This is no trivial matter to any of us, least of all is it trivial to you. The next general election will be, in its results, by far the most important of any which has taken place for centuries. If, in the new Parliament, all idea of a return to the Protective System is abandoned, we may prepare ourselves for that most dismal conflict which can convulse a country--a war against taxation, and ultimately against property. For--rely upon this--heavy taxation and cheap produce are things which never can be reconciled. You may, if you please, hand over the home market of Britain to the foreigner, and allow him, without toll or custom, to supply our wants with produce of his own rearing; but, if you do so, what is to become of our own population, and their labour?--and how are you to levy those taxes which labour alone can supply? That manufacturing interest, for which such desperate sacrifices have been made, is daily losing ground in the markets of the world. The fact will brook no denial, and it is admitted even by its own members. America has refused the bait offered to her by the Free-Traders, and is engaged heart and soul in the cotton manufacture, for which she possesses within herself the command of the raw material. _To those countries which supply us with corn, our exports of manufactures have alarmingly decreased._ We may continue to glut (for that is what we are doing at present) the markets of India and China, and our export tables may exhibit a cheering increase in the amount of yards of calico sent out; but, unless the trade circulars are utterly mendacious, the speculation has been, and will continue to be for a long tract of time, unprofitable. The fact is, that the extent and value of our foreign trade in manufactures is little understood by most of us, and grossly exaggerated by others. It constitutes, after all, a mere fraction of the national production. The consumption of manufactures at home is, or was, before the late changes were made, twice as great as the whole amount of our annual exports. The prosperity of this country does not depend upon the amount of wares which it sends or forces abroad, though that is the doctrine which is constantly clamoured in our ears by the political economists--a generation of ridiculous pretenders, of whom it is only necessary to know one, in order to form an accurate estimate of the mental capabilities of his tribe. It depends on our own labour, on our own internal arrangements, and on that reciprocity between man and man, and between class and class of our fellow-subjects, which is the only real security for the peace and tranquillity of a kingdom. Those exporting manufacturers, who rummage foreign markets, are no better than so many buccaneers. Their object is to evade the burden of taxation at home, and, wherever they can with advantage to themselves, to bring in foreign labour, untaxed and untolled, to supersede that of the British workman.