nsistency. We have not hesitated to
express our extreme regret that this measure should have been so
conceived and ushered in; both because we think these changes of opinion
on the part of public men, when unaccompanied by sufficient outward
motives, and in the teeth of their own recorded words and actions, are
unseemly in themselves, and calculated to unsettle the faith of the
country in the political morality of our statesmen--and because we fear
that a grievous, if not an irreparable division has been thereby caused
amongst the ranks of the Conservative party. Neither have we
hesitated--after giving all due weight to the arguments adduced in its
favour--to condemn that measure, as, in our humble judgment, uncalled
for and attended with the greatest risk of disastrous consequences to
the nation. If this departure from the protective principle should
produce the effect of lessening the tillage of our land, converting
corn-fields into pasture, depriving the labourer of his employment, and
permanently throwing us upon the mercy of foreign nations for our daily
supply of corn, it is impossible to over-estimate the evil. If, on the
contrary, nothing of this should take place--if it should be
demonstrated by experience that the one party has been grasping at a
chimera, and the other battling for the retention of an imaginary
bulwark, then--though we may rejoice that the delusion has been
dispelled--we may well be pardoned some regret that the experiment was
not left to other hands. Our proposition is simply this, that if we
cannot gain cheap bread without resorting to other countries for it, we
ought to continue as we are. Further, we say, that were we to be
supplied with cheap bread on that condition, not only our agricultural
but our manufacturing interest would be deeply and permanently injured;
and that no commercial benefit whatever could recompense us for the
sacrifice of our own independence, and the loss of our native resources.

_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._

Transcriber's note:

In this etext a macron is represented thus [=a].

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume
59, No. 365, March, 1846, by Various

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOODS EDINBURGH ***

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