The second cause was, that no speculative or theoretical opinions had then been broached, or become popular, which proclaimed that the real interest of any one class was to be found in the spoliation or depression of any other class. No gigantic system of _beggar my neighbour_ had then come to be considered as a shorthand mode of gaining wealth. The nation had not then embraced the doctrine, that to buy cheap and sell dear constituted the sum total of political science. On the contrary, protection to industry in all its branches was considered as the great principle of policy, the undisputed dictate of wisdom, the obvious rule of justice. It was acknowledged alike by speculative writers and practical statesmen. The interests of the producers were the main object of legislative fostering and philosophic thought--and for this plain reason, that they constitute the great body of society, and their interests chiefly were thought of. Realised wealth was then, in comparison to what it now is, in a state of infancy; the class of traders and shopkeepers, who grow up with the expenditure of accumulated opulence, was limited in numbers and inconsiderable in influence. It would have been as impossible _then_ to get up a party in the House of Commons, or a cry in the country, in favour of the consumers or against the producers, as it would be now to do the same among the corn producers in the basin of the Mississippi, or among the cotton growers of New Orleans.
It is in the profound wisdom of Hannibal's saying--that great states, impregnable to the shock of external violence, are consumed and wasted away by their own internal strength--that the real cause of the subsequent and extraordinary change, first in the opinions of men, and then in the measures of government, is to be found. Such was the wealth produced by the energy of the Anglo-Saxon race, sheltered and invigorated by the protection-policy of government in every quarter of the globe, that in the end it gave birth to a new class, which rapidly grew in numbers and influence, and was at length able to bid defiance to all the other interests in the state put together. This was the _moneyed interest_--the class of men whose fortunes were made, whose position was secure, and who saw, in a general cheapening of the price of commodities and reduction of prices, the means of making their wealth go much farther than it otherwise would. This class had its origin from the long-continued prosperity and accumulated savings of the whole producing classes in the state; like a huge lake, it was fed by all the streams and rills which descended into it from the high grounds by which it was surrounded; and the rise of its waters indicated, as a register thermometer, the amount of additions which it was receiving from the swelling of the feeders by which it was formed. But when men once get out of the class of producers, and into that of moneyed consumers, they rapidly perceive an _immediate_ benefit to themselves in the reduction of the price of articles of consumption, because it adds proportionally to the value of their money. If prices can be forced down fifty per cent by legislative measures, every thousand pounds in effect becomes fifteen hundred. It thus not unfrequently and naturally happened, that the son who enjoyed the fortune made by protection came to join the ranks of the free traders, because it promised a great addition to the value of his inheritance. The transition from Sir Robert Peel the father, and staunch supporter of protection, who _made the fortune_, to Sir Robert Peel the son, who _inherited it_, and introduced free-trade principles, was natural and easy. Each acted in conformity with the interests of his respective position in society. It is impossible to suppose in such men a selfish or sordid regard to their own interests, and we solemnly disclaim the intention of imputing such. But every one knows how the ablest and most elevated minds are insensibly moulded by the influence of the atmosphere with which they are surrounded; and, at all events, they were a type of the corresponding change going on in successive generations of others of a less elevated class of minds, in whom the influence of interested motives was direct and immediate.