framing legislative measures with a view to an altered policy, it is the imperative duty of the rulers of the state to guard these interests from the mischiefs of sudden changes. It is but strict justice that they who have entered into engagements upon the faith of existing laws, should be allowed full leisure to accommodate their circumstances to a new system. But the question here is, whether the present system be in itself a good one; and the argument of Mr. M'Donnell and its other advocates amounts plainly to this: that it would have been disastrous in the extreme if all the lands now cultivated in these islands had been of equally high fertility. The reduction of prices to the amount above stated would, it is said, not only ruin the agriculturists, but go far to destroy the home trade. Our manufacturers, it is alleged, would lose their best market if the agricultural classes were not enabled to purchase the goods of the former by receiving high prices for their own produce. These prices, however, would never have risen, but for the necessity of resorting successively to lands of inferior fertility, requiring a larger cost to raise upon them equal proportions of food; and when it is said that the wealth of the country and its manufacturing industry would suffer by this supposed narrowing of the home market consequent upon the cheapening of food, it is only the affirming of these startling propositions: that a waste of labour is good policy, and that the barrenness of the earth is a blessing to its inhabitants.

Mr. M'Donnell's speculations concerning restriction on the importation of other foreign products, are pretty much in accordance with his views on the subjects which we have already noticed. His theory on this subject is not altogether new, but it is rather curiously compounded. He urges the usual topic, that the freer introduction of foreign products would destroy many branches of manufacture which in this country have thriven under restrictions; and he then boldly affirms, and proceeds at great length to support the assertion, that a free intercourse with other countries would enrich them at the expense of England. This main pillar of the old, mercantile, and (we had almost thought) exploded system, is decorated with very many fanciful illustrations, which will reward for the perusal any curious reader who may happen to be partial to these themes. Mr. M'Donnell, however, must permit us to say, that he is not exempted from the lot of all who have ever advocated these views, an inconsistency between two of their chief arguments, which wholly neutralizes the effect of both. It is said, that free intercourse (with France for instance) will in the first place enable the French manufacturers to undersell many of our producers in our own market; and secondly, by augmenting the resources and industry of France, will enable her traders to drive us out of foreign markets also. Now the first of these opinions is founded on the belief, that there is such a difference between the capacities of the two countries, that what the one can produce

cheaply, the other can only produce with great difficulty and at a high cost. It supposes, also, that the latter country has some products which it can advantageously exchange with the former. Whatever might be the cheapness at which France could produce those articles which are supposed, with us, to require protecting duties, she could not, as to those articles, undersell us in our market, unless we had some product to give in exchange. If silks were ten times as cheap in France as in England, they would not be imported unless we could pay for them, and this we could only do by giving some commodity which we could raise more advantageously than France, or by giving money which we procured in another quarter in exchange for some commodity in which France could not undersell us. If this be true, it follows, that whatever impulse a trade with us might give to a foreign country, she never could undersell us in all those commodities which we were in the habit of sending to foreign markets. But there is another error in the process of reasoning employed by the opponents of free trade. If, when restrictions exist, there be any foreign commerce at all, it must be in those products which the exporting country already sells with equal or with more advantage than the country which the removal of restrictions, it is alleged, would raise into a rival. If France cannot now undersell us in the markets of Columbia, the increased wealth which free trade might give her, could not enable her to drive us out of these markets, unless while she advanced in prosperity, we should stand still. The argument is a naked absurdity, unless it can be shown, that there is something in free trade which, while it stimulates the industry of one nation, and excites the public mind to all those inventions which abridge labour and cheapen production, lays at the same time a palsying weight upon her neighbours, deadening all those moral and physical energies which would enable them also to speed forward in the career of commercial and social improvement.

We cannot help yielding here to the temptation of expressing our opinions in far better words than our own, by a short quotation from Mr. Huskisson's speech, delivered in the late debate upon the silk trade;-one of the most masterly arguments which is perhaps to be found, within the same compass, on the principles of free trade. He is adverting to the opinions of one of his antagonists, expressed upon a former occasion.

"It was really absurd to contend," continued the honourable member, "that if a country, by selling any article of manufacture, could purchase the produce which it might require, at one half the expense at which that produce could be raised, it should nevertheless be precluded from doing

This is unquestionably sound doctrine, and I readily admit it. But, how is it to be reconciled with the doctrine, which is now maintained by great authorities out of doors, as that which ought to be the rule of our commercial policy? According to these authorities, to which we have

now to add that of the honourable and learned seconder of the present motion, Prohibition is the only effectual protection to trade:-duties must be unavailing for this purpose, because the influence of soil and climate, the price of labour, the rate of taxation, and other circumstances, are constantly varying in different countries, and consequently, the scale of protection would require to be varied from month to month. But, what is the legitimate interference to be drawn from this exclusive system? Can it be other than this-that all interchange of their respective commodities, between different countries of the world, is a source of evil, to the one or the other ?-that each country must shut itself up within itself, making the most of its own resources, refusing all commerce with any other country, barbarously content to suffer wants which this commerce might easily supply, and to waste its own superfluous productions at home; because, to exchange them for the superfluities of that other country, instead of being an exclusive advantage to either party, would afford an equivalent benefit to both. This is the short theory of Prohi bitions, which these sage declaimers against all theory, are so anxious to recommend to the practical merchants of this country.

'But, can Prohibition ever be tried under circumstances of greater favour, than it now experiences in Spain? In that flourishing country, prohibition has been carried to the very extreme. There, restriction has been added to restriction-there, all the fruits of that beautiful system are to be seen, not yet, perhaps, in full maturity, but sufficiently mature to enable every one to judge of their qualities. Spain is the best sample of the prohibitory system; the most perfect model of fallen greatness and of internal misery, of which modern civilization affords an examplean example to be traced, not only in the annihilation of her commerce and maritime power, but, in her scanty revenue, in her bankrupt resources, in the wretchedness of her population, and in her utter insignificance among the great powers of the world. The commercial policy of Spain is simply this to admit nothing from other countries-except what the smuggler brings in. And the commercial wisdom of the honourable and learned seconder of the present motion is equal to that of Spain.'-pp.18-20.

We have endeavoured to give as clear a statement of Mr. M'Donnell's principal doctrines on the corn laws and free trade as was consistent with the space to which we are necessarily limited. In justice to Mr. M' Donnell we must add, that there is a great deal in his work which we have altogether omitted to notice. Much is said on the subject of combination laws and currency, which appears to us not very happily blended with the rest of his theories. His work, however, may be considered, on the whole, to be as full and able a defence of antiquated systems of policy as can well be expected in the present times. The course of public opinion (as indeed Mr. M'Donnell acknowledges) is, fortunately for mankind, likely to be in each successive year more and more inclined to the opposite direction. In this country the principle that freedom of production and of interchange is the true policy of all nations, has taken too strong a hold to be ever uprooted. Even that class of the community which still opposes the applica

tion of this policy in the most important of all concerns, the supply of the nation's food, will at length find it impossible to resist the force of plain reason, and the just demands of all the other classes of the people. They will at length see that what is beneficial to the whole country cannot be injurious to them, and that those maxims of general policy which tend to multiply the connections between nation and nation, and thus increase the motives and the means of peace throughout the world, deserve, in an especial manner, the support and countenance of the possessors of the soil. Trade, and the capital which is invested in it, may shift their stations. They did so from Venice, Genoa, and Holland, they may do so from England. But the landholders are fixed to their country. They must abide its fate whether for good or for evil; and whether calamity shall come upon it from wars, produced by those disputes and jealousies concerning commerce which have been in past times such a fruitful source of misery to mankind, or whether, like the Dutch, the English are doomed to witness the departure of their wealth, attracted to other countries in which the gains of the capitalist are not sacrificed to maintain a high cost of food and labour,-whatever, in short, be the mischiefs which mistaken policy may bring upon England, the proprietors of land must be that class of the community which will suffer most, and whose sufferings must last the longest. That such disasters shall ever visit this country, we have little apprehension; for we think that sufficient tokens have appeared, both within and without the walls of Parliament, to assure us that another session will not pass, without a satisfactory settlement of the vital question, how cheaply, or how dearly, the English people are in future to be supplied with food.

ART. IV. Journal of a Voyage up the Mediterranean; principally among the Islands of the Archipelago, and in Asia Minor: including many interesting Particulars relative to the Greek Revolution, especially a Journey through Maina to the Camp of Ibrahim Pacha, together with Observations on the Antiquities, Opinions, and Usages of Greece, as they now exist. To which is added, an Essay on the Fanariotes, translated from the French of Mark Philip Zallony, a Greek. By the Rev. Charles Swan, late of Catherine Hall, Cambridge; Chaplain to H. M. S. Cambrian; Author of "Sermons on several Subjects;" and Translator of the "Gesta Romanorum." 2 Vols. 8vo. 17. 18. London. C. and J. Rivington. 1826.

WITH the exception of a quaint motto, we have set out the whole of the title page which the rev. author has been pleased to prefix to these volumes, as to observant readers it will indicate at the first glance the general character of the work. Not content with the bill of fare which he has given us, Mr. Swan takes it upon him

long

self to assure us of its excellence. His 'particulars relative to the Greek revolution' are not only numerous but 'interesting,' especially his journey to the camp of Ibrahim Pacha.' Next come his antiquarian researches, an essay on the Fanariotes, and adorning all, the name of the learned author, with his titles of chaplain, preacher, and translator of the Gesta Romanorum. All this pomp of announcement seems to us to be in very bad taste. The author might at least have left his readers to form their own judgment as to the interest or value of the materials which he has laid before them, and we own that we can trace no particular connection between the Gesta Romanorum and a voyage up the Mediterranean. If Mr. Swan had been desirous of impressing us with a favourable notion of his inventive powers, the case might have been otherwise. But it is to be presumed that he intended his journal to be the repository of facts and of accurate observations, relative to the countries which he visited, and that he never supposed that his genius was in the slightest degree trained to romance by the legends which formed the delight of his earlier days.

We apprehend the reader will find it otherwise. We have seldom, perused a journal detailing the fleeting events of the day, which we have thought less deserving of confidence than the one before us. It is a sort of daily newspaper, in which, under successive dates, reports of battles by sea and land, descriptions of character, and observations on men and things are made, often upon the most imperfect evidence, and generally in a very loose and unsatisfactory manner. The recent misfortunes of Greece, since the fall of Missolonghi, have taken away, moreover, much of the 'interest' which Mr. Swan attaches to his 'particulars' of her sanguinary and protracted struggle for freedom. His journal, besides, does not come down later than that of Mr. Emerson, which has been some time before the public; and it scarcely contains a single fact respecting Greece with which we had not been already fully acquainted.

We are disposed, however, to afford Mr. Swan every praise for the enthusiasm which he uniformly displays in behalf of that suffering and afflicted nation. It is to us matter of no small surprise to see the British cabinet look on so quietly at the invasion and conquest of the Peloponnesus by the Egyptians. Ibrahim Pacha may now be said to be undisputed master of that peninsula; and his father, the Viceroy of Egypt, perhaps the most enlightened and enterprising Mahometan who has held the reins of empire for some centuries, is at this moment making every preparation to assist him with fresh forces, in order to complete a subjugation which has been already too far advanced. His own resources are formidable; but he does not depend on these alone, for all the world, except the British cabinet, sees with open eyes, and the greatest amazement, that he receives from the French ministry all the aid in money, arms, ammunition, and men, which he chooses to require. The