g, with which the colonies, so understood in the true sense, have
nothing to do; and we have shown that one million and a quarter nearly of
the charge made against colonial trade, legitimately appertains to foreign
trade. Hereafter we purpose to investigate the respective charges entailed
upon the country by foreign and colonial trade, to apportion to each its
share, and to strike the balance of profit and loss relatively upon each.
Let it suffice for the present that we have shown Mr Cobden and his
figures to be utterly undeserving of credit in a partial point of view
only; we could, as we shall, prove them to be, either through idiotical
ignorance or stupidly malicious intent, more worthless of credit still in
the general and rational sense--in the relative proportions of the
totality of national expenditure. The blunderer, ignorant or malignant,
classed the expenditure for Guernsey and Jersey, and the Channel islands,
under the head of colonial military expenditure, as well as a considerable
portion of the cost of the Chinese war, partly repaid or in course of
being repaid. He took the exports to the colonies for 1840, when the
Chinese war was only in its origin, and expense scarcely incurred; and he
adopted the estimates for 1843, when the expenses of the Chinese war had
to be provided for, a portion of which was charged under colonial heads.
He omitted, as we have said, any account of permanent charge for
conducting and protecting the trade with China, amounting to a
considerable sum yearly under the old system, and which hereafter will be
more--all to the account of "foreign trade." He omitted besides, at the
least, half a million for the war with China--all for "foreign trade." We
shall have other occasions, however, for exposing his dishonesty, and
vindicating the colonies from his calumnies. The only words of something
like truth he spoke, were against that bastard and discreditable system,
purporting to be a "self-supporting system," concocted by adventurers and
land-jobbers for achieving fortunes at the cost, and to the ruin, of the
unsuspecting emigrating public, and to the signal detriment and dishonour
of the state.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine --
Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843, by Various

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE ***

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