The effect of these measures upon the internal state of the empire has been beyond all measure dreadful, and has far exceeded the worst predictions of the protectionists upon their inevitable effect. Proofs on this subject crowd in on every side, and all entirely corroborative of the prophecies of the protectionists, and subversive of all the prognostics of the free-traders. It was confidently asserted by them that their system would immensely increase our foreign trade, because it would enrich the foreign agriculturists from whom we purchased grain, and who would take our manufactures in exchange; and what has been the result, after free-trade principles have been in full operation for three years? Why, they have stood thus:—
| Imports, Market Value. | Exports, Declared Value. British and Irish produce. | |
| 1845, | £84,054,272 | £60,111,081 |
| 1846, | 89,281,433 | 57,786,875 |
| 1847, | 117,047,229 | 58,971,166 |
| 1848, | 92,660,699 | 53,099,011[21] |
Thus, while there has been an enormous increase going on during the last three years in our imports, there has been nothing but a diminution at the same time taking place in our exports. The foreigners who sent us, in such prodigious quantities, their rude produce, would not take our manufactures in return. They would only take our gold. Hence our metallic treasures were hourly disappearing in exchange for the provisions which showered in upon us; and this was the precise time which the free-traders took to establish the monetary system which compelled the contraction of the paper circulation in direct proportion to that very disappearance. It is no wonder that our commercial interests were thrown into unparalleled embarrassments from such an absurd and monstrous system of legislation.
Observe, if the arguments and expectations of the free-traders had been well founded, the immense importation of provisions which took place in 1847 and 1848, in consequence of the failure of the potato crop in Ireland and the west of Scotland, should immediately have produced a vast rise in our exports. Was this the case? Quite the reverse; it was attended with a decline in them. The value of corn, meal, and flour imported in the following years stood thus:—
| 1845, | £3,594,299 |
| 1846, | 8,870,202 |
| 1847, | 29,694,112 |
| 1848, | 12,457,857[22] |
Now, in the year 1847, though we imported nearly thirty millions' worth of grain, our exports were £1,200,000 less than in 1845, when we only received three millions and a half of subsistence from foreign states. Can there be a more decisive proof that the greatest possible addition to our importation of grain is not likely to be attended with any increase to our export of manufactures?
But if the great importation of grain which free-trade induces into the British empire is not attended with any increase of our exports, in the name of heaven, what good does it do? Feed the people cheap. But what do they gain by that, if their wages, and the profits of their employers, fall in the same or a greater proportion? That effect has already taken place, and to a most distressing extent. Wages of skilled operatives, such as colliers, iron-moulders, cotton-spinners, calico-printers, and the like, are now not more than half of what they were when the corn-laws were in operation. They are now receiving 2s. 6d. a-day where, before the change, they received 5s. Wheat has been forced down from 56s. to 44s.: that is somewhat above a fifth, but wages have fallen a half. The last state of those men is worse than the first. The unjust change for which they clamoured has proved ruinous to themselves.
The way in which this disastrous effect has taken place is this: In the first place, the balance of trade has turned so ruinously against us, from the effect of the free-trade measures, that the credit of the commercial classes has, under the operation of our monetary laws, been most seriously confused. It appears, from the accurate and laborious researches of Mr Newdegate, that the balance of trade against Great Britain, during the last three years of free trade, has been no less than £54,000,000 sterling.[23] Now, woful experience has taught the English people that the turning of the balance of trade is a most formidable thing against a commercial nation, and that the practical experience of mankind, which has always regarded it as one of the greatest of calamities, is more to be regarded than the theory of Adam Smith, that it was a matter of no sort of consequence. When coupled with a sliding currency scale, which contracts the circulation of bank-notes in proportion as the specie is withdrawn, it is one of the most terrible calamities which can befall a commercial and manufacturing state. It is under this evil that the nation is now labouring: and it will continue to do so, till folly of conduct and error of opinion have been expiated or eradicated by suffering.
In the next place, the purchase of so very large a portion as a fourth of the annual subsistence—not from our own cultivators, who consume at an average five or six pounds a-head of our manufactures, but from foreign growers, who consume little or nothing—has had a most serious effect upon the home trade. The introduction of 12,000,000 or 13,000,000 quarters of grain a-year into our markets, from countries whose importation of our manufactures is almost equal to nothing, is a most dreadfully depressing circumstance to our manufacturers. It is destroying one set of customers, and that the very best we have—the home growers—without rearing up another to supply their place. It is exchanging the purchases by substantial yeomen, our own countrymen and neighbours, of our fabrics, for the abstraction by aliens and enemies of our money. It is the same thing as converting a customer into a pauper, dependent on our support. It was distinctly foretold by the protectionists, during the whole time the debate on the repeal of the corn laws was going forward, that this effect would take place: that the peasants of the Ukraine and the Vistula did not consume a hundredth part as much, per head, as those of East Lothian or Essex; and that to substitute the one for the other was to be penny wise and pound foolish. These predictions, however, were wholly disregarded; the thing was done; and now it is found that the result has been much worse than was anticipated—for not only has it gratuitously and unnecessarily crippled the means of a large part of the home consumers of our manufactures, but it has universally shaken and contracted credit, especially in the commercial districts, by the drain it has induced upon the precious metals. These evils, from the earliest times, have been felt by mercantile nations; but they were the result, in previous cases, of adverse circumstances or necessity. It was reserved for this age to introduce them voluntarily, and regard them as the last result of political wisdom.