Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 434, December, 1851

You, gentlemen, to whom we have ventured to submit these remarks, have a very great deal in your power. You can, by your decision, either confirm the present policy, or cause it to be reversed; and your own experience will suffice to show you in what manner the system has worked. Statists may parade their figures, economists may puff their plans, statesmen may indulge in high-coloured pictures of the success which they expect to follow their measures – but the true test of every measure which has a practical tendency will be found in the effect which it produces upon the circumstances of the people, and especially upon those of the middle classes. We, who have, from the very first, anticipated the baneful effects of this attack upon British industry – we, who have no more connection than any of yourselves with territorial aristocracy, and who consider the welfare of the people as the grand object which it is the duty of the Government to promote – ask you to apply your own reason to the facts which are before you and in your reach, and to decide and act accordingly. It was, we knew from the very beginning of this struggle, impossible that you could decide until the effects of the Free-Trade experiment became visible and palpable among yourselves. We foresaw that it was only through the suffering and impoverishment of the producers that the practical lesson could reach you, and that, until this took place, it was of little use to invoke your aid, or even to entreat your judgment. Probably, by this time, you will have formed an accurate estimate of the value of the doctrines promulgated by the babblers on political economy – a sect which has never yet been allowed to interfere with the internal affairs of any nation, without producing the most disastrous results. To them we are indebted for that change of the currency which has added fully one-third to our fixed burdens, and for those complex monetary arrangements which insure periodically the return of a commercial crisis. But whatever you may think of them, do not allow yourselves to be influenced by their representations, or by those of their accredited organs. The time for theory is over. You have now to deal with facts, regarding which every man of you is competent to form an opinion. We do not ask you to accept our statements implicitly, any more than those of our opponents – though, if we did so, we might hold ourselves justified on this ground, that the greater part of our evidence is taken from the admissions of our adversaries. We appeal to your own experience, and upon that we leave you to decide.

And do not be afraid to give free utterance to your opinion. There exists not in this land – there exists not in all the world, the power which can rise up against you. The British producer on the one hand, and the exporting manufacturer on the other, may have conflicting interests not altogether reconcilable with the public good, for isolated interest always begets selfishness; and where individual or class profit is concerned, principle is apt to be overlooked. But you are, eminently, THE CLASS to pronounce upon conflicting opinions. Your interest is that of the nation whose pulse is beneath your finger. You can tell, with greater accuracy than others, whether any political prescription has stimulated the circulation of the blood, or caused it to run torpidly in the national veins. You can mark the changes in the circumstances of your customers, and from these you can form an estimate whether or not the late experiment has been successful.

If, judging by that test, you should think it has been successful, our case is lost. We, who have advocated the Protective Principle in legislation, cannot continue to maintain it, if those whose incomes depend mainly upon British custom find themselves advantaged by measures which have reduced the value of British produce. In matters of this kind there is no abstract dogma involved, on the strength of which any man could make himself a creditable martyr. Men have died for their faith or for their allegiance, believing either to be their highest duty; but no one in his senses will spend a lifetime, or any considerable portion of it, in combating absolute facts. The reason why Protection is still a living principle – the reason why it finds so many supporters among the learned and the thoughtful – the reason why it is progressing step by step towards triumph – is because, in the minds of those who advocate it, there is a strong and deep-rooted conviction that you already know that the opposite system has entirely failed to realise the predictions of its advocates, and that you feel that its permanency is contrary to your interest, and to that of the great body of the people. If we are right in this conviction, then we are entitled not only to solicit, but to demand, your earnest co-operation. These are not times for political cowardice, or weak suppression of opinion. Liberty of thought, and liberty of the expression of sentiment, are our unalienable prerogative; but of late years, and in the hands of a certain party, that prerogative has been scandalously overstretched. We now hear men – even members of the Legislature – threatening the country, and you, with hints of insurrection, in case you exercise your undoubted right of pronouncing a free and unbiassed judgment upon any point of commercial policy. Let the caitiffs bluster! They know, from the bottom of their ignoble souls – for none save an ignoble soul would have dared to conceive that such threats would intimidate any man of British birth or blood – that their menace is as meaningless and vain as their miserable motives are apparent. Let them bluster! They, the advocates of lowered wages – they, the combatants for lengthened labour – they, the crushers of the infants, have no large margin of operative sympathy upon which they can afford to trade. Had John Fielden been alive, he could have told you what these men were, and what sympathy they were likely to command. Well do the workmen know with whom they have to deal!

Let us not be misunderstood. We never have underrated the difficulty of a change such as we contemplate; but no difficulty attending that, is for a moment to be put into the balance against the general welfare of the country, if, on reflection, and on considering your own position, you shall be of opinion that the interests of the country demand that change. But, at any hazard, we cannot afford to go down-hill. To bring us, as the Manchester men contemplate, to the Continental level in point of wages as well as expenditure, is to seal the ruin of the British empire, burdened as it is; or, in the least dangerous view, to necessitate repudiation. That matter is, as we have said before, for you to decide; and the period for your decision is rapidly drawing near. On the next general election depends the fate of the country, and – without saying one syllable more upon the merits of the systems at issue – the decision or inclination of your body will form the most important, because it must be considered, as between conflicting interests, the most impartial element, of the expression of British opinion.

The note-book of my grandfather, Major Flinders, contains much matter relative to the famous siege of Gibraltar, and he seems to have kept an accurate and minute journal of such of its incidents as came under his own observation. Indeed, I suspect the historian Drinkwater must have had access to it, as I frequently find the same notabilia chronicled in pretty much the same terms by both these learned Thebans. But while Drinkwater confines himself mostly to professional matters – the state of the fortifications, nature of the enemy's fire, casualties to the soldiery, and the like – and seldom introduces an anecdote interesting to the generality of readers without apologising for such levity, my grandfather's sympathies seem to have been engrossed by the sufferings of the inhabitants deprived of shelter, as well as of sufficient food, and helplessly witnessing the destruction of their property. Consequently, his journal, though quite below the dignity of history, affords, now and then, a tolerably graphic glimpse of the beleagured town.