e of their grain, they will
soon stop the influx by a tariff. This is what we did, when situated as
they are--it is what all mankind will, and must do, in similar
circumstances. It was distinctly perceived and foretold by the
Protectionists that this effect would follow from free-trade, and that,
unless something was done to enlarge the currency to meet it, a
commercial crisis would ensue. These words published a year ago might
pass for the history of the time in which we now live:--"Under the
proposed reduced duties during the next three years, and trifling duty
after that period on all sorts of grain, there can be no doubt that a
very great impulse will be given to the corn-trade. It being now
ascertained, by a comparison of the prices during the last twenty years,
that there is annually a difference of from twenty to thirty shillings
a-quarter between the price that wheat bears in the British islands and
at the shores of the Baltic, while the cost of importation is only five
or six shillings a-quarter, there can be no question that the opening of
the ports will occasion a very large importation of foreign grain. It
may reasonably be expected that, in the space of a few years, the
quantity imported will amount to _four or five millions of quarters
annually_, for which the price paid by the importers cannot be supposed
to be less, on the most moderate calculation, than seven or eight
millions sterling. The experience of the year 1839 sufficiently tells us
what will be the effect of such an importation of grain, paid for, as it
must be, for the most part in specie, upon _the general monetary
concerns and commercial prosperity of the empire_. It is well known that
it was this condition of things which produced the commercial crisis in
this country, led to three years of unprecedented suffering in the
manufacturing districts, and, as is affirmed, destroyed property in the
manufacturing districts of Lancashire, to the amount of
L40,000,000."[13]

Lastly, the famine has taught the empire an important lesson as to Irish
Repeal. For many years past, that country has been convulsed, and the
empire harassed by the loud and threatening demand for the Repeal of the
Union, and the incessant outcry that the Irish people are perfectly
equal to the duties of self-government, and that all their distresses
have been owing to the oppression of the Saxon. The wind of adversity
has blown, and where are these menaces now? Had Providence pu