text:  Taxes upon imports have been diminished till on all save a few articles they are now entirely removed; native industry has been exposed with a very slender protection to the competition of foreign states; the restraints on the exportation of machinery has been removed to allow foreign nations every advantage in competing with us; punishment has been alleviated till the penalty of death save in cases of wilful murder has become practically abolished; the liberty of the press pushed the length of allowing without control its utmost licentiousness; unbounded toleration permitted in matters of opinion even so far as generally to proclaim impunity to the worst Chartist or Socialist doctrines; combinations among workmen to raise their wages declared legal and carried into practice on the greatest scale in all the manufacturing districts; a great organic change introduced into the constitution to render Government more thoroughly dependent on public opinion; taxes to the amount of above thirty millions sterling on articles of consumption repealed in less than thirty years; a vast monetary change to lower prices by raising the value of money introduced and steadily enforced in spite of unbounded consequent distress; and the principle of free competition introduced generally as the basis of the social union the only sure guarantee of national prosperity