argue, without condescending to inquire whether such exportation has been attended with any profit at all to the manufacturers, that the prosperity of the country is advancing at a railway pace--you may indeed be gratified by the statistical information, but you will fail to discover in what way the public are benefited thereby. It is pleasant to know that there are fifteen millions of gold in the vaults of the Bank of England, and that, so long as this hoard remains undiminished, there is little chance of a commercial crisis, or a violent contraction of credit. But we take it you would be infinitely better pleased to know that sovereigns were circulating freely from hand to hand amongst the people, and that your customers had their pockets so well filled as to enable them to purchase largely, and to pay their accounts when due. To you any depression whatever is a serious matter--a depression which assumes a permanent appearance cannot be much short of ruin. Therefore you ought most especially to take care that no false representation is made regarding your circumstances, which may be the means of perpetuating a system that has already proved detrimental to a large body of your customers. Were we to take for granted the ministerial statement of prosperity--which no doubt will be repeated next February--your Whig minister being an incorrigible cuckoo--this paper would certainly not have been written. But, having had occasion early to doubt the truthfulness of this vernal note, and having taken some pains to examine the statements which from time to time are issued by the great houses engaged in commercial and manufacturing industry, as also the accounts of the present condition of the poor, which have excited so much public interest, we have really been unable to discover any one influential class, beyond the money-lenders and creditors, or any one large and important branch of industry, which can, with truth, be described as prospering, or will confess to the existence of such prosperity. Shipmasters, manufacturers, merchants, iron-masters, and agriculturists, all tell the same tale. This is very strange. You may possibly remember that Mr M'Gregor, once Secretary to the Board of Trade, and now member for Glasgow, the great commercial city of Scotland, estimated the additional amount of wealth which was to accrue to Great Britain, in consequence of the repeal of the Corn Laws, at two millions sterling per week! Upon what data that profound gentleman, who thus enunciated the prophecy and assumed the mask of Midas, proceeded in his calculation, we know not, and perhaps it would be superfluous to inquire. It certainly was a good round sum; for, by this time, without insisting upon compound, or even simple interest, it should have amounted to rather more than one-half of the national debt; but unfortunately nobody will own to having fingered a farthing of the money. In recalling to your memory this little circumstance, it is by no