New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-05-24
has ever been subject to the control of a
single individual or community.

year by importers ofagriculturalpr oducear
set down at more than sel 200, 900, or about
s65, 600, 900. Much Of this was certainly
borne by British merchants, but very much
was borne by foreigners, and our own peo-
Die among the rest. But in the present
wear, the whole falls on she producers OF
wheat and rice, cotton and wool, sugar and
lumber, and if last year proved disastrous
to the merchant, the present one should be
found equally so to thefarmers and planters,
and such is the case. A cropof three mil
lions of bales of cotton at present prices,
will produce about as much as a crop of
two millions at those of last year, and thirty
millions of pounds of tea and sugar will
yield the producers less than they received
last year for twenty; forwhile the priceis al
most one-third less per pound, they pay
freight on alarger quantity and at higher
rate. Nevertheless this is the state of things
that makes British prosperity, and enables
the Government to raise large revenue.
The actual amount paid in the last twelve
months by the Britishpeople to theproducsrs
of the raw commodities they import was
less by probably fifteen or twenty millions
sterling than would have been paid for the
same quantities in the previous year; and
hence has arisen the power to consume
more largely of tobacco, beer, glass, paper
and other commodities that paid duties Of
excise. Raise the price of the produce of
the farm and the plantation, and British
prosperity will disappear, while British
revenue will diminish. In the speech of
Mr.. Wilson, Editor of The Economist, we
have distinct recognition of the fact that
prosperous times may now be looked for,
"because the prices of produce had fallen
so much abroad" To produce that fall is
the direct object of every act of British
legislation; and yet our farmers and plant
ers lend their aid to men who thus seek
their ruin We doubt if the annals of the
world present a more remarkable case of
mental arrangement.
The whole system of English policy is
exhaustive of the powers of those con-
nected with her. Ireland was forced to
exhaust herself and to waste der labor,
until she became as she now continues, a
burden scarcely to be borne. Her manu-
features were first destroyed; next her
stock disappeared and the process of
exhaustion was thus accelerated. Now
she exports chiefly the cOarsest and
least profitable articles of food, and is
forced to import largely of the better de-
scriptions, those used by man; and the
result of this is that the number of the
near consumerse Of British manufactures has
largely diminished, and that a necessity
has been produced for adding to the number
of distant ones. Portugal, Turkey, and
the Indies, East and West, have successive
ly been exhausted, and with eachstepin the
process of exhaustion we see great efforts
for extending the area of British free trade.
Notwithstanding the addition of Scinde and
the Punjaub to her Indian empire, its Govern
ment would be now bankrupt were it not
for the power it possesses of poisoning the
people of China with opium; and still worse
will be the case when we shall see the pro-
cess of annexation carried out by the dis
memberment of the Burman Empire,
which seems to be now at hand. With
each step in this direction, the domestic de-
mand for labor and capital diminishes, and
English laborers, who find themselves
forced to content themselves with six shil-
lings Isl 44) per week, are told by THE
Economist to rejoice in the low prices of
the food they raise, while English CAPT.
talists, forced to content themselves with
II or per cent, are told that this is a
striking evidence of the rapid advance of
the country in wealth-whereas, any one
but disciple of the Manchester school
would see in both of these facts evidence
of a steady diminution in the productive
power of the nation. g The condition of
the people of these countries" says an
English writer, displayed, in Ireland, by
the famine and continual emigration, in
England by the Engineers strike, and the
disclosures Of the inquiries into the state
of the miners, manufacturing towns, and
rural population Of England and Scotland,
is perfectly incredible for its wretehedness
and immortality, compared with the COM
mercial greatness of this Empire"
We had hoped to see IN the speech of
Mr. DisraeE avidence thai he had soma