he first measure of commercial policy in this
session should have been a measure of protection in the shape of a bill
introduced by the board of trade, imposing a duty on corn, wheat, and
flour brought from the United States into Canada.[156] But this was only
a detail, though a singular one, in a policy that was in fact a
continuance of the relaxation of the commercial system of the colonies
which had been begun in 1822 and 1825 by Robinson and Huskisson. In his
present employment Mr. Gladstone was called upon to handle a mass of
questions that were both of extreme complexity in themselves, and also
involved collision with trade interests always easily alarmed,
irritated, and even exasperated. With merchants and manufacturers,
importers and exporters, brokers and bankers, with all the serried hosts
of British trade, with the laws and circumstances of international
commerce, he was every day brought into close, detailed, and responsible
contact:--Whether the duty on straw bonnets should go by weight or by
number; what was the difference between boot-fronts at six shillings per
dozen pairs and a 15 per cent. duty _ad valorem_; how to distinguish the
regulus of tin from mere ore, and how to fix the duty on copper ore so
as not to injure the smelter; how to find an adjustment between the
liquorice manufacturers of London and the liquorice growers of
Pontefract; what was the special case for muscatels as distinct from
other raisins; whether 110 pounds of ship biscuits would be a fair
deposit for taking out of bond 100 pounds of wheat if not kiln-dried, or
96 pounds if kiln-dried; whether there ought to be uniformity between
hides and skins. He applies to Cornewall Lewis, then a poor-law
commissioner, not on the astronomy of the ancients or the truth of early
Roman history, but to find out for a certain series of years past the
contract price of meat in workhouses. He listens to the grievances of
the lath-renders; of the coopers who complain that casks will come in
too cheap; of the coal-whippers, and the frame-work knitters; and he
examines the hard predicament of the sawyers, who hold government
answerable both for the fatal competition of machinery and the
displacement of wood by iron. 'These deputations,' he says, 'were
invaluable to me, for by constant close questioning I learned the nature
of their trades, and armed with this admission to their interior, made
careful notes and became able to defend in debate the proposit