that if we were to surrender and secure our provision market to foreign states, they would return the compliment by allowing us to manufacture for them--in other words, that the foreigners were to feed England, and England was to clothe the foreigners! This precious scheme has since been avowed, seriously and gravely, by men who have seats in the present House of Commons; and, so far as we can understand their language, the philosophers of the _Edinburgh Review_ consider this a most sensible arrangement! The agricultural interest, however, was of too great magnitude to be attacked at once. Several outworks were to be gained before the citadel was summoned to surrender. Accordingly Mr Huskisson began, and Sir Robert Peel continued, that system of commercial relaxations, (which, some five-and-twenty years ago, was exposed and denounced in this Magazine,) annihilating some branches of industry and depressing others--pauperising whole districts, as in the Highlands, and merging the villages in the towns--until the time seemed ripe, and the opportunity propitious, for the accomplishment of the grand design. It is not now necessary to dwell upon the circumstances which attended the change in the Corn and Navigation Laws--these are still fresh in the memory of all of us, and will not soon be forgotten. Our object in this digression was simply to remind you that Free Trade, in its insidious and stealthy progress, has warred with other interests than those which belong to the agricultural and the maritime classes. Neither is it necessary at present to advert to the gross inconsistencies of the system--to the restrictions which it still continues upon that very branch of industry which it has laid bare to foreign competition. Let us take the system as it is, of which you have had now nearly three years' experience, dating from the time when the ports were opened. Three years constitute a long period for the endurance of a commercial experiment. During that time you have had ample opportunity of observing how the system has worked. Are you richer or poorer than you were before the experiment began? If the former, Free Trade has worked well; if the latter, it is a mischievous delusion. This is a question which you alone can answer--or rather, every man must answer it for himself. But this much we may be allowed to say, that, from what information we can gather regarding the state of general trade--from the sentiments which we have heard expressed by many of the most respectable of your own body--the experiences of the last year have not been such as to give you much encouragement for the future. If it is so, then you will do well to consider whether or not you ought to lend that great political influence which you undoubtedly possess, in support of a system which has not only failed to realise the anticipations of its founders, but has actually diminished in a great degree the power of purchase of the community.