In one particular the Free-traders are unquestionably right. Beyond all doubt, the external circumstances of the nation, at present, are in the highest degree favourable to its manufacturing and trading interests. We are at peace with all the world, and, thank God, there is no immediate appearance of its being broken. The markets of continental Europe have, for six months past, been entirely laid open to our merchants, by the settlement of France under the _quasi_ empire of Louis Napoleon, and the extinction of the war in Italy and Germany. Rome is taken; Hungary is subdued; Baden is pacified; the war in Schleswig is at an end; the Danish blockade is raised; California has given an extraordinary impulse to activity and enterprise in the West; the victory of Goojerat has extinguished, it is to be hoped for a long period, all appearance of disturbance in the East. The harvest, just reaped, has been uncommonly fine in grain, both in Great Britain and Ireland: that of the potatoes above an average in the latter island. The Chartists of England and Scotland, astounded at the failure of all their predictions and the defeat of all their hopes, are silent; the revolutionists of Ireland, in utter despair, are leaving the Emerald Isle. Amidst the general pacification and cessation of alarms, old wants and necessities begin to be felt. Men have discovered that revolting will not mend their clothes or fill their bellies. New garments are required, from the old being worn out; the women are clamorous for bonnets and gowns; the men are sighing for coats and waistcoats. Provisions are cheap to a degree unexampled for fourteen years; wheat is at 41s. the quarter, meat at 5d. a pound. Capital in London can be borrowed at 2-1/2 per cent, in the provinces at 3-1/2. That great Liberal panacea for all evils, a _huge importation_ of foreign produce, is in full operation. This year it will probably reach in value at least £100,000,000 sterling. Let us then, in these eminently favourable circumstances, examine the effects of the free-trade system.