stability of every state must depend upon its production, not upon its powers of conversion. The one is real and permanent, the other liable to be disturbed and annihilated by many external causes. A country which produces largely, even though it may not have within it the means of adequate conversion, is always in a healthy state. Not only the power, but the actual source of wealth is there; and, as years roll on, and capital accumulates, the subsidiary process of conversion becomes more and more developed, not to the injury of the producer--but to his great and even incalculable advantage. The natural power of the production of Great Britain, as compared with other states, is not very high. Its insular position, and the variableness of its climate, renders the quality of our harvests uncertain; but that uncertainty is perhaps compensated, on the average, by our superior agriculture, and the vast pains, labour, and capital which have been expended on the tillage of our land. Our meadows, downs, and hill pastures have, however, been most valuable to us in furnishing a better quality of wool than can elsewhere be obtained in Europe--an advantage which our forefathers perceived and wisely availed themselves of--for, as early as the reign of Edward III., manufacturers from Hainault were brought into this country by the advice of Queen Philippa, and laid the foundation of the most prosperous, healthy, and legitimate trade which we possess. Ever since, the woollen manufacture has been inseparably connected with the interests of the British soil. Few luxuries, or even such articles of luxury as are now considered necessaries, can be grown in Great Britain. For wine our climate is unsuited; but there is nothing whatever to prevent us--except a system which calls itself, though it is not, Free Trade--from growing the coarser kinds of tobacco, and from establishing manufactories of sugar from beet-root. Our stock of minerals is great--almost inexhaustible--and to this fact we must look for our singular pre-eminence during so many years in Europe. Our unlimited supply of coal and iron gave us an advantage which no other European nation possessed--it was, in fact, virtually a monopoly--and upon that we built our claim to become the workshop of the world. Nor was the claim in any degree a preposterous one. That singular monopoly of minerals--for such it seemed--gave us the actual power, if judiciously used, of controlling the process of conversion, not only here, but elsewhere throughout the globe. Manual labour, it mattered not what was the distance, had no chance at all against the triumphs of machinery; and hence our commerce extended itself far and wide, to savage as well as civilised nations, and our arms were used to force a market where it could not otherwise be obtained. This, if not our strength, was undoubtedly the cause of our supremacy, and even of our extended colonisation; and as we obtained command of a raw material of foreign