MR. PEPYS ON THE NEED FOR PROTECTING THE IRON TRADE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TEE SPECTATOR."] SIR,—When we hear the shout of " Wolf ! " it is always some comfort to reflect that we have heard the alarum raised before when no wolf appeared. And so it occurs to me that some of those who have been troubled in their minds by Mr. Thuile- ford's dismal prognostications (see Spectator, December 5th,
p. 959) may find courage to await the appearance of the particular wolf he heralds so loudly by reading the following extract from the Diary of the late Samuel Pepys, under date December 11th, 1663, just two hundred and forty years ago:-
" I to the coffee house and there among others had good dis- course with an iron merchant who tells me the great evil of dis- couraging our natural manufacture of England in that commodity by suffering the Swede to bring in three times more than ever they did and our own Ironworks be lost as almost half of them he says are already."
Like the Monarch who occupied the throne when these words were written, our iron trade seems to have been "a most un- conscionable time adying."—I am, Sir, &c.,
Bryanstone, Prestwick, Ayrshire. ARCH. D. FERGUSON.
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