Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 67, No. 416, June 1850Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 67, No. 416, June 1850
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
his position. It is obvious that the law of gravitation operates
as a restrictive, repulsive, and prohibitive power, as well as an
attractive; or otherwise the planet we inhabit and the other spheres
would quit their orbits, run in upon the sun the great centre, and
produce chaos and universal ruin. (Loud cheers.) And thus, to compare
great things with small, in the commercial world, Great Britain, the
sun and centre, is producing confusion and general disorder by her
abandonment of those great negative principles which are essential to
the maintenance of natural distinctions and differences, and of the
several inferior commercial centres, so to speak, in their respective
orbits. And these results are exemplified in the destruction of
the labour-interest of Ireland, involving, as we see it does, the
destruction there of every other interest; in the deterioration of
the labour-interest of England; in the outcast, from circulation,
of a very large proportion of monetary capital from the commercial
world; in the conflict of classes, now induced both abroad and now at
length at home; and in a host of other social and political evils.
And thus this analogous allusion, fairly argued, justifies the
principle of Protection by restrictive laws, and utterly repudiates
that of unguarded intercourse.
Free Trade will inevitably lead to the ruin of every great national
interest, and it is therefore the duty of every one who wishes
well to the British Empire, to assist in obtaining as speedily as
possible a complete reversal of that policy. I will not detain
the Meeting any longer, but at once read the resolution which has
been intrusted to me, as follows:--"That a Memorial to the right
hon. the First Lord of the Treasury be prepared, founded on the
foregoing resolutions, protesting in the strongest manner against
the continuance of the present system of miscalled 'Free trade,' and
solemnly casting on the Administration, of which his Lordship is
the head, the heavy responsibility of rejecting the appeals of the
people for the abandonment of that system, and that a deputation be
appointed for the purpose of presenting the same to his Lordship, and
of representing to him the present critical and alarming position of
many districts of this country, and of some of the most important
colonies and dependencies of the British Crown."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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