ase of the day, of "great facts." We
will assume "free trade" as a "great fact." We will not stop to inquire
how it was brought about, or whether, by any means, it could have been
avoided. These are the topics of history, and history, no one need fear,
will do them justice. As little shall we stop to ask, whether direct or
indirect taxation is the best, or whether a mixture of both is to be
recommended. We shall not ask whether it is better to pay taxes on the
price of the articles we purchase, when the amount is not perceived, or,
if perceived, seldom objected to, at least against government, and when
the disagreeable operation of paying money is compensated, at least in
some degree, by the pleasure derived from the article purchased,--or to
pay them at once to the tax-gatherer, when we get nothing for our ample
disbursements but a bit of paper from the collector to remind us of the
extent of our losses. As little shall we inquire, from history, how many
nations have been ruined by direct taxation, and whether there is one,
the decline of which can be traced to indirect; or from reason, whether
it is _possible_ that a _nation_ can be ruined by indirect taxes, when
the only effect of their becoming too high is, that they check the
consumption of the articles on which they are laid, and therefore cease
to be paid. We shall not remind our readers that, in the latter years of
the war L72,000,000, under the protective system, was levied in the
shape of taxes amidst general prosperity, on eighteen millions of people
in the British empire; and that now, under the free trade system,
fifty-two millions net revenue is felt as extremely oppressive by
twenty-eight millions. These topics, vast and important as they are, and
deeply as they bear on the past history and future prospects of the
British empire, have become the province of history, because the great
change on which they hinge has been made and cannot be unmade. We have
chosen to have free trade,--in other words, to abandon indirect
taxation; and free trade we must have, and indirect taxation will in
consequence be abandoned.

But it is particularly to be observed, in the outset of this system,
that free trade, once adopted and applied to certain great branches of
national industry, must necessarily be _progressive_, and embrace _all_,
if we would avoid the total ruin of many of the staple branches of our
production and main source of our _direct_ revenue. In a short time,