opinion must always have in this country, against the abuses of which he complains, and in support of the improvements which he recommends. This Sir Henry Parnell has done. Details which the generality of readers might think dry and unpalatable, are compressed in a few tables which are given in the Appendix, free from the mystifications of our public accountants. The digest of the present state of our financial system, of the enormous waste of money which it produces, of its grievous pressure upon the industry of the nation, of its absurdities and imperfections, and of the many useful alterations of which it stands so much in need, is as familiar and interesting a piece of writing as our literature contains in connection with legislation. It is manifestly the draught of the Report which Sir Henry Parnell would have suggested for the adoption of the Finance Committee, if that body had been allowed to continue its eminently useful labours. As it now stands, it can only be taken as containing the views of the Honourable Baronet on a subject of the first importance. But unless we be greatly mistaken, those views will, before long, become those of the whole country. It will be impossible for the Government to allow the numerous evils to continue which are pointed out in this exposé. The Duke of Wellington has already effected many reforms of the most useful character. His retrenchments in the public expenditure, amounting to a million, have been highly beneficial; the remission of taxes to more than three times that sum, and creating, on the whole, a saving to the public of nearly five millions, shows a determination in his Ministry, to stand, as Mr. Peel has announced, upon the support of public opinion alone. We hail, also, as a most auspicious measure, the appointment of a Committee selected from the public service, for the purpose of extending the system of retrenchment as far as possible, as well in our home as in our colonial establishments. Indeed, we entertain a confident hope, that Sir Henry Parnell's book, though not the Report of a Finance Committee, will ultimately prove as productive of advantage to the country, as if it had been clothed with the character of that emanation of Parliamentary authority; for we think that we can trace, through the recent speeches of Ministers, more than one instance in which they have acted upon his suggestions.

Sir Henry's first object is, to remove, as far as possible, all those taxes which are injurious to industry. A country may sustain. a heavy amount of contribution to the revenue, without being thereby prevented from becoming every day more and more opulent. It is not so much the aggregate sum raised by the state, that presses on the nation, as the mode in which it is taken. Taxes which fall exclusively on industry, on raw materials, manufactures, food, or the profits of capital, have a direct tendency to diminish, and must diminish, to an incalculable extent, the power of giving employment to the capital of the rich and the labour of the poor. Taxes which fall on those who receive rents, dividends

on stock, and similar descriptions of income, have no tendency of that kind; they simply transfer money from one hand to another, without at all impairing the national wealth. Whereas, taxes upon industry and upon materials on which it may be employed, by lessening the amount of production, lessen the amount of the national wealth to a great deal more than the same proportion. Similar to the effect of such impolitic taxes as these is that of monopolies and protecting duties. Thus the Corn Laws tax the general industry of the country to the extent of twelve millions and a half; and the protecting duties on East Indian and foreign sugars, on tea, and timber, not to mention other articles, add four millions and a half more to the burthens which affect, indeed, all classes of persons, but press upon those who live upon their industry or capital, with peculiar hardship. It would be obviously expedient, therefore, that all such taxes, amounting to about eleven millions yearly, and all such monopolies and protecting duties, should be repealed. Of these eleven millions, indeed, three and a half have already been remitted; the remaining seven and a half must follow, and if the revenue cannot bear the diminution, other imposts, upon sources not connected with industry, may be easily devised to make up the deficiency. If all monopolies and protecting duties be abolished, and, as they have grown out of fashion, we imagine that they are upon the eve of their downfal,-we shall hear no more, at least never so much as we have in these latter years heard, of commercial embarrassments, and all their dreadful train of bankruptcies and pauperism. We should, moreover, be prepared, by the adoption of a sound system of finance, for war, if it should arise, and thus ensure that respect at foreign courts, without which peace would be ignominious.

We need but specify some of the taxes on raw materials, which are used in manufactures, buildings, and the construction of ships, to show how plainly injurious they are in many respects. The duty on hemp raises the prices of those kinds of linens which are most universally used, and also of sails and cordage. The shipbuilders have been recently allowed to buy foreign cordage, and bring it home free of duty; why is the duty still continued with respect to all other classes of his Majesty's subjects? There are several manufactures which require ashes and barilla. As if for the purpose of discouraging the use of such essential articles, a duty is laid upon them which, of course, enhances their prices to the manufacturers. The duty that still exists upon imported thrown silk, mars, to a considerable extent, the measures of the legislature for lowering the price of an article which is now almost as generally used as linen itself. As to the duty on timber, a moment's reflection will show in how many ways it is prejudicial. But with respect to this material, so necessary to all classes of society, it is curious to observe the arrangement which the legislature has made, in order to exclude from the country the best timber which the

world produces, and to oblige it to use the very worst that can be had. We have colonies in Canada which have already cost us many a million, merely for the pride of sovereignty in retaining them; and, in order to please and conciliate their inhabitants, we impose upon their rank and perishable timber only 10s. a load, while we require European timber to pay nearly six times that amount. No wonder that our modern houses, built since this stupid law was made, are already, in many instances, ready to tumble about our ears. In addition to such duties as these, we need but enumerate those on bricks, tiles, coals, culm, tallow, soap, to show with what inquisitorial perseverance our tax-planners have devised as many clogs for the wheels of national industry as possible. We do not mention the duties upon hides and skins, as they are among the imposts on leather, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has recently given up, to his infinite credit.

But if the taxes on raw materials be injurious to industry, what shall we say to those levied upon the articles which industry has produced from those materials, by means of her miraculous looms, her furnaces, her mills, and the millions of hands which she keeps in constant activity? Upon glass, paper, and printed goods, including calicoes and the beautiful stained paper with which our rooms are decorated, nearly two millions were raised in the year 1827, under the head of excise duties. To speak only of the duty on paper alone, that upon which we write, and upon which books are printed, see how the price of it is raised by this impost! how dear it makes our books compared with those of any other country in which a printing press is to be found; how the limited sale in conseqence circumscribes the business of the printer, the type-founder, the ink-manufacturer, the bookseller, and limits the Inarch of the human mind itself, by withholding, as far as it can, the sources of information! Now that beer is about to become the wholesome beverage of the poor again, why should not the peasant have for a penny, as he might if the duties on manufactured glass were removed, a convenient and neat vessel to drink it from? And why should not his wife and blooming daughters have a good clear mirror to see themselves in, instead of the red-framed glass in which their heads are mocked by other heads sometimes twice as long, sometimes twice as wide as their own, or reduced to an ugly miniature of which any Christian would be ashamed.

Sir Henry Parnell thinks the duty on malt not objectionable, and only recommends that it be put under new regulations. In this opinion he appears to us to be inconsistent, for the repeal of that impost upon the manufactured barley would be a great boon to the agriculturist, and a still farther relief to the mass of our people who drink beer.

The taxes which are imposed upon luxuries are calculated to amount to about twenty-seven millions per annum. To these taxes, for the most part, considering that they come out of the pockets

of those only who can or ought to afford to pay them,—no valid objection can be made on, principle, at least. Some of the custom duties, however, upon these articles are so high that they limit consumption, and, besides giving rise to smuggling, diminish consequently the demand for our manufactures which would be exported in payment. Experience has proved beyond doubt that the reduction of high duties upon articles of luxury does not always cause a decrease of revenue, but the very contrary. It should be observed that our establishments for the prevention of smuggling cost the country not less than 700,000l. a year; that smuggling is nevertheless become so flourishing a trade, that in the ports of Flushing and Ostend it is capable of an insurance like any other risks, and that the expenses of our coast guards, and the frauds upon the revenue and the honest dealer, are all the consequences of the high amount of particular duties, which might be very safely lowered. The revenue would thus be benefited, the honest trader would be protected, and the preventive service might be altogether dispensed with.

The particular duties to which we allude are those on tobacco, which is taxed at the rate of nine hundred per cent. on its natural value; the duties on brandy and geneva, which are at the rate of five hundred and fifty per cent.; the duties on French wines, which are still out of all due proportion; and those on tea and sugar, which raise the prices of those articles to twice what they ought to be.

Among the protecting duties to which we have already alluded as fit to be altogether abolished, we mentioned those which are imposed by the corn laws. To these we should, of course, add all the duties which are imposed on articles of foreign produce, merely for the benefit of our agriculturists; such as foreign bacon, butter, cider, cheese, madder, peas, &c. So, also, upon the same principle, ought the Chancellor of the Exchequer to surrender the duties upon foreign manufactures. What, upon all, say the opponents of the free-trade system? Are you not contented with the changes that have been already produced in that respect, by the alteration of the protecting duties and prohibitions in 1825 Strange to say, there is no chapter in Sir Henry Parnell's able and interesting work more clear, or more satisfactory, than that in which he proves to a demonstration, that the laws of 1825 made little or no change with respect to manufactures.

After giving a brief history of the protective system, which originated at a period when statesmen knew absolutely nothing of sound principles of trade, Sir Henry exposes, in a masterly style, the manifold evils which it occasions.

When protections are introduced, and foreign cheap goods are shut out, and the same kind of goods are made at home, but at a greater cost of production, then the capital and labour of the country that exclude foreign goods, cease to produce the greatest possible quantity of produc

tions; the country is consequently poorer than it otherwise would be; for when a country consumes an article made at home, which could be got cheaper from another country, it employs a certain number of men's labour, in providing that article, more than it would be necessary to employ if it imported that article. The country is therefore poorer, by the whole value of these men's labour.

This system of protection, by preventing the importation of foreign goods, diminishes the demand for the exportation of British goods; and also diminishes the employment of shipping and foreign commerce, in the same way as the excessive duties on tobacco, tea, &c., and the corn laws, diminish it.

The present state of the commerce between England and France affords a decisive proof of the impolicy of the protecting system. In the natural course of things, two such countries, so contiguous to each other, and each having so many productions peculiar to itself, would carry on a trade to the amount of many millions; but according to the accounts laid before Parliament, the whole of the trade in exports and imports does not exceed 3,000,000l. a-year.

Another evil of the protecting system is the increased prices of a number of articles, which are the result of it. These prices take immense sums of money from the pockets of the consumers of the protected commodities, who are not aware how large a proportion of price is caused by this kind of tax.

'Prices are, in fact, so generally and so much increased by protecting duties, that it is by no means clear that they do not bear as heavily on the national resources and on the productiveness of capital and labour, as the taxes themselves, and therefore, the reducing of these prices, by taking off protecting duties, would afford all classes of the community the greatest possible relief.

'There can be no greater mistake than supposing that the manufacturers derive any benefit from protections; for if, in the first instance, they raise profits, this leads to immediate competition, in consequence of there being nothing to exclude new manufacturers from entering into the protected trades, and profits are soon brought down to their ordinary level. But, in truth, the persons who carry on the protected trades are more exposed to suffer than any other class of manufacturers; for since the goods that are made under the influence of protection are necessarily dearer than foreign goods of the same kind, whenever competition in the home market leads to a glut of them, a circumstance which continually occurs, then there is no means of relieving the market by exportation; there is no profit in carrying on the protected trades, but absolute loss; and in addition to this, the protected manufacturers are always exposed to suffer great injury from smuggling.

'Another injurious effect of protection is, that it checks invention and enables manufacturers to keep the public supplied with commodities of inferior quality; for no manufacturer will incur the loss of laying aside old and imperfect machinery, and of reforming the processes of his trade, until he is forced to do so by the necessity of keeping on equal terms with his foreign competitors.

'Another evil of protection is the encouragement it gives to smuggling, and it also occasions a great loss of revenue; for if the protecting duties