, on this principle, should not
attempt to raise wine, nor France iron or cotton goods; but the calicoes
and hardware of Great Britain should be exchanged for the wines and fruits
of France: both nations will thus be enriched, and a vast commercial
traffic grow up, which, being founded on mutual interest and attended with
mutual advantage, may be expected to be durable, and to extinguish, in the
end, the rivalry of their respective people, or the jealousy of their
several governments.

Such is the theory of free trade; and it may be admitted it wears at first
sight a seducing and agreeable aspect. Let us now enquire how far
experience, the great test of truth, has verified its doctrines, or
demonstrated its practicability. To illustrate this matter, we shall have
recourse to no mean or doubtful authority; we shall have recourse to the
statement of an enlightened but candid contemporary, whose advocating of a
moderate system of free trade has excited no small anxiety in the British
empire; and which report, from the information and ability it displays,
has assigned to the present accomplished head of the Board of Trade.

The efforts made in Great Britain to introduce a general system of free
trade, especially within the last three years, are thus enumerated in the
_Foreign and Colonial Review_.

"England, without gaining or asking a single boon from any foreign country,
has--

"1. Reduced by about one-half the duties upon foreign corn.

"2. By nearly the same amount, the duties on foreign timber.

"3. Has removed her prohibitions against the importation of cattle and
other animals for food, and has fixed upon them duties, ranging on the
average at about ten per cent _ad valorem_.

"4. Has made flesh meat admissible.

"5. Has reduced the duty on salt provisions for home consumption by
one-third, and one-half; and has placed them on a footing of entire
equality with the British article for the supply of the whole marine
frequenting her ports.

"6. Has lowered her duties on vegetables and seeds in general to one-half,
one-sixth, and even one-twelfth (in the case of that most important
esculent the potatoe) of what they formerly were.

"7. Has made all _great_ articles of manufacture, except silk, which is
reserved for future negotiations, admissible at duties of ten, twelve and
a half, and fifteen per cent, and only in some few instances so much as
twenty per cent.

"8. Upon some minor articles of manufacture,