It is the same thing, it is often said, whether we send specie abroad in return for imports or manufactures of our own creation, for specie is not the growth of this country, and it could only have been brought here in return for some produce of ours previously exported. The common sense of mankind, founded on experienced suffering arising from the abstraction of specie, has ever repudiated this doctrine of the schools; and present experience has amply demonstrated that, how specious soever it may appear, there is some fallacy in it. Nor is it difficult to see what that fallacy is. If we send manufactures abroad in exchange for specie, we make a fair exchange; but if, having got the specie, we send IT abroad _again_, instead of manufactures, to buy food,--we have _only one_ export of British produce to set off against _two_ imports of foreign. For instance, if we send £5,000,000 worth of manufactures to South America to buy that amount of specie, it is a fair exchange, and there is no unfavourable balance established against us. But if, having got the £5,000,000 worth of specie, we again send it to North America for grain, which is imported into this country, instead of sending £5,000,000 worth of manufactures, we have, on the whole, only exported £5,000,000 worth of manufactures for £10,000,000 worth of produce, bullion and corn imported: that is, there is a balance of trade to the amount of £5,000,000 established against us, which, to that extent, is a drain on our metallic resources. Had we sent £5,000,000 worth of manufactures instead of the same amount of specie to North America to buy food, our exports on the whole would have been £10,000,000 instead of £5,000,000; and the difference of £5,000,000, instead of being _a deduction from_, would have been _an addition to_ the metallic resources, that is, the life-blood of the nation. It is because a great import of grain invariably leads to such an export of specie, that it is so hazardous a trade for a nation: it is because Sir R. Peel's policy contracted the paper currency at the very time that he sent the metallic abroad in quest of food, that he has brought such calamities on the State. The Right Hon. Baronet's defence of his policy is mainly to be found in the following paragraph of his late able speech, in the close of the currency debate:--