keep off this point. Sugar, is an article on which you can do much. Besides, no man is obliged to eat sugar unless he likes; so that you can never be accused of cruelty. If there are two ways of getting sugar, a dear way and a cheap,-lay a tax upon the latter. It will clearly create a balance of loss to somebody, exactly equal to the difference; and the inventors of the dear sugar will know they are obliged to you. There is no telling on how many occasions such people may be useful. Tea, is another thing of the same kind; besides, it is unwholesome. Though you may have no place where you can grow a dearer tea, you can send out men to buy it and sell it at a higher price. In this manner you may add considerably to a distress; and it falls on those only who are foolish enough to spend their money in foreign drinks. At the same time, expect some opposition from the ship-owners. But you must get up a race of tea ship-owners, and see that they spend more money than the others, and so they will keep them in check. If these are confined to the metropolis, it will be better; for otherwise they will be scattered, and might be confounded with the rest. If the petty ship-owners, the three-hundred ton' men, set up an outcry, throw out hints of a monopoly of some kind for themselves. Say that the government is exceedingly well disposed to consider, &c. ;-and when the pinch is over, you may forget it, or a minister may be transferred.

If you are clever, you will find a multitude of opportunities for propping up your system, without the necessity of a hint on every particular occasion. In the eyes of a man of genius, every thing falls of itself into two parts; the ways in which it may help his objects, and the ways in which it opposes them. An ecclesiastical establishment may often be made good use of; especially if its members are a minority. For it is clear that such an establishment can do nothing but support you. Concentrate its wealth in as few hands as possible; for one man who has fifty thousand a year by means of you, will exert himself with more effect, than fifty thousand who could do almost as well without you, and would have been nearly as well off if they had been tailors.

When you lay a tax, consider whether by increasing the rate, its operativeness for your particular purpose may not be increased, at the expense of a very moderate diminution of the revenue. In fact there are many taxes, in which if it was possible to increase the rate till the revenue derived from them was nothing, it would be the maximum of good. Such, for instance, are those on literature; where it is clear that your real gain, will be in exact proportion to the unproductiveness of the tax.

Fools do not always find this out; and there is a large proportion of fools among those you have to deal with. It is needless to tell you, that every addition to the expense of collection, is also so much gain. It is finding a living for so many individuals of sure principles, at the expense of those who most probably are of worse.

Remains only your foreign policy. And this, though it may not admit of being made operative directly, admits of it indirectly. Continually bear in mind, that in all governments founded on principles like yours, there is a strong under-current of hate and desire of change, if it is looked for in the proper places. There is therefore virtually a common cause. You may be reduced to many shifts; and often be obliged to do a little, where you would gladly do a great deal. But never let it be absent from you, that to make the most of that little, is the touch-stone of your capacity. And in reality, to serve your friends, does not require such overt acts as men suppose. A quiet encouragement, a lurking intimation of regard, will often produce as much effect as a more open demonstration. Neutrality, is one of the most useful weapons in your armoury; he that can be neutral whenever it suits his purpose, has half the battle in his hands. Whenever interference would be against your friends, you can be loud upon neutrality; when it would be the other way, then neutrality must have its bounds. No insult offered during the prosecution of this system needs move you from your purpose; because it is clear, that whoever is hit, it was not meant for you. If the power from whence it comes is comparatively contemptible, there is only the more reason why you should befriend him; and you may say he is too small to notice. This is a plan that has often been known to answer. Besides, it is necessary to husband your interference, for the case where there should really be a necessity for putting down some great effort. The more cases you can produce of non-interference on the other side, the more easily you may say that non-interference cannot last for ever, and you must interfere in this. Remember that all governments are responsible to each other, for doing nothing whereby the others can be injured; and there is no injury to a government so serious, as allowing its natural enemies to get head in any quarter. Your whole system is but a tottering one; and may fall down like a house of cards at any moment, unless the greatest pains are taken to prevent the first shake. The art of a statesman is avowedly one of the most difficult in the world; and in proportion to its difficulty, is the merit of those who can keep the machine upon its legs in circumstances like yours.

If you are pressed by political opponents at home, the

best resource is impertinence. Be imperious in the Commons, saucy in the Lords; and men will see that you belong to a regular government. But do not get an ill name by trying to maintain too long, what you are conscious you cannot keep. Act like a good general,and retreat as far as is necessary and no farther. There will generally be some small after-ground on which you can make a stand, and escape the imputation of having surrendered a principle. Be not too much disheartened, when you are obliged to give way. The world itself will not last for ever; and the utmost that can be expected from you, is that you shall make things last as long as they can. Have what a sailor calls a good look-out ahead.' There is no instrument so battered, so bankrupt in public opinion, but a game may turn up in which the card may be made to play; and the worse the card is, the more striking is the effect of bringing it into use. Be always ready to drop minor differences, where the greater interest is at stake; a turban may be as useful as a wig, and there is a littleness in being exclusive. In all countries, have a leaning towards the ruling powers; for they are as sheep among wolves. There would be no difficulty in government, if there was not a continual opposition between the governors and the governed. Nevertheless talk liberality, when there is no question of any thing to be done; and you will find the use of it, when you have reasons for avoiding the subject.

Never wander from your principle, that public evil is the fountain of private good. Be convinced that all men have within them a leaning towards acknowledging this truth; and that whenever you try one of them on this ground, you have half a convert before you to begin with. There is no virtue; any thing that goes by that name, is only ignorance of what is to be made by the opposite practice. Study history; for the sake of the proofs it affords of this. Bear in mind that reputations are fallacious, and the applause of the public often ill bestowed; and that nothing can pretend to permanence, which does not begin by keeping up the existing order of things.

Impress on the rising generation, that liberal ideas are illiberal, and unfitting for a gentleman. Allow your young men to be republicans, Greek or Roman, till their fifteenth year; but after that, instil into them, that they must put away childish things, and apply themselves to the realities of life. But this relates only to youth of the higher classes; the rest will know nothing of republics, but by the thanksgiving-days in the book of common prayer, and an indistinct notion that there are some bad people without an established church, living under that title in America.

If by these and other means which your own genius will suggest, you can gain and preserve full power to maintain your system, it is hard if with moderate perseverance you do not raise up a distress. You will see that the operatives,-whom perhaps you thought invulnerable and past your reach,-will be the first that will begin to complain they cannot live. And next you will see the complaints extend themselves upwards, and upwards, and upwards, not exactly in the shape of want of bread, but in the shape of the discovery that every body,-except you and your particulars, who are living on the taxes, and take care that your shares of them shall be such as to make you always comfortable, —is unable to live as he used to do, and is therefore comparatively distressed. Nothing can be more curious, to any body who has a taste for this kind of thing, than to witness the different features of the process. Some curse, some swear,—some turn heathens, some religious, some try resistance, some die drinking the king's health in pump water; - but the greatest part will redouble their eagerness to make something by their neighbours loss, and come to you for the means of carrying it into effect. And here you must act like a good commander, and make the war feed the war. As long as you can deny or evade the acknowledgment of the distress, it is perhaps best to do so; it is so much ground in reserve. The distress will fluctuate; therefore when it is worst, say it will be only temporary; and when it is better, say that it is gone. If you can find any body that is worse off than his neighbours, you may say the distress is partial. Gain time in this way as long as you can. But when all this can be done no longer, the pretty play is, to make the distress contribute to its own support. There will probably be somebody, who will call out for the removal, or at least the relaxation, of your system. Lay hold of this, and use it like wise men. Point to the loss that would follow to the trader who should lose his monopoly; but say nothing of the gain that would arise to the trader in favour of whom it should be opened, nor to the consumer who would gain the difference of price. Appeal to men's humanity whether the first should be allowed; but say nothing of the consequences of the other two. loudly of the cruelty of cheapness, and the hard-heartedness of allowing men to buy at the lowest market; and you will be astonished to see, what a multitude will run after you. Advance stoutly, that high prices of every thing are what make all men rich; and a good half of the nation will follow you, as if you were the bottle-conjuror. If you have been brought up in that line, quote scripture; but, for the House of Commons, Virgil will do as well. When you attack Malthus, attribute to VOL. XIII.-Westminster Review.

Talk

him every thing he has never said, and omit all he has; it has been long approved the best mode of confutation. Encourage poetry; because poetry is fiction, and fiction is what is not true. Besides, the things most immediately dangerous to you, are generally said in prose. Make a great outcry about elegant literature; for distress is an inelegant thing, and elegant literature will never touch it. You may always have writers on your side, if there is any thing to be had from you; and, like the seats in a theatre, the elegance will be in proportion to the price.

It is very useful to have a foreign nation, where you can try experiments which it would not be exactly safe to try at home. The uses of this are two; that you keep your hand in, and that you can contest a point on foreign ground instead of on your own. A good manager will generally make his struggle for prerogative, abroad; there is less lost if it fails, and if it succeeds, the advantage is as real as if it was gained elsewhere. Whenever foreign despotisms begin to give way, there will be danger of reform at home. Experience proves this maxim to be as needful to a statesman of your kind, as butter to a cook. War, in the acceptation of modern publicists, is self-defence against reform; and however just and necessary this may be, it is acknowledged to be better to carry it on in a foreign territory than your own.

If such a course of policy will not create and perpetuate a distress, the attempt may be given up in despair, and it may be set down as proved that the nation experimented on is inaccessible to human agency. And if all or most of the measures proposed, have their actual completion and exemplification in the history of any country with which we have to do,it would not be a far stretch of intellect to infer, that one step towards removing the misery would be to undo them. Let it be done with all the caution-short of standing still-which our ancestors would recommend; but let the trial be made and carried on, whether for every body to rob every body, is not a thing that men could live without. Remember that the demand is not for rash adoption, but for trial. The demand for caution in this world is confessedly so great, that when a wise child has put its finger in the fire, it always perceives the necessity of using a certain degree of caution before it takes it out.