Grave and serious matter for consideration as these results afford, all of which, be it observed, are now ascertained by experience—they yet sink into comparative insignificance compared with the gigantic measures of "free trade and a fettered currency," which have now spread ruin and desolation through the heart of the empire. It is here that the evil now pressing is to be found; it is from hence that the cry of agony, which now resounds through the empire, has sprung. And unless a remedy is applied, and speedily applied, to the enormous evils which have arisen from the reckless and simultaneous adoption of these powerful engines on human affairs, it may safely be affirmed that the present distress will go on, with slight variations, from bad to worse, till the empire is destroyed, and three-fourths of its inhabitants are reduced to ruin. These are strong expressions, we know; but if they are so, it is from the testimony of the government, and the ablest advocates for the free trade and bullion system, and the facts which we see around us, that we are reluctantly compelled, not only to use them, but to believe they are true. Hear what the Times says, on the aspect of national monetary and commercial affairs:—

"In our wide sea of difficulties, therefore, we are without rudder or compass. We cannot base our proceedings on a calculation that the Bank Charter Act will be carried out; nor can we, on the other hand, assume that an inconvertible currency will be authorised, and thus frame our future contracts accordingly. All that we can discern before us is declining trade and grinding poverty, bankrupt railways, and increased taxation; but whether the lesson will be prolonged in its bitterness, and its salutary effect retarded by measures of national dishonour, is a point upon which it would be vain to prophesy. Three years back an indignant negative might have been given to such a conjecture, but since then demoralisation has been rapid, and time alone can determine if, by the deliberate proceedings of the legislature, the record of it is destined to become indelible."—Times, 26th November 1847.

This is tolerably strong evidence from the leading and ablest free trade and bullionist journal. Strong indeed must have been the testimony of facts around them, when the well-informed and powerful writers in the Times put forth such admissions as to the state of the country. Observe, the emphatic words wrung by woful experience from this journal. "Three years back an indignant negative would have been given to such conjectures; but SINCE THEN the progress of demoralisation has been rapid." Sir R. Peel's Bank Act was passed in 1844, and his free trade measures in 1846. And be it observed that that state arose entirely under their own system; at a time when the Bank charter stood unchanged, and free trade, the grand panacea for all evils, was, and had been in a great degree, for years, in full and unrestrained operation. We shall see anon whether the Irish famine and English railways had any thing material to do with the matter. Strong as it is, however, this testimony is increased by the real evidence of facts in every direction, and of the acts and admissions of government. These are of such a kind as a few years ago would have passed for fabulous. They have outstripped the most gloomy predictions of the most gloomy of the Protectionists; they have out-Heroded Herod in the demonstration of the perilous tendency of the path we have so long been pursuing. They could not have been credited, if not supported by the evidence of our own senses, and the statements of ministers of high character, from undoubted and authentic sources of information. We subjoin a few of them, of universal and painful notoriety to every inhabitant of the empire at this time; not in the belief that we, in so doing, can add any facts not previously familiar to the nation, but in order that these facts, now so well known, should get into a more durable record than the daily journals, and not pass for fabulous in future, and it is to be hoped, happier times.

The first is, that the interest of money has, by the recommendation, and indeed express injunction of government, been raised to eight percent. This grievous and most calamitous effect, which was never heard of during the darkest period of the Revolutionary war, which did not ensue even at the time of the Mutiny of the Nore, or the suspension of cash payments in 1797,[7] has been publicly announced to the nation, in the Premier's and Chancellor of the Exchequer's Letter to the Directors. It is well known that, high as this rate of interest was, it was less than had been previously taken by private bankers, which had risen to nine, ten, and even fourteen or fifteen per cent. for short periods. These are the rates of interest which, anterior to their conquest by the British government, were common amidst Asiatic oppression in the distracted realm of Hindostan. They had not been so high in England before for a century and a quarter. It was reserved for Great Britain, in the middle of the nineteenth century, to render universal, by the effects of domestic legislation, at the end of thirty years' peace, and when in a state of entire amity with all the world, a rate of interest unknown for a century before in the British empire; which could previously be hardly credited as having existed, even in the days of feudal barbarity; and which had latterly been known only amidst the predatory warfare, fierce devastations, and universal hoarding of specie, under the native powers of Hindostan.

In the next place, the public revenue for the quarter ending 1st October, 1847, is £1,500,000 less than it was in the corresponding quarter of the preceding year, which itself was below the corresponding quarter in 1845. Here then is an ascertained falling off of £1,500,000 a quarter, or Six Millions a-year, in a revenue not exceeding £52,000,000 of net income, and of which upwards of a half is absorbed in paying the dividends on the public debt. There is no reason to hope for an amendment in the next or the succeeding quarter; happy if there is not a still greater falling off. This is, be it observed, in the thirty-second year of peace, when in amity with all the world, and when the war income-tax, producing £5,200,000 a-year, is added to the national income! But for that grinding war-addition, laid on to meet the disasters of the Affghanistaun expedition, and kept on to conceal the deficiency of income produced by Sir R. Peel's free trade measures, the deficiency would be above £11,000,000 a-year. And this occurs just after a proper and suitable thanksgiving for an uncommonly fine harvest; when all the world is at peace; five years after Sir R. Peel's tariff in 1842, which was to add so much to our foreign trade; three years after the act of 1844, which was to impose the requisite checks on imprudent speculation; and eighteen months after the adoption of general free trade, and the abolition of the corn laws by the act of July 1846, by which the commerce and revenue of the country were to be so much improved!

In the third place, nearly the whole railways in progress in the United Kingdom have been stopped, or are to be in a few days, in consequence partly of this exorbitant rate of interest, partly of the impossibility of getting money even on these monstrous and hitherto unheard-of terms. It is calculated that three hundred thousand labourers, embracing with their families little short of a million of persons, have been from this cause suddenly thrown out of work, and deprived of bread. Already the effects of this grievous and sudden stoppage are apparent in the metropolis, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and other great cities, in the groups, at once pitiable and alarming, of rude and uncouth, but sturdy and formidable labourers, who are seen congregating at the corners of the principal streets. But if this is the effect of the sudden stoppage on the mere navigators, the hod and barrow-men, what must it be on the vast multitude of mechanics and iron workmen, thrown idle from the inability of the railway companies, at present, at least, to go on with their contracts? So dreadful has been the effects of this stoppage in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, the two principal iron districts of Scotland, that before these pages issue from the press, forty thousand persons in the former county, and thirty thousand in the latter, including the families of the workmen, will be out of employment in the iron and coal trades alone! The greater part of this immense and destitute mass will fall on Glasgow, where already half the mills are stopped or on short time, and in which city, since the beginning of the year, no less than 49,993 Irish[8] have landed, nine-tenths of whom were in the last stage of destitution, and no inconsiderable part bringing with them the contagion of typhus fever.

In the fourth place, the great marts of manufacturing industry, both for the home and the export trade, are in nearly as deplorable a condition as the iron trade; and the multitude who will be out of bread in them is not less appalling than in the railway and iron departments. As a specimen of the condition to which they have been brought by the combined operation of free trade and a fettered currency, we subjoin the weekly return of the state of trade in Manchester for the week ending November 23. It is well known that this return is made up under the direction of the admirable police of that city, with the utmost accuracy.

Weekly return made up to yesterday, (November 23), in the improved form, of the state of the various cotton, silk, and worsted mills, and other large establishments and works in Manchester:—

Full Time
Description of Mills, Factories, &c.(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)(f)(g)(h)(i)
Cotton Mills,914410211628,03315,0606,0796,894
Silk Mills,82...6...3,0096212,138250
Smallware Mills,18113311,9371,232601104
Worsted Mills,22.........155155......
Dye Works,203...17...1,675470862403
Hat Manufactures,2...11...10774951
Mechanists,327101236,0792,7771,6151,687
Totals,1736924602040,99520,32211,2849,389