cal faith
expressed and implied in an article attributed to him, and not without
cause, which ushered into public notice the first number of a new
quarterly periodical, "The Foreign and Colonial Quarterly Review," in
January last, and was generally accepted as a programme of ministerial
faith and action. Our points of dissonance are, however, few; but, as
involving questions of principle, whilst we are generally at one on
matters of detail, we hold them to be of some importance. This, however,
is not the occasion proper for urging them, when engaged on a special
theme. But on a question of fact, which has a bearing upon the subject
in hand, we may be allowed to express our decided dissent from the
_dictum_ somewhat arbitrarily launched, in the article referred to, in
the following terms:--"We shall urge that foreign countries neither have
combined, nor ought to combine, nor can combine, against the commerce of
Great Britain; and we _shall treat as a calumny the imputation that they
are disposed to enter into such a combination_." The italics, it must be
observed, are ours.

We have at this moment evidence lying on our table sufficiently
explanatory and decisive to our minds that such a spirit of combination
is abroad against British commercial interests. We might indeed appeal
to events of historical publicity, which would seem confirmatory of a
tacitly understood combination, from the simultaneity of action
apparent. We have, for example, France reducing the duties on Belgian
iron, coal, linen, yarn, and cloths, whilst she raises those on similar
British products; the German Customs' League imposing higher and
prohibitory duties on British fabrics of mixed materials, such as wool,
cotton, silk, &c.; puny Portugal interdicting woollens by exorbitant
rates of impost, and scarcely tolerating the admission of cotton
manufactures; the United States, with sweeping action, passing a whole
tariff of prohibitory imposts; and, in several of these instances, this
war of restrictions against British industry commenced, or immediately
followed upon, those remarkable changes and reductions in the tariff of
this country which signalized the very opening of Sir Robert Peel's
administration. Conceding, however, this seeming concert of action to be
merely fortuitous, what will the vice-president of the Board of Trade
say to the long-laboured, but still unconsummated customs' union between
France and Belgium? Was that in the nature of a