1823.] 
year to expatiate on the increase of 
quantity exported as an_ evidence of 
prosperity, whether we get equivalents ; 
for it or not. Whatever may be the 
motives that influence, or the blind- 
ness that precludes ; the fact is incon- 
trovertible, that at least 100,000,000/. 
value of property, within the last seven 
years, has been distributed all over 
the world, without one farthing equi-. 
valent, directly or indirectly, having 
been received for it; and instead of the 
government regarding the conse- 
quences, and adopting that compre- 
hensive order of enquiry which might 
liaye led to measures tending to equa- 
lize the disparity, they have prostituted 
their time to self-sufficiency and vain 
conceit, and yielded themsclves se- 
cret and coward panders to the ac- 
cursed Jeagues of knaves, against the 
march of intellect and the just rights of 
mankind; and the manufacturer and 
merchant, influenced equally by mis- 
take and selfishness, and impelled on- 
wards hy that speculative impctuosity 
which the extraordinary events of the 
twenty-three years of war had engen- 
dered ; instead of reflecting upon the 
consequences of their career, and re- 
gulating their supplies to a level with 
the diminished equivalents or means of 
payment, and calling upon the govern- 
ment to adopt those measures, with 
the several states of the world, which 
the great change of circumstances had 
rendered so imperiously necessary, 
that would have opened the way for 
progressively enlarging the sphere of 
their operations, with mutual and reci- 
procal advantage ; instead of doing this, 
they as rashly as falsely ascribed the 
fatal results which immediately fol- 
lowed the cessation ‘of the issue of 
government-bills in 1815, to causes 
which had no existence but in their 
mistaken imaginations, competition of 
low prices, and immediately forced a 
reduction in the rate of wages for 
labour, and that to a degree, which 
(as anecessary consequence,) at once 
paralyzed all the active and productive 
resources of the country, retarding all 
the channels, and diminishing the 
means, of internal consumption in a 
corresponding ratio to the reduction 
in the rate of wages; they seemed, and 
still continue, as insensible to the fact 
as callous to the consequences ; that an 
unequitable remuneration for Jabour as 
necessarily as inevitably diminishes the 
means of purchasing the products of 
Jabour in a greater ratio, than the 
Montary Mac, No. 388. 
since the Termination of the War 1816-1822, 
321- 
reduced price of the. commodity 
tended to increase profitable demand 
and consumption; whilst, on the other 
hand, although a high remuneration for 
labour as necessarily tends to enhance 
the price of the products of labour, (re- 
solving itself even into a species of in- 
direct taxation,) itis as indubitable as 
itis obvious, that the higher the remu- 
neration for labour, in so much greater 
ratio will the means of purchase of the 
products of labour he increased ; and, 
consequently, all the varied interests 
of the great social compact be im- 
proved. But instead of regarding this 
plain, this obvious, this incontroverti- 
ble, conclusion, both government and 
employers persisted in the opposite 
extreme; first reducing the wages of 
manufacturing labour, the first effect 
of which was to cause a reduction in 
the wages of agricultural labour ; and, 
in proportion as the principle was per- 
sisted in, agricultural productions of 
necessity yielded to depreciation, 
which, again, as necessarily compelled 
all other productions to yield to cor- 
responding depreciation. In the midst, 
however, of the devastation amongst 
all the productive classes of society, 
which the pertinacious adherence to 
the false and unjust principle of prey- 
ing on the physical labour of the peo- 
ple occasioned, all the participators 
and dependants on that ideal, value- 
less, and nominal, something, which. 
some denominate wealth, and others 
debt, and all other fixed nominal mo- 
ney incomes were benefited in a cor- 
responding degree to the injury and in- 
justice inflicted upon all the labouring, 
active, and productive, classes of the 
community ; and thus all the solid and. 
substantial interests of this great coun- 
try, and all the energies of its people, 
have become sacrificed and rendered 
victims to the caprice, the speculation, 
and avarice, of a posse of tricksters, 
jugglers, and jobbers, in anideal nomi- 
nality ofamount, founded on principles 
as fallacious as they ‘are unjust ; and 
which is as contemptible for the 
foolery and trickery with which it is 
sustained, as it is reprehensible for the 
injary which it inflicts on all without 
the pale of its participation, and as it 
will ultimately prove fatal (if the con- 
sequences are not speedily averted) to 
all that is dear and valuable to the 
country as anation, I am aware, sir, 
how much an individual, in elucidating 
the affairs of nations, is exposed to the 
obloquy, the conceit, and presumption, 
2T of 
