A HIGH AUTHORITY.—Of all our contemporaries, the Herald is doubtless
the most ingenious ; and of all the writers in the Herald, we most admire the enditer of the City article. The. Standard of Wednes- day quotes a splendid specimen of his labours, which form, as it ob- serves, " a department of that very popular journal which has for some time maintained a high authority in the mercantile world." The dis- coveries of this high authority are worth attending to. The causes of our present distresses are, he says, " over-production," which he takes to be the more immediate cause. Over-production has been caused by over-taxation ; a very proper effect certainly; and how? Taxes les- sened profits, and made the people incapable of buying goods; and as soon as the manufacturers perceived this incapacity, they took the hint to make more goods, in order to increase their business and keep up their incomes. Now the deuce is in it if this be not plain enough. All the distress of the country is owing to the novel anxiety of our manu- facturers to increase their business and keep up their incomes. If these foolish people would only let their business and their incomes go down, as they used to do before the free trade system came in, every thing would be right again. There is another curious fact stated by the high authority :—" An Irishman (now) can only do the work Of one man." This comes of emancipation ; a twelvemonth ago, an Irishman could do the work of six. This we know, for we received the intelligence privately from a very particular friend from Munster, and lie told us too that he did not care to whom we communicated the secret.
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