will be noticed, that this table shows the mean annual results for certain specified periods, so arranged, in respect to the dates of the several tariff-acts, as to exhibit the effects of each particular measure. The annual results for the whole period are given in No. 120 of the Appendix; and, from this, Table A is derived.

So far, then, as any judgment can be formed from the gross receipts of customsrevenue, these free-trade measures of England have produced no important results.

Let us now look into the bearing of these acts on particular classes of imports, with special reference to the questions of free trade and protection.

In 1845, "by command of her majesty," an Expository Statement1 was prepared, and presented to Parliament, showing how the tariff of 1842 affected the following classes of imports; namely:

ARTICLES IN THE RAW STATE, TO BE USED IN MANUFACTURES.

ARTICLES PARTIALLY MANUFACTURED.

ARTICLES WHOLLY MANUFACTURED.

ARTICLES OF Food.

ARTICLES NOT PROPERLY BELONGING TO ANY OF THE FOREGOING CLASSES.

Under these heads, the statement respectively presented every article imported into the United Kingdom, and gave the net annual amount of duty collected upon each for two years preceding and two years following the tariff of 1842. No. 119 of the Appendix is an abstract of the Expository Statement, and Table B is derived from the abstract.

TABLE B.

Comparative View of the NET Annual Amount of Customs-duties (distinguishing them by Classes, according to their Bearing on the Questions of Free Trade and Protection) collected on Imports.

From this table, it appears that the principal effect of the measure in question was to reduce the amount of duties raised on raw materials and other articles used in manufactures, and to increase the amount received upon articles of food. The change in the amount of duty collected on manufactures was very small; being, in the aggregate, only $20,225: while the reduction on raw materials amounted to $3,901,195, and the reduction on articles partially manufactured to $1,998,705.

To test, in a similar manner, the aggregate effects of the three great free-trade measures, I have applied the same classification to the dutiable imports of 1839 and 1859. The result may be seen in Table C; to which I invite careful attention. So far as these records of the custom-house furnish a criterion, England, during the twenty years in question, instead of progressing, actually receded, in absolute free trade; for (as shown by the summary of the table now before us) her total yearly receipts of' customs-duties at the end of the period were $12,917,875 more than at the beginning of it. Even in qualified free trade, there is no evidence that she made any advance; for, of duties which come under our head of absolute protection, - that is, duties on articles wholly manufactured, - she raised $636,315 more at the close than she raised at the beginning. But the most striking feature of this comparison is its testimony in regard to the amount of qualified protection afforded to the English manufacturer by the measures in question. On articles in a raw state to be used in manufactures, and on articles partially manufactured, which, almost equally with raw materials, enter into manufactures, the duties relinquished amounted to $12,135,020.

The result to England of her free-trade reform, as indicated by the receipts of customs-duties, may be thus stated: -

To understand fully the bearing of this statement, it must be borne in mind, that, during the period to which it relates, British imports increased about one hundred and forty-five per cent. The $12,135,020 is the amount of qualified protection furnished by the imports of 1839,- more than twenty years ago. To estimate the present amount of such protection, this sum must be increased by the large percentage just named; showing that, with the same duties as then prevailed, the British manufacturers would

Comparative View of the NET Amount of Customs-Duties collected on Imports into the United Kingdom of Great Britain in the Years 1839 and 1859; distinguishing the Principal Articles by Classes, according to their Bearing on the Questions of Free Trade and Protection.

now have to pay on the raw materials which they use an annual tax of at least $30,000,000. On cotton alone, this tax would be $8,000,000.

It is hardly to be expected, that English statesmen of the modern commercialreform school should openly advocate protection. That Mr. GLADSTONE, however, on one point at least, does not differ materially from us, we infer from the following guarded concession: "I freely grant, that the relief of raw materials from taxation is a different thing from that of annihilating protection." Unquestionably, it is a very

different thing.

It must not be supposed that the abandoned duty on raw materials and on articles partially manufactured, valuable to the manufacturer as this boon was, constitutes the whole amount of qualified protection afforded by the measures under consideration. Their most important effects, undoubtedly, were produced upon articles of food. To diminish materially the charge of living in England, and thus render a continuance of low wages practicable, was a primary object and anticipated result of the Tariff reform." "The country, in 1840, had outgrown its fiscal system; and the remedy required was the removal of impediments which prevented the growth of the foreign trade; which raised the price of corn, and immensely aggravated the evils of deficient . seasons; and which diminished the value of wages by rendering a large class of imported articles scarce and dear."3

Some great change, which should cheapen subsistence, and make it possible for the artisan and the laborer to remain in Great Britain, had become an evident and imperious necessity. Neither the manufacturing nor the mercantile interest could expect to hold its own, much less to expand and prosper, so long as the corn-laws stood. Free trade in breadstuffs had, in fact, become essential to their protection, and was finally carried against the fierce and powerful opposition of the landholders. Some idea of the present relief afforded by the corn-law repcal may be obtained from the fact, that the imports of breadstuffs into Great Britain in 1860 amounted in value to $156,000,000. Had the " sliding-scale" been continued, with corn at prices which ruled for the three years prior to its repeal, the bread-tax that year would have amounted to $31,200,000.

Thus far, it appears, from her own official statistics, that the general effect of the

1 Gladstone on Recent Commercial Legislation, p. 64.

* Speech of Sir Robert Peel, May 10, 1842. — Hansard, vol. 63, 3d series, p. 355.
Tooke's History of Prices, vol. 5, p. 481.

so-called free-trade system has been highly protective as respects the manufacturers of England.

To understand fully the nature and the necessity of the reform effected by PEEL and GLADSTONE, we should bear in mind, that the details and provisions of the British Tariff had become exceedingly numerous, complicated, and inconsistent. It contained many actual prohibitions, and many duties so high as to be in fact prohibitive. In the progress of manufactures and trade, not a few of its imposts had become entirely inoperative. It had grown up, as it were, by chance, to meet, from time to time, the exigencies of war and the demands of finance, until it had become a vast agglomeration of unintelligible impositions and vexatious requirements. To climinate from such a mass what was positively injurious or absolutely useless, and to simplify and to classify the whole, was clearly a work of necessity and mercy, which, by relieving the customhouse, gave needed facilities to commerce. The common-sense act which erased from the statute-book so many petty but annoying details made no little show of reform. Yet, so far as these details were concerned, it had really no bearing on the great questions of free trade and protection; more than nine-tenths of the entire customsreceipts having been derived, as already shown, from sixteen articles.

To facilitate our consideration of the effects of the great free-trade acts, as evinced. by the increase of foreign commerce, I have prepared Table D. From 1805 to 1860, it gives, for each year, the number of inhabitants and the value of domestic exports. Dividing fifty of these years into fourteen unequal groups, it shows the mean population, the mean exports, and the mean amount for cach individual, during each of these shorter periods. Their character as years of war or of peace, and the most important modifications of the tariff, are also indicated. Another significant column, beginning with 1849, shows the annual receipts of gold from Californian and Australian mines. Until 1854, the real value of imports was not officially reported by the British custom-house. Hence the exports only are given in the Table. As these, however, regulate, to a great extent, the amount of imports, the latter may be estimated with

1 In 1810, a digest of the customs-duties was completed, after five years' hard labor; making, when thus condensed, a work of 1400 pages. "In 1820, the whole commercial system was encumbered, disfigured, and shackled by innumerable, vexatious, obstructive, and impolitic restrictions, that had come down from periods long anterior to the war.... The number of acts of Parliament relating to the entry, export, and custody of goods, as matters of custom-bouse supervision, were not less than fifteen hundred." In 1926, Mr. HusKISSON, in his d

attempt to consolidate the customs duties, employed eleven separate acts, by the first of which more than four hundred statutes were repealed (Tooke's History of Prices, vol. 5, pp. 401, 445, and vol. 6, p. 336). In 1840, as appears from the Report of Mr. HUME, already mentioned, there were "no fewer than 1,150 different rates of duty on imported articles." Of 862 articles then subject to duty, 349 produced less than $500 each of customs-daty per annum, and 147 produced nothing.