ll transfer the system
of protective duties to the other side of the seas, and establish a
sliding scale on exports, which may actually prevent us from getting
their grain any cheaper than at present, whilst our public revenue will
thereby be materially diminished. Looking to the commercial jealousy of
our neighbours--to the Zollverein, the various independent tariffs, and
the care and anxiety with which they are shielding their rising
manufactures from our competition--we are inclined to think the last
hypothesis the more probable of the two. The vast success of English
manufacture, and the strenuous efforts which she has latterly made to
command the markets of the world, have not been lost upon the European
or the American sates. They are now far less solicitous about the
improvement of their agriculture, than for the increase of their
manufactures; and some of them--Belgium for example--are already
beginning in certain branches to rival us. This scheme of concession
which is now agitating us will not, as some suppose, resolve itself into
a matter of simple barter, as if Britain with the one hand were
demanding corn, and with the other were proffering the equivalent of a
cotton bale. We are indeed about to demand corn, but the answer of the
foreigner will be this,--"You want grain, for your population is
increasing, your land has gone out of cultivation, and you cannot
support yourselves. Well, we have a superfluity of grain which we can
give you--in fact we have grown it for you--but then it is for us to
select the equivalent. We shall not take those goods which you offer in
exchange. Twelve years ago we set up cotton manufactories. We had not
the same advantages which you possessed in coal and iron, and machinery;
but labour was cheaper with us, and we have prospered. Our manufactures
are now sufficient to supply ourselves--nay, we have begun to export.
Your cotton goods, therefore, are worthless to us, and we must have
something else for our corn." Gold, therefore, the common equivalent,
will be demanded; and the price of corn in this country will, like every
other article, be regulated by the amount and the exigency of the
demand. The regulating power, however, will not then be with us, but
with the parties who furnish the supply.

But, supposing that no protective duties upon the exportation of grain
shall be levied abroad--which certainly is the view of the free-traders,
and, we presume, also of the Ministry--an