What a contrast to this mournful decay of the national resources, and ruin of the national strength, from the effects of a theory acted upon by the Legislature under the influence of a class majority in Parliament, would a truly catholic and national policy, protective alike to all interests, have afforded! An adequate but not redundant currency, cautiously administered, and relieved from the fatal liability to abstraction from a great increase of imports in any particular year, would at once have afforded free scope to national industry, and avoided the frightful vicissitudes in the demand for labour, which the opposite system of making the currency entirely dependent on the most evanescent of earthly things—gold—of necessity occasioned. The terrible monetary crises of 1825, 1839, and 1847, would have been unfelt. They would have been surmounted, as that of 1810 had been, by an extended issue of paper when the gold was for a time abstracted, without their existence being known to the nation. Industry, protected in every department by adequate but not oppressive fiscal duties, would have generally and steadily flourished. Periods of extravagant speculation and exorbitant wages, followed by commercial depression and general suffering, would have been unknown. The national revenues, sustained by an adequate currency and unbroken industry, would have afforded an ample surplus to Government, both for the public service and the promotion of objects of general utility, after providing for the maintenance of the sinking-fund. Emigration, supported, so far as the destitute are concerned, by the Government resources, and conducted in Government vessels, would have poured a ceaseless and prolific stream into the Colonies, at once vivifying their industry, and converting the paupers of England and Ireland into consumers of our manufactures, at the rate of six or seven pounds a-head per annum. Pauperism at home, relieved in the classes where it originates by this wise and paternal policy, would have been arrested. Crime itself would have been made to minister to the general good: the jails of Great Britain would have been converted into industrial academies for behoof of the Colonies. The industry of the Colonies, encouraged by the protective policy of the mother country, and supported by the ceaseless streams of its emigration, would have advanced with rapid strides, and afforded a rising and inexhaustible mart for domestic manufactures. The ocean would have become a British lake: the navy of England, the floating bridge which at once united and protected its distant dependencies.