtaken, and is rapidly destroying these once splendid colonies. While we write these lines, a decisive proof We do not propose to resume the debate on the Navigation Laws, of which the public have heard so much in this session of parliament. We are aware that their doom is sealed; and we accept the extinction of shipping protection as un fait accompli, from which we must set out in all future discussions on the national prospects and fortunes. But, in order to show how enormously perilous is the change thus made, and what strength of argument and arrays of facts free-trade fanaticism has had the merit of triumphing over, we cannot resist the temptation of transcribing into our pages the admirable letter of Mr Young, the able and unflinching advocate of the shipping interest, to the Marquis of Lansdowne, after the late interesting debate on the subject in the House of Lords. We do so not merely from sincere respect for that gentleman's patriotic spirit and services, but because we do not know any document which, in so short a space, contains so interesting a statement of that leading fact on which the whole question hinges—viz. the progressive and rapid decline of British, and growth of foreign tonnage, with those countries with whom we have concluded reciprocity treaties: affording thus a foretaste of what we may expect now that we have established a reciprocity treaty, by the repeal of the Navigation Laws, with the whole world:
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 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 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:—
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? 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, 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 circu 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. 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:— 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 ex
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. 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 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
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, And, like reapers, descend to the harvest of death." But this constancy of individuals when suffering under the measures they themselves have introduced, however curious and respectable as a specimen of the unvarying effect of fanaticism, whether religious or social, Confounded at such a series of events, so widely different from what they anticipated and had predicted from their measures, the free-traders have no resource but to lay them all on two external causes, for which they are not, as they conceive, responsible: these causes are, the French and German revolutions, and the potato famine in Ireland. That the revolutions on the continent of Europe have materially affected the market for the produce of British industry, in the countries where they have occurred, is indeed certain; but are the Liberals entitled to shake themselves free from the consequences of these convulsions? Have we not, for the last thirty years, been labouring incessantly to encourage and extend revolution in all the adjoining states? Did we not insidiously and basely support the revolutions in South America, and call a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old? Was not the result of that monstrous and iniquitous interference in support of the rebels in an allied state, to induce the dreadful monetary catastrophe of December 1825, the severest, till that of 1847, ever experienced in modern Europe? Did we not, not merely instantly recognise the French revolutions of 1830 and 1848, but lend our powerful aid and countenance to extend the laudable example to the adjoining states? Did we not join with France to prevent the King of the Netherlands from regaining the command of Flanders in 1832, and blockade the Scheldt while Marshal Gerard bombarded Antwerp? Did we not conclude the Quadruple Alliance to effect the revolutionising of Spain and Portugal, and bathe both countries for four years with blood, to establish revolutionary queens on both the thrones in the Peninsula? Have we not intercepted the armament of the King of Naples against Sicily, by Admiral Parker's fleet, and aided the insurgents in that island with arms from the Tower? Did we not interfere to arrest the victorious columns of Radetsky at Turin, but never move a step to check Charles Albert on the Mincio? Did we not side with revolutionary Prussia against the Danes, and aid in launching Pio Nono into that frantic career which has spread such ruin through the Italian peninsula? Have we not all but lost the confidence of our old ally, Austria, from our notorious intrigues to encourage the furious divisions which have torn that noble empire? Nay, have we not been so enamoured of revolution, that we could not avoid showing a partiality for it in our own dominions—rewarding and encouraging O'Connell, and allowing monster meetings, till by the neglect of Irish industry we landed them in famine, and by the fanning of Irish passions brought them up to rebellion;—and establishing a constitution in Canada which gave a decided majority in parliament to an alien and rebel race, and, as a necessary consequence, giving the colonial administration to the very party Then as to the Irish famine of 1846, it is rather too much, after the lapse of three years, to go on ascribing the general distress of the empire to a partial failure of a particular crop, which, after all, did not exceed the loss of a twentieth part of the annual agricultural produce of the British Islands. But if the free-traders' principles had been well founded, this failure in Ireland should have been the greatest possible blessing to their party in the state, because it immediately effected that transference of the purchase of a part of the national food from home to foreign cultivators, which is the very thing they hold out as such an advantage, and likely in an especial manner to enlarge the foreign market for our manufactures. It induced the importation of £30,000,000 worth of foreign grain in three months: that, on the principles of the free-traders, should have put all our manufacturers in activity, and placed the nation in the third heaven. Disguise it as you will, the Irish potato-rot was but an anticipation, somewhat more sudden than they expected, of the free-trade rot, which was held out as a certain panacea for all the national evils. And now, when free trade and a restricted currency have not proved quite so great a blessing as they anticipated, the free-traders turn round and lay it all on the substitution of foreign importation for domestic production in Ireland, when that very substitution is the thing they have, by abolishing the corn laws, laboured to effect over the whole empire. Then as to the state of Ireland, which has at length reached the present unparalleled crisis of difficulty and suffering, the conduct of the Liberals has been, if possible, still more inconsistent and self-condemnatory. For half a century past, they have been incessantly declaiming on the mild, inoffensive, and industrious character of the Irish race; upon their inherent loyalty to the throne; and upon the enormous iniquity of British rule, which had brought the whole misfortunes under which they were labouring on that virtuous people. Nothing but equal privileges, Catholic emancipation, parliamentary reform, burgh reform, and influence at Dublin Castle, we were told, were required to set everything right, and render Ireland as peaceable and prosperous as any part of the British dominions. The conduct of James I. and Cromwell, in planting Saxon and Protestant colonies in Ulster, was in an essential manner held up to detestation, as one of the chief causes of the social and religious divisions which had over since distracted the country. Well, the Liberals have given all these things to the Irish. For twenty years, the island has been governed entirely on these principles. They have got Catholic emancipation, a reduction of the Protestant church, national education, corporate reform, parliamentary reform, monster meetings, ceaseless agitation, and, in fact, all the objects for which, in common with the Liberal party in Great Britain, they have so long contended. And what has been the result? Is it that pauperism has disappeared, industry flourished, divisions died away, prosperity become general? So far from it, divisions never have been so bitter, dissension never so general, misery so grinding, suffering so universal, since the British standards, under Henry II., seven centuries ago, first approached their shores. A rebellion has broken out; anarchy and agitation, by turning the people aside from industry, have terminated in famine; and even the stream of English charity seems dried up, from the immensity of the suffering to be relieved, and the ingratitude with which it has heretofore been received. And what do the Liberals now do? Why, they put it all down to the score of the incurable indolence and heedlessness of the Celtic race, which nothing can eradicate, and cordially support Sir R. Peel's proposal to plant English colonies in Connaught, exactly similar to Cromwell's in Ulster, so long the object of Liberal hatred and declamation! They tell us now that the native Irish are irreclaimable helots, hewers of wood and drawers of water, and incapable of improvement till directed by Saxon heads and supported by the produce of Saxon hands. They forget that it is these very helots whom they represented as such immaculate and valuable subjects, the victims of Saxon injustice and Ulster misrule. They forget that English capitalists and farmers would long since have migrated to Ireland, and induced corn cultivation in its western and southern provinces, were it not that Liberal agitation kept the people in a state of menacing violence, and Liberal legislation took away all prospect of remunerating prices for their grain produce. And thus much for the Crowning of the Column of Free Trade, and Crushing of the Pedestal of the Nation. FOOTNOTES:
—In Re Cruikshanks, in Chancery, Times, June 6th, 1849.
—London Gazette, 20th April, 1849. "Advenio supplex, non ut proculcet Araxen Consul ovans, nostrÆve premant pharetrata secures Susa, nec ut rubris Aquilas figamus arenis. HÆc nobis, hÆc ante dabas. Nunc pabula tantum Roma precor. Miserere tuÆ pater optime gentis, Extremam defenda famam—Satiavimus iram, Si qu fuit. Lugenda Getis et flenda SuËvis Hausimus: ipsa meos exhorret Parthia casus. Armato quondam populo, Patrumque vigebam Consiliis. Domui terras, urbesque revinxi Legibus: ad solem victrix utrumque cucurri, Nunc inhonorus egens perfert miserabile pacis Supplicium, nulloque palam circumdatus hoste, Obsessi discrimen habet—per singula letum Impendit momenta mihi, dubitandaque pauci Prescribant alimenta Dies." —Claudian, De Bello. Gildonico, 35—100.
—Newdegate, 12-13. |