importations of foreign articles, adapted to compete with ours in the home, is no criterion of the Protective value--to some branches of industry; but others were exposed without shelter, and have since suffered accordingly. It is undeniable that a very large amount of foreign manufactures, which have paid no duty at all, or merely an elusory one, are consumed within this country--thereby inflicting extreme injury upon British labour, and depressing trades which, though severally not important, give in the aggregate, or ought to give, the means of employment to thousands. Regard the subject in any light you will, this cheapness, of which we have heard so much, just amounts to a diminution of the income of every class, except the annuitants and fund-holders, while it consequently renders the payment of the fixed burdens more grievous to every one of us. You, gentlemen, to whom we have ventured to submit these remarks, have a very great deal in your power. You can, by your decision, either confirm the present policy, or cause it to be reversed; and your own experience will suffice to show you in what manner the system has worked. Statists may parade their figures, economists may puff their plans, statesmen may indulge in high-coloured pictures of the success which they expect to follow their measures--but the true test of every measure which has a practical tendency will be found in the effect which it produces upon the circumstances of the people, and especially upon those of the middle classes. We, who have, from the very first, anticipated the baneful effects of this attack upon British industry--we, who have no more connection than any of yourselves with territorial aristocracy, and who consider the welfare of the people as the grand object which it is the duty of the Government to promote--ask you to apply your own reason to the facts which are before you and in your reach, and to decide and act accordingly. It was, we knew from the very beginning of this struggle, impossible that you could decide until the effects of the Free-Trade experiment became visible and palpable among yourselves. We foresaw that it was only through the suffering and impoverishment of the producers that the practical lesson could reach you, and that, until this took place, it was of little use to invoke your aid, or even to entreat your judgment. Probably, by this time, you will have formed an accurate estimate of the value of the doctrines promulgated by the babblers on political economy--a sect which has never yet been allowed to interfere with the internal affairs of any nation, without producing the most disastrous results. To them we are indebted for that change of the currency which has added fully one-third to our fixed burdens, and for those complex monetary arrangements which insure periodically the return of a commercial crisis. But whatever you may think of them, do not allow yourselves to be influenced by their representations, or by those of their