AND Future Prospects of the Country, IN REFERENCE TO FREE TRADE AND ITS RECENT APPLICATION. BY F. C., Author of "Remarks on the Cost Price of Producing Wheat in Foreign LONDON: WILLIAM EDWARD PAINTER, 342, STRAND. 1846: PRESENT CONDITION AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF THE COUNTRY. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. If it were possible to invent a more plausible topic of delusion than the cry for cheap bread, the conduct of the late Administration would be wholly without excuse. That conduct would be in reality what it is now in appearance-a cowardly abandonment of the first duty of Government, which is the protection of the many from the knavery or folly of the few. It would mark with indelible disgrace the men as well as the Ministers who would, in the affirmative of our hypothesis, deserve the epithet of " treacherous deserters" of the task generoutely confided to their loyalty. But the science of Government is practically beset with innumerable difficulties, which few are able to appreciate with accuracy who are not in a position to be responsible for error. Experienced and cultivated minds are prone to make allowance for those difficulties. The great bulk of mankind disregard them altogether: the crowd pass judgment only on the result, and always with the utmost severity. On this principle, the recent measures of the late Cabinet is a theme of almost unanimous reprobation. To the Conservatives they are obnoxious in matter and in form, in circumstance, in manner, and pretence to the Whigs, on one or other of these sundry |