Are we, then, obstinately to persevere in a course of policy so evidently obnoxious and detrimental? Are we still to crush down labour for an end which is now proved to be impossible of attainment; and to tell the working classes, that because our rulers have made a false step, they and theirs must submit to descend into the hideous gulf of pauperism? These are questions for the nation to consider--questions of unparalleled magnitude, both for the present and the coming time. If we are not so to persevere in our folly, there is no alternative left but to build up our commercial system anew upon wiser and sounder principles. It cannot be expected that we shall ever again possess a monopoly of the manufactures of the world. We must be contented with that share which our skill, and energy, and undeniable resources can command; and if we wish still to retain possession of the vast Colonial Empire which has long been our pride and boast, we must foster, stimulate, and protect the industry of the colonists as sedulously and anxiously as our own. After all, we may possibly, at no very distant period of time, have reason to be thankful that the experiment has been made, notwithstanding all the misery and loss which have accompanied the trial. For, if anything could have broken down the free independent spirit of Great Britain, and rendered it callous and listless to external aggression or insult, no better method could be found than the complete adoption of a system which must have made us perpetually subservient to the wants of other nations, doing their work to order, and receiving wages in return. In order to emancipate ourselves from this state of threatened Helotism--the state which the disciples of the Manchester school regard as the most enviable upon earth--we must attempt to re-establish perfect harmony and mutual co-operation amongst all the interests of Britain, to give productive labour its proper place and pre-eminence, and, since we cannot secure for convertive labour the command of foreign markets, to take care that, in the home market, it is not exposed to any undue or unfair competition. We hold by this proposition, well understood and energetically supported in America, that "when a nation makes a market at home for nearly all its products, other nations have to come and seek what they require, and pay the highest price; and that, when it does not make a market at home, markets must be sought abroad, and then sales must be made at the lowest prices." If this be true, it will follow that the way to sell at the highest prices, and to buy at the lowest, is to buy and sell at home. FOOTNOTES: [29] _The Harmony of Interests, Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Commercial._ Skinner, Philadelphia. [30] President's Message, November 1850. [31] _Liverpool Mail_, Nov. 2, 1850. _Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh._ Transcriber's Notes: