continue to grow, with the increasing desire of improvement and change, till it exhibits itself in the most rancorous malice, the bitterest slanders, the grossest exaggerations and falsehoods, the deepest blindness of opinion and theory and belief, and blood-thirsty violence. So, deadly hostility and division are the characteristic of a people which professes Christianity: the religion of union and self-denial and mutual forbearance; the religion of brotherly-kindness, and of the Prince of Peace. Party is divided and set against party, class against class, the poor against the rich, the ignoble against the noble, manufacturers against agriculturists, the laity against the clergy,-fathers are set against their children, and children against their fathers; mothers-inlaw against the daughters-in-law; every man's hand is against his brother; and a man's foes are of his own house: --such societies and governments shall be divided and split, and continually rent, and broken into smaller and smaller fragments—till they become like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, and the wind carries them all away, and no place is found for them. The hearts of the fathers are being turned from the children, and the children from the fathers, especially in this, that the State is dividing itself off from the Church; the laity is disengaging itself from the clergy; politics are now said to be separate from religion; political virtue from private morality. In this conflict and division, we have a feeble but growing religious principle on the one side ;--on the other side, are leagued and banded together all the powers of the world, the science and worship of money, machinery and trade, dissent, infidelity, the bankrupt in character and fortune; and all these joined themselves to the party which of late years constituted the government, and which, if we do not go back from our present principles, must govern us again. Both parties are growing, and must continue to grow, and the separation must become more and more distinct; but mammon must prevail, and in the end be triumphant, till it bring down the merited judgment upon us, unless the tide of corruption be turned, and the progress of division be arrested by Providence amongst us. The world must prevail, at least for a time, and reduce sound principle and true religion to extremity, and the nations become bankrupt in moral character and strength, as well as in finances. One field of division and decision, in which the battle has to be fought, is that which circumstances and the support of the late government have marked out, between the manufacturers and the agriculturists. The division is fortuitous and artificial; but it will serve as well as others to rally the respective forces, with more or less discernment. The manufacturing interests must in the end prevail : there can hardly be a doubt of it. The land is of a definite extent, and the increase of its production, or of the population which identifies itself with it, cannot exceed a certain rate, or advance beyond some ultimate limit. The manufacturing population and wealth is not limited by any necessary bounds; and it is not likely to meet with any impediment or discouragement. It must advance, in prosperity and in adversity. In prosperity, its power advances by its wealth :-for wealth is the - measure of importance in this country. In adversity, it must advance by clamour, and pity, and intimidation, and the stern force of famine and hopelessness, and necessity which knows no opposition. Its So soon as manufactures and machinery once become predominant, thenceforth their exclusive power and pre-eminence will become consolidated, and irrevocably confirmed. Then all legislative acts and measures must be accommodated to this ruling principle; and the nation must become a nation of manufacturers. chief or sole dependence must then be upon trade and commerce; and its fortunes must decline or flourish in proportion to the success of these branches, which are now become the trunk. But the trading and manufacturing world are not only subject to greater fluctuations than agriculture; they are liable to the most violent and vital revulsions, and almost entire stagnation. They seem to political economists to be founded upon more stable principles than the harvests and the seasons; but they are liable in truth to much greater convulsions than those of nature: far more destructive in their effects than all natural earthquakes. This truth is brought more and more home to us by every new ex *The first victory is in the abolition of the corn-laws. To the extent by which the manufacturers are benefited, and foreign wheat is introduced, to that extent the agriculturists must suffer, and the growth of corn be discouraged; and the wealth, population and power of agriculture must decrease in nearly equal proportion. Thus the relative power of the manufacturing interest would at once be increased per saltum, and confirmed irrevocably. I am not speaking at all of the merits or demerits of a corn law; but only of the operation by which it will be done away, and of the effect upon the relative position of the agriculturists and manufacturers. perience; and it is evident that these revulsions grow more and more violent, with the extension of manufactures, and the increased dependence upon trading wealth, and commerce. This is the end therefore. When our whole dependence is staked upon our manufacturing and commercial success, and while we are rejoicing and revelling in an unexampled course of expense and luxury and prosperity, some such commercial crisis and revulsion will occur with us as lately occurred in America, or in all probability a worse one, and the nation will at once become bankrupt in its finances, as it will have become concurrently in moral strength and character.* I would not enter upon the subject of machinery at length; because I am pointing attention only to the tendency and the principle. But I must stop to suggest one or two points and reflections. Manufactures are commended and sought to be encouraged, because they make money. This is not a false representation of them. For the usefulness and necessity and the want of the particular articles is not * The different effect of a dependence upon agriculture and manufactures is most obvious. If agriculture is depressed, still the greater number of the labourers continue to be employed, though at reduced wages, as land is never thrown out of produce. If manufactures are depressed, whole works and factories are discontinued for a time, throwing entirely out of employment immense numbers of workmen. The consequences of the one are trying and severe indeed, but never devoid of hope or desperate; the effect of the other is utterly ruinous. Several iron-works have been suspended of late, occasioning the dismissal of three or four thousand men each on an instant. Large factories are often discontinued, occasioning the dismissal of from four to five thousand workmen. the subject dwelt upon; this is trusted to the interests of the inventors and manufacturers; and the creating a want is at least as often talked of and commended and aimed at as the supplying it. If then the making of money is the virtue and the end of manufactures, let the advocates of this economy call to mind the fable of Midas, and consider whether the gold which they so covet will serve all purposes; and whether the possession of it, as compared with food, may not be too exclusive, and unsatisfying. Manufactures being made for money, not for use, are we not deceiving ourselves by this exclusive contemplation of a fictitious object, and blinding our eyes to our true advantage and interests concerning them? Manufactures are made to sell, not for use, like the Jew pedlar's; and they are bad like his in like manner. Their cheapness more than their goodness being looked to, for the sake of the present saleableness, the character of our goods for quality is being lost. We depend upon the multitude of our goods and customers, not upon the quality of the one, and the steadiness of the other; we look to the number and power and rapid execution of our machines, not to the skill and merit and credit of our workmen. But it may be doubtful whether so good a roll of customers can be kept up, with a declining rate of value and quality. It is a question whether "cheap and bad," and a numberless host of inferior customers, be the best dependence and security for the prerogative of English products and manufactures. Machines, too, may they not over-produce? especially |