Letter Eighth.

In conclusion, Mr. Editor, allow me now to call your attention to some important facts that present themselves for consideration on a survey of the world at large, as follows:—

The Turkish Empire possesses in an abundance almost every natural advantage. Neverthless, having been forced to submit to British free trade policy, her domestic commerce has disappeared, and she herself has become so utterly ruined that foreign governments are now preparing to administer on her estate, to the end that their own subjects may be enabled to obtain some portion of their claims.

India, forced to submit to a free trade policy, is now, for means with which to pay the mere interest on her debts, wholly dependent on her ability to extend the destructive and infamous opium trade.

Peru, the States of the La Plata, and other of the Spanish American States that have been mainly dependent upon Britain, are in a state of financial ruin.

Australia, self-governing and determined on the establishment of a domestic commerce, is now, on the contrary, so prosperous that immigration is rapidly taking the place of the emigration that had commenced.

Prussia, having, after many years of effort, established for Germany a perfectly free domestic commerce, finds herself now in the lead of one of the most powerful empires of the world.

France, always intelligently protective, is to-day commercially more independent than any other country of the world.

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Prior to 1860 these United States, as has been shown, with two brief and brilliant exceptions, were subjected to an almost free trade system, as a consequence of which exchanges between the North and the South were effected through the port of Liverpool, which thus was constituted the great hub of American commerce. As a further consequence, all the main lines of road ran from west to east, the absence of domestic commerce making it quite impossible that north and south roads could profitably be made. The warp was there but the filling was not, and the more the former grew in size and strength, the greater became the tendency toward separation of those parts of the Union which believed in the freedom of man from those whose belief in the morality of human slavery became more and more confirmed as the necessity for abandoning their exhausted lands, and for transferring their slaves to those of newer States, became more imperative. Of all this the late rebellion was a necessary consequence, the offering thereby made on the free trade altar counting in lives by hundreds of thousands, and in treasure by thousands of millions.—Since 1860, the policy of the country has looked in a contrary direction, toward the establishment of domestic intercourse; as a consequence of which northern and southern roads, by means of which the various parts of the Union are to be tied together, have now been made, with a growth of internal commerce that places the country fully on a par with any other nation of the world. So much, Mr. Editor, for having, although now for only fifteen years, conformed our policy to the teachings of that greatest of economists, Adam Smith.

Compare now, Mr. Editor, the contributions to the general commerce of the world made by those countries whose policy tends toward development of domestic commerce, with those made by communities subjected to the British free trade despotism, and then determine for yourself which are the parties to this discussion most justly chargeable with the "ignorance and imbecility" of which you have so freely spoken; and believe me,