There are few things in the New Political Economy that have a greater effect in causing us to detest it, than the ferocious levity with which it sports with the fortunes and bread of the community. Changes are made in the laws which are totally uncalled for by public necessity, which are believed by very many to be founded on false principles, and which, whether right or wrong, are sure to plunge a vast portion of the community into distress; yet they are made with as much rashness and carelessness as though they were sure to benefit every one. Half a million of people complain that by these changes they will be deprived of the only employment that they are acquainted with, and of bread; and they are only laughed at, and reproached for not doing what they find to be impossible. "If they cannot retain their trade, they must go to some other." Such is the only notice which the Economists deign to take of their impending ruin. We wish heartily that these Economists, high and low, official and unofficial, could be made to taste for a single month the misery which a man feels when he is plunged into bankruptcy, or forced from the only calling that he knowsdeprived of bread, and thrown upon the parish. We think the community at large would profit mightily by it. What the Englishman is to be rendered by the new political bubbles, we know not, but changes have already been made in him which render him in feelings half a barbarian. No abstract doctrines, no hope of future benefit, nothing but imperious necessity, could justify the government of this country in making experiments with the fortunes and bread of hundreds of thousands, and even millions of the people; and nothing upon earth could justify the language used by the Economists in speaking of the distress likely to flow from these experiments.

"If the silk-manufacturers cannot stand their ground, they must go to some other trade." So say the Economists. The effect which this would have upon public interests is not to be disregarded, if no commiseration be due to the manufacturers. We will therefore put the latter wholly out of sight, and look at the question as it affects the community at large.

British and India manufactured silks, and our manufactures generally,

are strictly prohibited from entering France. The Frenchman can take nothing for his silks but money. He will not benefit other trades in proportion as he may injure the silk one; he will produce nothing but unmixed evil. He will render English capital and labour idle, and replace them with French capital and labour. Something may be said in favour of the China money trade, on account of the English capital and labour which it employs, but this French money trade will employ only those of France. The Frenchman will be a producer, and, to a very great extent, the carrier too. He will do nothing to increase gold on one hand, in proportion as he may diminish it on the other; he will give the nation nothing for enabling it to buy more money; he will cause it to have less money for the purchase of silks, and not more, and it will merely pay that to him which it would otherwise pay to the Englishman. He will cause a regular unbalanced drain of gold, which will frequently give shocks to the whole interests of the country, like that which has just been experienced.

If the Frenchman could come gradually into the market; if he could only sell a few thousand pounds' worth of goods in the first year, and proceed by little and little, our Silk Trade might go off in a consumption without much suffering. But he comes with the ability to supply the market immediately, when the Englishman has it overstocked already. The market has nearly twice as many goods ready for it as it can take off, and of course the English trade must go at once.

While therefore the Frenchman will throw so much capital and labour idle in the Silk Trade, he will do nothing whatever to enable any other trade to employ a single additional pound or workman. Every other trade must for him remain just as it is in respect of increase. Now, we have in Great Britain and Ireland many millions of capital, and at least a million of labourcrs totally unable to procure employment; the number of the latter, if not the amount of the former, is very rapidly increasing. What trades then are the silk-manufacturers to look to for employment? None can be named; these manufacturers, as far as probability goes, must remain constantly idle. The Economists speak as though

there never could be a superabundance of capital and labour-as though these could at any time pass from trade to trade without injury-as though the supply of any article could always be profitably increased to any extent without reference to demand-as though we could part with trade after trade, and still never have a redundant population. That legislators should utter such trash is lamentable.

The Frenchman, however, instead of benefitting, will do great injury to various other trades. We purchase the raw article with goods, we employ ships in fetching it, and this must be lost to us without an equivalent. The immense mass of traders, manufacturers, labourers, &c. who directly or remotely depend on the Silk Trade independently of the regular members of it, will suffer most severely. So much labour being thrown upon the market will greatly depress wages in many quarters. When our revenue depends so much upon consumption, a check will be given to the latter, which will seriously affect the former. Every interest in the country will be injured. We shall thus injure and impoverish ourselves to strengthen and enrich the most formidable manufacturing and political rival that we have.

Now, what do the Economists themselves offer the nation to balance all this? We have already said quite enough touching improvements and discoveries. They do not even pretend to give us cheaper silks, for, so far as concerns the government, prices are not to be reduced. They do not pretend to give us better silks for wear, for in respect to use, many people think the English silks superior to the French ones. The only benefit that they offer is, silks of finer colour, and more fashionable. Now we would concede even something on this point, if the English silks were not sufficiently beautiful to decorate the most splendid mansion, and adorn the most lovely person. But they are. The most exalted rank needs none more rich-the most bewitching charms need none more showy. This is to be the only benefit to balance the gigantic evils. May heaven speedily deliver this land from such Political Economy!

If, contrary to this, the Frenchman could supply us with silks at half the

price charged by the Englishman, we maintain, that the latter ought to have the market on the score of public interest alone. The history of all our other manufactures, and every principle of reasoning, tend to prove, that if our silk manufacture had enjoyed its monopoly a few years longer, it would have risen to an equality with that of any other country. We assert, that when these unhappy changes were made, the nation was in a condition to have sacrificed millions for carrying its silk manufacture to perfection, and that it ought to have done this, looking only at ultimate pecuniary profit.

There is something in the way of managing these things, on which we must say a word. A body of men who have been their whole lives in a particular trade-who have studied it profoundly-who are minutely acquainted with all its bearings-wait upon Mr Huskisson and Mr Robinson, and these gentlemen say, "You don't know your own trade-you are strangers to your own interests." This is something new at any rate. These exalted individuals tell the silk manufacturers that the pouring of an immense mass of foreign silks into the market, when it is already overstocked, and when the number of buyers will be diminished and not increased, will greatly benefit their trade and interests! It is actually astonishing that in straightforward old England such quackery should be tolerated.

Mr Hale, we perceive, and some of the silk-weavers, as well as certain other people, are calling for the admission of foreign corn as a cure for the distress of the silk trade. Now, Mr Hale must know, that wages are much higher here than in other countries, not so much from the difference in the price of food, as from the difference in the manner of living and the Combinations. If corn and animal food were at the same price here as abroad, wages would still be much the highest in this country, unless our labourers should be deprived of many things which they now look upon as necessaries. The admission of foreign corn would not lower taxes; it would affect house-rent in towns very little; the present prices of woollens and cottons could not be reduced; it would have very little influence over colonial produce, and, of course, it could only

reduce in a small degree wages. The foreign corn must come from countries which our silk goods, from actual prohibition, or the underselling of the French, cannot enter. The market for silk is overstocked, almost twice the number of manufacturers are in it that it can employ, and does Mr Hale imagine, that to reduce the incomes of the nobility, the country gentlemen, the farmers, husbandry labourers, and workmen generally, would be a remedy-would promote the consumption of silks, and take off the overstock? Let Mr Hale reflect upon these matters. Let him remember that silks, generally speaking, are articles of luxury, and that national poverty is not the thing to promote their consumption. If we reduce prices here, we cannot proportionally reduce them abroad; to reduce, therefore, the prices of what we sell, will be in reality to advance the prices of what we buy; we shall by it raise considerably to ourselves the prices of what we buy of other countries. We shall sell as cheaply as possible, and buy as dearly as possible. A ruinous system, even according to the Economists. Granting that it may somewhat increase the sale of our goods abroad, this will be a wretched compensation for the loss of consumption, revenue, &c. at home. We will say no more on this point at present, as we purpose, on an early occasion, to devote a paper to the consideration of the Agricultural Question.

At present, most of our leading manufacturing interests are in a state of embarrassment. The silk trade, the cotton trade, and the woollen trade, are more or less distressed. Some portions of the iron trade seem to be rapidly approaching to a state of suffering, and certain other trades must inevitably follow. That this is to be ascribed, in a very considerable degree, to the changes that have been made in the laws, cannot be doubted. The retailers dare not buy, from the idea that foreign goods will be the rage; the manufacturers dare not prepare stocks, and all is uncertainty and stagnation. Now, what was the condition of the country when these changes were made? It was in the highest degree flourishing, and not a single alteration was called for. If these changes were likely to be ultimately beneficial, something might be said for them; but what

is the prospect? An immense mass of foreign manufactures is to be poured into our over-stocked market, when not a single additional outlet is to be created for our own, and when the ability of the nation to consume is to be very greatly diminished. Putting miracles out of sight, this can have no other effect than to distress and ruin our manufacturers. It must fill the foreign ones with skill and capital, enable them to carry their goods to the highest point of perfection, and deprive our own, not only of their home, but of their foreign trade.

If any class of our producers be undersold by the foreigner, the Economists cry that it is injuring the community; they speak of it as though it formed no part of the community-as though it merely existed to sell to, and not to buy in return of, the rest of the population. Now, if the landholders, farmers, husbandry labourers, silk-manufacturers, &c. &c. wholly taken away from the community, we think the community would cut but a very poor figure. We think those, whom they might leave, would be exceedingly anxious to get them back again, on condition of paying them their present prices.

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To the good old fashion of commercial treaties we can have no objection. In such treaties, the effects to be produced can be pretty accurately calculated; a loss on one article can be counterpoised by a gain in another. But this rash measure of throwing open every trade without any equivalent-of bringing a mass of foreign manufactures into the market without securing any additional foreign demand for English ones-of employing foreign capital and labour merely to throw out of employment English capital and labour-can only produce public evil.

If there be any Member of the House of Commons who has not been wholly deprived of his sound and honest English understanding by the Economists-who still loves his country

and who is anxious for it to retain its wealth, prosperity, happiness, and greatness, we trust that he will take up these matters on the assembling of Parliament. We confidently hope that the new systems will undergo a very different examination in the next session to that which they underwent in the last one. Instead of having to