bank books. Proprietors of capital, possessing also the requisite knowledge, should in all convenient cases be appointed to the agencies.

A bank and warehouses would next require to be established upon the plan described, and operatives being engaged by the agents in the usual way, at the wages fixed by the Chamber of Commerce, operations might forthwith commence.

The new plan of exchange being once fairly in existence, and placed under the control of thoroughly experienced and practical men of business, the irresistible nature of the principle would soon be exhibited, and the total impossibility of competing with it would soon be universally acknowledged. As fast as the associated capital should increase, either by the acquisition of new associates, or by accumulation, additional persons would be called into operation under its auspices, and the market of old society would daily become more and more restricted.

But even so slow a process as is here contemplated would not be very probable, for if the plan should be taken up in the proper quarter-I mean by the government—and a formal declaration issued, that the new principle of exchange would be encouraged, and assisted, if needful, with a few millions, the

manufacturing and agricultural interests, ever keen enough in the examination of what concerns their individual selves, and seeing, as they would, the total impossibility of resisting the torrent, would, for the most part, throw themselves into it, whilst those that should remain would very speedily discover, that the home market was rapidly closing in upon them, like the "iron shroud" described in Blackwood's Magazine, which, being a tolerably spacious prison on the day of its victim's entrance, gradually diminished in height, in length, and width, until, upon the seventh day, it closed upon the body of its prisoner, and extinguished him from the light of day for ever.

The only thing that can possibly defeat, even for a time, the principle of exchange here described, is an ill-digested, hasty, and imperfect trial: nothing in this world, of a commercial character, can succeed, unless it be rightly set about.

CHAPTER XV.

Concluding address - If we continue to suffer from the existing commercial errors of society, it is our own fault.

THE name of England is great and glorious among the nations of the earth; in war it has been feared, in peace it has been envied; in England the arts have flourished, and science has progressed with great and rapid strides; her trade has been the wonder of surrounding nations, and her commerce has extended itself to the utmost corners of the earth; yet are her people poor, distracted, and unhappy.

Her governors are overwhelmed with perplexity, and easier is his task who undertakes to steer the frailest bark through raging waters, than the task of him who ventures to direct the helm of state.

Her nobility, themselves a portion of the troubled stream, are racked with anxious cares and fears, alike about the present and the future. Their rents unattainable, their fortunes falling into decay; their property

depreciating, and their wonted splendour and magnificence almost bankrupt.

Her clergy, anxious to perform the duties that devolve upon them,-struggling to stay the torrent of depravity, and vice, and crime, which it is their especial office to oppose, are borne down, like straws upon the water's surface, by the irresistible force and violence of the polluted stream, ever increasing in magnitude, and daily becoming an object of still greater dread and apprehension.

Her middle classes, ever the dreamers of peace and plenty, whilst the ill-omened star of war formed yet the resting place of their credulity, know of enjoyment little but the name; and scarcely more secure of future comfort and prosperity than is the weathercock of pointing to the south upon a given day and hour in next December, they still drag on, from day to day, a weary round of care, of trouble, and of anxiety, better deserving to be called the penalty of living than the price of life.

Her labouring classes have been enlightened, by the spread of education, only to see the horror of the dungeon in which they are confined, and to feel, with more acuteness, the depth of the privation and misery into which they think themselves inextricably plunged.

Ireland, unhappy Ireland! ever the last word in the tale of human misery and woe, like the expiring wretch upon the rack, still calls for our compassion and our aid; but there is no help, worthy of the name, for Ireland.

England has only to be made acquainted with the immensity of her own strength, to spring, as it were, in an instant from the very depths of poverty and wretchedness, into the heights of prosperity and commercial happiness. All she requires is to let loose her enormous powers of production, which are now tied and bound down by the chain of commercial error. Like a mighty engine wanting a single wheel, she now stands still, the wonderment of those, who, ignorant of her construction, are not aware that any wheel is wanting; but re-arrange her parts, and give her that one wheel, and nations shall awaken, as from the sleep of death, to see her operate and to erect her counterpart.

Freedom, domestic freedom of exchange, is what this nation chiefly wants, to make its people prosperous and happy. No miracle on human nature has to be performed, to bring this plan of exchange into operation; no inventive genius has to be sought for, to perfect its construction, for ten thousand