mitted to be an objectionable course -was to cover an extraordinary and temporary expenditure by the loan which he now proposed. Having promised Mr. Hume that in the next Session the Administration would adopt all practicable measures of economy in every department of the State, he applied himself to a very brief exposure of the monetary doctrines of Mr. Muntz, and concluded by recommending the Bill to the support of the House.

Mr. Henley and Mr. H. Drummond declared their intention of supporting the Government. Mr. Spooner announced the same intention, but launched out into an emphatic invective against the present system of the Currency.

Mr. Cobden held up to the high admiration of the House and the country the declaration of Sir R. Peel, that he would not carry on the Administration of the country if he could not make its expenditure equal to its revenue. The present Government had departed from that rule; and, unless the country took the subject up and prevented this system of borrowing, it would be carried on to the same extent as it had been in France and Austria, and would plunge us into the same ruin. With our local expenditure in poor rates and in county rates our aggregate taxation amounted this year to 70 millions sterling. That sum was monstrous, and it was impossible for us to go on raising it. He then defended the speech which he had made at the commencement of the Session for the reduction of our military armaments, and he attributed the temporary panic of invasion which was then felt to the interested exertions of military men, who desired employment.

He should certainly vote against this loan.

Mr.. A. Smith contended that the Government had done all in its power to avoid the position in which it was now placed, of being obliged to borrow in time of peace. At the commencement of the Session Government had proposed increased taxation, but, in conformity to the wishes of the House and the country, had subsequently abandoned it. He had supported, and should have continued to support, Government in that taxation, but still he could not shut his eyes to the fact that the state of the world justified them in conceding to the deliberate decision of the House that it was not expedient to increase taxation this year. As then Ministers could not increase taxation or diminish establishments so as to equalize income and expenditure, no other resource was left to them but to incur a loan. He should, therefore, support the proposition of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In conclusion, he read Mr. Cobden a severe lecture for asserting that the apprehension of war at the commencement of the Session had been propagated by professional men for their own private interest and emolument. He utterly denied the truth of such an imputation.

Lord G. Bentinck contended that Mr. Cobden was the last man in the world who ought to charge his opponents with propagating delusions. Mr. Cobden might think that 17 millions might be reduced at one slash of the knife; but few gentlemen had been found to coincide with him in that opinion. Though the House at the commencement of the Session had refused to grant increased taxation to the Government, it had

never been asked whether it would reimpose the duties on Customs which had been lately repealed. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made such a proposition to the House, he should have given it his most hearty support. The taxes which had been repealed amounted to the deficiency which we had now to supply. He therefore called on the House not to look for the filling of the Exchequer to the spendthrift mode of inflicting debts on our posterity by incurring loans in the 33rd year of peace, but to the reimposition of the Customs Duties which we had repealed to our own damage and to the benefit of the foreigner.

If the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that he would reenact the Corn Duties, which had produced 700,000l. of revenue in 1846, he did not believe that any man in the country would have grumbled at it. In conclusion, he exhorted the House to beware of those gentlemen who decried all who differed from them, who thought themselves the only oracles, and who declared, in the language of Jack Cade before he ordered Lord Sele off to execution, "I am the besom who shall sweep the House clean of all such villains as thou."

Lord J. Russell was of opinion after all the experience of this Session that the Government had not acted unwisely in proposing an increase of the Income Tax, in order to meet the deficiency in the revenue. On a former occasion he had shown that in the last few years ten millions of taxes, which pressed heavily on the springs of industry, had been taken off; and the result was, that when an extraordinary pressure took place on

the resources of the country, our expenditure exceeded our income, and it became necessary to have recourse to a loan. It would not have been wise to increase the permanent taxation of the country to meet a temporary deficiency, and Government had in consequence proposed a temporary increase of the per-centage on property, which it was obliged subsequently to abandon. Having abandoned it, Government said that it would endeavour to ride over the difficulty by means of the balances in the Exchequer, provided that the Income Tax was continued for three years. In the present condition of the country, however, it did not appear to be wise to allow those balances to run too low, and it was therefore deemed expedient to supply them by a loan. He then proceeded to show that no better course had been suggested by any party in the House. Mr. Hume and Mr. Cobden thought that we might have made great reductions in the amount of our military force. He could not consent to those reductions when they were first proposed, and recent events had con firmed the propriety of the decision which he had then announced; for it was now evident that in February last the Government of France intended to make war in Belgium, and a war in Belgium would have kindled a conflagration in Europe. He would not enter into any refutation of the arguments used by Lord G. Bentinck in favour of the reimposition of the duties on timber and raw cotton, further than was necessary to remind the House that all the leading statesmen of this country, from the days of Sir R. Walpole down to the present time had declared taxes on the raw materials of manufactures to

be the worst taxes that could be imposed. As to the reimposition of the Corn Duties, he would only say that he very much rejoiced that in the present circumstances of the country we had not the sliding scale of 1845 to prevent the steady

importation of foreign grain into our harbours.

The House then divided, when the amendment of Mr. Hume was negatived by a majority of 66 to 45.

sanction. The present Government had pledged itself to carry out the system in this direction, and the speech from the Throne had recommended the subject to the attentive consideration of the Legislature. Seven months of the Session, however, were suffered to pass without any step being taken to give effect to the engagement which the Ministers had entered into, and doubts began to be entertained of the sincerity of their intention to deal with a subject involved in much difficulty, and calculated to provoke vigorous opposition. At length, on the 15th of May, in a Committee of the whole House, the Ministerial plan for the modification of the Navigation Laws was formally propounded. On Mr. Labouchere, as President of the Board of Trade, the task devolved of developing the proposed measure, which he did in an able and comprehensive speech, tracing out the origin and history of this part of our legislation, and explaining the grounds on which an alteration in the system had been deemed advisable. In order to do justice to the argument, it will be necessary to give rather copious extracts from this important speech. Going back to the earliest records in our Statute Book, Mr. Labouchere stated, that in the reign of Richard the Second was passed the first Navigation Law in the English code. It enacted broadly, "that no subject of the King should ship any merchandise outwards or homewards in any but ships of the King's liegeance, on pain of forfeiting all the merchandise shipped." This Act was found too strong, and was next year altered: foreign ships were allowed to take freights if English could not be found. Some VOL. XC.

years after, reasonable freightcharges, and later still, a tariff of maximum freight-charges, were enacted for ships going between England and the chief ports of Europe. A system of exclusive monopoly lasted, with modifications, to the time of Elizabeth, when a new principle was engrafted upon the. law-the principle of protection by differential duties. During Elizabeth's reign, this principle was adopted and acted upon throughout Europe, with but one exception. Holland, by a system of unrestricted freedom-by making her marshes the home of every citizen of the world who chose to seek them-built up the most magnificent fabric of commercial great

ness and political power that up to

that time the world had ever seen. While in this reign our foreign trade was somewhat opened, our coasting trade was for the first time made a close monopoly: the trade with our colonies, which then first grew important, was placed in the same position. With the Commonwealth commenced the system which attained full development in the Navigation Act of Charles the Second. That system was founded rather upon motives of state policy than maxims of trade; and was framed, firstly, in the hope of impeding the intercourse of the Royalists with their foreign allies, and, secondly, in simple jealousy of the great carrying trade then enjoyed by the Dutch. Its principle was monopoly and exclusion; its end was to make the British empire self-supported and self-relying. Its leading features have subsisted to the present day; though many successive events have interfered with its grand aim, and gradually abridged its action, [F]