In truth, the peace congresses which now amuse the world, and give an opportunity for clever but chimerical and ignorant men to declaim upon the speedy advent of a political millennium, are nothing more than an effort, on the part of the free-trade party, to escape from the consequences of their own measures. Mr Cobden and the Free-traders of England now see as clearly as any body, that cheap prices and a large revenue, either to individuals or nations, cannot by possibility co-exist; that the £100,000,000, promised us from the abolition of the corn laws, have vanished into thin air, and that the reduction of the income of the whole classes of society under its operation will be so considerable, that it is quite impossible the national expenditure can be maintained. As the touching of the dividends is not for a moment to be thought of--as that would be bringing the tempest back with a vengeance on the moneyed class who evoked it--his only resource, to make our expenditure square with our reduced income, is in disbanding the soldiers, instituting a national guard, and selling our stores and ships of war. He is quite serious in that; and, like all other fanatics, he is not in the slightest degree influenced by the decisive refutation of his principles, which the universal breaking out of hostilities, and arming of the world, in consequence of the French Revolution of 1848, and the momentary triumph of liberal principles, has afforded. He is perfectly aware, that if industry was protected, and we had a currency equal to the wants and necessities of the nation, we might, with our extended population, raise £100,000,000 a-year, with more ease than we now do fifty millions, and thus secure the independence of the country, and bid defiance to all our enemies. But that would lower the value of money in the hands of the great capitalists, and would amount to an admission that he had been wrong; and, rather than risk that, he is content to prostrate the national defences, and hand us over, unarmed, to the tender mercies of the Chartists and Repealers at home, and the Red Republicans or Cossacks abroad.