thing by the change. Has England gained? It may be doubted. Ireland is now not so much a customer as a pauper dependent on English alms. No one desires to see the old state of things restored, but it raises some serious questions, as we shall see by-and-by.

To conclude, then, because an extensive area of mutual exchanges is beneficial, that therefore the larger it is the better; and that an unlimited area of unregulated exchanges must necessarily be best of all, is to conclude without reason and against facts. On the contrary, to determine the extent, and the component parts of that area of unregulated exchanges, which will best nourish production and best distribute its results, is a most difficult problem. In almost every case its true solution varies. In every case it is the problem for the great statesman.

Then it is objected, if each country produce what it is by nature fitted for, industry will everywhere be more productive, and everybody will have more.

Alas! we have seen that many countries would at once cease to produce at all. In order to gain in one or two places one or two per cent in favour of the consumer, you will sacrifice in scores of places 98 or 99 per cent, which the producers used to have, and used to spend every year, and often many times a year. The ultimately cheapest manufactures will be often prevented or destroyed by the mere monopoly

of priority. Instead of multiplying the sum-total of the products of human industry, you will not only greatly diminish them, but contract the area over which they extend. And the most numerous and important class of all, the labourer, instead of having more, will-by being everywhere driven to compete with the most wretched competitors necessarily

almost everywhere have a great deal less.

Next it is objected that, looking at the different climates and different capabilities of countries, it is manifestly the intention of Providence, that there should be universal free and unregulated exchanges.

It is unfortunate for this assertion that for the thousands of years during which man has existed on this earth, such exchanges should not have existed.

Each nation, by regarding its own interests, has promoted, and will promote them, and so the general interest of the whole human race will be effectually furthered and secured.

Let us, as Englishmen, look to the interests of the United Kingdom. Let us, at any rate, secure British and Irish industry, leaving other countries in the same way to secure theirs. This practical division of solicitude and labour will conduce far more to the general diffusion of industry and wealth, and the solid advancement of mankind, than a Quixotic and presumptuous assumption of the care of Providence over the whole

human race. We do not, in ordinary social life, find the doctrines of professed cosmopolites either very exemplary or very useful. It is by the conscientious performance of his own duty on the part of every individual in his own family and humble sphere, that the happiness of the whole mass is best promoted; it is by the undivided attention of every workman to his corner of the building, that the most magnificent edifice rises. So it is by the care of its own industry on the part of every European country, that population, wealth, industry, commerce, science, learning, and the arts have been diffused and will be maintained throughout this glorious Europe.

Lastly, it is said the artificial regulation of the areas within which exchanges take place will destroy international trade.

Experience has already demonstrated the contrary. The places and the subjects mutually beneficial exchange on terms advantageous to both sides, still remain. We are still to import our wine, our cotton, our tea, our dies, our sugar, our spices, our timber; nay, even the corn and provisions, and everything else that we really want. But by proper regulation, we are to take care that these imports shall, as far as practicable, come either from our own Colonies, or at least from countries that will deal with us again. Imports will thus have their corresponding exports.

We shall thus double and not diminish the international trade. And it will be everywhere a commerce, not between wealth at one end, and indigence at the other, but between opulent and populous nations, emulating and rivalling each other.

Perhaps the candid reader will not now think it quite so certain, that if all countries practised freetrade, all countries would necessarily be gainers.

It

is possible he may be disposed to believe that many, perhaps most countries, and the most important classes in them, would be very great losers.

And certainly the great majority of nations and governments are, and seem likely still to remain, of this opinion.

So that if the maxim at the head of this chapter were as demonstrable as it is disputable, it would still be but a metaphysical abstraction, and a very poor foundation for a wise and practical statesman to legislate upon.

PROTECTED MANUFACTURES ARE SICKLY.

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CHAPTER VII.

"Protected manufactures are sickly."

A METAPHORICAL expression, constantly repeated, little cantradicted, and therefore by the half-informed believed. Whatever a man hears or reads constantly without contradiction, he is apt to believe. Sale, the translator of the Koran, by constantly poring over it, is said to have become a Mahometan.

But this proposition is so far from being true, that a slight review of the history of any manufacture disproves it.

All great manufactures had their origin in the protective system. Take our own, the greatest, and, until lately, least sickly of any. All our own manufactures took their rise in a system of protective duties, so high as to amount to prohibitions. In addition to this, owing to the fearful hostilities that raged in Europe for nearly a quarter of a century before 1815, we enjoyed a further accidental monopoly of the manufacturing industry of the world. And this stringent protection has not only created manufactures, but created them where they would not naturally have existed, in spite

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