The only other case of war has been the contest between General Rosas, the Dictator of Buenos Ayres, and the Republic of Monte Video, which has existed for several years. Notwithstanding the active intervention of England, and France, and Brazil, and the destruction by the first two, in 1845, of the batteries Rosas had erected to close the navigation of the Parana, he has continued to lay close siege to Monte Video ever since, and, according to the latest accounts, the city must surrender to his superior force.

It would seem impossible that the Sixteen Republics, as they call themselves, which, during their short-lived confederation, constituted the Argentine Republic, can much longer continue distinct and independent sovereignties; as twelve of them are inferior in population to the state of Delaware, and one of them (Missiones) contains less than 10,000 inhabitants. Since, too, they seem incapable of forming and maintaining a federal government, it is likely that the weaker will fall a prey to the stronger, and thus a political union be brought about by violence. Though they are nominally republics, arbitrary power is exercised by the chief magistrate in all of them. A more unqualified despotism than that of Don Francia, in Paraguay, never existed. The population of all the sixteen states, on an area of perhaps 800,000 square miles, is supposed not much to exceed a million.

GREAT BRITAIN.

The year 1846 found Great Britain involved in a threatening dispute with the United States about the Oregon territory, and at war with the Sikhs, a people in Upper India, estimated at near 2,000,000, and inhabiting a country somewhat larger than the State of Maryland. The whole of India or Hindostan being parcelled out among numerous distinct sovereignties, were frequently, according to the common destiny of human society, at war with one another. England, or rather her merchant aristocracy, the East India Company, profiting by these dissensions, and now siding with one of the disputants, and now with another, gradually enlarged her power, until the whole of that vast region, of nearly twenty times her area, and containing two hundred millions of people, have been brought under her control, in the character of either subjects, tributaries, or obsequious allies. Now and then some of them endeavor to shake off the foreign yoke, and take up arms, but the difficulty of a concerted resistance by a sufficient number, and yet more, their inferiority in the art of war, have hitherto made these efforts unavailing; and thus it proved with the Sikhs. Though a brave and warlike people, and their first successes had filled England with alarm for the safety of her Indian empire, European science and tactics soon prevailed against their untutored valor and great

superiority of numbers, as it had done against the feeble and effeminate natives of Bengal. The war ended early in 1846, and the result of the struggle was, that the Sikhs were compelled to sue for peace, and to take a lower place in the scale of British dependents; the annual tribute to the victors was increased; and the British dominion was extended almost to the confines of Persia.

Though all England's foreign relations were then pacific, and her numerous colonies that encircle the globe were in a state of undisturbed repose, she herself was, as usual, the theatre of political controversy between the two great parties into which her people are divided, and whose struggles for the power and emoluments of office, keep the public mind in a state of ceaseless agitation.

Ever since the days of Adam Smith, all her political economists had maintained the benefits of free trade in promoting national wealth, and had assiduously recommended its adoption to other nations. But not withstanding these doctrines, the land-owners, being predominant in the legislature, had, by way of securing to themselves or their tenants the monopoly of the home market, always subjected foreign corn to a duty, which, rising as the market price of corn fell, operated in ordinary years as a prohibition. The great mass of consumers had for years not only insisted that this policy was detrimental to the wealth of the nation, but they also labored to show, by ingenious reasoning, that it was not beneficial to the land-owners themselves. Their efforts were unavailing, and, at a general election in 1840, a liberal Whig ministry, who were converts to the doctrine of free trade, making a repeal of the cornlaws a test question, their opponents (the landed interest) succeeded in obtaining a majority; and the Whigs, of course, were compelled to surrender their places to their victorious adversaries.

The advocates of free trade, though defeated, were not disheartened, and they determined to assail the obnoxious corn-law in another way. Knowing that a considerable majority of the electors were, as mere consumers, interested in the free importation of foreign corn, and had voted against their own interests from sheer ignorance, they determined to enlighten the public mind on this subject. By way of securing unity of action, as well as perseverance, they organized an association, called the Corn-law League, of which they appointed several standing committees, each with separate duties assigned to it; raised money by subscription, which finally amounted to a million of pounds sterling; and by means of public meetings, addresses, pamphlets, and the periodical press, brought the question before the people in every corner of the kingdom. It was a pregnant sign of the times that this great political movement had not, as heretofore, sought for leaders among the peerage, but was headed

altogether by commoners, of whom Mr. Cobden was the most prominent.

While this voluntary association, which has so often in modern times shown itself a powerful political lever, was gradually making converts, a disease among potatoes, which is the chief aliment of the Irish peasantry, and feeds no small number in Scotland and England, made large importations of grain necessary. The arguments of the Corn Law League could no longer be resisted, and Sir Robert Peel himself, yielding, as on former occasions, to a current that he could not stop or resist, proposed a repeal of the corn laws, to take place after two years. But many of his party resenting this desertion of a policy which not only touched their interests, but was associated in their minds with party triumphs, withdrew their support, and after an unsuccessful attempt to form a Whig ministry, one was finally formed in June, 1846, under Lord John Russel, the most zealous and uniform of the aristocracy in advocating the doctrines of free trade.

But if the bad harvest had contributed to the repeal of the corn laws, it also disappointed the hopes of those who had wished that repeal. In 1847, the potato rot still continued, and there was a short crop of corn, both in England and in almost every part of Europe. Its price, consequently, which the removal of the duties had been expected to reduce, rose nearly to more than double of that it commonly bore. Nor did the evil stop here. The large quantity of grain which England, and yet more Ireland required, swelled the importations so much beyond their ordinary amount, that the export of specie became necessary to pay for the excess; and the banks not being able under their last charter to supply the deficiency of currency, as formerly, by a further issue of notes, that deficiency was felt everywhere, and produced extraordinary commercial embarrassment. The Bank of England, no longer restricted by a usury law, received 8 per cent. on its loans, which were, moreover, far short of the demand; and the 3 per cent. stock of the public debt which had been above par, and once as high as 104, fell to 80. The consequence was, that all that class, which proved to be not a small one, who by delusive appearances of capital, had been trading and living on credit, became declared bankrupts; and the gambling spirit of speculation in grain, which the gains of the first dealers had produced, added a yet more numerous class to the first, after the price fell, as it suddenly did, by reason of a very promising harvest. Never had there been the same number of failures in Great Britain, or the same want of mercantile confidence. The new bank regulations, which some had questioned from the first, began to be generally disapproved, when it was found that while they guarded against the evils of an undue expansion, they had increased those

3

of an undue contraction; and parliament was called at an earlier day to release the bank from some of the restrictions of its charter. But, further exports of specie to pay for corn no longer being necessary, and the vast resources of the nation from her commerce, her manufactures, her immense capital, and her colonial monopoly, having soon supplied her with her usual quantity of specie, the temporary evils of a deficient circulation were forgotten, and the bank charter remained unchanged.

Supposing the corn laws not to be revived, what will be the effect of the abolition? It seems clear that the average price of grain in the United Kingdom will be less than heretofore, and will approach to that of other countries by the amount, or nearly the amount of the duty taken off. This must have the effect of throwing much of the poorer soils now producing corn out of cultivation, and convert them into pasture lands, when the amount of corn they furnished must thenceforth be supplied from abroad. In ordinary years, the supply will be obtained from Dantzic and Odessa, and a part, perhaps, from our western states, through Quebec. It is only, then, when the crop in England is a very short one, that a further aid will be required from the Atlantic States; so that they do not seem to be as materially affected by this change of policy in Great Britain as we had once fondly expected.

In the meantime the success of the Corn Law League, in influencing legislation, seems likely to induce other reformers to adopt the same course of voluntary co-operation, and bring it to bear on such parts of their polity as are injurious, or unpalatable to the majority of the people; in which case, it is for time to show whether these reforms can be safely and peaceably made, as were the Catholic Emancipation, the extension of the right of suffrage, and the repeal of the corn laws; or whether they will result in civil commotion. The ties which bind the different parts of the civil community together-the national debt; the wealth, political power, and prestige of the aristocracy, the influence of the established church, the respect for ancient custom, and the force of habit-all contribute to keep things as they are, and to reconcile the nation to temporizing changes, when change cannot be prevented; but, whether these sedatives can prevail against the agitations of those who are deprived of their share of political power, and whose wealth, intelligence, and influence are steadily increasing, remains to be

seen.

The only open hostilities, besides the war with the Sikhs, in which Great Britain has been engaged within the last two years, was the war with the Kafirs, a rude tribe adjoining the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and that with the natives of New Zealand, who had become jealous of the foreign intruders. But the fortified camp of the

latter having been captured in January, 1846, the refractory chiefs submitted, and quiet was restored to the colony. This island may prove a valuable possession to Great Britain, but the subjugation of its fierce inhabitants will probably be preceded by many such contests as have lately taken place. The Kafir war has lately terminated in submission to British authority.

While the adoption of the free trade policy in England produced disappointment in its results, it has yet more seriously affected her sugar colonies in the West Indies. It was confidently expected by the friends of emancipation that the work of the negroes, when free, would, on the common principles of human action, prove cheaper than it had been when they were slaves. It was not foreseen that, in very hot climates, the ordinary gains of labor often fail to compensate for its irksomeness; yet such has been the fact. The blacks, since they were free, in some of the colonies, particularly in Jamaica and Demarara, will not work over four or five days in the week, and but five or six hours in the day. To secure to the colonies the home market of Great Britain for their sugar, in return for her own monopoly of their trade, and in mitigation of the losses which the planters sustained from emancipation, a duty, amounting to prohibition, was laid on all foreign sugar imported into the United Kingdom. But with this protection, the consequence of the decrease in the amount of agricultural labor, and of the rise in its price was, that the estates everywhere greatly declined in value; the business of making sugar became so unprofitable that many abandoned it; and the quantity annually exported from the British West Indies fell from 114,000 hogsheads (the average of twenty years before the emancipation) to 42,443 hogsheads, (the average of five years after the emancipation.) The reduction in the quantity of coffee has been in the same proportion.

But after the repeal of the corn laws it was expected by the people of England, who were desirous of cheap sugar as well as cheap corn, that the protection which had been taken away from the British agriculturist should not be continued to the West India planters, and, accordingly, Lord John Russel, in 1846, proposed an immediate reduction of the duty on foreign sugar from sixty-three shillings the cwt. to twenty-one shillings; and, by further annual reductions in five years, to subject all sugars, wherever produced, to the same duty of fourteen shillings. This measure was vehemently opposed, on the ground that it would be ruinous to the planters, whose sugar could not be sold as cheaply as that which was produced by slaves, and that it would encourage the slave trade, which England had made. such efforts to put down, by increasing the demand for the slavegrown sugar of Cuba and Brazil. The measure was, however, adopted, and its expected consequences have filled the West Indies with complaint and alarm.