The Express.
London, England, 1863-10-10 00:00:00

TRADE AND INTERNATIONAL LAW..

An invitation had been sent by. the president of the
Liverpool Financial Reform Association to Mr. Oo&leo,
addng him to attend the coops= here, and take
part is the discussioes it was &spatted would take place on
the priociples of taxation. To this Levitation the armis-
tice' had received the following reply :
" Midhund, October 3. 1863.
" Deru.Sir,—As I shall sot be in Edinburgh at the sp-
preaching meeting of the Social Science Amenities, it will
not be in my power to take part is your ducuasioa raped..
Mg the comparative demerits of direct and indirect taxation.
I say derfilints, because it is really little more than a ques-
tion as to the form in which we shall tolerate a necessary
evil. But, admitting the necessity of nine( a peen awn
of money for the expenses of pvernmant, there can
really be no argument, in the abact, why it should
not be raised in that form which is the least oostly and
inconvenient to the public. I say in the abstract,
because I know all the advantage which the adversary
of an abstract prioeiple gives in bringing your ' practi-
cal man' to subjection. Nobody can deny that Customs and
Excise duties and other indirect taxes are more costly is
°collection than a direct levy of taxation, and nobody who
has examined the 'abject can doubt that they obstruct eon.
metes, impede manufactures, and check the production ci
wealth. If a proof of this be required, compare the pro-
-1 pass of a fres port like Hamburgh with a Customs-bound
pia= like Havre. As to the difficulty of substituting direct
for indirect taxation, that is • task fee statesmen to &mom-
, plots Ones convince the public of the soundness of year
principles, and you will soon have Huskissons. Peels, and
I Oladethees ready to put them into practice. The
local legislators of our town councils have already shows
the way. The municipal governments of our cities contrive
to raise their funds by a direct tax instead of ao noted,
whisk is considered an impossible achievement by the towns
of the Continent. Now, what are the taxes on tea, auger!
coffee, ke„ levied at our custom-houses, bet so many ectrot
dues on • larger scale ? How impossible it would be to put
up terriers at the entrance to Edinburgh or Manchester to
collect the municipal rates in the clumsy form of a duty
on the daily supplies of those cities ; and I as it Indy
ocameosil as of my oxidesce that if we could have for a
few years the experieoos of all the advantatee which
en abolition of import duties into this kingdom would
give us, it would be as impossible to replace the custom-
bosses as • substitute for the collection of direct taxes, as it
would now be to levy octave dues at the suburbs of oar large
towns, teethed of the direct rates which are etillthsed from
house to house for municipal purposes. Of enures you will
be met by politicises of all parties with the emerges that
your plan is impracticable, whisk meths only that it mania
at present be adopted with advantage by either of the es-
bairn political parties. But I repeat, if you can beat your
opposents I. the kohl of abstract argument, you will goober
or later fled statesmen who will be ready to give • legislative
triumph to your principles. It is only • gnostic* of tine.—
, Believe me, yours truly, " R. Costith;."

The report of the standing committee of this department
made the following reference to the important subject of
trade with neutrals :—" During the past merge of parlia-
ment various motto•, were made and questions were asked
with referee°, to certain circumstances arising out of the
contest between the Federal •od Coofederste Stage of
North America; but as there were all more or leas of •
party character, the committee do not consider it to be
within their provieee I. advert to any of them. It would
be still more remote from the oldest M the committee to
make soy uteervidices upon the policy of the British
government, le 'grin vends which are being
aged out in the port, ci this country for the
service of cos of the bellies/mg, or on the
ruling of the Lord Chief Bero• in the Alexandra
sees, me which • bill of exceptions has hese ten-
dered, and which will have to be disposed of by the court.
!be committee hem rely to express • hope that the die&
mattes w►ieh hem seisms will lead to the law on t►e
subject being plansid ea • safe and reasonable footles."

[TWOPENCE

university. The company was numerous sad brill' ion.
Though the evening was wet sod unpleasant—a thorough
Scotch mist having set in about noon—the weather v..
peered to have in nowise acted as a drawback is diminishing
i the numbers who accepted the invitation of the Scuttle,
! and about S o'clock the line of carriages and cabs, extending
from the Waverley-bridge along the Lee of Princeentrest
i and the north sad south bridges to the college gate, gave
promise of a splendid and crowded gathering. Shortly after
eight o'clock the hall was completely throned ; and about
nine. when the company had all or nearly all arrived,
it wo not easy to make way through the splendid 'seem-
blare. The hall was brilliantly lit by a row of closely-set
butlers running round the cornice just below the spring of
the beautiful and lofty arched ceiling ; sod all the recesses,
with their varied and instructive furniture of oasts, drawings,
instruments, and specimens, were abundantly illuminated
by paraffin and other lamps. Tropical ferns, with their
bread, cool, fanlike spread of foliage, were planted
up and down the hall, and formed pleasant spots of rest and
refreshment for the eye fatigued by the glare above and
below, and the gay colours that flitted andandchanged end-
lessly around • and here sad there in the galleries or below.
cool shady nooks sad recesses were kept vacant as momen-
tary retiring places from the crowd and haat. The arrange-
ments withia the hall itself were admirable, and could not
have been excelled, and the large abd brilliant crowd,
though at times sad is parte movement save by slow inches
was quite imprsoinable, yet on the whole circulated with
an ease and pleasantness only heightened and made more en-
joyable by the occasional inconvenience.
The " stalk" or exhibition rooms, into which the various
1110.1111118 of the hall had for the none bee converted-end
ea to the allot:neat and soperiotendeoce of which we gave
full particulars on Monday—were filled all night by inter-
aged crowds, who slowly made their way around the tables,
listening to the explanations gives. and observing with en-
gineer the experiment.' made by the various professors sod
other gentians" in charge. Especially was the attention of
the company draws towards the stall in which his Royal
Highness Priam Alfred—who, attired in ilighLuad
madams, entered the ball about half-past eight
o'oleak, and was received by hearty demonstra-
tion of weloonse—lsappesed at the time to be
listening with patient and apparent) interested defences to
W the 'Windom of the exhibitor.. The crowd, indeed, about
what—the particular science in gumbos receiving for the
time llWe anent= for its own sake—might In called the
Prises's stall, was now and then awkwardly dews and
canoes. Bat his royal highness, who might have been con-
wiled for the sort of genteel mobbing to which he was
subjected by the COCHICIOOIII4II6 that he formed the subject of
many complimentary comments in which a tone of kindly
sad loyal feeling towards hie royal mother was mingled
with warm admiratioe for the simple and unaffected
bearing of the youthful sailor—bore the scrutiny with only
the least sonpron of reffringneas or uneasiness, and with •
kragnefferiog gash umour that could not have bees lour-
When Prince left the ball, about half-past 10,
L"weas. warmly cheered. The same cordial =promisee of
welcome and interest that greeted the Prince were bestowed
as the venerable Lord Brougham, who arrived shout nine
o'clock, sod who afterwards accompanied Alfred in
his sinspechoo of several of the stalls. Loudrougham,
who wore hie robes as Chancellor of the tTaivenelt, hit the
hall gorily before ten o'clock.

EXCURSION TO THE CASS ROCK.
About a hundred ladles end gentlemen, members of the
eanociatioa, availed themselves yesterday of the kind otter
made by Mesas. Gibeos and Co., owners of the Rotterdam
line of screworamers, to make a trip down the Forth and
rotted the Bar Rock. When the company arrived at Leith,
to go on bard the steamer, they found the wind blowing
very freshly from the earth-east, and in she distance the
white areas were seem on the tumbling water, and
ocersionally clouds of spray dashed over the pier. sug-
gesting thoughts of trouble and distress for the
landoman, the victims of the mal du user. The
owner very considerately put it to the corn=
whether, with the certainty of • rough blow from the N
Bee, they would prefer going up instead of down the Forth—
to Stirling instead of the Bea Rook. To himself and the
old salts co board the Rotterdam steamer it was of courses
matter of iso account, and he was only anxious that the trip
should be road' as agreeable as possible to all parties. It
was belly resolved that the ladies on board should decide
by a show al horde. and the result of the appeal was that
the Bess Rock bras carried by an overwhelming majcsity,
the ladies almost to • man voting for " the se., the sea,'
Wham the milk of the pell was announced about a doom'
ff.....tliness west; on shore, and returned. I presume, to Elio-
STQoederinggreatly, no doubt, at the strange perversity
ageles, gad moralising on that love of adveeture sod
the heroism of frail and tender woman. The trip proved a
meet agreeable one. The Osborne, steaming against a strong
head wind, pitched and tamed in a very hvely sod play-
ful menner, and the company en baud were net lees merry,
mad, with scarcely an exception, heartily eajoyed them-
selves. Yr. Bryson, whose fame is not Ices as a skilful
chronometer maker than as a studious geologist.
explained on the way his theories of the forma-
tion of basalt, mid trap, and groomed, and other members
of the great family of stratideation, holding himself as he.
tender to the geological creed of Lyell and Narehison,
and challenged any one to dispute his aesertion that basalt
was always at right angles to the bees on which it stood.
gore one present hinted at the arched colonree of the
eaves of Matra; but they were quickly disposed of as mere
abortions, and classed among deformities of various kinds
which are to be met with in the human species. With
ear sod eoeundrum. and some smart repartee among sense
of the company, which west far to disprove the notion of
the innate heaviness of Fcotch " wet." the time sped on
rapidly. and the Baas Rook. standing oat bold and abrupt
in all its lonely grandeur, amply repaid the courage of those
who had dectled on the trip. The black rock was decked
with myriads of the white soles pone,like the
snow drift that bad fallen gritty upon the barren
rook. A gun fired from the steemer startled and
drove thousands from their resting-place, and the ledges of
the precipitous rocks appeared to start into life. On this
lonely rook there exist the rains of what was once a state
prison, cod where many • stern old Castrates lay in its
dismal dungeons—Tantallon Castle, where
Round three sides the mesa dove.
The fourth did battled walk eackelk
Aid double rows of foam.
The old stronghold of the Douglas family frowned darkly
ou the steep, sad many a tale was told of the wars and
feuds of which it had awe been the sane.

The coroisoy were most hospitably estartamed ou board,
mad at the return to Leith the warmest thanks of the guests
were cooveyed to the owners of the steamer.