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._