Our firm and fixed belief is, that what are termed social grievances are simply the consequence of a faulty or erroneous commercial and national system. Vapid and superficial writers have talked a great deal about what they are pleased to call the "_Laissez-faire_" tendencies of modern statesmen--intending thereby to convey the impression that Government is not active enough in its regulating and modifying functions. According to our view, this is a most unfounded charge, as against either the Government or the Legislature. We can discern no lack of activity--no want of interference: on the contrary, we are inclined to complain that changes are too common and rapid. This is an evil to which governments, based on the popular representative principle, are peculiarly liable; and the skill and prescience of the modern statesman will be more conspicuously shown in restraining than in encouraging the spirit of change. Why complain of want of activity, or of culpable negligence, when the fact is before us that, during the last few years, the whole of our commercial system has undergone a radical change, which has affected, more or less, every source of labour, every branch of industry, every application of capital throughout the British empire? We have been the reverse of idle, both at home and abroad. At home, not one single interest has escaped the ordeal of experiment; abroad, we have subjected the colonies to forced operations, from the effects of which it is exceedingly doubtful if they can ever rally, at least under our tutelary care. These alterations and changes were no doubt intended by their devisers to be productive of good, but they may in reality have been productive of evil. It is impossible to foretell with certainty the effect of any sweeping change, even when the elements of calculation appear to be within our own control. When they are beyond it--as must be the case whenever we assume the co-operation of foreign independent powers, without securing it by treaty--the uncertainty is still greater. It cannot be denied that the late commercial changes proceeded upon the assumption of reciprocity, and that this assumption has been proved by experience to be utterly wrong. So far, then, they have not answered the expectations of their framers. Free imports may be advantageous or the reverse; but they have at all events failed in producing reciprocity, and in converting foreign nations to our insular commercial doctrines. It would be, to say the least of it, becoming in those who advocate the maintenance of the present system to remember this, and to mitigate the arrogance of their tone; for, undeniably, the most important half of their prophecy has fallen to the ground.