• . COLONEL TORRENS AND MR. SENIOR. THERE has lieen

a grand passage of arms among the brotherhood of political economists • the chief combatants being Colonel Toe-

sees and Mr. NASSAU economists; SENIOR; the Foreign and Colo- nial Quarterly Review ably seconding the Colonel, and an anony- mous writer in the Morning Chronicle attempting a diversion for his antagonist, by a party attack ; while in private circles, each side among the partisans of the two combatants, spectators round the lists, has alternately been filled with triumph or mortification as its favourite seemed to prevail. The combat has created quite a sensation. This dispute concerns the means of promoting the • wealth of a nation, by increasing the efficacy of its labour, and enabling that labour to obtain the greatest possible amount of equi- valents. Mr. SENIOR advocates " free trade" in the sense popu- larly given to the term—by the Anti-Corn-law League, for in- stance ; that is he advocates free admission by a given •country of all foreign produce, under any circumstances, whether the countries exporting that produce reciprocally-admit the produce of th'egk:en country or not. Colonel TORRENS calls that "one-sided 'free trade,' and contends for "reciprocal free trade." He maintains, that if the given country admit the produce of other countries ' without a reciprocilly.free admission of its own produce on 'their 'Part?;the cbuntry in question will Suffer, injury ; for; while it 'con- sents tol increase the value of labour in those other countries,— enhancing their prices; raising their wages, and strengthening their wealth and public credit,—it permits the very reverse process to be enforced against itself ; and is deprived of its due 'proportion of that increased production which the international difision of employment creates. The disputants are at issue net 'ohly as respects conclusions but also premises. Mr. SENIOR • in- sists that the regulator of value in all exchanges of commodi- ties, domestic or international, is the " cost of production." Colonel TORRENS maintains, that while the cost of production regulates the value in domestic exchanges, where the ready trans- fer of labour and capital from one employment to another, tends to equalize profits, in foreign exchanges that regulator ceases to operate, because numberless social and political difficulties prevent the ready transfer of labour and capital from employments in one country to employments in another; and in foreign exchanges, therefore, value is regulated by demand and supply.. The prac- tical measures which he recommends as founded on his con-

clusions, he thus defines— •

"I. The total abolition of every species of impost upon the impOrtatian'of all foreign productions employed as materials and instruments in the several processes of domestic industry. "2. The establishment of a perfectly free trade between the United King- dom and the Colonies, and between one colony and another; of a British com- mercial league, placing the trade throughout our widely extended empire upon the footing of home trade, and rendering it as free from restriction and

impediment as is the trade between Great Britain and Ireland. , "3. The universal application to all foreign countries of that principle of re- ciprocal freedom of trade, the adoption of which was contemplated by Lord ,

Sydenham in relation to the German Union." _ Such is the matter in dispute. His opinions were promulgated by Colonel TORRENS years ago but recently revived by him in a aeries of pamphlets called The Budget. These pamphlets were reviewed in the Eainburgh Review, it seems by Mr. SENIOR; and Colonel Toa- RENS rejoins in another pamphlet, just issued. The manner of the dispute is, in its way, not less curious. Both parties deal with abstract principles and hypothetical cases;' yet, from their manner, you would fancy they were dealing with the instant emergcncie's of daily life. To read Colonel TORRENS, you would suppose, England on the very verge of ruin from the process of deterioration by "one- sided free trade,"and you would be half inclined to lodge your pro- perty in the Spanish Funds, and emigrate to the Peninsula, as-the least advanced towards that destructive stage of civilization.. On the other hand, Mr. SENIOR denounces his adversary's ratiocina- tions as if Colonel Toettexs recommended some crime ; treats his conclusions as if they were a vicious instigation, which only had to be whispered abroad to set the world in frames. Colonel Tolasels would make you believe the decline and fall of the British empire an affair of tomorrow—so that, waking, you are surprised' to find the day so like yesterday ; and Mr. SENIOR would have you think Colonel TORRENS an advocate for going back to the dark ages, almost to the Druids—till, to your astonishment, you discover in the heretic some of the most pure reason and onward-moving of the nineteenth century. In this closely-linked logic, Colonel Toaasxs has palpably the better of his opponent. He did indeed provoke some irrelevant assault, by turning his abstract reasoning to bear upon the policy of the Whigs, which was not necessary to the scientific inquiry. The incidental question thus raised provoked attack;' a political econo- mist of Whig prepossessions was needed, and Mr. SENIOR came to the rescue. It might be guessed from his conduct of the contro- versy, either that the party points distracted his attention,. or, that he lost his temper and grew heated ; for, without taking pains to make himself master of his opponent's case, he assails him with a congeries of misconceptions. He charges Colonel TORRENS With reviving the " mercantile system," which measures the benefit of a country's foreign commerce by the balance of trade in its favour, or the amount of money which is transmitted to it to settle that balance; while Colonel TORRENS contemplates, not that kind of " balance of trade," but the balance of equivalents for labour. He charges the Colonel, Mr. RICARDO, and Mr. JAMES MILL, with estimating the local value of the precious metals by the compara- tive amount of them in each country ; whereas thoSe writers main- tain that the precious metals have a constant tendency to be at par throughout the world. Overlooking the important fact that his adversary would admit raw material duty-free, Mr. SENIOR labours to show the impolicy of imposing duty on raw material. In short, he assumes, or by some almost inconceivable blunder understands, Colonel TORRENS to intend divers things which he clearly does not intend; and thence comes to the conclusion that the advocate of "perfect free trade" throughout the world is a votary of the exploded "mercantile system." Very different is the Colonel's bearing in the controversy. • In place of cavalier roughness, he treats his brother political ecotici- mist with equal pleasantry and adroitness ; and, addressing'" my dear Senior" with all the agreeable courtesy of a master of fence, draws blood at every lounge. Instead of general charges of " in- consistency" or dogmatical quotation of authority, he dissects his opponent's case ; patiently traces each part to its logicid conclusion ; makes his antagonist answer himself; puts • him at issue with himself, and with his own friends ; and then paifiting to party politics, gives an ingenious turn to the controversy, so as to land Mr. SENIOR among the coarser philosophy, the faction, and ad captandum tactics of the Anti-Corn-law League—all among the lecturers and committee-men and brawling politics of the 'g!eat fact." The subtile skill with which the writer contrives, ha ,the most urbane style, to inflict the process of self-refutation'--to fix his adversary's identification with the Wttigs,as.a _party, awl then to fix him with the reproach of their misdeeds--to convict him of Leaguism, and then exhibit him as if responsib!e, like _a partner, for all the " liabilities " of the adventurers—is a master- piece in controversy. If we select some points in this process, it is rather as specimens of the manner, than as an attempt to show how it is worked out ; which the pamphlet alone can do.

The reason of Mr. Szstoa's unwonted lack of skill in economic disputation is surmised-

" Your conduct might be accounted for on the supposition that your cha- racter, as a philosophic inquirer, has been merged and lost in that of a tho- roughgoing partisan ; and that party connexion and gratitude to party leaders have so distorted your mental vision, that the objects you contemplate can only be seen in inverted order-

". The telescope is turned to your false optics, From party bias false.' "Upon this supposition, your inconsistent and inverted judgments may be accounted for, and in part excused."

The real drift of Mr. SENIOR'S onslaught is discovered ; and cer- tainly that eminent casuist is exonerated from much error, if the object was not to refute but to damage an opponent— "The scope and purport of your article in the Edinburgh Review might per- haps be rendered more distinct and intelligible, wereyour detached propositions arranged in a kind of syllogistic order, as thus :

"' The Whig Ministry, during less than eleven years, effected more for the benefit of the empire than had been done, or attempted, or, apparently, even desired, by their opponents during a rule of half a century; "If Colonel Torrens is right, the practice of Lord John Russell is

erroneous;

"'Therefore the doctrines of Colonel Torrens are to be 'utterly dissented from and repudiated."

Mr. SENIOR vaunts the deeds done by the Whigs in their decade of office : Colonel ToastEss retorts the deeds they prevented. For example-

" In the interesting and instructive memoir of the late Lord Sydenbam, re- cently published by his brother Mr. Poulett &rope, you will see that, when President of the Board of Trade, Lord Sydenham had arrived at the conviction, that to preserve and increase the long-existing trade between Great Britain and Germany, which in value is second to none except that between England and the United States, it was necessary to propose a reduction in our import- duties on the leading articles of German produce, in return for similar con- cessions by the German Union in favour of British manufactures; that the result of his arrangements for the attainment of this most desirable object would have been perfectly successful in obtaining reductions in the German tariff in favour of British manufactures, had it been possible for concessions to be offered in return upon two points of great value to Germany, viz, timber and corn ; but that, on these points, Lord Sydenham's bands were tied by the in- vincible resistance' of the supporters of the British Corn-laws," [Lord Syden- ham's colleagues in the Cabinet].

Thus, the most prominent branch of Free-trade affairs, the Corn question, is introduced. The Whig ruse just now is, to identify the "Liberal" leaders with that repeal of the Corn-laws which they refused when they had the power to grant it ; and Colonel TOR• RENS smokes their attempt to pass again into power among the crowd of Repealers, to whom they do not really belong-

" Will the rising members—the future leaders of the Whig party—those who have already mastered the science of political economy up to the point of Ricardo's discoveries regardiat the principles of international exchange, and who, from their industry and their talents, are yet destined to adopt and to apply the latest improvements of that highest authority in economical science— will they thank you for a defence of the measures of the late Government, im- plying an approval of the principles of the League ? Will they not say, in reference to those members of the Melbourne Cabinet who opposed an 'in- vincible resistance' to the measures of commercial policy proposed by Lord Sydenham-

• Breathe nut their name, let it sleep in the shade.'

The Whig party cannot be borne back to Downing Street upon the shoulders of the Anti-Corn-law League. The Leaguers are the rivals of the Whigs. The ascendancy of the League would be the extinction of the Whig aristo- cracy. And more than this : when the Anti-Corn-law League shall have succeeded in establishing a paramount influence over the electors of the manu- facturing counties and Parliamentary boroughs, they may not be disposed— they may not be able—to pass a self-denying ordinance and to relinquish the guidance of the storm they have raised. When the powers of the House of Commons shall be wielded by the self-constituted Caucus of an electioneering confederacy, the British constitution will have passed away, and England will not be a monarchy."

And so, Colonel TORRENS, having, as people say, "smashed" his antagonist in the main controversy, and laid bare his party weak- nesses, takes leave of "my dear Senior" with the admission, that statements contrary to fact, made under a misconception of fact, are venial errors, but with the belief that be is incapable of ad- hering to statements contrary to fact after the contrariety has been shown. When Mr. SENIOR'S reply to The Budget appeared in the Edinburgh Review, the Whigs were loud in their chuckling, as TORRENS had been proved, they took it for granted, not only an "apostate," but out in his political economy. Wait a bit, said some of the more cautious. Colonel Tottimis has now shown that he has been consistent throughout, and that at least he has not been vanquished in the science by Mr. SENIOR. Perhaps the reason is, that Colonel Tommie is not hampered in his investiga- tion with one awkward and troublesome condition—the necessity of saying something acceptable to a party. Imagine HERSCHELL or Ow; obliged to prove astronomy consistent with the opinion of some Whig Ptot.Eztv, or to square comparative anatomy by the preconceptions of some clique of horse-doctors : Professor Owsw would for once deliver a dull and crude lecture, and Sir Joint would degenerate to a MURPHY.