We cannot, however, check our imports, for we have proclaimed that Great Britain, with her mighty capital and resources, shall become the depot of the merchandise of the world, and the foreign producers of that merchandise will hold us to our contract. So long as our ports are not closed against its admission; so long as the selfishness of capital prompts its possessor to seek gain; so long as shipowners, foreign as well as British, are under the necessity of earning freights, and merchants and brokers throughout the world are eager to secure commissions, the surplus produce of every clime will seek a resting-place, though it may be only a temporary one, in the granaries and warehouses of Great Britain. We had a proof of this fact last year in the arrival here of several cargoes of tea, the surplus imports of the United States, which were brought in American shipping, and thrown upon our already depressed markets, to be sold at any sacrifice; and this very transaction, by the way, exhibits in a very striking manner the suicidal folly which we have committed with respect to the Navigation Laws. The tea in question, brought from an American port, was admitted into our markets upon the same terms as if it had been direct from the country of its growth. If the same operation was to take place from any port in Great Britain, an additional duty of 20 per cent would be levied on the cargo in America, because of its having been imported in a British bottom. It is, in fact, the very principle of Free Trade to invite imports, and to bring about their cheapness. A low cost of the raw materials of life and of labour is the great end and aim of their policy. Every possible increase of our import of foreign productions, they have proclaimed again and again, was good, inasmuch as it cheapened those productions to the home consumer, and at the same time enabled the foreigner to take more of the manufactures of this country. But these men failed to perceive that they have not in themselves the control of the tyrannous machinery which they have set in motion; that, whilst seeking only their own selfish aggrandisement, they have placed in the hands of a giant power a rod of iron to scourge their backs; that Ixion was never bound more inextricably to his wheel, or Mazeppa to his wild steed, than they are bound to the incontrollable workings of that arbitrary power. These babes in political science omitted to consider the overriding influence of an inflexible money system in counteracting their short-sighted schemes of ambition and greed. The world, they designed, was to throw its treasures--its products of necessity and of luxury--at their feet, to be gathered by them at their own convenience, and at their own price. But the system, which they had overlooked, said, "No, you shall not do this: I must have _my bond!_" If, in exchange for the increased imports poured in upon us, and which we have no power to turn aside from our shores, we fall behind one step in the