importer having to resort to sacrifice, the British shipowner, under our present system of competition with the foreigner, may lay up the larger portion of his ships in dock, and discharge his seamen to starve in our streets. It is idle, however, to talk now of confining our business within reasonable and profitable limits under our present system; and the Free-Trader durst not at this moment even contemplate such a course; for what would be its first results? If production of manufactured goods is to be checked; if a portion of our looms and spindles are to be stopped; if one-fourth of our iron furnaces are to be blown out, the first result must be to destroy the boasted elysium at present existing amongst our labouring classes engaged in manufacturing processes. This should have been done last year to produce a really healthy and remunerative trade; but then the operative classes would not have been enabled to benefit by the ruinous cheapness of imported food and other necessaries, which was existing around them. If imports are to be checked, as they must be checked in a corresponding ratio with exports; if the importing merchant is, by this course, to be enabled to sell at a profit, we must have comparative dearness coexisting with decreased means on the part of the labouring classes to purchase and consume. This important view of our position is well worthy of the serious consideration, not only of those who jump to the conclusion that the mercantile interest has been over-trading, but also of those who profess to see nothing but ruin and confusion as the result of the slightest enhancement of the price of any commodity which enters largely into the consumption of the people. Prudent trading during the past year would clearly have checked the productions of manufactures and other commodities, and with these the employment of labour. On the other hand, imports restricted to a prudent limit would as clearly have tended to raise prices against the home consumer.