of British production, is at present worse than unprofitable. We state these things, not as proofs of the inefficacy of Free Trade, but simply as tending to show that no sound inferences as to the general prosperity of the country can be drawn from the fact that exports have increased. The only criterion is, and must be, the condition of the working classes. We have already pointed out the vast depreciation of labour, and the want of employment which is visible over the three kingdoms; and we have alluded to the two most formidable symptoms--pauperism and extended emigration. How these unchallenged and admitted facts are reconcilable with the idea of general prosperity, it remains for our philosophers to show. To what, then, is this owing? We can only attribute it to one cause--the total disregard of the interests of the British producer. Politicians may attempt, as they have heretofore done, to explain away evident and startling facts on trivial and insufficient grounds; journalists may affect to sneer at the representations of the sufferers, and to turn their complaints into derision; economists may offer to prove the fitness of existing circumstances, upon certain immutable laws of which they were the sole discoverers; demagogues may strive to divert attention from the lamentable consequences of their misdeeds by attacking other institutions; but the fact of general depression and distress remains uncontroverted and incapable of denial; and so it will remain until the national policy is altered.