most commonly favourable to those raised in districts having a different soil or climate. A failure of the crops throughout an extensive kingdom is a calamity of rare occurrence; and there is no instance of a simultaneous failure of the crops throughout the commercial world. It is observed by Gibbon, that those famines which so frequently afflicted the infant republic were seldom or never experienced by the extensive empire of Rome. The accidental scarcity of any single province was immediately relieved by the plenty of its more fortunate neighbour.' Holland, during the days of her greatest prosperity, was chiefly fed on imported corn; and prices in Amsterdam were comparatively moderate, and fluctuated less than in any other market of Europe. The experience, in a word, of all ages and nations proves that freedom is the best antidote to those sudden fluctuations in the price of corn that are so exceedingly ruinous to all classes of the community, and most of all to the farmer.

"But while the freedom of commerce is productive of plenty, cheapness, and what, perhaps, is of still more importance, steadiness of price, monopoly is 'the parent of scarcity, of dearness, and, above all, of uncertainty.' When a rich and highly populous country like England excludes foreign produce from her markets, the necessity under which she is placed of resorting to inferior soils for supplies of food, raises her average prices above those of the surrounding countries. Hence, when an unusually luxuriant crop occurs, no portion of the surplus produce can be exported until the home prices have fallen much below their common level. The real object of the corn-law of 1815, which prevented the entry of foreign wheat for consumption until the home price reached 80s., was to keep the price steadily up to that level. But the slightest acquaintance with the principles of economical science would have taught the framers of that law that it could not effect the object in view. To maintain prices in any particular country at a forced elevation, it is necessary, not only that foreign corn should, under certain circumstances, be excluded, but that its markets should never be overloaded with corn of its own growth. For it is clear, according to the principle now explained, that if the supply should, in ordinary years, be sufficient to support the population, it must,, in an unusually productive year, be more than sufficient for that purpose; and it is equally clear that, in the event of such a case occurring, its merchants could not export any portion of its surplus produce until prices had fallen below the level of the surrounding countries. Now this was the precise situation of this country at the return of peace in 1815. Agriculture had been so far extended previously to the opening of the ports of Holland in 1814, as to furnish a nearly adequate supply for our con Fumption. And such being the case, it was obvious that the first luxuriant Crop would sink prices; and that the market could not be relieved by exportation until they had sunk about 50 per cent. under what was then reckoned the lowest growing price!"

On the soundness of the policy favouring treaties of commerce between nations, I may have again to treat; but it Table while on the theory of the matter to give the following be admay quotation from Vattel, who says,—

"All men ought to find on earth the things they stand in need of. In the primitive state of communion they took them wherever they happened to meet with them, if another had not before appropriated them to his own 1870.

D

use.

The introduction of dominion and property could not deprive men of so essential a right, and consequently it cannot take place without leaving them, in general, some means of procuring what is useful or necessary to them. That mean is commerce; by it every man may still supply his wants. Things being now become property, there are no means of obtaining them without the owner's consent; nor are they usually to be had for nothing; but may be bought or exchanged for other things of equal value. Men are therefore under an obligation to carry on that commerce with each other, if they wish not to deviate from the views of nature; and this obligation extends also to whole nations or states. It is seldom that nature is seen in one place to produce everything necessary for the use of man; one country abounds in corn, another in pastures and cattle, a third in timber and metals, &c. If all these countries trade together, as is agreeable to human nature, none of them will be without such things as are useful and necessary; and the views of Nature, our common mother, will be fulfilled. Further, one country is fitter for some kind of products than another, as, for instance, fitter for the vine than for tillage. If trade and barter take place, every nation, on the certainty of procuring what it wants, will employ its land and industry in the most advantageous manner, and mankind in general prove gainers by it. Such are the foundations of the general obligation incumbent on nations reciprocally to cultivate com

merce.

The following quotation from the speech of William Pitt, when he introduced his Treaty of Commerce with France in 1786, disposes with great ability of many of the foolish objections with which the present Treaty with France was and is assailed. He said,

"France was, by the peculiar dispensation of Providence, gifted, per haps more than any other country upon earth, with what made life desirable, in point of soil, climate, and natural productions. It had the most fertile vineyards and the richest harvests. The greatest luxuries of life were produced in it with little cost, and with moderate labour. Britain was not thus blessed by nature; but, on the other hand, it possessed, through the happy freedom of its constitution, and the equal security of its laws, an energy in its enterprise, and a stability in its exertions, which had gradually raised it to a high state of commercial grandeur; and not being so bountifully gifted by heaven, it had recourse to labour and art, by which it hád acquired the ability of supplying its neighbours with all the artificial embellishments of life, in exchange for their natural luxuries. Thus standing with regard to each other, a friendly connection seemed to be pointed out between them, instead of that state of unalterable enmity which was falsely said to be their true political feelings towards one another."

Having triumphantly refuted the commercial arguments against the treaty, Mr. Pitt inquired, in answer to an argument inculcating constant jealousy of France," whether, in using the word jealousy, it was meant to recommend to this country such a species of jealousy as should be either mad or blind; such a species of jealousy as should induce her either madly to throw away what was to make her happy, or blindly grasp at what must end in her ruin. Was the necessity of a personal animosity with France so evident and

pressing that for it we were to sacrifice every commercial advantage we might expect from a friendly intercourse with that country? or was a pacific connection between the two kingdoms so highly offensive that even an extension of commerce could not counterpoise it? The quarrels between France and Britain had too long continued to harass not only those two great nations themselves, but had frequently embroiled the peace of Europe,-nay, they had dis turbed the tranquillity of the most remote parts of the world. They had, by their past conduct, acted as if they were intended for the destruction of each other; but he hoped the time was now come when they would justify the order of the universe, and show that they were better calculated for the more amiable purposes of friendly intercourse and mutual benevolence." "Considering the treaty," he continued, "in a political point of view, he should not hesitate to contend against the too frequently advanced doctrine that France was, and must be, the unalterable enemy of Britain. To suppose that any nation was unalterably the enemy of another was weak and childish. It had neither its foundation in the experience of nations nor in the history of man. It was a libel on the constitution of political societies, and supposed diabolical malice in the original frame of man."

That the principles here advocated were appreciated by our merchants in the early part of this century is evident from the petitions of the merchants of London presented to the House of Commons on 8th of May, 1820. Petitions to the same effect were also presented from all the great trading and manufacturing towns. That from the merchants of London was drawn up by Thomas Tooke, Esq., the eminent author of a work on "Prices." I venture to quote a paragraph or two from this petition :

"That the prevailing prejudices in favour of the protective or restrictive system may be traced to the erroneous supposition that every importation of foreign commodities occasions a diminution or discouragement of our own productions to the same extent; whereas it may be clearly shown that, although the particular description of produce which could not stand against unrestrained foreign competition would be discouraged, yet, as no importation could be continued for any length of time without a corresponding exportation, direct or indirect, there would be an encouragement, for the purpose of that exportation, of some other production to which our situation might be better suited; thus affording at least an equal, and probably a greater, and certainly a more beneficial employment to our own capital and labour.

"That of the numerous protective and prohibitory duties of our commercial code, it may be proved that while all operate as a very heavy tax on the community at large, very few are of any ultimate benefit to the classes in whose favour they were originally instituted, none to the extent of the loss ccasioned by them to other classes.

"That among the other evils of the restrictive or protective system, not the least is that the artificial protection of one branch of industry, or source of production, against foreign competition, is set up as a ground of claim by other branches for similar protection; so that if the reasoning

upon which these restrictive or prohibitory regulations are founded were followed out consistently, it would not stop short of excluding us from all foreign commerce whatsoever. And the same train of argument which, with corresponding prohibitions and protective duties, should exclude us from foreign trade, might be brought forward to justify the re-enactment of restrictions upon the interchange of productions (unconnected with public revenue) among the kingdoms composing the Union, or among the countries of the same kingdom."

Coming to a more recent but no less eminent author, I now give a few quotations from the work of Mr. John Stuart Mill, on the "Principles of Political Economy," setting out with an extract from what he says as to the Corn-Laws:

"One of the commonest cases of discriminating duties is that of a tax on the importation of a commodity capable of being produced at home, unaccompanied by an equivalent tax on the home production. A commodity is never permanently imported unless it can be obtained from abroad at a smaller cost of labour and capital on the whole than is necessary for producing it here. If therefore, by a duty on the importation, it is rendered cheaper to produce the article than to import it, an extra quantity of labour and capital is expended without any extra result. The labour is useless, and the capital is spent in paying people for laboriously doing nothing. All custom duties which operate as an encouragement to the home production of the taxed article are thus an eminently wasteful mode of raising

8 revenue.

"This character belongs in a peculiar degree to custom duties on the produce of land, unless countervailed by excise duties on the home produc tion. Such taxes bring less into the public treasury, compared with what they take from the consumers, than any other imposts to which civilized nations are usually subject. If the wheat produced in a country is twenty millions of quarters, and the consumption twenty-one millions, a million being annually imported; and if on this million a duty is laid which raises the price ten shillings per quarter, the price which is raised is not that of the million only, but of the whole twenty-one millions. Taking the most favourable but extremely improbable supposition that the importation is not at all checked, nor the home production enlarged, the State gains a revenue of only half a million, while the consumers are taxed ten millions and a half, the ten millions being a contribution to the home growers, who are forced by competition to resign it all to the landlords. The consumer thus pays to the owners of land an additional tax, equal to twenty times that which he pays to the State. Let us now suppose that the tax really checks importation. Suppose importation stopped altogether in ordinary years; it being found that the million of quarters can be obtained by a more elaborate cultivation, or by breaking up inferior land at a less advance than ten shillings upon the price-say, for instance, five shillings a quarter. The revenue now obtains nothing, except from the extraordinary imports which may happen to take place in a season of scarcity. But the consumers pay every year a tax of five shillings on the whole twenty-one millions of quarters, amounting to five and a quarter millions sterling. Of this the odd £250,000 goes to compensate the growers of the last million of quarters for the labour and capital wasted under the compulsion of the law. The remaining five millions go to enrich the landlord as before.

"Such is the operation of what are technically termed corn-laws, when first laid on; and such continues to be their operation, so long as they have any effect at all in raising the price of corn.

"The repeal of corn-laws tends to lower rents, but it unchains a force which, in a progressive state of capital and population, restores and even increases the former amount. There is every reason to expect that, under the virtually free importation of agricultural produce, at last extorted from the ruling powers of this country, the price of food, if population goes on increasing, will gradually, but steadily, rise, though this effect may, for a time, be postponed by the strong current which, in this country, has set in (and the impulse is extending itself to other countries) towards the improvement of agricultural science, and its increased application to practice." On the subject of taxes on commodities generally, Mr. Mill says:

"There is one more point, relating to the operation of taxes on commodities conveyed from one country to another, which requires notice; the influence which they exert on international exchanges. Exery tax on a commodity tends to raise its price, and consequently to lessen the demand for it in the market in which it is sold.

"Taxes on foreign trade are of two kinds-taxes on imports and on exports. On the first aspect of the matter it would seem that both these taxes are paid by the consumers of the commodity; that taxes on exports consequently fall entirely on foreigners, taxes on imports entirely on the home consumer. The true state of the case, however, is much more complicated."

I dare not, for fear of intruding on space, quote the examples by which Mr. Mill illustrates the subject, but any reader will find them by referring to page 513 of the People's Edition of the work named; viz., "The Principles of Political Economy."

On the subject of taxing imports, I must crave the reader's indulgence for the introduction of the following extract from the same excellent work:

"Those are, therefore, in the right who maintain that taxes on imports are partly paid by foreigners; but they are mistaken when they say that it is by the foreign producer. It is not on the person from whom we buy, but on all those who buy from us, that a portion of our custom duties spon taneously falls. It is the foreign consumer of our exported commodities who is obliged to pay a higher price for them, because we maintain revenue duties on foreign goods.

"There are but two cases in which duties on commodities can in any degree or in any manner fall on the producer. One is, when the article is strict monopoly, and at a scarcity price. The price in this case being only limited by the desires of the buyer; the sum obtained for the restricted supply being the utmost which the buyers would give rather than go without it; if the Treasury intercepts a part of this the price cannot be further raised to compensate for the tax, and it must be paid for from the monopoly profits. A tax on rare and high-priced wines will fall wholly on the growers, or rather on the owners of the vineyards. The second case in which the producer sometimes bears a portion of the tax, is more important: the case of duties on the produce of land or of mines. These might