Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/91

 interest and say, 'By the act of Providence and a windy season, two out of ten of my ships have foundered at sea. Remunerate me out of your rents.' Just as good a joke is the claim of the agriculturalists to consideration for wet harvests."

In a subsequent chapter I shall have to touch on the question of the influence of Free Trade on foreign policy. Those who look only to a larger market for their manufactures are very apt to fall into traps, such as that of the Channel Tunnel — the trap of drawing a nation which nature has placed in an insular situation out of that advantageous position, and placing that nation on a level with the nations which had not that advantage, only to put money into the pockets of certain speculators who use the words "free trade" to serve their passion for speculation.

There is a passage in one of General Thompson's letters to his Constituents, dated London, 20th February, 1836, which bears on this question in some degree, and which I will quote as showing, or at least giving some indication that General Thompson would not have voted for a Channel Tunnel.

"'Lastnight,' he says—that is, 19th February, 1836—'there was a long debate on Russia, Poland, and Turkey, arising"