Colonial discontent would have been unknown. The West Indies, Canada, and Australia, would have been the most loyal and contented, because the most flourishing and justly governed parts of the Empire. The foreign trade of the world would have been to the British Empire what Adam Smith justly called the most profitable of all trades, a home trade. We should have raised the raw material for all our staple branches of industry within ourselves; wool from Australia, cotton from the East and West Indies, grain from the British isles and Canada. Agriculture at home and abroad would have advanced abreast of manufactures; commerce and shipping would have risen with the increase of their productions; the Navy, fed by an ample and protected commercial marine, and sustained at an adequate amount by a well-filled treasury, would have secured our independence, and enabled us to attend to the interests and anticipate the wants of our remotest dependencies. We should have been alike independent of foreign nations for the materials of pacific industry, and superior to them in warlike resources. Great Britain, though grey in years of renown, would have retained for centuries the vigour of youth, because she would have been continually renovated by the energy of her descendants. The paternal hall would have been constantly cheerful and happy, because it would have been always filled with children and grandchildren, or enlivened by their exploits. Amidst general prosperity and unceasing progress, the National Debt—constantly encroached on by a sustained sinking-fund—would have disappeared. Before this time it would have been all extinguished; and the taxation of the Empire, reduced to £30,000,000 or £35,000,000 a-year, would have enabled us for ever to maintain the national armaments on such a scale as would have qualified us to bid defiance alike to the covert encroachments of our rivals, or the open hostility of our enemies. Under the opposite or cheapening system, the public debt has, on the admission of its ablest supporters, been virtually doubled; the sinking-fund has, amidst general and almost constant distress, disappeared; Colonial discontent threatens the Empire with dismemberment; agricultural distress will speedily render it dependent for its daily bread on its enemies; and the maintenance of the national independence, if the present system is persisted in, has been rendered, for any length of time, impossible. GREECE AGAIN. “If, Cassandra-like, amidst the din Of conflict none will hear, or, hearing, heed This voice from out the wilderness, the sin Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed.” _Prophecy of Dante._