British empire. A paper has lately been presented to
parliament, showing the amount of imports, exports, and shipping during
the year 1846, compared with 1845; from which this important and
luminous fact is decisively established, how hard soever it may be to
comprehend on the part of a large and influential portion of our
politicians. From it it appears that the amount of subsistence imported
in 1846 was six times greater than in 1845, although free-trade only
commenced in the middle of the former year. It had reached the
unparalleled amount in the latter year, of grain or flour, equal to
_five millions and a half quarters of grain_. The tonnage _inwards_ had
turned five millions of tons; the custom-house duties, notwithstanding
the numerous reductions of duties on imported articles, had risen
L700,000 above the preceding year, and still kept above L22.000,000
sterling. Here, then, were all the sources and marks of prosperity, so
far as they depended on importations, in a state of unexampled vigour
and efficiency. Was this attended, as we were constantly told it would
be, by a corresponding impulse given to our fabrics? Has the increased
activity of our manufacturing cities compensated for the sterility of so
large a part of our fields? The fact is just the reverse. Though
free-trade has only been in operation for the last six months of 1846,
they were signalised by a universal _decline_ in all the principal
articles of our exportation; and, by the unanimous voice of all
practical men, trade, so far as exports or production is concerned,
never was in a more depressed state than when, so far as imports are
concerned, it had attained an unprecedented _extension_.

Never was a truer observation than is made by the Free-Traders, when
they assert that goods will not be sent into a nation for nothing; and
that, if our imports increase, something that goes out must have
received a proportional augmentation. They forget only one circumstance,
which, however, is of some little consequence, namely, that two things
may go out, goods or SPECIE. We have melancholy proof, in the present
state of the money market, that the latter occurrence has taken place to
an inconvenient and distressing extent, and that that is the direct
cause of the extravagant rate of interest charged on bankers' advances,
and the general scarcity of money felt throughout the country. That the
_capital_ of the country is not only sufficient, but abundant, is