The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-03-21 00:00:00

Even the comparatively slight trial we have had of the
fruits of our HIGHLY-WEIGHTED ARTIZAN BEING RUN
AGAINST THE UNBURDENED FOREIGNER, has been what
I call ruinous both to the minds and bodies of the people.
The aggregate capital in England, 'tis true, has been
increased, but it has found its way into the hands of the
money-lenders, with whom the manufacturer now shares
his profit, and none of it has remained in the pockets of
the working classes, who, in fact, are getting more and
more crushed in their circumstances and degraded in their
moral and intellectual condition. Rather than buy our
pre-eminence in commerce at so dear a price as the dis-
tress of the working classes and a continuance of over-
production, let us, by a parliamentary grant of the public
money, (a million pounds a year, if that were necessary,)
in support of SCHOOLS OF EXPERIMENT, (with their tra-
vellers and ramifications all over the world,) make, and
educate the people in, those advances in manufacturing
science and knowledge, which are found necessary to keep
us first among the nations.
Rather than not have a radical change in our systems,
and to enable it to be attempted safely, I would support
the minister in laying on an income-tax for three years,
of 20 per cent. for the first year, 15 per cent. for the
second year, and 10 per cent. for the third year, to enable
him to construct an immense system of emigration to the
colonies, as well as to push forward our colonial cotton
and other productions, and to ameliorate in every possible
way the condition of the industrious classes in the•manu-
facturing districts and Ireland.
There never was before so glorious an opportunity as
the present for this country to return to homely and sound
principles, and there may never be again.
The effect of the construction of railways on the LA-
BOUR MARKET is such that (independent of Sir Robert
Peel and the political economists) every man, woman,
and child can get employment and high wages, and that
at a time when there is scarcely one article of manufac-
ture for which there is one-half the demand usually ex-
perienced at this season of the year.
But the construction of railways, like foreign trade, is
at best but a temporary employment for a population, and
if GREAT NATIONAL means be not now taken to provide
permanent outlets both for the people and their labour, it
is easy to foresee that wretchedness and distress among all
classes of the community, will by-and-by be greater, more
severe, and more lasting, (so overwhelming now is the
increase of our population) than we have ever before ex-
perienced in the worst times ; nor will it matter whether
nominally the colonial system or the theory of free trade
is in operation.
. _ _

The agricultural interest of this country was at a cer-
tain disadvantage in fighting the battle of protection as a
matter of merely agricultural selfishness; but they will
be sure to triumph at a general election if they hsk for a
five shillings' protection to British and Colonial corn as
THE ONLY CONDITION ON WHICH THE COLONIES CAN BE
RETAINED, AND, AS A CONSEQUENCE, OUR NAVAL
POWER SUPPORTED, coupled with their defence of the
British artizan from the cruel competition of the foreigner,
with which Sir Robert Peel's bill threatens him, the
foreigner having the run of the British markets for his
surplus labour or sweepings (which can afford to be sacra-
ficed), while the British weaver and mechanic is excluded
from the foreign market.
A truly British party, now starting up under whatever
name, will get the support of the working classes, who
are tired of the present SYSTEMS OF MEN" (as they get
tired of quack doctors and their specifics), if that party
(kindly descending from the distance and coldness of
abstract theories, or, in other words, of mere political
economy) will pass a NINE OR TEN HOURS' BILL, and by
parliamentary grant will provide intellectual employment,
with the means of health and recreation for the poor in
those hours of happiness, which they have been the
blessed means of calling into existence.
Let the new government also pledge parliament to give
half a million each year to a NATIONAL SYSTEM OF COLO-
NIZATION.

Let them so systemise matters that, through the labour
of a British colonial population, we will each year be
getting more and more cotton, more wheat, more timber,
more sugar, more sheep? wool, and all other necessaries,
PAYING BRITISH LABOUR FOR THEM, AND NOT BRITISH
GOLD, AS AT PRESENT.

And let such a government, rising superior to the petty
influences and considerations of the London Land Specu-
lators and Companies, assure every family which, by its
own or its friends' exertions, can reach Canada or any
other British colony, where there are unconceded lands
belonging to the crown, of their getting WITHOUT CHARGE,
AND AS THEIR PATRIMONY OR BIRTHRIGHT, A LOT OF
LAND, (200 ACRES), (with the cost of clearing three
acres, as a commencement, and a year's provisions till
their first crop is got off the ground (to be repaid to go-
♦ernment), to such as have only means to take them out,
but whose reaching the colonies by their own exertions
will be sufficient proof of their being the proper parties to
emigrate.)

The revenue of Canada is £500,000 (half a million.)
and her expenses and interest on her debt are £400,000 ;
nor do I see why any well-managed colony should be a
burden on England.
And the simple reform required in colonial manage-
ment is, that each colony shall have appropriated to it a
separate room in Downing-street, and be caused each to
have two private Secretaries in future, who should alter-
nately be three years in the colony and three years in
London pushing colonization and the other interests of
the colony, and securing for colonists who come to En-
gland the consideration due to their rank and influence
in their particular colony, until the colonies get repre-
sented in the Imperial Parliament.
You may depend that it is not in human nature that
the oppressed labouring classes should misconstrue sub-
stantial benefits like these, by whatever minister or party
offered. I am, Sir,
Your obedient humble servant,
ISAAC BUCHANAN.
Glasgow, 19th March, 1845.

* It is self-evident that the paper currency to be safe must
he small and fluctuating in this country when the bulk of our
trade is with foreigners, as they do not take in exchange its
manufactures (or labour) : for commercial confidence (or
credit) exists less or more just as there is less or more move-
ment or exportation of the precious metals. 1.8.