consistently, it would lead to far more extensive consequences than those which our present legislation has sanctioned; and would inflict upon the people of England far more serious privations and losses than the system of colonial protection has hitherto produced. The principle of colonial protection has been applied capriciously and irregularly. There are several important articles which we might obtain from our colonies, but which are not subject to discriminating duties. For example, there is a protection for colonial sugar and coffee, but not for colonial tobacco or cotton. There is, moreover, the utmost variety in the amount of protection afforded; the duties vary from an approach to equality up to ten and twelve times the amount. At times no object seems too small for the microscopic vision of the colonial protector. Thus, there is a protection of 2d. per lb. upon colonial anchovies. Upon oranges there is no discrimination; but colonial marmalade enjoys a protection of 5d. per lb. The importer of colonial tapioca and sago is left by our tariff to bear the full brunt of the foreign competition in these articles; but we have not been regardless of colonial interests in the item of arrow-root, which is protected by a discrimination of 4s. per lb. Our differential duties have in some cases been fixed with a minuteness of adaptation to circumstances, which would, no doubt, command our admiration, if we understood the grounds of the distinction; but which does not at once explain itself to the casual observer. For example, there is no protection for colonial dried apples; but colonial raw apples are favoured by a discrimination of 4d. per bushel. The duty on colonial tin-ore is half the duty on foreign tin-ore; but for tin manufactures there is no discrimination. Cattle and meat are, under the tariff of this Session, to be imported without duty; but colonial poultry, alive or dead, still retains over foreign poultry the advantage of a double differential duty. The same measure likewise extends this benefit to colonial cucumbers preserved in salt.' We regret, however, to be unable to discover that fresh cucumbers, or even melons, the produce of our colonies, have any preference in our tariff; certainly 'fruit, raw, and not otherwise enumerated,' is subject to the same duty of five per cent ad valorem, whether imported from a foreign country or a British possession.

Fortunately, it has never been attempted to apply the principle of colonial protection systematically to our tariff; or to confine the consumption of these islands to the produce of our colonies for all articles which can be grown in them. Almost all the discriminations have been established with a view to the interests of some particular colony. Even in last Session, when Mr Hutt moved in the House. of Commons a resolution for extending the Canadian scale of corn-duties to the Australian colonies, the

motion was resisted by Ministers, upon the ground that the concession had been made with reference to the special circumstances of Canada. It may be added, too, that the rule of the customs' law with respect to manufactures, destroys to a great extent the principle of excluding foreign produce under a discriminating duty. Thus, American wheat imported into Canada cannot be imported into England as Canadian wheat. But American wheat imported into Canada, and there ground into flour, can be imported into England as Canadian flour, and thus obtain the advantage of the low duty. The truth is, that if the corn-law of 1842 had been maintained, a principle had already been introduced, which, if consistently pursued, ought to have permitted all the corn of Danzig and Odessa to have been ground into flour in Heligoland and Gibraltar, and imported into England at a nominal duty.

It is fortunate for this country that the system of colonial protection has not been driven to its utmost possible limits; and that the consumer in the mother country has not been consistently sacrificed to the colonial producer. But, although the principle has not been applied universally, it has been established in many extensive branches of import, and under the existing protection vested interests have been created which would suffer by a change of law. For example, the wine establishments of the Cape, and the sawmills of Canada, would, to a great extent, be abandoned if the inequality of duties on which their artificial life depends was removed. And however little advantage it may have been to Canada, for example, that its capital should be diverted from the cultivation and improvement of the soil, to cutting timber, and the lumber-trade; yet as the investment has been made, and the buildings and machinery erected, the owners of that property would undoubtedly now endure a loss, if the protection was suddenly withdrawn. Accordingly, the legislative assembly of Canada, in their recent address to the crown, speak of the happiness and prosperity of the people of 'this colony, advancing in steady and successful progression under that moderate system of protection of her staple productions, grain and lumber, which Her Majesty and the Imperial Parlia'ment have hitherto graciously secured them;' and they intimate a loyal fear, that should the inhabitants of Canada, from the withdrawal of all protection to their staple products, find that 'they cannot successfully compete with their neighbours of the

*On the inconsistency of not extending the same principle to other colonies, see Lord Howick's speech in the debate on Mr Hutt's motion, 8th May 1845.-Hansard, vol. 80, p. 333.

• United States in the only market open to them, they will naturally and of necessity begin to doubt whether remaining a portion of the British empire will be of that paramount advantage which 6 they have hitherto found it to be.' *

In cases where a purely artificial branch of production has been created by fiscal legislation, the cessation of which is demanded by the general welfare, it would be harsh and unjust to make a sudden change, without any regard for the interests which have been called into being by the act of the government. A striking instance of an artificial industry of this kind, created by protecting duties, (not indeed in favour of colonies, but against them,) is afforded by the beet-root sugar of France. After the existence of this manufacture for some years, under the shelter of protective duties, it was found that the loss to the revenue, and the high price to the public, were no longer tolerable, and it was decided to put an end to the system. It was first proposed to give a compensation of forty million franes to the growers of beet-root, and to prohibit the home manufacture; but it was ultimately thought preferable to adopt a gradual change, and to raise the duty on home-made sugar by annual increments, until it reaches the duty on colonial sugar. This transition began in August 1844, and the change will be complete in August 1848. A similar choice of means presents itself for the extinction of the more important of our colonial protections. We might either give compensation to the vested interests, (which, with respect to the Canada sawmills, and the Cape wine establishments, would undoubtedly be an advantageous bargain for the public;) or we might make the abolition gradual, and thus afford time for the withdrawal of capital invested in the protected industries, and for the adaptation of the colonial interests to the altered state of the law.

The following is, in a few words, a summary of the principles

* Address of 12th May 1846. In his answer to this address, Mr Gladstone says Her Majesty's government conceive that the protective principle cannot with justice be described as the universal basis, either of the general connexion between the United Kingdom and its colonies, or even of their commercial connexion.'-Despatch to Lord Cathcart, 3d June 1846. (House of Lords, sessional paper, No. 169.) By the protective principle, is here meant the principle of protecting colonial industry at the expense of the mother country. Not only is Mr Gladstone's proposition undeniably true; but (if he had been looking merely to historical truth) he might have added, that the generally received maxim w ith respect to colonial trade was formerly the very reverse-viz. that the industry of the mother country was to be protected at the expense of the colony,

upon which the relation of England to her colonies-especially with reference to her colonial trade-ought, in our opinion, to be regulated. It should be constantly borne in mind, that each colony is a separate and distinct community, occupying a territory distant from England, though politically dependent upon the imperial government. Owing to this separateness and remoteness, its local and subordinate government ought to be conducted as much in accordance with the opinions and wishes of the inhabitants as is compatible with the condition of political dependence, and the maintenance of the supremacy of the British crown. For the expenses of its military and naval defence, England must not expect any direct compensation. Nor ought she to subject the trade of the colony to any restrictions for her own exclusive advantage. She ought to assume no preference in the markets of the colony, and should rest contented with the establishment of a perfectly free trade on both sides. She ought to permit her colony to trade freely with all the world, and open her own ports to its products. But, on the other hand, she ought not to sacrifice her own interests, by levying at home discriminating duties for the supposed benefit of the colony ;—a system of fiscal privilege which excludes cheaper and better foreign goods from her own markets, and gives just offence to foreign nations.

No. CLXX. will be published in October.

Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work.

THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

୦୯

OCTOBER, 1846.

No. CLXX.

ART. I.-Letters to the Right Honourable Lord John Russell, on the Expediency of Enlarging the Irish Poor-Law, to the full extent of the Poor-Law of England. By G. POULETT SCROPE, Esq. M.P. 8vo. London: 1846.

THE

HE people of Ireland and of Great Britain are among the most dissimilar Nations in Europe. They differ in race, in religion, in civilisation, and in wealth. To extend similar laws and institutions to countries not merely widely different but strongly contrasted, is to act in violation of all sound legislation and wise government. Yet such is the course we have pursued in Ireland-such the system by which she has been governed. We have transplanted into that country the laws and institutions in use amongst ourselves, without duly inquiring as to their fitness and adaptation to the condition of her peopleas if whatever suits us must suit them. We have neither prepared the soil, nor considered whether the climate would ripen the fruits which, in our blind and selfish calculations, we vainly expected to gather.

It is no doubt true, that when neighbouring countries, originally distinct states, become subject to the same Sovereign, the laws and institutions of each will influence those of the others; and if one member of the United Empire far exceeds the rest in

VOL. LXXXIV. NO. CLXX.

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