Such were the commercial transactions of this nation, which, in the interval from 1815 to 1845, had become so miserably poor.

Keeping these facts in view, we again ask: Having down to 1845 been so rich, what has since made us so poor? The free-traders and bullionists tell us it was neither the abolition of the corn-laws nor the Bank Charter Act. Then what is it which in so short a time has produced so great, so terrible a revulsion? Government, and their organs in the press, assert that it was the Irish famine, and the absorption of capital in railways. To avoid any chance of misconception on so vital a point, we subjoin the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the debate on the currency on 30th November 1847, as reported in the Morning Post of December 1, which were in substance the same as those employed by the Marquis of Lansdowne in the House of Lords:—

"Up to October there had been no great pressure; but in that month the pressure rapidly rose by reason of the abstraction of capital for railways and corn. The House would be surprised to hear the amount of capital thus abstracted for corn in fifteen months.

June 1846 to January 1847,£5,139 000
January 1847 to July 1847,14,184,000
July to October,14,240,000
Total,£33,563,000

Then as to the capital absorbed in railroads, it had been in each year, from 1840, on an average, to

1843,£4,500,000
1844,6,000,000
1845,14,000,000
1846{ First half-year,9,000,800
{ Second half-year,26,600,000
1847, First half-year,25,770,000
1847, Last half-year,38,000,000

the latter being, of course, estimated on the supposition of the expenditure having continued at the same rates."—Morning Post, December 1, 1847.

Now of all the marvellous statements that ever were put forth by a government to explain a great public disaster, we do not hesitate to say this is the most marvellous. For let it be conceded that these are the real causes of the distress,—that it is the railways and the importation of foreign corn which have done it all—Who introduced the railways and let in an unlimited supply of foreign corn? Who passed all the railway bills, and encouraged the nation in the undertakings which are now held forth as so entirely disproportioned to its strength? Who took credit to themselves for the prosperity which the construction of railways at first occasioned, and dwelt with peculiar complacency, in the opening of the Session of 1846, on the increased produce of the excise, and diminution of crime, as indicating at once the augmented enjoyments and diminished disorders of the poor? Who disregarded the cautious, and as the event has proved, wise warnings of Lord Dalhousie at the Board of Trade? Who opened the railway of the Trent Valley with a silver trowel, and enlarged in eloquent terms on the immense advantages which that and similar undertakings would bring to the country? Sir Robert Peel and the party who now put down the whole evils which have ensued to the foreign corn and railways. Was a single word heard from them condemnatory of the mania which had seized the nation, and prophetic of the disasters which would ensue from its continuance? Did Sir Robert Peel warn the people that the currency was put on a new footing; that the act of 1844 had forbid its extension beyond thirty-two millions issuable on securities, and that as credit was thus materially abridged, the capital of the nation would be found inadequate to the undertakings in which it had engaged? Quite the reverse; he did none of these things. He encouraged the embarking of the capital of the nation in railways to the extent of above two hundred millions,[17] all to be executed in the next four years; and now we are told that the disasters which have ensued are mainly owing to that very unmanageable railway progeny which he himself produced!

Again, as to the importation of foreign grain, the second scape-goat let go to bear the sins of the nation—who let that scape-goat loose? Who introduced the free trade system, and destroyed the former protection on native agriculture, and disregarded or ridiculed all the warnings so strenuously given by the Protection party, that it would induce such a drain on the metallic resources of the country as must induce a speedy monetary crisis, and would subject the nation permanently to that ruinous wasting away which proved fatal to the Roman empire, when the harvests of Egypt and Libya came to supplant those of Italy in supplying the cities of the heart of the empire with food? Who declared that the great thing is to increase our importations, and that provided this is done the exportations will take care of themselves? Who laughed at the warning, "Two things may go out, manufactures or specie"? It was Sir Robert Peel and his free trade followers who did all these things; and yet he and his party, in or out of administration, (for they are all his party,) coolly now turn round and tell us that the misery is all owing to the foreign corn and the railways, which they themselves introduced!

The Irish potato rot of 1846, it is said, occasioned the great importation of grain, which for the next winter and spring deluged the country; and but for them we should have been landed in the horrors of actual famine over a great part of the country. We entirely agree with this statement. The Protectionists always were the first not only to admit, but urgently to insist that absolute freedom of importation should be allowed in periods of real scarcity. The sliding-scale formerly in use expressly provided for this; for the duty began to fall when wheat reached sixty-three shillings, and declined till at seventy-three shillings it was only one shilling a-quarter. It was on the propriety of admitting grain duty-free in periods of average or fine harvests, such as we have just been blessed with, that they were at issue with their opponents. Under the old system, nearly all the grain which was imported in the winter of 1846 and spring of 1847, would have come in, for the duties became nominal when wheat rose to seventy-three shillings a-quarter, and it rose during that period to one hundred and five and one hundred and ten shillings. What the Protectionists said, and said earnestly, when this vast importation, necessary at the time, was going on, that it anticipated the effects of a free importation of grain, and by its effect on the currency, while it lasted, might teach the nation what they had to expect when a similar drain, by the effects of free trade, became perpetual. Eight months ago, on March 1, 1847, we made the following observations in this Magazine:-