war, and cannot, therefore, follow in the order of time, the sixty-two and seven weeks."-Hale's Analysis of Sacred Chronology, Vol. ii. p. 518.

When a writer like Dr. Hales takes liberties such as these with the continuousness and the grouping of prophetic periods, the reader can judge how enterpising and adventurous other interpreters may have shown themselves. We wish it were in our power to compare the abstemious fidelity displayed by the Duke of Manchester, in his patient and minute following out every trace of the scriptural delineations with the boldness of which we have given an example. But we must abstain. Ours are not the columns in which prophetical investigation is to be pursued or studied; and we must be contented with the brief summary in which our author gives the result of his inquiry:

"Thus the general summary of my sheme is as follows:

6. • The termination of each of the two periods of seventy years is made a fresh epoch.

"One period of sixty-nine weeks, divided into seven and sixty-two, springs from the decree of Coresch.

"Another period of seventy-one weeks, divided into seventy and one, which one is again halved, springs from the termination of the desolations.

"The period dating from the deliverance out of Babylon ends with the deliverance accomplished by Messiah.

"The period springing from the close of the desolations ends in the apostacy and desolation of the Jews and their city.

I have now only to apply to the unfulfilled part of the prophecy, the infor. mation which we have acquired.

* Times of Daniel, p. 421.

"How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression making desolate?' The transgression making desolate was completed A. D. 67; the portion of time then run out was seventy weeks, or 490 years; which, cut out from 2300, leaves 1810 years current from that time to when the sanctuary shall be cleansed.' According to this calculation, we may look for the cleansing of the sanctuary A. D. 1877."*

We take our leave of the "Times of Daniel," thankful for the gratification we have had in the study of it, and for the instruction with which it has rewarded our labours. The Duke of Manchester may or may not be right. If he be in error, he only shares in "the common lot" of interpreters; if he be right, he has conferred upon students in prophecy, indeed on all who feel due interest in scriptural truth, a benefit not only greater in amount than ever was bestowed be. fore, but also of a kind that had entered into the thought of no one of his predecessors. It is not to be expected that a scheme so novel as the Duke of Manchester's shall make its way rapidly; nor is it, we fear, to be hoped that a very large class of readers will be found to engage in a study from which the superficial will be too soon disheartened. But this we say fearlessly, the student in prophecy or in history, sacred and profane, who remains unacquainted with the views and the arguments advanced in "The Times of Daniel," denies himself information which was essential to the successful progress of his inquiry. For ourselves we can say we took up the volume with the ordinary prejudices

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of the schools" against the conclusion it affirmed. We imagined many an objection as we studied the work, and we learned many an objection from its acute and ingenuous author. But, we are bound to add, we found, as we proceeded in our study, prejudice melt away and objections answered, and are now far more strongly inclined to seek the deliverer of the Jews in the Cyrus of Persian story than in the hero of Xenophon and Herodotus.

WE gladly avail ourselves of the very earliest opportunity of introducing to the notice of our readers, these lectures on that most useful branch of learning-Political Economy. We have no hesitation in saying, that they are the most remarkable that have yet issued from the chair of our University. A science which is chiefly known to us for its long and successful warfare against bounties, restrictions, and protective duties, now hoists for its banner" Advantage of Protection to Home Industry," and in these lectures, arrives at conclusions favourable to such protection, and supports them by a weight of demonstration which is wholly irresistible. remarkable feature presented to us, for the first time in these lectures, not less than the high character of their author, and the growing importance of the science, gives them a claim to our earliest attention.

This

By the terms of the professorship, each professor is bound to publish a, certain number of the lectures which he has delivered. Mr. Butt apologizes, in his preface, for having so long deferred the discharge of this portion of the duties imposed upon him by his office, and he, at the same time, takes occasion to say that their publication at this particular period has no reference whatsoever to the important measures which have lately been introduced by the ministry. This is, indeed, a necessary explanation; for we confess that we were not a little misled by the title of the book, as to the nature of its contents. "Protec

tion to Home Industry: some Cases of its Advantages considered." For what industry, we thought, does Ireland need protection?-what industry has she to protect, but her agricultural industry? Is it conceivable, that at a time when we are menaced with an abolition of that wholesome encouragement which our great and good men of old devised for the upholding of our agri

cultural interests; and on the wisdom of which policy, the power, the renown, the national virtue, which this mighty empire has enjoyed for centuries have stamped their attestation ;—is it possible that a book, coming at such a time, bearing such a title, the work of such an author, should not contain one sentence on the all-absorbing topic of the time? A reference, however, to our author's introduction, explained this apparent anomaly. the time of the delivery of those lectures, in the year 1840, a considerable effort was made for the encourage ment of Irish manufactures; and Mr. Butt, availing himself of the general attention which this endeavour to revive the languishing industry of the country had created for the subject, took occasion to explain to his class the true economical bearings of the mea

sure.

At

Mr. Butt introduces his subject by calling the attention of his class to this circumstance, that the revenue of Ireland consists almost altogether of her agricultural produce that this, and this only, constitutes the funds out of which the wants of all classes of Irishmen, whether necessaries or luxuries, must be supplied; and that whatever we use of the productions of other countries we must pay for by the export of our agricultural produce, and by this way only. He then goes on to explain the effect of encouraging Irish manufactures

"It is proposed to call into existence manufacture at home-a manufacture which we may admit, for the sake of argument, is not equal to competition with those of other countries, and which, therefore, requires a voluntary protection on the part of our people. I cannot see how the creation of such a manufacture would diminish the amount of

agricultural produce that we would raise. It appears to be matter of demonstration that it would increase it. The quantity of agricultural produce

that we now raise is not produced on account of the demand for imported manufacture in this country. We are able, indeed, to pay for the manufac tures we import, because we do raise our present amount of agricultural produce; but from this it is not possible to argue the converse, that we are able to raise the produce because we import the manufactures. Our ability to raise the produce depends, and must depend, upon resources at home. The manner in which we shall apply that produce rests with ourselves.

"So far as our exportation is the result of commerce between us and other countries, it gives us, no doubt, the opportunity of disposing of our revenue to advantage-that is, to the advantage of those who possess a share of that revenue. We must not be led astray by general terms. The advantage is to those, and those only, who have some of that revenue to dispose of; and this is just where the claims of our own countrymen intervene. A certain class of Irishmen have the disposal of a revenue, consisting of the produce of our country which is food for man. In re

turn for this we want manufactured goods; we want to employ that revenue in paying artisans to work upon these goods. We have the choice-we can exercise the choice-whether we will apply that revenue in paying the starving, because unemployed artisan of our own country, or send it abroad to pay those of another.

"If the manufacture produced be higher in price, or inferior in quality, to that which we could import from abroad, we do indeed, by using it, diminish the quantity, or deteriorate the quality of the goods we receive in return for our revenue; but we do nothing more-the revenue itself is not, and cannot be diminished our ability to pay for these goods remains just as it was before. The effect of our using Irish instead of imported manufacture would be, to leave all the present ability of paying for labour undisturbed-to leave, therefore, the amount of our produce the same, but to turn that produce from exportation to feeding our own people."

These extracts will, we trust, sufficiently convey Mr. Butt's opinions on this subject. His views are so clear and so forcibly expressed, and withal appear in themselves so obvious, that we can add nothing to them but the expression of our full and entire accordance; plain and obvious, however, as are these truths, when thus put forward, we are bound to acknow

ledge that until we took up this book they had never occurred to us; and we prize these lectures, not more for their exposition of the effects of encouraging home industry, than because they impress upon their reader the long prevalence of a wrong habit of thought amongst political economists, and caution him-not less by the conclusions at which they arrive than by direct precept-against the errors into which this habit has led.

The habit of which we speak is that of attending to the production of wealth solely, or of not sufficiently regarding its distribution. To such

an extent, indeed, is the prevalence of this habit evidenced by the writings of political economists, that it would almost appear as if it were tacitly assumed that distribution went hand in hand with production, or followed in its train; and that if a nation but produced wealth it must necessarily be distributed amongst her people in certain regulated proportions.

We think that we can account for this habit, by recollecting the circumstances which called political economy, as a distinct science, into being. It may have been said to have been created for the purpose of exposing and overthrowing false schemes and systems, which legislators had devised to facilitate the production of national wealth, With these errors it had first to grapple; in this field its triumphs have been chiefly won; and it thus not unnaturally retains a bias which from its early struggles and successes it contracted. In justice, however, to another eminent political economist, Mr. Senior, one to whom the science is deeply indebted, we are bound to say, that this very view, nay the very case of Ireland, which is now so ably put forward by Mr. Butt, seems to have been once present to his mind, and will be found in his lectures as published in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana. But, strange to say, he uses it there only as an illustration. It receives at his hands no further consideration than is contained in an incidental allusion. Surely no stronger instance could be given of the force of that wrong habit of thought, of which we have just spoken, than this, that this peculiar aspect of the social condition of Ireland should have occurred to Mr. Senior, and, yet, never received from

him further development. It is for any the full and ample development of this subject, that the science is a debtor to Mr. Butt. As to whether he owes the suggestion originally to Mr. Senior; or whether, as we think most likely, his own great quickness of apprehension gave him to see, fully and clearly, the whole bearing of the subject, at the very first impression, is a matter of little moment, and one which we have no means of determining.

The topic next in its importance and general interest which Mr. Butt examines, is that of Irish absenteeism. There are some traces of hasty arrangement throughout these lectures, and more particularly so on this subject;

but notwithstanding, the service which Mr. Butt has rendered the science on this important question, will be at once recognized by the student.

He has availed himself, as he tells us, of the opinions of both Mr. Senior and Dr. Longfield-each of these writers it will be perceived is separately defective. Dr. Longfield, indeed, falls into the great error of supposing that it is the diminished value of our products in the foreign market, caused by the forced exportation, "rather than the exportation of the necessaries of life, that creates, or at least increases the pernicious influence of absenteeism upon Ireland." Mr. Butt has adopted all that Mr. Senior has said, and what was sound of Dr. Longfield, and, as we conceive, has exhausted the subject. He says:

"No mistake could be greater, than to argue from the mere fact of a country having a large export trade, that it is therefore in a prosperous condition. In every case the mere fact of exportation is in its own nature an evil-it is the act by which the country parts with its wealth. It may, or it may not lead to greater wealth coming into the country in return, according to the circumstances under which it is sent away, but the advantage is in the returns; the act of exportation is, in itself, and without reference to its resulting importation, a loss. No mistake could be greater, than to pause in the inquiry upon the simple fact, that we find a nation sending away its substance, and this is all an export trade can evidence. An island of slaves toiling under the lash, for the benefit of task-masters in another country, and retaining nothing

for themselves but what the regulation of the driver allows them, would have their harbours filled with the vessels that were to carry away, to other countries, the products of their toil. Had the land of Goshen been separated from Egypt by the sea, the children of Israel, according to this theory, would have carried on a very thriving export trade in the products of the brick-kiln, when they were bound to supply a certain quantity to their task-masters. Innumerable instances might be adduced of the absurdity of such reasoning. A country bound to pay a subsidy to a foreign state, would be most prosperously affected by such subsidy, if this argument be true. We have already seen, in the very case of Ireland, an instance of this utter untruth. A large portion of the provisions that are annually exported from Ireland, is sent abroad, in the direct shape of a subsidy, to pay the rent of absentee landlords as a debt, it is true, which by the rights of property we owe, and must justly pay-but with just as little advantage to the country from the act of exportation, as, in the case we have supposed, the Israelites would have derived from the exportation of their bricks.

"The true test of the prosperity of a country is not what is sent out of it, but what is used in it. I mean by the prosperity of a country, the comforts which the great mass of its inhabitants enjoy. To ascertain this so far as it is influenced by its trade, we must look, not to the exports, but to the imports—not to what is sent out of the country, but to what is brought into it; and not merely to the value, but to the nature of the imports, and the classes by whom they are to be used."

"Thus, then, so far as we give our goods in exchange for the commodities of other countries, every thing that makes us owe a debt to the countries whose commodities we take-whether it be a subsidy paid to the proprietors of our soil living in those countries, taxes applied to maintain establishments either of war or peace in them, or an excessive taste in our people for their products, beyond the demand that exists in them for ours-depreciates the value of our produce, estimated in the goods of those countries; and so far depreciates them in the market of the world."

"2nd. The depreciation of all our produce in exchange, by forcing an exportation, which must be at a disadvantage."

In noticing the circumstances which led to the delivery of these lectures, we have already explained the reason why they do not contain any allusion to the important measures which are now in agitation in parliament. We have said that these lectures have no direct concern with these great questions. At the time when they were delivered, such a revolution could not possibly have been anticipated: but they would fall very far short, indeed, of the high place which we assign to them as lectures on the science of political economy, if, when on such a subject as "Protection to home industry," they did not contain great leading principles of ready application to the present ministerial measures; and we would be justly obnoxious to wellmerited censure if, having such aid in expounding the plain economical bearings of these measures, we hesitated in doing so. As we do not embarrass ourselves with any minute details and calculations of prices-which, with our present information and total want of experience, cannot but lead to error-but deal only with first principles, we can examine the subject very briefly: reminding our readers merely, once more, that the principles from which we reason, as contained in these lectures, is that for which only Mr. Butt is responsible-the application is altogether our own.

We will first, then, assume that these measures will be efficient ones; if they be not, they are simply useless. We will carry this assumption, without again repeating it, through all our observations on this question.

We

will take it for granted that foreign countries can grow corn much more cheaply than we possibly can, and that when the duty is removed we will be able to import from them on much better terms than we can grow it for ourselves. Assuming this much, which is necessary in order to make the subject worthy of consideration at all, let us see what will be the effects of the sudden removal of the protective du

ties.

First, all inferior soils, the produce of which cannot compete in the market with the growth of the more fertile

foreign lands will be thrown out of cultivation-and, secondly, the rents issuing out of these soils will be no longer paid. Now, many persons adopt this latter result, without sufficiently considering the process by which it is occasioned, but they do so most incorrectly. It is thus that the unfortunate Irish peasantry are taught to reason on the subject by their designing leaders. "Rents must come down," they are taught to cry; and, hugging themselves in this expectation, they look no further as to what other interests must be involved in the ruin. But what is to become of the farmers and labourers who have been employed in the cultivation of these inferior soils? what is to save them from being at once deprived of every means of livelihood? In England they tell us that this portion of the population will find a refuge in the increased demand for manufactures, consequent upon the freedom of trade; but how long must it be before they will be able to adapt themselves to manufacturing industry? What misery, what suffering must there not be endured before they will have accommodated themselves to the change; but in Ireland where there are no such manufactures, no such compensating power, what is to become of the unemployed population?-must they not absolutely starve ?

Will any man be bold enough to say (we have heard it suggested), that the excessive cheapness of labour, occasioned by this extra-redundant population, will have the effect of encouraging manufactures to spring up in Ireland? and that thus the evil will bring its own remedy.— Cheapness of labour!-Why, have we not, for centuries, had labour in Ireland at a rate lower-aye, lowerthan was sufficient to preserve life? and has there been any tendency to such a result as the growth of manufactures? and is it likely that increased want, that aggravated misery, will introduce amongst our people those habits of order, of self-respect, of desire to better their condition, of respect for property and life; the want of which qualities has hitherto prevented the accumulation of capital in Ireland, or driven it from her shores ? These results must inevitably follow a repeal of the corn-laws; there must be, first, a vast amount of inferior land