Now for its cause.

“Now let us consider the important question, as to how far the distress in the manufactures and commerce of the country is fairly attributable to the corn-laws.”  He proceeded to show, from Lord Palmerston’s official statement in Parliament on the 22d July 1840, that, between the years 1830 and 1839, the exports had risen from the value of L.38,000,000 to L.53,000,000, and the imports from L.46,000,000 to L.62,000,000, “a clear proof that, notwithstanding the local and temporary checks which our commerce had experienced, on the whole it had gone on steadily improving, and that between the two periods it had increased not much less than from two to three.”

He then took the shipping and navigation of the country for the preceding three years; and in looking at them, I cannot help thinking that, if there was any thing like an absolute decrease in trade and commerce, there would also be a decrease in the shipping of the country.  “Well,” said Sir Robert Peel, “What do I find?” The returns “showed an increase, presented within the last three years, from 4,000,000 tons to 4,780,000 tons.”  Now mark—­“during the whole of this period the corn-laws were in operation; how then can they be fairly or honestly assigned as the cause of the present manufacturing and commercial distress?”

But if the corn-laws were not, what was the cause?

“I see causes enough in the world, as well as in this country, why there should be manufacturing and commercial distress at the present moment, irrespective and totally independent of the corn-laws.”

These were—­

1st, “I do fear that, in the north of England, an undue stimulus has been given to manufacturing industry by the accommodation system pursued by the joint-stock banks.  I think the connexion of the manufacturer with the joint-stock banks gave an undue and an improper impulse to trade in that quarter of the county; and I think that, in consequence of this, there have been more manufactures produced within the last two years than were necessary to supply the demand for them.”

2ndly, “Look to the state of some of the foreign countries, which took, at one time, the greatest quantity of our manufactures;” South America, its ports strictly blockaded by France; the United States of North America, “in a state of nascent hostility,” and also labouring under “a distress similar to our own, and arising from similar causes.  The facility of accommodation afforded by certain banks there gave an undue stimulus to industry; this produced extravagant speculations; many persons failed in consequence, and trade necessarily then came to a stand-still.”  Canada—­the peninsula, France, the great Kingdoms of the middle and north of Europe—­Syria, Egypt, China, had been, and were, in such a state, as occasioned all interruption of our trade thither; “a stoppage in the demand for manufactured goods, and a correspondent depression in commerce.”  “When you put all these things together, all causes, mind you, affecting the market for your goods, and then combine them with the two or three defective harvests we have had of late, I ask you to answer me the question, Whether or not they have been sufficient to account for the depression of manufacturing industry.”