Page:The Three Prize Essays on Agriculture and the Corn Law - Morse, Greg, Hope (1842).djvu/21

 then, be two ways of thinking, as to which side of the question your interest lies? Assuredly not.

After what has been stated, I call upon every elector especially, to dispassionately consider this question of questions, as well as the signs of the times. I am no alarmist. I have no dread of dependence on foreigners, even for food. The large importations we at present annually make show that we have come to that already, as well as for other things almost equally necessary. Neither am I afraid of war, knowing, as I do, that Free Trade is our best guarantee for peace; and that "were subjects wise, war is a game kings would not play at." But I do look with anxiety on the great and extended unions of the working classes, with the Chartist lecturer in every village, pointing to the palace of the wealthy and the wretched hovel of the workman. I am afraid of our institutions when he can say, "You tell us we are unfit to govern ourselves, and you show your fitness to rule by robbing us with your bread tax." Property, whether in land or in accumulated capital, has unquestionably its rights; but is labour, the sole property of the masses, to be less sacredly regarded? Preventing tradesmen and mechanics from disposing of their labour in the best market, by refusing to allow them to take in exchange for it food, the staff of life, is certainly class legislation of the most odious description. With the world or our market, and wise and beneficial laws adjusting fairly to the shoulders of all the heavy weight of our grinding taxation, I have no fear, but a confident anticipation, that a long career of onward progress and prosperity still awaits our beloved land; that our population, increasing even now almost a thousand souls a day, may become so numerous and wealthy that even the cancelling of our untold debt may be readily accomplished. Suicidal madness alone prevents commerce in what is most essential of all, food for the millions of her people.

GEORGE HOPE.

Fenton Barns, by Haddington, N. B., 26th October, 1842.