If wheat be permanently lowered from 60s. to 30s. a quarter, or in any considerable though lesser degree, the first consequence must be, that the money price of every article must fall. As the price of grain necessarily determines the money wages of labour, and they form the chief element in regulating the price of every other article of life, it follows that a great, a sensible reduction in the price of grain must necessarily affect the price of all other articles, and the money income of every man in the kingdom. Indeed, this is so far from being disputed by the Reformers, that it forms the chief argument adduced by them for the repeal of the Corn Laws they contend that, by lowering the wages of labour, and the money price of every article of consumption, the British manufacturers will be better able to withstand foreign competition in the supply both of the home and the foreign market.

Such a change of prices might be innocuous, if individuals and the public could begin on a new basis, and there were no subsisting money engagements, which must be provided for at the reduced rate of incomes. But how is such a state of things to go on, when individuals and the State are under so many engagements, which cannot be averted without private or public bankruptcy? This is the question which, in a complicated state of society such as we live in, where industry is so dependent on credit, is the vital one to every interest.

There is hardly an individual possessed of property in the country who is not immediately or ultimately involved in money engagements. The landlords are notoriously and proverbially drowned in debt, and it is calculated that twothirds of the produce of the soil finds its way ultimately into the pocket of the public or the private creditor. Farmers are all more or less involved in engagements either to their landlords or to the banks who have advanced their money; merchants and manufacturers have their bills or cashaccounts standing against them, which must be provided for, whatever ensues with regard to the prices of the articles in which they deal; and private individuals, even of wealthy fortunes, have provisions to their wives, sisters, brothers, or children, which must be made up to a certain money amount,

if they would avert the evils of bankruptcy. Now, if the views of the Reformers are well founded, and a great reduction is effected in the price of grain, and consequently in the money income of every man in the kingdom, through the free trade in corn, how are these undiminished money obligations to be made good out of the diminished pecuniary resources of the debtors in them? Mr Baring has estimated that the change in the value of money, consequent on the resumption of cash-payments, altered prices about 25 per cent; and everybody knows what widespread, still existing, and irremediable private distress that change produced. What, then, may be anticipated from the far greater change which is contemplated as likely to arise from a free trade in grain?

But, serious as these evils are, they are nothing in comparison with the dreadful consequences which would result to public credit from the change, and the widespread desolation which must follow a serious blow to the national faith.

It is well known with what difficulty the payment of the annual charge of the national debt is provided for, even under the present scale of prices; and how much those difficulties were increased by the change of prices, and the general diminution of incomes, consequent on the resumption of cash-payments. Indeed, such was the effect of that change that, had it not been counterbalanced by a very great increase, both of our agricultural and manufacturing produce at the same time, it would have rendered the maintenance of faith with the public creditor impossible. Now, if such be the present state of the public debt, even under the unexampled general prosperity which has pervaded the empire since the peace, and with all the security to the public faith which arises from the stable, consistent, and uniform rule of the British aristocracy, how is the charge of the debt to be provided for under the diminished national income arising from the much hoped-for change of prices consequent on the Reform Bill and repeal of the Corn Laws, and the increased national impatience, arising from the consciousness of the power to cast off the burden for ever?-Great and reasonable fear may be felt, whether, under any

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circumstances, the maintenance of the national faith inviolate is practicable for any considerable length of time; no doubt can be entertained that, under a Reform Parliament, and a free trade in grain, it will be impossible.

Indeed, whoever seriously considers the subject must perceive that, independent of any change of prices resulting from the Corn Laws, the preservation of the national debt will be impracticable if the present great contest be gained by the Reformers. The outcry hereafter raised against the fundholders will be far greater, and much more generally alluring, than that now directed with so much vehemence against the aristocracy. In truth, it is as the outwork of that grand achievement that the demolition of the aristocracy is pursued with so much fury. Having once gained political power, can we expect that the lower orders will decline to reap its fruits; that, after having stormed the breach, they will generously forego the plunder of the captured city? Nothing is now said about the funds, because a general sense of the danger which threatens that large portion of the national capital would probably prove fatal to the Reform Bill; but let the victory once be gained, and the outcry in the end will be turned in that direction.

Without supposing that either a Reformed Parliament, or the Ministers whom it places at the head of affairs, will be much inclined to pursue such desperate measures, the consequences of Reform will speedily make them unavoidable. The aristocracy being destroyed, so far as political power is concerned, and the people having got the complete command of the country, by means of the pledged delegates from the towns whom they return to Parliament, the whole vehemence of the democratic party, flushed with victory, increased in numbers, and eager for plunder, will then be directed against the fundholders. The eyes of that body will then be opened. Deprived of the shelter of the aristocracy, which now protects them from the storm by drawing its fury upon themselves, they will perceive their danger and the rapid fall of the public securities will indicate approach of, and augment the reasons for their destr Industry, now sustained and encouraged in ever

by public credit, will wither and languish; commerce will diminish, speculation will decline; distrust will succeed to confidence, despair to hope; and starving millions, deprived of bread by the natural consequences of their present inconsiderate conduct, will demand, in a voice of thunder, that the fundholders be no longer permitted to wring out of an industrious and suffering people the fruits of their toil. Meanwhile the revenue will fail; credit, that most sensitive of created things, will be violently shaken; and Government, pressed by demands on the treasury, and threatened by the menaces of the people, will be compelled to adopt some extraordinary measures for their relief.

As the Church is the most defenceless body in the State, and the one which has long been marked out as the first victim, it is probable that its revenues will first be seized to make good the exigencies of Government. This is the natural progress of all such changes; and, accordingly, seven years before the Revolutionary Government of France proclaimed a bankruptcy, and cut off two-thirds of the national debt, the whole revenues of the Church had been seized for the public service. The revolutionary press of this country has long prepared the public for this event, by announcing that although, without doubt, the rights of the clergy to their tithes is as good as the right of the laity to their estates, yet Government has an unquestionable right to regulate its destination,-in other words, to seize, for the public service, all that is now devoted to the maintenance of religion.

Were we actuated by the spirit of demons, we should feel a malignant joy in contemplating the consternation which will fill the rural freeholders, when they find that the Reform Bill, from which they hoped so much, as the consequence of which they were promised liberation from tithes, taxes, and every vexatious burden, has in truth only embittered their condition: that, instead of the parson collecting a twentieth of the produce, an inexorable tax-gatherer enforces payment of the full tenth; and that, instead of selling their wheat at £3 a quarter, they can only get 30s. But the evil is too serious and widespread to admit of any such feeling; and there is no class whose future state, under the conse

If wheat be permanently lowered from 60s. to 30s. a quarter, or in any considerable though lesser degree, the first consequence must be, that the money price of every article must fall. As the price of grain necessarily determines the money wages of labour, and they form the chief element in regulating the price of every other article of life, it follows that a great, a sensible reduction in the price of grain must necessarily affect the price of all other articles, and the money income of every man in the kingdom. Indeed, this is so far from being disputed by the Reformers, that it forms the chief argument adduced by them for the repeal of the Corn Laws they contend that, by lowering the wages of labour, and the money price of every article of consumption, the British manufacturers will be better able to withstand foreign competition in the supply both of the home and the foreign market.

Such a change of prices might be innocuous, if individuals and the public could begin on a new basis, and there were no subsisting money engagements, which must be provided for at the reduced rate of incomes. But how is such a state of things to go on, when individuals and the State are under so many engagements, which cannot be averted without private or public bankruptcy? This is the question which, in a complicated state of society such as we live in, where industry is so dependent on credit, is the vital one to every interest.

There is hardly an individual possessed of property in the country who is not immediately or ultimately involved in money engagements. The landlords are notoriously and proverbially drowned in debt, and it is calculated that twothirds of the produce of the soil finds its way ultimately into the pocket of the public or the private creditor. Farmers are all more or less involved in engagements either to their landlords or to the banks who have advanced their money; merchants and manufacturers have their bills or cashaccounts standing against them, which must be provided for, whatever ensues with regard to the prices of the articles in which they deal; and private individuals, even of wealthy fortunes, have provisions to their wives, sisters, brothers, or children, which must be made up to a certain money amount,