nes of
free-trade were progressively applied to every part of the social body.
Taxes upon imports have been diminished, till, on all save a few articles,
they are now entirely removed; native industry has been exposed, with a
very slender protection, to the competition of foreign states; the
restraints on the exportation of machinery has been removed, to allow
foreign nations every advantage in competing with us; punishment has been
alleviated, till the penalty of death, save in cases of wilful murder, has
become practically abolished; the liberty of the press pushed the length
of allowing without control its utmost licentiousness; unbounded
toleration permitted in matters of opinion, even so far as generally to
proclaim impunity to the worst Chartist or Socialist doctrines;
combinations among workmen to raise their wages declared legal, and
carried into practice on the greatest scale in all the manufacturing
districts; a great organic change introduced into the constitution, to
render Government more thoroughly dependent on public opinion; taxes to
the amount of above thirty millions sterling, on articles of consumption,
repealed in less than thirty years; a vast monetary change, to lower
prices by raising the value of money, introduced, and steadily enforced,
in spite of unbounded consequent distress; and the principle of free
competition introduced generally as the basis of the social union, the
only sure guarantee of national prosperity.

"Experience," says Dr Johnson, "is the great test of truth, and is
perpetually contradicting the theories of men." Never, since the beginning
of the world, had the doctrines of philosophers been so generally embraced
by Government, or measures really intended for the public good so
extensively carried into effect by the Legislature. Unbounded were the
anticipations of prosperity and happiness in which men generally indulged
on the adoption of this system; inflexible has been the steadiness with
which it has been adhered to, amidst an amount of suffering which would
long ago have proved fatal to any set of measures among men, except those
dictated by their own opinions. But amidst all these anticipations, and
this steadiness in carrying out the doctrines of free-trade in every
department of thought and action, various unpleasant indications began to
manifest themselves in every part of society; and it became evident to all
that the fruits of the tree of knowledge were not, in this ge