Sir William Molesworth considered that “it was _a silly and foolish_ order; and he was informed, on the best authority, that there was not the slightest chance of its being obeyed.” We leave this remark of Molesworth without any comment, merely asking his authority for holding that, to assist in feeding the hungry, and maintaining our poorer countrymen by the exercise of their own industry, is a silly and a foolish act; and requesting him to consider how far his chivalrous title is consistent with such language, when applied to an order emanating directly from his sovereign. This little episode is very instructive, as elucidating the views of the free-traders. The great exporting trades have combined to crush and annihilate the small handicrafts, and this they are rapidly doing through the operation of these lowered tariffs. If direct taxation were to be introduced, and the custom-house virtually abolished, in so far as regards articles of foreign manufacture, the thing would be done at once—for no one would wear clumsy English boots when he could get French ones at a lower price; or British instead of Parisian gloves; or silk from Spitalfields rather than the less costly fabric of Lyons. The more honest of the free-traders make no scruple of announcing their views. They admit that the realisation of their maxim, to sell in the dearest and buy in the cheapest market, implies the ruin of every non-exporting trade, and they seem absolutely resolved to push their theory to the utmost. At present Sir Robert Peel has managed it so, that, without being absolutely annihilated, the poorer classes are ground down to the lowest point. We ask the shopkeepers, artisans, and smaller manufacturers, who have no connexion with the foreign market, whether this is not truly the case,—and if so, whether they are inclined to allow this cruel, selfish, and inhuman system to be carried any further—nay, whether they will not at once resolve to make determined head against it? But for the obstinate blindness of the political economists, we would appeal to that dearest of all considerations, their own safety. Do they really think it possible, even were it politic, to drive the whole operative industry of Britain into the compass of a few exporting trades. Can they make millions of men change their habits of a sudden, and walk from the country towns and villages,—wherein, before Sir Robert Peel introduced the foreigner to swamp them, they had supported themselves by the exercise of their craft,—to the factory or the mine, or the furnace, or the printing work, there to spend the remainder of their existence in twisting, digging, smelting, and stamping, for the benefit of Cobden and his confederates? The idea is absolute madness. Already we see the effects of false and unpatriotic legislation, in Chartist meetings and processions, in agitations for universal suffrage, in crime three-fold increased, and in augmented poor-rates.