The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1851-12-01
The Tendency OF british Free Trade.

where" as the editor assures his readers,
natural calamity is always aggravated by the
untowardness of man" The people Of England
''need be under little fear of desolaton-in our
time at least" That proved, the writer is
content. He sheds no tears for the expulsion
Of the Celtic race. Their home, as he has Of
ten told his readers, is beyond the Atlantic,
and the Emerald Isle is to be occupied by the
Anglo-Saxon, if, indeed, he too should not
determine to follow the example, and transfer
himself to other lands whose system is not
built upon ''cheap labor''-or, in other words,
upon making the poor poorer and the rich
richer.
We learn from this article that in those quar-
tiers there were registered in England and
Wales 467 ,069 births, and that it is deemed
probable that the number for the year will
reach 100000. The number of deaths regis
tered was 296,6S5, and the excess of births
was, therefore, l70, 4ll-rendering it probable
that the total excess will exceed 300, 900. This
extraordinary increase of births "has come" as
the Times informs its readers, every opportune-
ly, at time ohen the depopuIation Of the empire
is already looming, as terrible possibility, IN
the distant horison;" and England is now, we
are assured, prosperous, wealthy, tranquil, and
fast employed in repairing its losses of every
kind-the drain on its wealth and it's numbers
by extraordinary production, such as is no
where seen but in England, and none but Hea-
ven could bestow"
These are brave words, but we doubt their
value. They seem to us like the whistle of
the boy who desires to keep his courage up;
and such, we are inclined to believe, will be
the opinion of those of our readers who will fol-
! low us in a brief examination of the facts pre-
sented to view, not by England alone, but by
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ire
land, for we are not disposed to believe in the
prosperity of England while the sister kingdoms
are rapidly becoming mere pauper warrens, as
is now the case
| The Times speaks of "recent losses and long
continued. drains;" but when we seek to
discover the cause of these losses and drains,
we find nothing but the oft-repeated cry of"po-
tato rot, pestilence, and emigration" all of
| them, as we conceive, consequences and not
causes of exhaustion. For more than thirty
years Great Britain has enjoyed profound peace,
with full power to apply her whole energies to
promote the growth of wealth and that i'm
provement in the condition of her people which
would have given her rapid increase of popu-
lation, and in all that time she has known no
cause of difficulty except by single short crop
of potatoes, and a brief visit from the cholera,
both of which would long since have been for
| gotten, were it not that other causes are pro
ducing exhaustion and depopulatlon to an ex-
tent never before witnessed in any civilized
country in time of peace. Other countries,
TOO, have had short crops, and others have been
visited by cholera, but Great Britain is the only
one that finds it necessary to bring them for
ward on every occasion as apologies for exist
ing depression. France was at war during al
most quarter of century, and in that time
she lost in the field and in the hospitals little
short of two millions of men, while the cost of
those wars and that of the invasion of the
country by the allies, and the taxation to
which she was subjected for their support,
have been estimated at two thousand millions of
dollars, but we believe it to have been more
than twice as much; and yet no sooner had the
war terminated than France commenced to go
forward in wealth and population, whereas
from hour to hour England is seen to be more
distressed, and more compelled to remind her
neighbors that she lost crop potatoes, and suf
fered for short period from an invasion of the
choleral Is not here an evidence of exceeding
weakness2 To us it appears the height of abb
surdty thus increasingly to refer to such oc-
currences, under the idea thereby to account for
the appalling facts that her population and her
wealth are rapidly decreasing, and that the
condition of her people is rapidly deteroratlng;
and it is time that she should open her eyes to
the true causes why her whole system of gov
eminent has become series of make-shifts,
and why the administration of the affairs
of the country becomes from year to year
more difficult, and why, too, its influence
| over the affairs of the world dimnishes
from hour to hour. That such is the case no
one can doubt. At each succeeding session Of
| Parliament the ministry are seen to be founder
| ing along, preparing plasters to be applied to
covering up, though not healing, old sores
proposing measures only to be abandoned, be-
cause the more they are examined the less is
|
seen to be their value. The complaint is radi-
| cal, and the patient is threatened with death
but the doctors deny the fact, because unpre
| pared with a remedy, and because the disease
has been greatly aggravated by their treatment;
and therefore it is that we see the Times con-
! graduating its readers that, although the legs
and arms Of the body poitic-Ireland and Scot
land-are fast notifying, the body itself-Eng
lands yet sound, and may liveout sour time
at least" notwithstanding the "still continued
drains" upon its strength. nation more com
pletely at sea, without rudder or compass, never
yet was seen; and therefore it is that the pres
ent ministry remains in power. Nobody else is
willing TO take the management Of the ship.
How far there is room for the congratuation
of the Times, and what is the ground for believ-
ing that the country is now really repairing