consumes. The customs furnish
occupation for one most expensive staff; the excise for another; nowhere
is the machinery of collection attempted to be simplified. Then comes
the assessed-taxes, the income-tax, land-tax--and what not--all
collected by different staffs--the cost of the preventive guard is no
trifle--in fact, there are as many parasites living upon the taxation of
this country as there are insects on a plot of unhealthy rose-trees. If
we are to have free trade, let it be free and unconditional, and rid us
of these swarms of unnecessary vermin. Open the ports by all means, but
open them to every thing. Let the quays be as free for traffic as the
Queen's highway; let us grow what we like, consume what we please, and
tax us in one round sum according to each man's means and substance, and
then at all events there can be no clashing of interests. This is the
true principle of free trade, carried to its utmost extent, and we
recommend it now to the serious consideration of Ministers.

We have not in these pages ventured to touch upon the interests which
the national churches have in this important measure, because hitherto
we have been dealing with commercial matters exclusively. May we hope
they will be better cared for elsewhere than in our jarring House of
Commons.

As to the necessity of the measure, more especially at the present time,
we can find no shadow of a reason. We can understand conversions under
very special circumstances. Had it been shown that the agriculturists,
notwithstanding their protection, were remiss in their duties--that they
had neglected improvement--that thereby the people of this country, who
looked to them for their daily supply of bread, were stinted or forced
pay a most exorbitant price, then there might have been some shadow of
an argument for the change at the present moment. We say a shadow, for
in reality there is no argument at all. The sliding-scale was
constructed, we presume, for the purpose of preventing exorbitant
prices, by admitting foreign grain duty free after our averages reached
a certain point, _and that point they have never yet reached_. Was,
then, the probability of such prices never in the mind of the framers,
and was the sliding-scale merely a temporary delusion and not a
settlement? So it would seem. The agriculturists are chargeable with no
neglect. The attempt some three or four months ago to get up a cry of
famine on account of the failure of the crops