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A GOOD specimen of pungent humor, not always observant of time or place, is given by Lord Eldon Upon one of the royal marriages, there being much talking during the ceremony, in one corner of the drawing-room, Lord Ellenborough exclaimed," Be silent in that corner of the room, or you shall be married yourselves."

are not eliminated by any of the secretory organs; a small portion only is evaporated by the lungs. If the quantity taken be very great, the arterial blood preserves the color of venous blood, and alcohol may induce apoplexy. Alcohol, under the influence of oxygen, incessantly introduced into the system by the respiration, may be immediately converted into water and carbonic acid, but in many cases ascetic acid has been obtained.-A paper was received from M. Lassaigne on the air of crowded rooms. The author proves that the carbonic acid is found in the entire mass of air in

the room-and that the partial admission of fresh air will not suffice for the purposes of health.—

Athenæum.

into old Rome by her gigantic aqueducts! And how discreditable the difference between the two capitals, when we reflect on the far superior resources which modern science has placed at her command, and on the well known fact, that, through the happy constitution of the strata on which London stands, she has at her command-requiring as it were, but the smiting of the rock, to make them gush forth-boundless supplies of the purest pos

THE EGYPTIAN PEA.-Several years ago, Sir Gardiner Wilkinson found a vase and an Egyptian sarcophagus, 2,844 years old, in a mummy pit, which he subsequently presented to the British Museum. On examination, the vase was found to contain a few grains of wheat, a few peas, and other decomposed matter, supposed to have been originally similar substances. Three of the peas were presented by P. J. Pettigrew, Esq., to Mr. SUPPLY OF WATER TO ROME AND LONDON.W. Grimstone, of the Herbary, Highgate, who, A correspondent of the Mechanics' Magazine has on the 4th of June, 1844, planted them in a com- the following speculations on the relative supplies post resembling the alluvial soil of the Nile. They of this important agent of health and comfort to were placed in a forcing frame, and in exactly one modern London and ancient Rome: The prob month he was most agreeably surprised by the able supply to the 1,000,000 inhabitants of which sprouting of one of them. The product was nine- Rome could at one time boast, amounted to teen pods, from which fifty-five peas were pre- 50,000,000 cubic feet-being equal to about 50 served. Some of these were planted on the 23d cubic feet for each individual. This is probably of April, 1845, and some on the 4th of June, in 20 times the quantity which London now receives the open air, and in a similar compost, and all for each of its inhabitants a fact which goes far were soon in a most flourishing condition, pro- to justify the application of the disgraceful term ducing quite a plentiful crop of seed. The Egyp-bathless' to this the largest, the most opulent, tian pea is very prolific, producing from seventy to and the most powerful city in the world. How one hundred pods. The tree grows similarly to miserably insignificant do our water-works appear, a dwarf grape vine, about three feet in height, and and how trifling the supply they furnish to this has many stems, two or three mother stems gene- mighty city of more than 2,000,000 when contrastrally springing from the parent stalk.-Britannia.ed with the immense flood of pure water poured PARIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.-July 13.-A paper was read by M. Séguier on the construction of railroads. M. Séguier is an advocate for railroad travelling; and is of opinion that a very much greater rate of speed than that which is now attained could be adopted with perfect safety, if proper care and skill were taken in the construction of the roads and of the material, and due skill and attention manifested by the persons employed. He thinks, however, that any rate of speed however small, is dangerous, when all the conditions PARTIAL DESTRUCTION OF THE HIPPODROME AT of safety are overlooked. He indignantly notices PARIS.-A terrible fire broke out at the Hippothe indifference to human life in the construction drome about three o'clock on Monday morning, of railroads on the border of precipices without and reduced to ashes a portion of that building. parapets in the mode of making tunnels and via- The guardian perceiving that considerable smoke ducts-in that of laying down the rails, &c. He issued from the side of the stabling, immediately suggests many improvements-and particularly one gave the alarm, and the most prompt assistance to which he attaches great importance. He rec- was immediately organized: but every effort was ommends a middle rail with a centre wheel for the unavailing to save the building, and part of it was locomotive; by which means the weight would totally destroyed. The fire unfortunately broke have an equal bearing, instead of throwing it all on out in the most valuable part of the edifice, where the sides, and thus rendering a déraillement almost were situate the stables, the hay and corn lofts, as inevitable in the event of any sudden shock.—well as the dressing rooms. The halters of the MM. Bouchardat and Sandras completed their horses were immediately cut, and the frightened series of communications on the digestion of food, stud were seen to gallop in every direction, some by an article on the effect of alcoholic liquids. towards Paris, others towards the wood of Boulogne. They state that these liquids do not undergo in the The sight was a most extraordinary one, and those apparatus of digestion any other change than that who witnessed above a hundred horses, with their of being weakened by the gastric juice and mucus, manes erect and their nostrils dilated, flying in all the saliva, and the other liquids which may be directions, might have imagined they witnessed a present. The absorption of alcoholic liquids is ef- real Barbary chase. The cries of the monkeys fected by the orifices of the veins. It is particu- were truly frightful, and some difficulty occurred larly in the stomach that this takes place, when in saving them. Every one endeavored to catch these liquids are taken in excess or mixed with them, and a large ape in particular was caught with sugar. The absorption, however, may be con- considerable trouble, the animal preventing every tinued throughout the intestines. The chyliferous one approaching him by throwing stones, chairs, vessels perform no part in this absorption. Spirit- everything in his reach at the persons who attemptnous liquors, when introduced into the circulation, led to seize hold of him.—Examiner.

sible water!"—Athenæum.

REVIVAL OF JOHANNA SOUTHCOTISM.-For some time past, the most active exertions have been made by the surviving followers of Johanna Southcote, and several rooms, termed chapels, been opened at various parts of town; and numerous preachers, chiefly females, hold forth every Sabbath on Kennington Common and other public places, intimating the near approach of the only true Shiloh.

DISAPPEARANCE OF A LAKE-It is announced, from Inspruck, that the inhabitants of the valley of Oetzthel, in the Tyrol, have just been witnesses of an extraordinary event; not claiming, however, the character of a phenomenon-inasmuch as the cause is apparent, and of the most ordinary kind. The waters of the lake of Vernagther have suddenly disappeared; having flowed out, in a single night, through a large opening broken through the bottom of their basin.

enclosed with a stone wall, about fifteen feet high and ten thick. This wall serves the double purpose of enclosing the ground and as a place to deposit the dead. Little niches are made in it large enough to receive a coffin, like the pigeon-holes in a desk.

The whole area, is laid off in gravel walks and bordered with flowers and shrubbery, and beautiful marble tombs all over it. Lamps are always kept burning at night, and altogether I have never seen any other last resting-place which had so little gloom about it.

The lower classes are buried in other places and without coffins; they are carried to the grave on rude litters, but the children and women generally on beds made of roses and other flowers.

The wife of General Canalizo died whilst he was President ad interim, during the absence of Santa Anna. She was embalmed and had a pair of glass THE NILE.-Mr. Nasmyth, the eminent en- eyes inserted, and lay in state for several days, gineer is constructing two of the powerful machines gorgeously dressed and glittering in jewels; every invented by him for driving piles, and which are to one was admitted to the great chamber of the palbe employed in the great works at present in pro-ace where the body was exposed. It was a most gress, by order of Mehemet Ali, for damming up the Nile, and rendering the irrigation of Lower Egypt in a great measure independent of the annual rising and overflowing of that river.

In the House of Commons, on the 9th of July, a somewhat curious petition was presented, of which the following notice is given :

revolting spectacle, and all the more so to those who knew the modest, gentle and unostentatious character of that very uncommon woman. She seemed to be unconscious of the great dignity of the situation to which her husband had been elevated, and spent her whole life in acts of charity and benevolence, and was singularly averse to all sorts of ostentation and parade.-Recollections of Mexico.

CAPTAIN PARRY was once asked, at a dinner party where the veteran joker was present, what he and his crew had lived upon when they were frozen on the Polar Sea. Parry said they lived upon the seals. "And very good living too," exclaimed Lord Erskine, "if you keep them long enough.'

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Mr. T. Duncombe presented a petition from Charles Augustus Frederick, Duke of Brunswick. The petitioner said he claimed the protection of that house because he had not been able to obtain justice in the courts of law; that on his father's death he became possessed of immense wealth; that at that period the Prince Regent, afterward George the Fourth, was appointed his guardian; that at the age of eighteen, when, according to the THE LAND RAIL, OR CORN CRAKE, A VENTRILlaws of the Duchy of Brunswick, he attained his majority, he claimed possession of his privileges and OQUIST.-We cannot write of the land rail, before fortune, which claim was refused; that when he dinner, without a certain exudation from the palate. attained the age of twenty-one, the Duke of Cam- This fat little bird must not be confounded with the bridge, who was then viceroy of Hanover, was is much more timorous; indeed, so much so, as to water rail besides that its bill is much shorter, it appointed his guardian; that a revolution afterward took place, and the then reigning Duke of Bruns- be almost invisible but to the most persevering wick was deprived of his crown, and also of his pri- the lower limbs, by the length of the leg, shank, pointer and sportsman; and it is made so strong in vate fortune; that in nearly all revolutions it had and toes, that its rapidity of motion appears next to been customary to allow the deposed prince to retain miraculous. What need of wings at all to a creahis private possessions; that the crown of Brunswick is now held by the King of Hanover, who is self-ture, considering its proportions, with such an styled "curator," contrary to all law and usage; boots, indeed! You must drop the simile, and enormous capacity of stretch. Talk of seven-league that the petitioner has made various attempts to It is named corn crake, obtain redress, all of which had failed; and that it think of the railroad car. had been stated, in accounting for the revenues of from its noise, or call, "Creke, creke, creke," the duchy, that £100,000 a year is remitted to this which may be heard "now here, now there, now country for the support of the petitioner, who denies everywhere, and now nowhere ;" and wherefore? having received a single shilling. The petitioner Simply, that the bird is an uneducated ventriloquist, not only prayed for inquiry on his own account, but and deceives you into the belief that he is at any because there were certain allegations made, affect spot the farthest from the actual one. ing the character of some portions of the royal fam- respects its habits are similar to those of the water ily of England. The hon. member moved that the rail; for, though the first seeks the thick grass meadows and moist and sheltered vales, yet are its petition should be printed with the votes, and gave notice that he would, to-morrow, call the attention preferences chiefly aquatic, taking to osier-beds, of the house to the subject. young grass, or grain in moist places, and low-lying districts, before any others. Here he will choose THE burial-ground of Santa Maria in Mexico is his position, uttering his "creke" from a clod of the most beautiful of the kind I have ever seen-earth, and you shall be running on one side and the and it is really not a misapplication of the term beautiful, to apply it to a grave-yard such as this. It is a space of ground of some eight or ten acres,

In many

other, and ever so far away after his call, which possesses all the modulations of distance.-Craven's Recreations in Shooting.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 124.-26 SEPTEMBER, 1846.

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M. BASTIAT has, in this well-written volume, collected and exposed the most popular Protectionist fallacies; those sophistical arguments which are most frequently employed in defence of protective duties on imports, and against the freedom of trade. The publication of such a book is of itself a proof | that the doctrines of Free-Trade are beginning to make some progress in France; and that the countrymen of Turgot are not all deluded by that spurious patriotism which identifies the exclusion of foreign goods with the promotion of national interests. The simplicity and directness of the argument in favor of Free-Trade, ought, indeed, to secure it a ready acceptance in all countries where reason can make herself heard, and where sectional interests have not a complete ascendancy. But the present state of France is similar to that of England at the time when Adam Smith wrote his Wealth of Nations. The manufacturers and merchants were at that time the principal champions of the restrictive system in England; the agriculturists as he observes-were not infected with the same selfish and narrow-minded spirit as the trading part of the community.* The system of protection is, by the French tariff, extended indeed to all native products, whether of agriculture or manufacture; but the persons interested in manufactures are in France the most active and zealous advocates of protection. The landed interest principally desire protection in their capacity of owners of wood for burning. In England, however, partly owing to the vast increase of our manufacturing industry, and partly to the influence of the last war with France, the opinions and interests on this subject have been completely reversed since the time of Dr. Smith. The manufacturers of England have ceased to confine their ambition to the supply of their native market; they work for the general market of the world. The monopoly of the English market is therefore no longer important to them; and instead of asking for the exclusion of

"Country gentlemen and farmers are, to their great honor, of all people the least subject to the wretched spirit of monopoly. Country gentlemen and farmers, dispersed in different parts of the country, cannot so easily combine as merchants and manufacturers, who, being collected into towns, and accustomed to that exclusive corporation spirit which prevails in them, natually endeavor to obtain, against all their countrymen, the same exclusive privilege which they generally possess against the inhabitants of their respective towns. They accordingly seem to have been the original inventors of those restraints upon the importation of foreign goods, which secure to them the monopoly of the home market."- Wealth of Nations, book iv. ch. 2. This passage was quoted by Sir Robert Peel, in his speech on the introduction of the corn-law measure, at the beginning of this session. VOL. X. 37

CXXIV.

LIVING AGE.

foreign manufactures, they desire that all restrictions on foreign trade, which limit the external demand for their goods should be abolished. On the other hand, the agricultural body has adopted the cast-off prejudices and alarms of the manufacturers and merchants;-that system of selfish error which, from its authors and promoters, obtained the name of the Mercantile System.

During the war, corn, although the importation was from 1800 to 1815 practically free, rose, on various accounts, to a very high price. The range of high prices during this period produced a double effect. In the first place, the existence of scarcity and dearness during the war, combined with the violent anti-commercial policy of Napoleon, had created a genuine conviction of the importance of relying on home-grown corn, exclusively of foreign supplies. The Corn-law report of 1813, in which the modern protective policy of this country originated, puts forward the danger of this commercial dependence, as the main argument for prohibition; and it particularly dwells on the probability of large supplies of grain being obtained from Ireland, for the supply of the manufacturing population of England, under an improved system of cultivation. In the next place, the agricultural interest, having been accustomed for several years to an extraordinary height of prices, were desirous of preventing a sudden and (apparently to them) ruinous depreciation. Accordingly the report of 1813 recommended that the importation of flour and meal should be totally prohibited; that the importation of wheat should be prohibited when the price was under 105s.; and that, when it reached this price, it should be admitted at a duty of 24s. 3d. a quarter. These propositions, which now sound almost fabulous, were, at the time, considered fair and reasonable by statesmen still living; and it was then thought by persons favorable to freedom of commerce, that the government, which took up the subject in 1815, had made a great concession in fixing the point of prohibition at so low a price as 80s. instead of 90s. or 100s.-the amounts proposed by Sir Henry Parnell and the other advocates of restrictive policy. In consequence of the corn-law

for the following years, stood thus:-
*The average prices of the imperial quarter of wheat

Year.

1810, 1811, 1812, 1813,

Average prices. 8. d.

106 5

95 3

126 6

109 9

An allowance must, however, be made for the depreciation of the currency during this period.

† Mr. Tooke, in his History of Prices, vol. i., p. 309, has given some curious details as to the increase of the expenses of freight during the later years of the war. In 1809-12, the freight and insurance from the Baltic to London, was, on an average, for a quarter of wheat, 50s. ; in 1837, it was 4s. 6d. For a load of timber, the same expenses were L.10 in 1809-12; and L.1 in 1837.

This report is printed at length in Hansard's Parl. Hist., vol. xxv. app. p. 55. An abstract of it may be found in the Annual Register for 1813: State Papers, p. 371.

§ Sir H. Parnell's opinions on this subject afterwards underwent an entire change, and he became an advocate of a free trade in corn. See his speech on Mr. Villier's motion, House of Commons, 15th March, 1838.

established in 1815, and modified by successive | Nevertheless, although it is conceded that native mitigations into the sliding-scale of 1842, the agri-industry is not to enjoy a monopoly; and that the cultural interest learnt to believe that their prosper-producers of Great Britain and Ireland are to be ity was identified with protection, and that rents exposed to the salutary competition of the whole would fall, or the land even go out of cultivation, if world; yet there still abides among us a delusionthe duties on foreign corn were not maintained. partly sentimental and partly politic-that protecDuring the same period, partly by the extension of tion ought to be given to colonial industry. We the market for our own manufactures, and partly by ought not, it is granted, to protect native hardthe repeal of protective duties on foreign manufac-ware, or silks, or corn; but we ought to protect tures commenced by Mr. Huskisson, continued the sugar or coffee of the West and East Indies; by the administrations of Lord Grey and Lord Mel- the wines of the Cape, and the timber of Canada; bourne, and consummated by Sir Robert Peel-the and to give these products the monopoly of the manufacturing and, to a great extent, the trading British market, to the exclusion of cheaper and classes of the country, had been deprived of their better foreign articles, and to our own manifest and interest in favor of commercial restrictions. Their undeniable detriment. It appears to us that the opinions and conduct, no longer misled by self-re-time has now arrived, when this question deserves garding considerations, naturally inclined to that a separate consideration in this Journal; and we policy which is favorable to the interests of the therefore propose, without going into details, or general public. Hence there were petitions in expressing opinions on the expediency of particular favor of free-trade, signed by the principal mer-rates of duty, to lay before the reader our views chants and traders of London; hence the Anti-corn- upon the origin and policy of the system of protectlaw League-a body mainly composed of members ing the produce of British colonies, by discriminating of the manufacturing interest, and supplied with duties levied in the ports of the United Kingdom. funds by their contributions-attacked the protec- When the European nations had, in consequence ion enjoyed by the agriculturist, instead of making of the extension of navigation, formed distant settleommon cause with them, for the maintenance of ments in America and Asia, the main advantage to Il protective duties; and even proclaimed its advo-be derived by a mother country from the possession cacy of universal free-trade. It is by this separa- of colonies and dependencies, was supposed to contion of interests that the cause of the consumer, of sist in the monopoly of their trade. This monopoly, the mere member of the general public, not belong-as Bryan Edwards has remarked, had a very wide ing to any organized body, or enrolled under the extent. It consisted in the monopoly of supply, the standard of any peculiar interest—has become tri- monopoly of export, and the monopoly of manufac umphant. The joy of King Priam at the quarrels ture. The colony was permitted to trade only with of the Grecian chieftains could not have exceeded the mother country, and was prohibited from comthe wondering delight with which Adam Smith mercial intercourse with the rest of the world. It would have heard of the English manufacturers and was compelled to receive its supplies, both of raw traders having become the champions of free-trade, and manufactured articles, from the same source. and assailing the protective duties on agricultural It was compelled to bring its produce to the same produce. So long as all the powerful interests of market, and to bring it in a raw state; in order a community-agricultural, manufacturing, and that the natives of the paramount nation might commercial-are bound together in a compact and enjoy the profits derivable from its manufacture. firm alliance for the maintenance of a prohibitive What the colony had to sell, it was to sell at a :system of import duties, the unconnected, undisci- cheap rate to the mother country. What it had to plined aggregate of consumers are, in the present buy, it was to buy at a dear rate from the mother state of opinion and intelligence, utterly helpless country. against such a coalition. But if, from any circumstances, the interests of those who have to sell 'begin to conflict, the cause of those who have to buy has some chance of success. Such has already been the case in England; and we will venture to predict, that, so soon as the protected interests of France, Germany, and the United States, begin to fall out amongst themselves—so soon as they cease to make a common prey of the consumer, and are found to do more harm to one another than to the public-then, and not till then, will the prohibitory tariffs of these countries be relaxed.

Upon this jealous and restrictive system, not only the foreign possessions of Spain and Holland, and the other continental countries, were administered, but even those of England, up to the American war. So completely had it been established in opinion as well as practice, that this was the natural relation between a dependent colony and its mother country, that the American colonies of England acquiesced in the system; and would doubtless have, for a time at least, retained their allegiance in spite of its existence, if the attempt to tax them directly for the benefit of the mother country had not been made.

Since the open transition of Sir Robert Peel and Sir James Graham to the cause of universal free- The American war and its event gave to the trade, and the introduction of the comprehensive world a memorable lesson on the necessity of modmeasure of commercial reform at the beginning of eration and forbearance in the exercise of the this session, it may be said that, with one exception, rights of a mother country over its colonies. The all the leading statesmen of the present day-all writings of Adam Smith and his followers, likethe public men who are likely, for some years to wise, by degrees opened the eyes of the English come, to guide the deliberations of Parliament-government and people to the mischievous effect are favorable, not merely to the abstract principles of the old colonial system; so that, since the end of freedom of commerce, but to their practical appli-of the last century, the commercial restrictions cation, and their adoption as rules of legislation. It is now generally admitted, that the protection of native British industry, whether manufacturing or agricultural, by means of duties on imports, intended not for revenue but for exclusion, is a false and vicious system, and is to be abandoned in practice.

*History of the West Indies, vol. ii., p. 565. The subject of Colonial Trade, with the various restrictions and regulations by which it has been fettered, and the Merivale, in his Lectures on Colonization and the Colo consequences of these restrictions, is well treated by Mr. [nies, vol. i., chapters 7 and 8.

voluntarily inflicted on each other, and to be borne by each party without complaint. The contract is not, as in natural and unregulated commerce, Do ut des; but Lado ut lædas. The balance of profit and loss, when reduced to its elements, stands thus: I make a gain by doing you an injury; and, in compensation, I permit you to make a similar gain by doing me a similar injury. It seems like an attempt to embody the lex talionis in mercantile transactions. And thus far the plan is successful. The injury which each party undertakes to inflict on the other, is actually inflicted and punctually suffered. But (as we shall see presently) the bene

upon the English colonies have been relaxed, and a | subjects herself to certain disadvantages of a like more liberal policy has been adopted. nature, for the sake of the colony. The two comMuch of the old exclusive system is however re-munities make an alliance for mutual injury, to be tained by Holland, France, and Spain, in the few colonial possessions which these countries possess. Thus, as the Spaniards formerly prohibited the cultivation of the vine and olive in their American colonies; so the French now prohibit the cultivation of the vine in Algeria;† a settlement whose agricultural prosperity would not seem to threaten any serious danger to the most timid and jealous of the vine-growers of France. England still maintains, for the benefit of the native sugar-refiners, the prohibition to refine sugar in her West India Islands; although this manufacture could be carried on profitably in those colonies. The distillation of spirits from sugar in the United Kingdom is like-fit which is to accrue to both parties, is often altowise prohibited; and this prohibition is still enforced, although it can have little practical effect. However, since the abolition of the commercial privileges of the East India Company, and the permission of a direct trade in provisions between our West India Islands and the United States, by the reforms of Mr. F. Robinson and Mr. Huskisson, the English colonies are subject to no very material restrictions, as to industry and trade, imposed for the benefit of the mother country.

gether absent, and is never fully enjoyed. So far as the scheme involves a loss, it is always successful; so far as it promises a profit, it is generally unsuccessful.

The most remarkable case in which this policy has been pursued by England, are Canada timber and corn, West India sugar, spirits, and coffee, and Cape of Good Hope wines.

During the late war, in consequence of the seizure of the Danish fleet, and the rupture with DenWhile this restrictive system was, to a consider-mark in 1807, it was feared that the supplies of able extent, still maintained for the English colonies, a plan of reciprocity was devised, which was to compensate the colony for the restrictions to which it was subjected. It was thought that the sacrifices made by the mother country and colony ought to be mutual; that, if the mother country enjoyed a preference in the market of the colony, the colony ought to enjoy a preference in the market of the mother country. A system of discriminating duties, by which an advantage was given to colonial produce imported into the mother country, was accordingly introduced. The theory of this contrivance is as follows:-the mother country knowingly subjects the colony to certain commercial or industrial disadvantages, for her own sake. In return, she

Baltic timber might be interrupted. And although, up to the first years of this century, England was exclusively supplied with timber from the Baltic, and had not derived any supplies from North America, yet it must be admitted that there was some ground for this apprehension. The price of Memel timber, which in 1802 had been 78s. per load, rose in 1809, with only a slight increase of duty, to 320s. per load. Accordingly, Mr. Vansittart, the chancellor of the exchequer, and Mr. George Rose, the president of the board of trade, devised the singular plan of providing against this contingency, by an immense increase in the duties on Europeal. timber, and an almost total repeal of those on American timber. This discrimination of duties has been mitigated by various changes since the peace, *On the commercial system adopted by Spain and Hol-particularly by the tariff of 1842; but even, after the land towards their respective colonies, see M'Gregor's Commercial Tariffs, Part vi., p. 154; Part xiii., p. 121. It appears that Spain has now relaxed all the rigor of her ancient colonial monopoly.

+ See The French in Algiers, p. 74. It is a singular circumstance, that the Romans had made a similar prohibition in Gaul, when it was a dependent province. "Nos vero, justissimi homines, (says Cicero,) qui Transalpinas gentes oleam et vitem serere non sinimus, quo pluris sint nostra oliveta nostræque vine; quod quum faciamus, prudenter facere dicimur, juste non dicimur.”De Republica, iii. 9.

alteration made by the tariff act of this session, the interval is still very wide, as will appear by a comparison of the three first items under the head of

timber.

countries.

£ s. d.

Timber or wood, not being From foreign
deals, hattens, boards, staves.
handspikes, oars, lathwood,
or other timber or wood,
otherwise
sawn, split, or
dressed, per load of fifty cu-
bic feet,

deals, battens, or other
timber, for wood, sawn, or
split, per load of fifty cubic
feet,

staves, per load of fifty cubic feet,

From British possessions after 5th April, 1848. £ s. d.

15 (

1 0

100

18 0

2 0

2 0

M. Thiers, in his Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire, liv., xvi., ad init., (tom. iv.,) has imagined a strange theory in order to account for the relaxation of the colonial monopoly, without tracing it to a more enlightened state of opinion upon political and commercial subjects. "The European nations (he says) produce what they used to import; instead of being commercial they are manufacturing; instead of importing sugar, muslins, and cotton prints, they make these articles for themselves at The result of this system has been, that an imhome. Au grand spectacle de l'ambition coloniale a sucmense importation of the inferior timber of Canada cédé de la sorte le spectacle de l'ambition manufacturiere has taken place; and that the good and cheap timber This view embodies another form of the favorite fallacy of the north of Europe has been in great measure exof commercial independence. It may be remarked, that cluded. Cases even occurred of ships being laden in proving the worthlessness of colonies in the present in the Baltic with timber, and making the voyage to state of the world, M. Thiers may seem to console his countrymen by an argument somewhat similar to that in Canada and back to England, in order to introduce the fable of the fox and the grapes. Of India, the value of their cargo as American timber. The timber tande which used to be greatly magnified by French politicians, between England and Canada, as compared with he disposes as follows:-"L'Inde enfin, sous le sceptre that between England and the Baltic, has for the de l'Angleterre, n'est plus qu'une conquête ruinée par les progrès de l'industrie Européenne, et employée nourir last few years been nearly as ten to one. The quelques officiers, quelques commis, quelques magistrats rates which are introduced by the act of this session de la métropole." still leave an immense protection to Canada timber

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