ARISTOCRAT.

Why, Madam, by taking their corn, free of duty, we are doing all we can to promote their welfare at the expense of our own. Foreign manufactures will thrive, as we help to improve their agricultural prosperity; but for our Quixotic liberality, they have nothing to give us worth taking in exchange. I assure you, I consider Manchester on the brink of ruin. Her trade is absolutely at the mercy of America. Of cotton, the United States did not manufacture, in 1815, more than a hundred bales; they now manufacture at least a fourth of the entire crop, or from five to six hundred thousand bales; and compete with us successfully in the markets of Canada and South America, Africa, and India; and their successful competition will ruin our cotton manufacture, as it has ruined our South Sea Fishery. But to return to the question of reciprocity. It is instructive to observe how we may be drawn on, from bad to worse, through successive failures, until the principles, on which we started, are 'entirely lost sight of. It is really worth while to look at the Reports of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, ten years ago. Mr. Cobden, who had then just returned from a continental tour of discovery

PROTECTION.

Oh! those travels!

ARISTOCRAT.

He will soon be off again, Madam-He assured his friends, that he had been everywhere received with open arms, and with these cordial expressions—

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only repeal your corn laws, and we will remove our duties from your manufactures."-And you will find that all the arguments for free trade in corn were based on the supposition, that foreigners would abolish their duties on British commodities. But far different has been the result; and hitherto foreign governments have drawn back with as much alacrity as we have advanced: and they have everywhere evinced a wise determination to supply, as far as they can, the wants of their own people with the products of their own industry. To boast of the United States, and Sweden, having met us on the Navigation Laws, is simply ridiculous: what colonies have they to throw into our arms? but, quite undismayed at the failure of their once favourite theory of reciprocity, the free traders have now entirely shifted their ground; and Sir Robert Peel, in his rhetorical speech in July last, on the "State of the Nation," declared, "I maintain that the best way to compete with hostile tariffs is to encourage free imports. I say you will more successfully combat the disadvantages under which you labour from hostile tariffs, by buying that of which you stand in need, in the cheapest market."

PROTECTION.

But Mr. McCulloch had long before declared that, "foreign commodities are always paid for by British commodities; therefore the purchase of foreign commodities encourages British industry, as much as the purchase of British commodities." Do you believe that?

ARISTOCRAT.

Not one word of it, Madam. But this axiom of Mr. McCulloch was brought back to my recollection from finding it, the other day, selected as the text to the third chapter of the "Sophisms of Free Trade:" the ingenious author of which, as well as the writer of the very able article on "Free Trade," in the Quarterly Review of December last, both combat this doctrine of Mr. McCulloch by the following extract from the "Wealth of Nations," book ii. chap. 5.-"The capital employed in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, when this purchase is made with the produce of domestic industry, replaces too, by every such operation, two distinct capitals: but one of them only is employed in supporting domestic industry. The capital which sends British goods to Portugal, and brings back Portuguese goods to Great Britain, replaces by every such operation only one British capital. The other is a Portuguese one. Though the returns, therefore, of the foreign trade of con

sumption should be as quick as those of the home trade, the capital employed in it will give but one half the encouragement to the industry or productive labour of the country."-This remarkable passage is aptly illustrated by both the abovementioned writers. They show very clearly the great advantage of the home trade over the foreign trade; and that foreign production compared with domestic production gives only half the impulse to native industry. "Purchase British articles with British articles, and you create two such aggregate values, and two such markets for British industry.” "Purchase foreign articles with British articles, and you only create one value for your own benefit, instead of creating two; and only one market for British industry instead of two." But there they seem to stop.

PROTECTION.

Well! Sir. Would you have them go farther than Dr. Smith?

ARISTOCRAT.

Why, Madam, it appears to me strange that men of such acuteness should not have examined the subject a little more closely. Adam Smith was a man of genius, and his great work, on subjects so ever-varying, deserves to be studied, not so much for what he did say in 1775, as for what he would have said, had he written now in 1850; in these our evil days of Population, Machinery and Debt.

For my part, I cannot help thinking he would have gone far to prove that, although the foreign capital may replace the British capital, still the exchange is not necessarily an equivalent, even for this one value. Now, as this point appears to have been overlooked, and is a matter of the highest importance, as striking at the root of the whole system, may I request your attention, Madam, while I endeavour to state my views on the subject, as clearly and concisely as I can ?

PROTECTION.

Most certainly. I understand then, that you are anxious to prove that, although our Imports may be paid for by our Exports, still such an exchange may be injurious to the British community, by failing to prove an equivalent.

ARISTOCRAT.

Yes, Madam; that foreign production, compared with home production, may-and, in our case, does give far less than half the impulse to native industry.

PROTECTION.

Well, Sir; if you can prove that to the Electors of Westminster, I shall consider myself greatly indebted to you: for, to tell you the truth, although I feel deeply the injuries inflicted on me, I am frequently unable to trace their origin, or explain the cause of so much suffering.