Illustrations from everyday life occur on all sides to elucidate the utter absurdity, and, in fact, total impracticapability of the system of free trade, as applied to nations who are, or are becoming, rivals of each other in manufacturing industry.  Those who have the advantage, will always advocate free competition; those who are labouring under impediments, will always exclaim against them.  In some cases the young have the advantage, in others the old; but in all the free system is applauded by those in the sunshine, and execrated by those in the shade.  The fair debutante of eighteen, basking in the bright light of youth, beauty, birth, and connections, has no sort of objection to the freedom of choice in the ball-room.  If the mature spinster of forty would divulge her real opinion, what would it be on the same scene of competition?  Experience proves that she is glad to retire, in the general case, from the unequal struggle, and finds the system of established precedence and fixed rank at dinner parties, much more rational.  The leaders on the North Circuit—­Sir James Scarlett or Lord Brongham—­have no objections to the free choice, by solicitors and attorneys, for professional talent; but their younger brethren of the gown are fain to take shelter from such formidable rivals in the exclusive employment of the Crown, the East India Company, the Bank of England, or some of the numerous chartered companies in the country.  England is the old lawyer on the Cirucuit in manufactures—­but Poland is the young beauty of the ball-room in agriculture.  We should like to see what sort of reciprocity could be established between them.  Possibly the young belle may exchange her beauty for the old lawyer’s guineas, but it will prove a bad reciprocity for both.

It is usual for both philosophers and practical men to ascribe the superior cheapness with which subsistence can be raised in the young state to the old one, to the weight of taxes and of debt, public and private, with which the latter is burdened, from which the former is, in general, relieved.  But, without disputing that these circumstances enter with considerable weight into the general result, it may safely be affirmed that the main cause of it is to be found in two laws of nature, of universal and permanent application.  These are the low value of money in the rich state, in consequence of its plenty, compared with its high value in the poor one, in consequence of its poverty, and the experienced inapplicability of machinery or the division of labour to agricultural operations.

Labour is cheap in the poor state, such as Poland, Prussia, and the Ukraine, becuase guineas are few.—­“It is not,” as Johnson said of the Highlands, “that eggs are many, but that pence are few.”  Commercial transactions being scanty, and the want of a circulating medium inconsiderable, it exists to a very limited extent in the country.  People do not need a large circulating medium, therefore they