the inveterate habit of reducing all argument into arithmetical
quantities; of calculating the value of all truth at some standard rate
per pound sterling, of what it might possibly produce as a matter of
trade; of confounding syllogisms with ciphers, and lumbering all logic
into pounds, shillings, and pence. With diagnostics of disease so
unmistakably developed, it would only be exasperation of the symptoms to
exhibit remedially in other than the peculiar form which the patient
fancies for the kill-or-cure-all draught; and since he has raised the
suit, of which he is the self-constituted judge, in which Cocker is pitted
against the colonies, we shall even humour the conceit, and try the
question with him according to the principles of law and logic, as laid
down and reduced by himself into the substantial shape of a _Dr._ and
_Cr._ account, balances struck in hard cash, and no mistake.

Firstly, to begin with the beginning, which Mr Cobden, with customary
confusion of intellect and arrangement, shoots into the midst of his
arithmetic. The worthlessness of the colonies is argued upon the figures,
which show that, of the total exports of the United Kingdom, but one-third
is absorbed by them, whilst two-thirds are taken by foreign markets;
therefore it follows, not that the colonial trade is by 50 per cent less
important than foreign, but that, relatively, it is not only of no
importance at all, but, by all the amount, an absolute prejudice: such, at
least, is the rule-of-three logic of the Cobden school, as, viz.:--

"They should, however, consider what the extent of their trade
with the colonies was. The whole amount of their trade in 1840
was, exports L.51,000,000; out of that L.16,000,000 was exported
to the colonies, including the East Indies; but not one-third of
their export trade went to the colonies. Take away L.6,000,000 of
this export trade that went to the East Indies, and they had
L.10,000,000 of exports to set against the L.5,000,000 or
L.6,000,000 annually which was voted from the pockets of the
people of this country to support these colonies."

We shall come in season meet to the five or six millions sterling said to
be voted annually "to support the colonies." Now, admitting that the
sixteen millions, as stated, of exports colonial do contrast unfavourably
with the thirty-five millions of foreign, and that by all the difference,
by more than the difference, colonial