"The corn law is a settled question!" so shout the free-traders daily, in high wrath and dudgeon if any one even ventures to allude to agricultural distress. We grant the fact. It is a settled question, like every other which has been decided by the legislature, and it must remain a settled question until the legislature chooses to reopen it. We do not expect any such consummation for a long time. We agree perfectly with the other party, that it is folly to continue skirmishing after the battle is over, and we do not propose to adopt any such tactics. We are content to wait until the experiment is developed, to see how the system works, and to accept it if it works well; but not on that account shall we less oppose the free-traders when they advance to further innovations. The repeal of the corn laws was not the whole, but a mere branch of the free-trade policy. It was undoubtedly the branch more calculated than any other to depress the agricultural interest, but the trial of it has been postponed longer than the free-traders expected. They shall have the benefit of that circumstance; nor shall we say one word out of season upon the subject. But perhaps, referring again to the Queen's speech, and selecting this time for our text those paragraphs which stated that "commerce is reviving," and that "the condition of the manufacturing districts is likewise more encouraging than it has been for a considerable period," we may be allowed to offer a few observations.

We do not exactly understand what her Majesty's ministers mean by the revival of commerce. This is a general statement which it is very easy to make, and proportionally difficult to deny. If they mean that our exports during the last half year have increased, we can understand them, and very glad indeed we are to learn that such is the case. For although we have seen of late some elaborate arguments, tending, if they have any meaning at all, to show that our imports and not our exports should be taken as the true measure of the national prosperity, we have that faith in the simple rules of arithmetic which forbids us from adopting such reasoning. But our gladness at receiving such a cheering sentiment from the highest possible authority is a good deal damped by the result of the investigations which we have thought it our duty to make. We have gone over the tables minutely, and we find that the exports of the great staples of our industry—cotton, woollen, silk, linen, hardware, and earthenware—were of less value than those of 1847 by FOUR MILLIONS AND A HALF, and less than those of 1846 by a sum exceeding FIVE MILLIONS AND A HALF. With such a fact before us, can it be wondered at if we are cautious of receiving such unqualified statements, and exceedingly doubtful of the good faith of the men who make them?

But, perhaps, this is not the sense in which ministers understand commerce. They are entitled to congratulate the country upon one sort of improvement, which certainly was not owing to any efforts upon their part. We have at last emerged from the monetary crisis, induced by the unhappy operation of the Banking Restriction Act, and, in this way, commerce certainly has improved. The fact that such a change in the distribution of the precious metals should have taken place whilst our exports were steadily declining, is very instructive, because it clearly demonstrates the false and artificial nature of our present monetary system. The consequences, however, may be serious, as the price of the British funds cannot now be taken as an index of the prosperity of the country, either in its agricultural or its manufacturing capacity, but has merely relation to the possession of a certain quantity of bullion. The rise of the funds, therefore, does not impress us with any confidence that there has been a healthy revival in the commerce of the country. We cannot consider the question of commerce apart from the condition of the manufacturing districts; and it is to that quarter we must look, in order to test the value of the free-trade experiments.

We have already noticed the enormous decrease, during the last three years, in the annual amount of our exports. This, coupled with the immense increase of imported articles of foreign manufacture, proves very clearly that the British manufacturer has as yet derived no benefit from the free-trade measures. We do not, of course, mean to say that free trade has had any tendency to lessen our exports, though to cripple the colonies is certainly not the way to augment their capabilities of consumption. We merely point to the fact of the continued decrease, even in the staples of British industry, as a proof of the utter fruitlessness of the attempt to take the markets of the world by storm. We are told, indeed, of exceptional causes which have interfered with the experiment; but these causes, even allowing them their fullest possible operation, are in no way commensurate with the results. For be it remarked, that the free-trade measures contemplated this result,—that increased imports were to be compensated by an enormous augmentation of exports: in other words, that we were to meet with perfect reciprocity from every foreign nation. Now, admitting that exceptional causes existed to check and restrain this augmentation, can we magnify these to such an extent as to explain the phenomenon of a steady and determined fall in our staple exports, and that long before the occurrence of civil war or insurrection on the continent of Europe? The explanation is just this,—the exports fell because the markets abroad were glutted, and because no state is disposed to imitate the suicidal example of Britain, or to sacrifice its own rising industry for the sake of encouraging foreigners. What inducement, it may be asked, has any state in the world to follow in our wake? Let us take for example Germany, to whose markets we send annually about six millions and a half of manufactures. Germany has considerable manufactures of her own, which give employment to a large portion of the population. Would it be wise in the Germans, for the sake of reducing the price either of linen, cotton, or woollen goods by an infinitesimal degree, to throw all these people idle, and to paralyse labour in every department, whenever they could be undersold by a foreign artisan? Undoubtedly not. Germany has nothing whatever to gain by pursuing such a course. The British market is open to her, but she does not on that account relax her right of laying duties upon imports from Britain. She shelters herself against our competition in her home market, augments her revenue thereby, and avails herself to the very utmost of our reduced tariffs, to compete in our country with the artisans of Sheffield and Birmingham. Every new return convinces us more and more that commercial interchange is the proper subject of international treaty; but that no nation whatever, and certainly not one so heavily burdened as ours, can hope for prosperity if it opens its ports without the distinct assurance of reciprocity.

Let us try distinctly to ascertain the real amount of improvement visible in the manufacturing districts. In order to do this, we must turn to the last official tables, which bring down the trade accounts from 5th January to 5th December 1848, being a period of eleven months. We find the following ominous result in the comparison with the same period in former years:—

Exports of British Produce and Manufactures from the United Kingdom.

1846.1847.1848.
Total,£47,579,413£47,345,354£42,158,194

Five millions, two hundred thousand pounds of decreased exports in eleven months!—and the manufacturing districts are improving!

Let us see the ratio of decline on some of the principal articles which are the product of these districts. We shall therefore omit such entries as those of butter, candles, cheese, fish, soap, salt, &c., and look to the staples only. The following results we hardly think will bear out the somewhat over-confident declaration of the ministry:—

Export of Principal Manufactures from the United Kingdom.