other taxes, should be levied simply and solely with a view to revenue. No doubt all taxes are evils. We endeavour to solve the problem by taxing pernicious luxuries, such as spirits, heavily; harmless luxuries, and articles of general consumption, not positively necessaries of life, moderately; and necessaries [corn, £4,000,000] and all raw materials of industry, not at all.'

If this be free-trade, then Earl Grey, who laboured so hard, and apparently to so little purpose, to force it upon the colonies, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the free-traders in and out of Parliament, who have made incessant and bitter complaints against the Canadian revenue laws, must now congratulate themselves upon having converted those noble provinces to the free-trade policy of the empire. Canada taxes imports; England does the same both at home and in India. Canada does not tax corn or timber, for she has a surplus; but England does, to the extent of four millions and a quarter a year. Canada taxes manufactured goods which she imports; England does not, for she exports them. Both tax tea, sugar, and coffee lightly; but alcoholic and other nervous stimulants heavily. Both admit raw materials free, but England taxes the most important necessary heavily, though Mr. Laing says she does not-the shilling on corn bringing into the revenue

four millions a year. But 'free-trade has nothing to do with the question!'

It would be a misnomer to call this free-trade, or to say that trade is free, while shackled with such clogs. The revenue from customs alone is £24,000,000, and from customs and excise, £41,448,583. While foreign produce must pay £24,000,000 annually at British ports before it can be admitted to British markets, it is too soon to talk of free-trade being the policy of the empire. By throwing the duty off the raw material and reducing it on bread-stuffs, the British manufacturer must be benefited to this extent, and if foreign nations would, in return, admit British manufactures free, this country would, unquestionably, be highly benefited by the reciprocity. None question the wisdom of this policy for Britain.

Neither the Chancellor of the Exchequer nor any of the early and great expounders of free-trade, have taken such a narrow view of its principles. But statesmen who have the responsibility of providing for the public revenue, find that the necessities of State must limit the application of these theories. Revenue and empire seem both antagonistic to freetrade; in other words, free-trade, fully carried out, would ruin the British exchequer, and break up the British empire. We say nothing of free-trade in the abstract, if, abstractly, such a thing were a possibility.

If

any

believe that they can form in trade, or science, or morals, a theory independently of all facts, they will, at all events, admit that its value is to be found in practice.

However beautiful and noble the theory, none will deny that it has been found inconsistent with the exigencies of the State. So, too, we believe the rigid adoption of free-trade, as the policy of the empire, would be the adoption of an element of dissolution; it would be the introduction into the national system of a centrifugal force too powerful for the centripetal; the cohesion would be loosened, and the distant members of this vast and magnificent empire would fall off.

The Financial Association of Liverpool, in their address to Mr. Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, October 13, 1864, state that he had acknowledged the duty on corn to be impolitic, and yet as to wheat had increased its amount; that the effect of this was undoubtedly to occasion a corresponding increase in the price of all homegrown produce; so that it was, in truth, a protection tax, amounting to some £4,000,000 annually, although we were supposed to have got entirely rid of protection. With really free-trade in the article, this country would speedily become the depôt for the world's surplus corn. It was, therefore, the Asso

ciation complains, exceedingly to be regretted that, instead of taking a penny off the income-tax this year, that penny had not been retained, and the corn-tax abolished.

Mr. Gladstone, in his reply, after admitting that he had given his opinion in his place in Parliament that the tax which still remains on corn is a tax that in principle cannot be defended, makes a statement which ought to be remembered by himself and others when censuring the revenue laws of some of the colonies, namely, that a minister of the Crown must consider what measures will receive the support of Parliament.

'I am not able,' says Mr. Gladstone, 'to accept the doctrine that an error was committed, as the address says, by me, and I must of course say, in order to speak the truth, by the administration of the Queen, when we preferred to ask the House of Commons for the remission of a penny from the incometax, rather than to take off the tax on corn. Now, the simple test to which I bring that question is this: Supposing we had not proposed to take a penny off the income-tax, but had proposed to remit the shilling on corn, during the last session of Parliament-because that is the whole questionthe question of time and circumstances-will you guarantee to me that such a proposal made by Go

vernment would have had success? Direct taxation, I admit, if we were to proceed upon abstract principles, is a sound principle; but, gentlemen, have some compassion upon those whose first necessity, whose first duty, it is to provide for the maintenance of the public credit, to provide for defences of the country, to provide in every department for the full efficiency of the public service. I wish I could teach every political philosopher and every financial reformer to extend some indulgence to those who would ascend along with them, if they could, into the seventh heaven of speculation, but who have weights and clogs tied to their feet, which bind them down to earth. Let no government be induced under the notion of abstract, extensive, sudden, sweeping reforms, to endanger the vital principle of public credit or to risk throwing the finances of the country into

confusion.'

Mr. Gladstone has, with others, found fault with the customs laws of Canada.* Why did he not first

* Mr. Gladstone in his speech on the budget of 1865 (see London papers, April 28, 1865) labours to prove that the malttax of seven millions and a half falls on the consumer; and the Times (April 29) says, 'Mr. Gladstone has conclusively proved that the malt-tax falls on the consumer, and not on the producer.' Why then are not Canadian duties, so much complained of, a tax on the consumer, and not on the English producer? Cotton and woollen goods are much more necessaries for the Canadian than