So much for the Liberal states of Europe. Let us next turn to America, wherein no corrupt aristocracy sheds its baneful influence upon society; where an unsectarian and generous instruction is given by the State to all; where no standing army is at hand, first to inflame, and then to gratify the unwise lust of conquest; where the people are really the source of power, and a free press enlightens them as to its proper exercise. There surely, if anywhere, we shall find political economic truth enshrined in the heart and tariff of the nation, and the pestilent heresies of Protection given up to the ridicule of a wise and discerning community. A glance at the present tariff, and an examination into the relations between "the plough, the loom, and the anvil," on the other side of the Atlantic, may consequently afford some useful information to us who are now subjected to a policy which is sacrificing the first to the two other members of that great industrial triad. Mr Carey, the well-known statistical writer of America, has, in _The Harmony of Interests_, supplied us with ample materials for conducting such an inquiry; and we can safely recommend his remarkable work to all who wish to investigate the causes of the progress and decline of industrial communities.
Governor Pownell in 1769, arguing in the House of Commons against taxing our North American provinces, had the prophetic wisdom to foresee--what some few American politicians of the present day, and the leaders of our own Manchester school do not yet seem rightly to comprehend--that the time must inevitably come when America would cease to depend upon English industry for manufactured goods. "They will abominate," said he, addressing himself to the people of England, "as sincerely as now they love you; and if they do, they have within themselves everything requisite to the food, raiment, or dwelling of mankind; they have no need of your commerce." A dim perception of this truth has at last impelled the Manchester Chamber of Commerce--the oligarchy by whom the destinies of this empire are swayed at the present time--to despatch a Commissioner to India in search of cotton-growing districts, whence they may obtain certain supplies of the raw material, and, we hope, of markets for the manufactured products thereof; for to us it is evident, that the "model republic" is henceforth to be relied on for neither the one nor the other.