abroad to enrich foreign manufactures; but thanks to the wise policy of protection which has built up American industries, it will stimulate our own manufactures, set our mills running faster, and give employment to thousands of idle workmen. Thus in a short time our abundant natural resources will restore what has been lost, and in converting the raw material our manufacturing interests will take on a new activity."

All of which is equivalent to saying that fire, war, pestilence, famine, shipwreck, and other calamities, if they give to certain class interests an opportunity to make and sell products at an advance of from 30 to 40 per cent. above their current value in the world's markets, and thereby inflict an unnecessary tax to the extent of from $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 on the impoverished inhabitants of a distressed city, is not to be regarded as wholly in the light of an evil and a disaster.

CONCLUSION.

We have thus endeavoured to sketch some of the more prominent incidents and features of the recent commercial, industrial, and financial history of the United States. As remarked in the outset, the whole history of the period reviewed may be regarded in the light of a record of a series of economic experiments upon a gigantic scale, empirical and tentative for the most part in their character, and whose influence and issue cannot yet be fully determined. But one thing, however, is certain; that, with the settlement and passing away of the questions growing out of the war and the extinction of slavery, the attention of the people of the United States will soon be given-as never before-to questions of economic interest and character; and the result of such attention will be progress in the direction of greater freedom, and a more intelligent fiscal administration-a progress so rapid, that it is safe to predict that ten years will not elapse before every vestige of restrictive and discriminating legislation will be stricken from the national statute book. And in aiding this progress, influences other

than those resulting from a better acquaintance with economic principles will be powerfully operative. For it will soon be seen that the National Federative Government of the United States cannot long continue to exercise legislative powers for the benefit of some sections of the country, and to the detriment of others, without weakening those bonds which are necessary to bind together in unity a nation of continental occupation, the interests of whose thirty-seven States and twelve Territories, in respect to soil, climate, products, density of population, extraneous circumstances, and habitudes of their people, are as great in diversity as the distances by which they are separated.

To deny to New England cheap coal; to the South cheap fertilisers for its cotton and cheap clothing for its labourers; to compel the West to sell all that it produces by one scale of prices, and buy all that it consumes by another and a higher; to refuse to the inhabitants of the Pacific States the right to gather as a free gift the salt that Providence has heaped in abundance upon the islands of their own seas; to authorise these and similar interferences, is to sow again the seeds of discontent which, first planted by the tariff of 1828, subsequently ripened into sectional jealousy, secession, and bloody war. To avoid such an issue, the people of the United States will soon find it necessary to go back to, abide by, and maintain that fundamental principle of every truly free government, namely-non-interference to the greatest extent possible with the freedom of the individual. What this doctrine means in respect to freedom of thought, of speech, and of personal action, the people of the United States all know; what it means in respect to trade, commerce, and industry, they have yet to fully find out, but are now learning in the hard and costly school of experience.

APPENDIX.

COMMERCIAL POLICY OF FRANCE, AND THE TREATY WITH ENGLAND OF 1860.

THE effects of the Treaty of Commerce of 1860, between England and France, upon the intercourse of the two countries, and of the commercial policy of which that treaty was the beginning, upon the progress and prosperity of France, are well known to all who have had the opportunity of investigating the facts. But at a time when the financial exigencies of France have led to a discussion of measures which would profoundly modify the conditions of her foreign trade, and check her material development, it is essential that a knowledge of those facts should be brought home to the minds of the people of both countries, and be diffused as widely as possible.

It is for this reason that the Cobden Club has caused the following brief statistical summary to be compiled from the official documents published by the English and French Governments, in the conviction that the results which they exhibit require little commentary.

In France the Free Trade policy was introduced, not as in England by independent tariff reforms, but by successive Treaties of Commerce with foreign powers, whereby reciprocal simultaneous reductions were effected, thus securing in each case a double advantage, by opening the markets of France to foreign competition, and at the same time obtaining for French produce increased facilities of access to the markets of other countries. As these arrangements were necessarily, however, a work of time, and are even still incomplete, the effect of the new policy upon the industry and trade of France has been less rapid and powerful than it would have been if her commercial reforms had been concentrated in one general measure.

This consideration gives to the following statement, which is taken from the "Annals of Foreign Trade," published by the French Ministry of Commerce, greatly increased significance :

COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF THE FOREIGN TRADE OF
FRANCE IN THE YEARS 1859 AND 1868.

General Commerce.*-The general commerce of France for 1868 represents a total value of 8,114,000,000 francs, or £324,560,000, of which 4,258,000,000 francs, or £170,320,000, consisted of imports, and 3,856,000,000 francs, or £154,240,000, of exports. This is an increase of 2,702,000,000 francs, or £108,000,000, over the total value of the general commerce of France for 1859, the year which preceded the reforms commenced in 1860.

Special Commerce.†-The special commerce of France, which is an exact representation of her direct exchanges, amounted in 1868 to 6,229,000,000 francs, or £249,160,000, of which 3,304,000,000 francs, or £132,160,000, consisted of imports, and 2,925,000,000 francs, or £117,000,000, of exports.

This is an increase of 2,322,000,000 francs, or £92,880,000, over 1859, of which 1,663,000,000 francs, or £66,520,000, consisted of imports, and 659,000,000 francs, or £26,360,000, of exports.

The distribution between the different quarters of the globe, and the principal countries, of the aggregate amount of this "special commerce," in each of the years 1859 and 1868, viz.— 3,907,000,000 francs in 1859, and 6,229,000,000 francs in 1868, was as follows:

There has thus been an increase in 1868 over 1859 of 2,082,000,000 francs, or £83,280,000, in the European trade of

France.

* The term "General Commerce" includes all importations, whatever their origin or destination, whether for consumption in France or for re-export; and all exportations, whether of French or foreign origin.

The term "Special Commerce" includes importations for consumption only, and exportations of French produce and manufacture only.