Page:The Moral and Religious Bearings of the Corn Law.djvu/16

16 which we regard ourselves; to owe no man any thing, but to love one another; to do unto others as we would they should do unto us, we are not to imagine that these precepts relate only to individual action, but should consider them as rules and grounds of national obligation. We have no right, therefore, to pursue the exclusive interest of our own country, even if we could secure it apart from the welfare of other countries. It is not enough that we ask what will promote our own wealth, and honour, and strength; we must take an enlarged and generous view of the good of universal humanity, and inasmuch as a large and liberal commercial intercourse must be no less beneficial to others than to ourselves, we must regard the divine injunctions to impartial love as arguments drawn direct from the Bible in favour of unrestricted trade. But this is not all. We have the express sanction of God on behalf of the course of national conduct which we are advocating. Our text supplies that sanction. Solomon sent to Hiram, king of Tyre, intimating his purpose of building a house for God, requesting that timber might be prepared by his servants for that end, because there were among his own subjects "none that could skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians." In return for this Hiram required a supply of food. The result was a treaty; corn was given on the one hand and skill upon the other; and that we may know that God approved of this, we are told, in close connection with the mention of the league, and in reference to it, that "the Lord gave Solomon wisdom."

Now, what are the facts as to our own country in relation to other countries? We have an immense population already, and it is increasing at the rate of a million within less than three years; we have attained to a most important position as a manufacturing nation, and we have the means of attaining to a still more important one. But we cannot grow corn enough for our own consumption, and even the present supply is, to a considerable extent, the fruit of a law which induces men to grow corn on land which was never meant for