The Sun.
London, England, 1840-10-15 00:00:00

which yield less than 400,0001.1 What writing
and watching, what checks and counter-checks,
what honesty in subalterns and vigilance in Com-
missioners, and what restrictions on the free actions
of many hundred thousand people ; what trouble
to merchants and ship-captains, what pains and
penalties all who frequent the water are liable tot
merely to levy such a driblet of the national re-
sources as 363,319/.1 Perhaps it may be taken
as an epitome of the operations of Government
generally, which, in its clumsy efforts to do a little
good, too often crushes the welfare of millions.
There seems to have been no defender of our tariff
examined by the Committee, which is even more for-
saken than the Devil, who when the POPE is about
to canonize some worthy of the Church is always
allowed an advocate to show cause against the sanc-
tification. No person from the Board of Trade or
Customs, no Tory Member of the Committee, un-
dertook to vindicate, or even to apologise for the
preposterous system. In fact, the information on
which the Committee is enabled to condemn it is
derived from two very intelligent public officers, Mr.
M'GREGoR, at present one of the Joint-Secretaries
of the Board of Trade, and Mr. J. D. Hymn, who
formerly filled the same office. Both of them have
had ample opportunities of examining the system,
and both agree that it is as bad as could be well
devised. The description given by the latter of its
origin is worth particular attention, and we shall lay

it before our readers :
" As regards the duties levied for the revenue, what
alterations do you consider necessary ? (Question
1098.)—I think (replies Mr. Hume), that the table is
infinitely more complicated and extended than it need
be." " The plan has been to name, as nearly as pos-
sible, every article which the mind of man almost could
conceive, with a parthallar duty attached to it ; and
then, with a view to obtain a duty on any a: title which
may not have been so named, the table winds up with two
general charges, which are known by the name of the
unenumerated duties. The first is a duty of 20 per
cent. upon articles not enumerated, which have under-
gone any degree of manufacture ; the second is
a duty of 5 per cent. on articles not enumerated,
which have undergone no degree of manufacture. Not
many years ago these two duties were, the first 50, and
the other 20 per cent., the object being to secure
what was deemed an adequate sum for the benefit of
the revenue."
A set of gentlemen, without the slightest regard
to the possible wants of the people, put down
every article they can recollect, and ordain a duty to
be levied on it ; and then, lest that net should not
catch every possible commodity, they order 50 per
ilt. and 20 per cent. to be collected on
all other imported articles. This is legis-
lation ; and legislation for a commercial country,
the prosperity and increasing wealth of which de-
pend on the exchange of commodities ! Reason
says that this ought to be as free as possible, sub-
ject to no restriction, except what may be demon-
strated to he necessary to the political independence
of the nation, or to the national safety ; but our
Legislators have set out on the principle that it
shall not be free, and they have devised a compre-
hensive system of restrictions to embrace every com-
modity imported.
To what extent such a system must have ope-
rated to check trade it is impossible to say ; but
when we now see that the difference of price of 5
per cent. is sufficient to cause large importations or
exportations, a wholesale duty of 50 or 20 per
cent. must have crushed the opening blossoms of
much fair commerce. Such a system of legislation
must haveblighted to o an infinity of employment be-
fore it could well break into buil.
Latterly England has exported machinery—for-
merly she imported it, and imported arts from
France and Italy. Suppose such a machine as a
Jacquard•loom to be in use in France, and our
weavers wished to import it ; the duty, ordained
in ignorance that such a machine existed, might be
tantamount to a prohibition, and unless some great
manufacturer could get the ear of the President of
the Board of Trade, and so have the duty remit-
ted, England might for years remain behind her
neighbours in consequence of this legislation.
The object of such comprehensive enactments
have been two-fold, to collect a revenue (to pension
vice and knavery), and to protect our own produc-
tions against foreign competition. Mr. MAC-
GREGOR ascribes a great many of these duties to
the desire to protect our own productions. Mr. J.
D. HUME gives this picture of the unexpected ope-
ration of a duty :
" There are a great many articles which originally
were at a very low duty, and where no protection was
contemplated ; but auringthe war, year by year, budget
by budget, many articles had duties at last imposed
on them which set people on the alert to make them
before, and thus incidentally those became forestalled.
First, revenue alone was the object, but parties made
the goods here, and, in fact, intercepted the revenue."
For this service they were rewarded by having
the protection secured to them, or perhaps aug-
mented, and by that means they were enabled
to tax' their fellow-subjects. We may refer
to sugar and tobacco as illustrations, except
in one point. Year after year, budget after bud-
get, the duties imposed on them were so
enormous that people were put on the alert to grow
tobacco and manufacture sugar in England, but
their patriotic efforts to make the country inde-
pendent were not looked on with the same favour-
able eye as the efforts of those who were put on the
alert to fabricate brass buttons or long cloth, and
Acts of Parliament have been passed to root out
the tobacco and put down flit sugar manufactories,
which men were put on the alert to plant or erect
by the Acts of the Legislature. The brass-button
maker under such circumstances becomes a pa-
triot, entitled to public honours, and the tobacco
grower is considered almost a rebel, and his fields
are rendered desolate. The economical effects of
such a system are extremely onerous, but the
moral effect, confusing in men's minds right and
wrong, good or evil, are still more injurous to the

THE AX

13. OW.