after trade would claim protection-at all more to the point. Every trade and industry would be treated alike. All would have a free field and no favour. And as regards foreign countries we should strictly do as we are done by, and as we would be done by, and no more. We should make no attempt to injure them or retaliate on them, but should simply and exactly neutralise their interference with free trade as between us and them.

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As I am here discussing an important question of principle, to which, if it can be clearly established, our practice should conform, I am spared the necessity of adducing that array of statistics which is generally made use of in arguments on this subject. It is well, however, to give one or two illustrative cases. Professor Fawcett clearly proves, that the effect of the French sugar bounties is, that sugar is sold in England under its cost price in France, and that the only people who benefit by it are the proprietors on whose land beet-root is grown, and the people of this country, who get sugar practically cheaper. He admits, however, that considerable injury is, no doubt, inflicted on English sugar refiners by the French being bribed by their Government to sell sugar in the English market at a price which, without a State subvention, would not prove remunerative; but, he adds, if we embark on the policy of protecting a special trade against the harm done to it by the unwise fiscal policy of other countries, we shall become involved in a labyrinth of commercial restrictions,' &c. Surely this is a very vague and unsatisfactory reason why our home and colonial sugar manufacture should be left at the mercy of a foreign Power. For if the French Government at any time and for any reason still further increase the sugar bounties, they might completely ruin many of our manufacturers; while some future ministry might abolish them altogether, and then, when fresh capital had been drawn to the manufacture, it might be again ruined. Are we to submit to this, on account of the shibboleth of what is miscalled 'free trade,' when the imposition of an import duty of the same amount as the bounty would prevent all such fluctuations? By this course we should leave to France the full benefit of her natural sugar-producing capacity, only taking away from her the power to cause commercial distress in our country and our colonies by a course of action which is liable to unforeseen changes at the whim of a minister or a political party. Exactly the same arguments apply to our paper manufacture, which is injured in the same way by foreign export duties on the raw material and import duties on the manufactured article; and, on the true principles of free trade, it is entitled to have those duties neutralised, until the countries which impose them think fit to abolish them altogether.

In almost every civilised country, including our own colonies, the people naturally wish to develope their own resources to the utmost;

and we must all sympathise with this desire. But as they have in the first instance to struggle against old-established industries in other countries, the difficulties and risk are too great to attract the necessary capital, and they therefore endeavour to restore the balance in their favour by means of protective duties, professedly as a temporary resource till the new industry is well established. But Professor Fawcett assures us that, in the United States, in no single instance has a protective duty when once imposed been voluntarily relinquished, but, on the contrary, each case is made a ground for seeking, and often obtaining, further protection; and for about a century American protective duties have been constantly increasing. The same thing applies more or less in the case of other civilised nations with whom we have commercial intercourse, and thus all security for the investment of capital in any manufacture is taken away from our people. Whether in our mineral products or our hardware, our cotton, paper, silk, or sugar, or any other of the thousand industries on which the prosperity of our producers and workers depends, all alike are subject to periodical floods of the surplus stocks of other countries, from whose markets we are shut out by protective and generally prohibitive duties.

The advantage to foreign manufacturers, on the other hand, of having an open market for their surplus goods, while they are themselves protected from competition, is so obvious and so great, that, instead of our example having any tendency to make them follow in our steps, it really becomes a premium to them to continue their system of exclusion. They obtain all the advantages of free trade, we all the disadvantages of protection. Internal competition keeps down prices in a protected country to a fair standard, and thus the consumers do not materially suffer; while the free market we offer for surplus stocks gives to the manufacturers the great advantage of utilising their plant and machinery to its full extent, and thus working with a maximum of economy. Our boasted freedom of trade, on the other hand, consists in our being shut out of half the markets of the world, and in being further handicapped by the irregular influx of surplus stocks which foreign manufacturers are (in the words of Professor Fawcett) bribed to sell us under cost price!' How differently do we act when there is a suspicion of prison-manufactured goods competing with those of regular traders! The representations of those traders are always listened to with respect by our Government, and it is invariably admitted that they have a genuine case of grievance. They are never told that the people benefit, and therefore they must suffer that prison mats and brooms can be sold at least a penny in the shilling lower than the usual prices, and that the public must not be deprived of this advantage, even though mat and broom makers starve. Yet this is the very argument used (and almost the only argument) in favour of our present system. The public (or a

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section of it) get iron, and silk, and paper, and cotton, and sugar fractionally cheaper, owing to the influx of foreign-manufactured goods sold under cost price; therefore the manufacturers of all these goods, and the large proportion of our population who are engaged directly or indirectly in such manufactures, must alike suffer. The weakness of this argument has already been exposed, while its inconsistency, cruelty, and selfishness are no less obvious.

I have now, as I believe, pointed out a mode of action which we may, as free traders, consistently adopt; which will satisfy all the just claims of our manufacturers and workmen; which will give stability to our industries, and inspire confidence in our capitalists; and which, by neutralising the effects of the protectionist policy of other countries, will place us as nearly as possible in the position we should occupy were they all to become free traders. I have shown, that as long as we continue our present course of action we really offer them the strongest inducements to continue, or even to extend, their present policy of protection; while it is evident that if we simply neutralise every step they take in this direction, they will have no motive, so far as regards us, for continuing such a system. Arguments in favour of free trade will then have fair play, since they will not be rendered nugatory by the bribe our policy now offers them to uphold protection.

The objections that I anticipate to my plan are: first, that it is too complex, as it would compel us to adopt as against each country its own tariff, however cumbersome; secondly, that it would not satisfy those who now ask for another kind of reciprocity in the shape of special protective duties; thirdly, that it would diminish our commerce; and, fourthly, that it would be systematically evaded, and is therefore impracticable.

As to its complexity, I reply that it would really be the most simple of all tariffs, since it would be determined by one self-adjusting principle. The fact that the various lists of duties imposed by foreign nations would be lengthy, is really of no importance whatever. When alphabetically arranged, it is not more difficult to find one item among a thousand than it is among five hundred. It may also be said that we could not ascertain in many cases what the foreign duties really are, owing to the complications introduced by bounties, drawbacks, and various kinds of imposts distinct from the nominal import duty. But if we could not precisely estimate the amount of protection afforded in every case, we certainly could do so approximately; and we might trust to our consuls and our custom-house officials to arrive at a sufficiently accurate estimate.

If my proposal should not at first satisfy the present demand of our manufacturers for reciprocity, I am sorry for it; but that does not in the least affect the proposal itself, which has to be judged by the rules of logic, common sense, and expediency. I put it forward

as being strictly in accordance with the essential spirit of free trade; as a principle of action which has nothing in common with protection in any form, since its whole purport and effect is to neutralise all attempts at a protectionist policy by other countries. Argument and example have alike failed to influence them, but a check-mate of this kind may have a different result.

As to the third objection I maintain, that commerce exists, or ought to exist, for the good of the nation, not the nation for the good of commerce. If I have shown that the system of strict and detailed reciprocity here proposed would give us the most important of the benefits and blessings of free trade, and would thus be for the advantage of our entire industrial population, I need not concern myself to show that a section of the community which may have gained by the present false and one-sided policy will suffer no inconvenience should that policy be changed; for such arguments have always been put aside as irrelevant when free-trade principles have been at issue.

us.

To the fourth objection, that our reciprocal duties would be evaded by passing goods through countries where they were allowed free entry, I reply, that the duty might be levied on each article as being the product of a certain country, from whatever port it was shipped to In most cases our custom-house experts would at once be able to say where the article was manufactured, and we might further protect ourselves by requiring satisfactory proof (such as a certificate from the manufacturer) that it was really the product of the country from whose port it was shipped, in order to be admitted duty-free. Even if we should be occasionally cheated, I cannot see that this is a valid objection against adopting a sound and beneficial course of action.

I have carefully spared my readers figures and statistics, but for those who wish to see how these apply to the questions here raised, I may recommend Sir Edward Sullivan's volume on Protection to Native Industry, and Captain Halford Thompson's pamphlet on The Effects of Free Trade without Reciprocity.

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

COUNT LEO TOLSTOY'S NOVELS.

TOWARDS the close of the Crimean War, there appeared in the Russian magazine Sovremennik, several articles which attracted great attention, so vivid were the pictures drawn in them of the scenes witnessed, the life led, by the defenders of Sebastopol. From their pages might be gained a clear idea of what went on within the lines of that beleaguered city, then the centre point of all Russian hopes and fears; of the fierce excitement, and at the same time the terrible monotony of the siege, and of the effect which they produced upon the minds of the men who were straining their energies to the utmost to withstand the banded invaders of Holy Russia. In the year 1856 they were published as a separate volume, under the title of Voennuie Razskazai (or War Sketches), and soon made widely known the name of their author, Count Leo Tolstoy, then in his eight-and-twentieth year. The military censor, whose permission it was necessary to obtain, was by no means enthusiastic in their favour. And he was a difficult personage to persuade, for he was a very deaf old general, and, when he did not wish to hear anything, he was wont to lay aside his ear-trumpet, and thus cut himself off from the world of argument. Several passages in the description of siege-life in Sebastopol were not to his taste. For instance, in one admirable scene a group of soldiers was depicted, attempting to relieve their dulness by means of literature. Crouching in a corner at night, they had stuck a light on the end of a bayonet, and one of them read aloud to the others from a grimy little volume of skazki, or fairy tales. The idea of soldiers reading such childish trash displeased the general. Here was an opportunity, he cried, of recommending to the army useful literature. Why did not the author represent the men as listening to a sound work which should point out to them the merits of military discipline and organisation? However, the book was steered sagely between censorial shoals, and arrived safely in the haven of popularity. The author became famous, especially after the publication, also in 1856, of his romance Dyetsvo i Otrochestvo (Childhood and Youth); a most interesting record of Russian family life, rich in poetic descriptions of nature, and full of very remarkable studies of the first movements and gradual development