Already there are vast projects in contemplation, which await the
exercise of the national activity, and which would manifestly benefit all who labour to feed labour with sustenance or ma- terials. Free trade itself, energetically developed, would stimulate all our productive operations : but real free trade is hampered by irrelevant obstacles, such as the fruitless Anti-Slavery crusade which obstructs the friendly relations with our great customer Brazil. Colonization, actively carried out, would cause not only relief but immense activity at home ; and no class knows that better than the inhabitants of our agricultural districts : but our officials of the Colonial Department are against colonization—are doing their best to alienate our Colonies, and so to render coloni- zation impossible ; though mere emigration will not be so. Sir Robert Peel's redemption scheme for Ireland would give rise to immense activity : but the lesser schemes of the actual Ministers stop the way. On our relations with foreign states depend great carrying and trading operations ; in peace or war, we might still urge a thriving trade—if our statesmen kept in view, constantly and effectively, what England can still do for the world : but our statesmen seem to keep in view chiefly the display of their own little abilities or the concealment of their own little deficiencies. Time is a great element of prosperity : the same operations spread over a long time produce less to man, Whose life is limited. Good statesmanship makes the work of a country greater within a given space of time. Good statesman- ship, in short, tends to make a state busy, thriving, and happy ; and no one feels the difference in a contrary state of things more than the farmers who now suffer so unduly from the transition to free trade.
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