"When I came here," said he characteristically, "I heard a great deal about the improvement of trade in the country. But I went home on Saturday, and there was not a man I met who had experienced any of this improvement in trade. On the contrary, every one said that trade was flat and unprofitable, and that there was no prospect of improvement because they were so much competed with by foreign manufacturers. This very morning I met with one of my travellers, who had just returned from the north of Germany; and I asked him what was the state of trade. 'Oh,' said he, 'there is plenty of trade in Germany, but not trade with England. They manufacture goods so cheaply themselves, that, at the prices you sell, low as they are, you cannot compete with the Germans.' I will tell the House another curious thing. About three or four years ago, the glassmakers of Birmingham were very anxious for free trade, and, though I warned them that I did not think they could compete with foreigners, yet they were quite certain they could. Well, I introduced them to the minister of the day--the right honourable baronet the member of Tamworth--when, to my horror and astonishment, they asked, not for free trade, but for three years of protection. Why, I said to them, I thought you were for free trade? 'Yes,' they replied, 'so we are; but we want the three years of protection to prepare us for free trade.' Now, on Saturday last, I received a letter from one of the leading manufacturers, stating that the import duties on flint-glass would expire very soon, and with those duties the trade in this country, he feared, was also in great danger of expiring, owing to the produce of manufactures being admitted duty-free into this country, while they had protective duties in their own, thus keeping up the price at home by sending over the surplus stock here. The letter concluded by requesting that the protective duties, which were about to expire, might be renewed. The improvement in trade, which was so much talked of, is not an improvement in quality, but an improvement in quantity: there are half a dozen other trades which have vanished from Birmingham, because of the over-competition of the Continent. And, strangely enough, the manufactures that have been the most injured are those which last week were held up by the public press as in a most flourishing condition!"