trade is disparaged in its
importance, what becomes of this arithmetical illustration of the
superiority of foreign trade, when by the same standard we come to measure
it against the home trade, scarcely less a subject of depreciation and
vituperation than the colonial, with thinkers of the same impenetrable, if
not profound class as the member for Stockport? Here, for his edification,
we consign the resulting figures from the standard set up by himself, as
they may be found calculated and resolved from minute detail into grand
totals in the "General Statistics of the British Empire," by Mr James
Macqueen, an authority, perhaps, who will not be questioned by competent
judges any where without the pale of the Draconian legislators of the
Anti-corn-Law League.

"The yearly consumption of the population of Great Britain and Ireland for
food, clothing, and lodging, (we give the round numbers only):--

Agricultural produce for food, L.295,479,000
Produce of manufactures, 262,085,000
Imports, (raw produce, &c.) value as landed, 55,000,000
-------------
612,564,000
Deduct exports, 51,000,000
-------------
L.561,564,000"

It follows, then, that whilst foreign trade simply consumes something more
than double that of colonial trade, the home trade alone amounts to eleven
times over both foreign and colonial together, and by sixteen times as
much the amount of foreign trade alone. Upon the hypothesis of Mr Cobden,
therefore, foreign trade should be treated as of no value at all in the
national sense.

Having disposed of Mr Cobden according to Cocker, in reference to his
arithmetical demonstrations of the superiority in point of pounds,
shillings, and pence value of one sort of trade over another, we may
notice some petty trickery, cunningly intended on his part, consisting in
the suppression of figures and facts on the one side, and their
aggregation on the other, &c., by way of bolstering up unfairly a rotten
case. He states the whole colonial trade at L.16,000,000 only, inclusive
of British India, whereas Porter's Tables, which he must have consulted,
give the _total_ exports of Great Britain to all the world for 1840,

at