1831.] Power and Prospects of the Country. 167 



ply of goods. We are thus becoming every year more dependant upon 

 the demand from foreign markets ; and driven into competition with the 

 untaxed labour of other states. We must strive with them in toil in 

 cheapness in parsimony. Hitherto we have done this; and our supe- 

 rior machinery and greater skill and capital have overbalanced the ad- 

 vantages resulting to the foreigner, from the comparative light pressure 

 of taxation, and the consequent cheapness of the necessaries of life. 

 This superiority will not avail us long. The foreigner is now provided 

 with our machinery, and emulating our skill. He has attained our level 

 in power ; we must be content to descend to his level in condition. 



It cannot, we think, be disguised, that the tendency of such a system 

 is dangerous to the peace of the country, and destructive of the morals 

 of the people ; yet he is a bold man who ventures to talk of interference 

 with it. The manufacturers are entrenched behind strong fortifications, 

 and armed with weapons; the bare contemplation of which is sufficient 

 to strike terror to the hearts of their most resolute opponents ! They 

 hold in their hands the peace of the country, and the stability of its best 

 institutions. Their remonstrance is, " What will become of our unem- 

 ployed population ?" Yes, what will become of it ? We shudder to 

 think. The present system bears within it the seeds of its own disso- 

 lution ! and he is a poor reasoner who does not admit, that the violent 

 dissolution of a system so productive of crime and misery, involves that 

 of the bonds of society. We assert it loudly and distinctly, that nothing 

 but a prompt attention to the workings of this system can secure the 

 safety of the country ! We do not advocate any headlong measures 

 we advise no direct interference. The manufacturers are, and must be, 

 a leading body in the country ; but they must not be the only one ! 

 Their labourers must be protected, and may be protected, without any 

 legislative interference between them and their masters. Let other 

 branches of industry be encouraged, and reinstated in the situation they 

 once enjoyed, and the pressure upon the market for manufacturing 

 labour will decrease. Let the monopoly of the capitalist be destroyed ! 

 and give to the agriculturist the ship-owner the land-owner and the 

 other sacrificed classes of the community, the protection which has been 

 unwisely, and unjustly, withdrawn from them ! It is too late now for 

 our legislators to " deprecate any further tampering with the currency !" 

 They were warned of its danger once ; and now when their own iniqui- 

 tous measure has destroyed the balance of society, and infused pauperism 

 and ruin into all its branches, they must do an act of justice to the suf- 

 ferers even at the expense of their philosophy ! They must not be gainers 

 by their own fraud ! These measures will alone do more for the peace of 

 the country, and the real prosperity of the agriculturists themselves, 

 than all the liberality of the economists could ever effect. 



The preceding considerations are increased to tenfold importance by 

 the present louring aspect of Continental affairs. The great powers of 

 Europe are evidently on the verge of a war, which, if we may judge 

 from the strength and excited feelings of the contending parties, w3l 

 have no small influence in determining the future prospects of society ; 

 and the consequences of which will be severely although, perhaps, indi- 

 rectly felt by ourselves. What the policy of our present government 

 will be, we are at no loss to conceive. We must stand aloof from the 

 struggles ; but shall we be unconcerned spectators ? No ; we shall stand 

 by, bleeding at every pore, with a mine charged and ready to burst in 



