look forward, as I do, with hope, to a general explosion of the sophists themselves. PROTECTION. Sir, I thank you for those words of comfort. It appears, then, from all you have said, that in your opinion it is the working classes, after all, who are most interested in this question of Free Trade. ARISTOCRAT. Essentially it is a question of labour. Free Trade was a blow aimed at Aristocracy, from under the cloak of Philanthropy; but Labour has intercepted the murderous stroke. The working classes are the weakest, from their number, and must suffer first: and I fear that, within two years, our manufacturing population will be reduced to the same deplorable condition as our agricultural labourers are now. Then shall we have low wages certainly; and dear bread possibly-and then will come reaction with a vengeance. Wealth, we are told, is the produce of labour, which is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. How, then, can the national wealth be increased by lowering the market value of that labour which creates it? By reducing wages, you may enrich the employers of labour; but you do not enrich the nation. You draw together into few hands, instead of distributing amongst many, that money which, Bacon said, is of no use, unless "like muck, it be spread." No one is so fond as Lord John Russell of reminding the House of the numerous taxes that have been remitted since the peace. "Forty millions a year! think of that, Mr. Speaker, think of that!" But his lordship always forgets to add-" the more shame for us!" Instead of applying surplus revenue towards the gradual liquidation of the Debt, all has been spent in reducing taxation; under the plausible pretence of benefiting the working classes. Forty millions a year! and yet never were the working classes of the United Kingdom, taken as a body, more sadly depressed than at this moment, or more sure, alas ! of remaining so. PROTECTION. How, then, do you account for this? ARISTOCRAT. Why, wages have been reduced to a much greater extent than these forty millions a year. Articles of consumption have indeed fallen in price to the full extent of all duties remitted; in most cases, even more: but the benefit to the working classes (except in the case of highly skilled labour) is limited to the time taken in adjusting wages to the fall in prices. The remission of taxation gives for the moment an artificial stimulus to the increase of pulation, which thus constantly keeps in advance of employment. po PROTECTION. But, then, if the forty millions a year remitted have not gone to benefit the working classes, what is become of the money? ARISTOCRAT. By far the greater part is gone into the pockets of those employing the labouring classes, who thus act merely as conduit-pipes for conveying this mighty stream of revenue from the public treasury into the private reservoirs of the great employers of labour. Thus it is that the rich become more rich, and the poor more poor. PROTECTION. But did not Mr. Villiers inform us, on the first night of the session, that the people, during the last three years, had saved ninety millions sterling, in the cost of bread? ARISTOCRAT. Is it not strange then, that some portion of such gigantic savings should not have found its way into the Treasury? Did no suspicion cross his mind, that wages must have fallen with the price of bread; since the Customs and Excise, those barometers of the enjoyments of the working classes, have remained all but stationary? Lord Redesdale, last week, in the House of Lords, computed the late fall in the rate of wages at one 66 million sterling per week; a sum, in the year, equal to the whole revenue of the country. And while his Lordship was speaking on this momentous subject, a few yards from him, the Commons were gloating over three thousand pounds a year, which they proposed to squeeze out of two of the Chief Justices of the realm. Oh, Free Trade! can'st thou not be "cheap," without being so very nasty?" What have we to show in return for this loss of income amongst our working classes? Increased Exports to the amount of ten millions! I am quite astonished that we have not "exported" more, (always bearing in mind, Madam, that these increased Exports are made "on consignment," and not "to order")—considering the marvellous combination, during the past year, of cheap corn, cheap cotton, and cheap cash: with Whigs and Peelites bawling out "Prosperity" as lustily as if they really believed it. Well, Madam, supposing these ten millions' worth of goods to be paid forwhich they never will be; what is the profit on them? shall we say ten per cent? or one miserable million sterling, as the boasted set-off against the universal distress of the most numerous and important class of the community. That greedy and selfish and stupid League clamoured for the repeal of the Corn Laws, that they might lower the rate of wages by means of cheap foreign corn. They cared not what amount of suffering they might inflict upon others, so long as they themselves reaped all the benefit of the change. They have succeeded indeed; and bitterly, ere long, will they rue the fatal error of their success. Perhaps, in the dead of night, some hand unseen may have shifted the emblems of security; and the Monster, when he wakes from his drunken delirium, may discover, too late, it was his own children's blood he unconsciously shed, while his victims are up and away. "Fools!"-as old Hesiod said, three thousand years ago,-" Fools! they know not how much more Half is than All!" By grasping at too much, they will lose what they possessed, and might always have retained. They have been killing the Goose that laid them a golden egg, every day. But surely the increase of their foreign trade was the principal object of the League. ARISTOCRAT. Doubtless, Madam; but never was policy so short-sighted. What is the legitimate foreign trade of a nation? The exchange of its surplus produce for foreign surplus produce. The system of the League stimulates our manufacturers to pro |