in the creed, that the Calmuck and the Ostrogoth-the Cossack of the Don, and the Croat of the Danube-the pagan and the Pope-the Israelite and the Islamite-the Caffree and the Columbian-the savage of Labrador and the Tartar of the Celestial Empire-were all naturalborn friends and allies of old England-while France and its inhabitants were their deadly and implacable enemies! It is said, that "the nearer the church, the farther from God;"—and so it has been with us:—the nearer the French, the farther from friendship!

It is, however, to be acknowledged, that JOHNNY CRAPAUD was not far behind his neighbour, JOHN BULL, in these anti-social creeds, if we are not allowed to call them prejudices. He was taught to believe that the pride and the pelf of the aristocracy and shopocracy were incompatible with the dignity of the " GRAND NATION "—and that the lustre of the imperial sceptre, or the majesty of the people, was insulted, on the south side of the Channel, so long as the trident bore sway in the north.

It is not at all improbable that these hostile feelings of mutual rivalry and jealousy contributed to aggrandize the power of both nations. But a time has arrived when such feelings must cease-or, at least, be smothered. Nothing forms so strong a bond of union, in this world, as FEAR. Master and slave, brigand and prisoner, Mahommedan and Christian, will unite together in self-defence against the bear and the tiger, if menaced by such animals. It is to be hoped that less potent, but more noble feelings than those of FEAR, are beginning to draw closer the ties of friendship and reciprocal benefit, between two great and neighbouring countries. It may yet turn out that the stormy strait that divides France from England, shall form a link or bond of union, which no power, from the north or the south, from the east or the west, may be able to break. Let the RAIL-WAY of FRIENDSHIP be once firmly established between London and Paris-and woe to the bruno's paw or black eagle's pennon, that shall venture to cross the path of the Anglo-Gallic engine! The BEAR Would be very likely to go back to the White Sea on three feet-and it would be miraculous indeed if the spread-eagle had not one of his crowned heads carried off in the collision!

A surprising change has taken place even within the present century, in John Bull's sentiments and dispositions towards his friends at home, and his "relations" abroad. Within these fifty or sixty years, John's family has tripled or quadrupled in number, while his landed estates, though perhaps better cultivated, have not increased in their dimensions. The consequence has been, that immense numbers of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, having abandoned the spade

and the plough, the sickle and the scythe, the crook and the flail-have betaken themselves to the hammer and the file, the shuttle and the lathe, the bellows and the drill-together with a thousand other implements and handicrafts, but little cultivated by their ancestors. The effects have been "prodigious!" Whenever men or women either-have been congregated into large masses in confined spaces, mischief has been engendered. In the first place, MONEY is rapidly made in these laboratories-and though poets generally deal in fiction, they have spoken truth, for once, when they tell us that riches is the root of evil— the irritamenta malorum.

The money thus quickly made by certain numerous branches of John Bull's family, introduced a taste for finery and luxury, with all their consequences-and these tastes were ultimately communicated to their country cousins. The cities infected the towns-the towns infected the villages-and the villages infected the farm-houses, with the ambition of living beyond their means, however ample those means might be!

This ruinous propensity was fostered and increased by a monopoly which John Bull's family obtained, at the expense of four or five hundred millions sterling, for supplying half the world with cotton and cutlery for the space of ten or fifteen years, during which, John Bull was to have a turnpike-gate on the high seas, for the purpose of preventing smuggling, and levying a toll on the manufactures of other countries. All things have an end-and so had the contract or monopoly. When John Bull's charter was taken away, by the conflagration of Moscow, the capture of Paris, and the battle of Waterloo, the whole family of BULLS awoke one morning, and found themselves BEARS, with a deficit of seven or eight hundred millions sterling-and what was worse-with "Hamlet's occupation gone!!" Like bears, with sore heads and empty stomachs, they have, ever since that period, continued to growl! But this is both a digression and an anticipation.

There was a worse evil-or, at all events, a more efficient agent, than MONEY, engendered by these congregations of mankind in the prosecution of arts and manufactures. This was KNOWLEDGE. We are told, by the highest authority, that "men run to and fro, and knowledge is increased." In my humble opinion, that precious commodity is more speedily manufactured at home-and by concentration rather than dispersion-by centripetal, rather than by centrifugal force. But the knowledge to which I allude, is not the common knowledge "de omnibus rebus;" but the knowledge of COMBINATION. The old classical illustration of the bundle of rods was unknown to, or ill understood by, the myriads of unwashed artizans. They had more familiar examples constantly before their eyes. They saw, for instance, that a rope-yarn

might be snapped in twain, by the arm of an individual. But they also observed that a certain number of yarns, when twisted together, assumed the new title of CABLE, strong enough to hold fast a LINE-OF-BATTLESHIP in a gale of wind at Spithead. Ten thousand other illustrations of the wonderful effects of COMBINATION (intellectual combination) were perpetually presenting themselves to the civic and manufacturing masses of society; while their agricultural relations were literally held together by "a rope of sand." Power has two sources-moral and physicalthe force of opinion, and that of animal muscle. Now, COMBINATION engendered and multiplied the force of opinion, even more wonderfully than it did the physical or mere animal force. The press collected from ten thousand tributary streams a torrent of intellectual power, infinitely more operative and irresistible than any physical agency that could be set in motion or directed by human hands—inasmuch as it created, organized, and wielded, the brute or physical energy itself!

This great political problem is not yet so well understood on the banks of the Dwina and the Danube, as of the Thames and the Seine ;-and it is very differently viewed by different nations-or rather by their rulers. The solution of the problem is in the womb of fate-and not one of the existing generation will live to see that solution complete!

But in John Bull's very numerous family there are sources of disunion as well as of combination. The elder branches having adhered to the cultivation of the soil, had favours and franchises conferred on them, which were denied to the junior branches who took to the hammer and the shuttle. The agriculturists got a patent for supplying bread to the artizans, who, by this means, were prohibited from importing French rolls from Normandy, and soft tommy from the Baltic, although they could supply themselves with the staff of life for little more than half the money they paid to patentees at home. This partiality has long caused discontent among the artizans, who, nevertheless, furnish their agricultural brethren with every kind of implement and manufacture, at less than half the price they formerly cost. A revocation of the patent has been attempted by an appeal to law: but unfortunately three-fourths of the jury were BAKERS, and the verdict, of course, was in favour of dear bread.

Although it must be confessed that, on the score of intelligence, the junior, or artizan and mercantile branches of John Bull's family are superior to the elder or agricultural branches, yet the arguments of the former, in favour of cheap bread, are not quite convincing to the mind of an indifferent spectator. They tell us that, if we take corn from foreign countries, foreign countries will take cotton and cutlery from us. This is an assumption without proof. Let it be tested thus:

A merchant in London writes to a merchant in Riga, making the following proposition :-" Send me a ship-load of wheat, at the price current of wheat in Riga, and I will send you an equivalent, in any English product, at the price current in London." If the Riga merchant answers, "Yes," then the barter is perfectly reciprocal; but if he answers, "No" -and insists upon cash, to be laid out on the manufactures of other countries, the corn-laws are a just retaliation on the anti-reciprocal spirit of the Riga merchant. Here is a simple, if not a safe text*.

It may be urged, and with reason, that free trade would benefit the manufacturer at the expense of the landholder:-the retort is, that the corn-laws injure the former, for the benefit of the latter. It is maintained that free trade would increase the manufacturing population and decrease the agricultural. Well, it seems reasonable that the people of every country, and every locality, should be at liberty to pursue those avocations that are most advantageous to themselves. It would be unjust, as well as absurd, to prevent the Shetlander from importing corn from Aberdeen, because he finds it more profitable to plough the sea in quest of herrings, than the soil in search of oats. Besides, it is undoubted that the agricultural population is so redundant that the poor's-rates is one of the greatest sources of distress to the farmer. But there seems little danger of the soil of England lying waste in consequence of free trade, where the population, already redundant, is annually increasing. If wheat can be got cheaper from abroad, every inch of ground at home will be cultivated with some vegetable substance adapted to the physical or moral wants of the inhabitants. It is possible that free trade in corn might diminish the landlord's rent, and cause him to keep a smaller kennel of hounds, or a less numerous stud of horses. It might also, perchance, render some of the gentlemen farmers less capable than they now are of employing so many music, dancing, and language-masters for their daughters; or of hiring a box annually at the Italian Opera, for the moral and physical improvement of their families. I acknowledge that the Sapphos and Cecilias of our corn-fields, will suffer great privations in being denied the pleasure of perusing Tasso and Alfieri, in the original-and of drawing down harmony from Heaven, upon hay-ricks and sheepfolds, through the lute and the harp, the guitar and the harpsichord. But let them recollect that every class of society must bear a portion of the evils attendant on re

*It is vain to say that the gold given for corn is procured in exchange for our own manufactures, from other countries. This fact only proves that the trade in gold and cutlery is reciprocal between Mexico and England; but not between England and Poland, in cotton and corn.

dundant population-and that their return to Arcadian simplicity, for which they sigh in every sonato, cannot, surely, be the worst vicissitude to which humanity is liable in this vale of tears*.

Is it certain that free trade in corn would enable the English manufacturer to undersell all his continental competitors in foreign markets, and thus aggrandize England still higher in the scale of commercial nations? I make no pretension to a knowledge of political arithmetic -but common observation, with, I hope, common sense, leads me to doubt the extent of public good which is expected from free trade in corn. Let us suppose that it would reduce the price of bread one half, which is going far enough. Take, then, an operator, with his wife and four children, constituting a family of six souls. Their bread, at present, costs them one shilling and sixpence per diem-which is a very high estimate. The free trade in corn reduces it, at once, to ninepence. The artizan is therefore ninepence a day richer than before. Will he go to his master and say, I will now work for ninepence per day less than I did, because my bread is cheaper and because I wish you to undersell the manufacturers of France and Germany? Will he offer half the savings? I suspect not-and imagine that he will rather lay out the ninepence on better cheer at home, or an additional pot of porter, at dinner and supper. I confess I should be inclined to this myself. But, say the advocates of free trade in corn, "The price of bread regulates the price of all other articles of food." I doubt this.

But if it does, so the poultry, the

much the worse. If the beef, the mutton, the pork, hay, the corn, &c., all fall one half, with the loaf, then indeed the agricultural population will be effectually ruined—and must soon go to the poorhouse!

My own impression is, that the importation of grain, duty free, would make but a small difference in the price of the various commodities which we use, whether food, raiment, or luxuries-and consequently that the sanguine expectations of the community will be greatly disappointed, when the event takes place. At the same time, it seems very natural and just that commercial reciprocities in the natural and artificial productions of different countries, should obtain to the fullest extent. The jealousies of nations, like those of individuals, will never, I fear, permit such a liberal adjustment of international exchanges.

* As bad habits, however quickly acquired, are slow and difficult of removal, the safest plan perhaps would be, a very small triennial reduction of that maximum price of wheat which permits importation. By this slow and almost imperceptible process, a free trade in corn would be ultimately effected, without the risk of evils attendant on sudden transitions.