ymous letter appeared
in the _Nova Scotian_ criticizing the financial administration of the
city of Halifax and impugning the integrity of its administrators. Howe
as editor was responsible. With his trial for criminal libel, and his
speech in his defence, his real political life begins.

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CHAPTER III

THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM

To understand the system of government which Howe assailed, we must go
back to the very origin of the British colonies. In the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries an exaggerated importance was attached to money
as such. A dollar's worth of gold or silver was held to be of more
value than a dollar's worth of grain or timber; not merely more
convenient, or more portable, or more easily exchangeable, but
absolutely of more value. A country was supposed to be rich in
proportion to the amount of money or bullion which it possessed. At
first the only colonies prized were those which, like the Spanish, sent
bullion to the mother country. Later on, when it was found that
bullion need not be brought directly into a country, but might come in
the course of trade, this exaggerated belief in money compelled the
mother country so to regulate the trade of the colonies as to {31}
increase her stores of bullion. To keep as much money as possible
within the Empire the colonies were compelled to buy their manufactures
in the mother country, and as far as possible to restrict their
productions to such raw materials as she herself could not produce, and
which she would otherwise be compelled to buy from the foreigner. In
carrying out this policy the mother country did her best to be fair;
the relation was not so much selfish as maternal. If the colonies were
restricted in some ways, they were encouraged in others. If, for
example, Virginia was forbidden manufactures, her tobacco was admitted
into Great Britain at a lower rate of duty than that of Spain or other
foreign countries, and tobacco-growing in England was forbidden
altogether.

This system, which was embodied in a series of Acts known as Acts of
Trade, or Navigation Acts, did not, in the state of development they
had reached, hurt the colonies. In some ways it was actually of
advantage to them. A new country, with cheap land and dear labour,
must always devote itself mainly to the production of raw materials,
and to many of these colonial raw materials Great Britain gave a
preference or bounties. At the same {32} time, as was