Empire for the last thirty years.* From this interesting table, it appears that the population in the great cities of the Empire has in general tripled, and that of the manufacturing counties doubled since 1801, while the increase in the agricultural districts has in general not been more than twenty or thirty per cent. The result of the whole has been, that while in 1700 it was calculated by the statistical writers of the day that the urban was to the rural population as I to 2 nearly, it is now so far altered that the proportion is as 2 to 1, there being in England and Wales 773,000 families employed in agriculture, which at 5 persons to a family, gives 3,865,000 individuals; while in manufactures and other employments there are no less than 1,572,000 families, or at the same rate 7,860,000 individuals. The individuals em

ployed in agriculture, therefore, are, in England, to the urban population, as four millions to eight millions nearly, that is, as 1 to 2; a proportion

unparalleled in any State of similar dimensions in ancient or modern times, and fraught with a degree of danger to our political institutions, and very existence as a nation, of which we are far at present from appreciating the magnitude.‡

During the tumult of gratitude, exultation, joy, and enthusiasm, which followed the termination of the war, no one perceived, and few foresaw, the alarming consequences of this disproportion; but as years rolled on, and the excitement of the moment passed away, its effects upon the balance of power in the State gradually developed themselves. Urban interests, democratic ascendency, began to be systematically advocated; the strength of the Opposition in the House of Commons steadily increased; and Government, to retain its popularity, and avoid a perpetual collision with a clamorous and growing faction, insensibly slid into the fatal system of disarming the popular party by anticipating its

demands. Who began this ruinous system; by whom it was first matured; what delusion induced successive Administrations to imagine, that by constantly conceding to the wishes of the city or republican interest, they could permanently maintain our monarchical institutions, it is the province of the historian to enquire. Suffice it for us to observe, that it evidently and steadily was adopted; and that the cause of the change is to be found, not so much in the weakness and vacillation of particular men, as in the feeling of a common pressure, and the advent of times, when, without some change to meet and counterbalance the prodigious alteration in the balance of the town and country parties, which had taken place during the revolutionary war, it was hardly possible for any Administration to exist but on temporary shifts and ruinous concessions.

This tendency was increased, and in fact rendered irresistible, by the changes which in 1819, 1822, and 1826, took place in the currency of the nation. It is not our intention at present to enter into that much disputed and intricate question; still less to enquire, whether it was unavoidable, and whether the evils which have arisen from the adoption of the new system, the return to a metallic currency, and suppression of small notes, were or were not greater than those which would have attended an adherence to the old. Suffice it to say, that the thing was done, and that the change thus introduced has nearly doubled the strength of the town or democratic party, while it has reduced to a half the resources of productive and rural industry throughout the country. Grain, and with it almost all the articles of life, have been lowered fifty per cent in consequence of that change the average price of wheat from 1814 to 1819 was 78s. the quarter; whereas the average price for the last five years has been 62s., and it is now, apparently steadily, under 50s.* Every body knows, that in the purchase of food, clothing, luxuries, and all the articles of commerce, L.100 will go as far now

as L.150 would have gone fifteen years ago.

If the nation had been entirely clear of public and private debt, this change, how great soever, would not have been attended with any alteration in the relative situation of the Democratic and Conservative parties; but, unfortunately, this was not the case; and what was still more decisive against the latter of these bodies, the portion of the community who were to be benefited by the change, were, for the most part, resident in towns, while that which was to be injured, in great part resided in the country. The holders of stock or Government securities of every sort, of bonds, mortgages, and open account, in short, the whole class of creditors, found themselves fifty per cent richer by the change; while the debtors in their obligations, that is, the industrious classes, who had borrowed money in order to carry on their various undertakings, found themselves proportionally burdened. The former, almost all, were congregated in towns, while the greater proportion of the latter were scattered over the country, and carried on the immense and varied branches of industry by which the agricultural classes of the state were supported. Hence, for the last fifteen years, an increasing and most painful alteration has taken place in the relative situation of the town and country parties: the former, generally speaking, have been continually increasing in riches, comfort, and prosperity, while the latter have as steadily been declining, labouring, and unhappy. Exceptions have arisen from local causes, but this has been the general character of the condition of the two classes during that period. Estates have been brought to the hammer, old families have melted away, the landed property has in great part passed into other hands; farmers have been distrained, sequestrated, exiled; Canada has been overrun with British cultivators, and the foundations of a greater empire than England laid on the St Lawrence; while the towns in the British Isles have, during the same time, doubled in size and quadrupled

in splendour; while the increasing magnificence of shops has every where attested the growing wealth of their customers; and the multi tude of open carriages, as well as the vast increase of upholsterers and dealers in luxuries of every description, has given unequivocal proof of the well-being of the middling orders in that class of society.

The continued operation of these causes not only weakened the strength of the country or Conservative party to a very great degree, but totally altered the feelings with which a large proportion of it regarded the Government. Finding themselves every day growing poorer, they knew not from what cause,-feeling their resources melting away, they knew not how, they became discontented with the Administration under which these calamities had arisen. Their feelings were embittered, their sufferings aggravated, by the painful contrast which their condition offered to that of the holders of money, which was continually improving. The constant refusal of the Legislature to enquire into their distresses, or even admit their existence, obliterated their feelings of loyalty, and at length disposed them to lend a willing ear to the clamour of the demagogues, who represented it as all owing to the government of an Oligarchy, and as only susceptible of remedy by Parliamentary Reform.

The effect of this change in the relative strength of the urban and country parties, soon developed itself. The Whigs, as the leaders of the popular party, rapidly veered round to the support of city and democratic interests. Departing altogether from the old and steady principles of Whig opposition, which were to support the country against the Court party, they uniformly, and on all occasions, advocated the interests of the town, that is, the consumers, in preference to the country, that is, the producers. The Free Trade system-the abandonment of the Navigation Laws-the changes in the Currency, were all the consequence of this vigorous support of city wishes, in opposition to that of all the other great interests of industry in the State. The Whigs soon discovered that their chief support lay in great towns; that it was among

their dense masses and inflammable population that the democratic passion burned most strongly, and that by steadily advocating their interests, and assuming an extraordinary appearance of zeal in their service, they could acquire a degree of influence in the Legislature, which they would look for in vain amidst the steadier feelings and less corrupted principles of the rural population. Philosophy and talent lent their aid to the same designs; the noble science of Political Economy was made subservient to the purpose of party, and the advance of individual interests; and the flower of our youth, seduced by the names of Ricardo and M'Culloch, and led away by the general illusion in favour of liberal principles, flattered themselves they were adopting the principles of justice and liberality, when, in fact, they were merely advocating the interests of a noisy democracy in town, in opposition to those of more useful, but silent and unobtrusive industry, in the country.

We shall in a future number develope the effects of this alarming increase of city influence, in the Free Trade system, the abandonment of the Navigation Laws, the change in the Currency, and the shameful oppression of our West India Colonies; measures, one and all, prescribed by the same blind submission to the dictates of town democracies, the same weak concession to clamour in a few spots in these islands, and the same partial and unjust disregard of the suffering thereby produced on far more important, but distant and unrepresented, interests. We shall tear aside the veil which our liberal Ministers have so long thrown over the effect of this town-directed legislation, and demonstrate as clearly as that two and two make four, that under its influence, our foreign commerce and shipping interests are melting away, and the wooden walls of old England rotting under the suicidal hands of her own children. We shall exhibit a decay in British, and a growth in foreign tonnage, hitherto unaccountably overlooked, but now completely demonstrated, by the return laid before Parliament; and prove, that if the same system goes on for ten years longer, our maritime su

periority will be at an end, and our very existence as a nation endangered. We shall exhibit also the monstrous injustice to which our West India Colonies have so long been subjected; forced in the first instance to cultivate by means of slaves, and burdened with a numerous and costly black population; next saddled with a tax on their produce, as heavy on them as a duty of fifty shillings on every quarter of wheat raised in England, would be on the British farmer; and now exposed, for a most inadequate compensation, to the incalculable evils of an idle, disorderly, and vagrant black population. On these great and varied subjects we cannot at present enter, flowing, though they do, directly and immediately from the principles now unfolded, and fraught as they are, in their ultimate consequences, with the certain destruction of the Empire. The important point for present consideration iswhat has been the effect of this vast increase of cities and urban interests in Great Britain on the power of Government, and the stability of the Throne, acting as they now do directly on the Legislature, through the portals opened by the Reform Bill? The danger from that cause is now still more pressing.

The increasing influence of the democratic and urban parties for the last twenty years, and the evident diminution in the strength of the rural or Conservative interest from the burdens with which they were oppressed, should have suggested to every Statesman who reflected on profound principles, the necessity of providing some barrier against the imminent danger which was thus arising. He must be little read in history who is not aware, that the middling and lower orders in towns are generally attached to democratic principles, and that this obtains in an especial manner, where the great bulk of the urban population is engaged in handicraft occupations, and exposed to the contagion arising from the congregation of large masses of mankind together. The great advance, both in numbers and opulence, which had taken place in the towns of Great Britain, during the last thirty years, had evidently increased to a most extraordinary

degree both the numbers and energy of the democratic party; and it was equally obvious, that from the prostration and suffering of the agricultural classes, no cordial or effective co-operation was to be expected from them. It became the duty of a prudent Statesman to consider, whether it was not possible to discover in the urban population itself, recently become so powerful, both from numbers, wealth, and intelligence, the means of counteracting the extravagance, and restraining the designs of its lower and more numerous members.

Now, there can be little doubt that such co-operation could have been obtained. Although the inhabitants of commercial and manufac turing towns are, generally speaking, inclined to democratic principles, there is always a portion, and, from its intelligence and wealth, a most important portion of such communities, strongly attached to the Conservative side, and the true principles of government. Wealth, whether made in commerce or manufactures, is averse to spoliation. Education, if carried the length of really instructing the mind, cannot fail to demonstrate the perilous nature of the anarchical designs which are allpowerful with the lower orders. Intelligence, whether acquired in town or country, soon perceives that it must be the first to be trodden under foot, when the lower orders are installed in supremacy. These causes are so powerful and universal in their operation, that they ever have, and ever must, produce an important body in every great town strongly attached to the principles of order, and from their proximity of situation, and habits of business, better qualified to give it efficient support, than those of the same way of thinking who are scattered over the wide surface of the country. Accordingly, the nucleus, the heart and kernel of the Conservative party, over the whole kingdom, is to be found in towns; in the respectable and highly educated classes of cities; in men possessed of historical and political information, and therefore qualified to form a judgment on public affairs. The most dangerous and the most valuable classes of the community are there brought into