used in the manufacture of woollen goods, was the common olive oil; and the rate of reduction which he intended to apply to it would leave the manufacturers of England in a better condition than they were in 1790. There was another species of oil, made from rape-seed, much used in the manufacture of our coarser woollens, on which he also intended to alter the duty. By a measure, which the House passed during the severest period of the agricultural distress, they had laid a heavy duty, amounting almost to a prohibition, on rapeseed and flax-seed oil, and had thus enhanced the price of it very considerably. That was not, how ever, the only injury which they committed by that unwise and illadvised measure: they destroyed the manufacture of oil from rape in this country; for by prohibiting the introduction of the raw material, they increased the difficulty of making, and consequently the expense of purchasing rape-oil. Rape became so dear, that the manufacturer would not purchase it to make oil without the oil, no oil-cake could be made, and the consequence was, that the farmer, who wanted the oil-cake for agricultural purposes, was not able to procure it. The oil-cake manufacturer could not afford to get the rape from abroad, and the farmer could not afford to purchase the oil-cake at its advanced price from the manufacturer. Mr. H. therefore proposed to revert to our ancient policy upon this point, and after allowing a certain time to the dealers to get rid of the stock they had in hand, to take off the duty on this oil altogether, and to give the manufacturer the power of supplying the farmer with cake, instead of compelling him to get it,

when he could afford it, from the foreign market. He believed that it would also be an encouragement to the manufacture of low-priced woollens to reduce the duty on a species of foreign wool used for coarse cloths still lower than it was reduced already. Our manufacturers were in the habit of importing a great quantity of lowpriced wool at about a shilling a pound; and it was in that branch of our manufacture that they most of all feared competition. He therefore proposed, that the duty on all foreign wool imported into this country, which was under the price of one shilling a pound, should be reduced to a halfpenny a pound.

On

Mr. Huskisson proceeded, lastly, to propose some measures which would tend to relieve the commerce and navigation of the country. There was already laid on the table one bill which was intended to do away with all the quarantine duties. The amount of those duties was considerable; and they were unfairly placed on the shipping interest, since the alleged reason for imposing them was the protection of the country. that account he was of opinion, that the committee on foreign trade had acted with no less prudence than propriety in advising that the expense of these duties should be borne by the country at large, and not by any particular class in it. Another measure which he intended to propose was, the abolition of fees on all commerce to our colonies. These fees formed a heavy tax on persons engaged in that commerce, and were considered more irksome than many taxes which in point of money were much larger. Another measure was the removal of the duty which was payable on the transfer of any

share of a ship, or of a whole ship, from one person to another. This duty was an exception to the general stamp duties, and grew out of this anomaly that we compelled, for reasons thought to be conducive to our navigation, all British ships to be registered by their owners. Now, to take advantage of a law which compelled the names of all the owners to be registered, in order to fix a stamp to every transfer that might be made in the ownership, was a great injustice in itself, and an unnecessary aggravation of an inconvenience, which, even if it were necessary, was still an inconvenience. He should therefore relieve the shipping interest from this annoyance, and should allow a ship to be transferred or exchanged, either in whole or in part, like any other chattel, without any payment of duty. There was another article in which he should also be able to afford considerable relief to the shipping interests. There were certain goods which were allowed to be exported only on certain conditions. Bonds were required from the exporters for the due delivery of the goods at the place to which they were to be exported; and these bonds were subjected to heavy stamps. A great difficulty often arose in the Custom-house respecting them, since the stamps were ad valorem. The discussions they created led frequently to fraud and perjury. Several goods were placed under the same entry for no other reason than to save the stamps. These stamps, which were as high as 40s., he should proposed to reduce in future to 4s. He would apply the same principle also to debentures; which were documents given by the Customhouse as a sort of security to those

who were entitled to drawbacks. He proposed to remove the stamps upon them altogether, because they assumed the shape of indirect taxes, when they were intended to release the subject from the operation of direct ones. Such were the direct measures, which Mr. Huskisson proposed for the relief of the shipping interest.

As conducive to the same end, he also proposed an alteration in the system of our consular establishments abroad. Those establishments were regulated by no fixed principle, were guided by no certain rule. In some places they levied fees on the ships, in others on the goods, and in others, again, on the documents. There they levied fees on ships with reference to their tonnage; and here on ships without any reference to that consideration, claiming them equally from the smallest and from the largest ships. Not only was there no fixed principle with regard to the payment of our consuls in general, but there was even no fixed principle with regard to their payment in the same country. For instance, at Rotterdam our consul had no salary, but derived the whole of his emoluments from fees; whilst at Antwerp he had no fees, but depended on his salary alone for his emoluments. At Bourdeaux our consul had a salary; at Marseilles he had not; and so in other places. To call upon the shipping interest to pay exclusively for consular protection was unfair, and founded upon no just principle. We owed to the shipping trade, and to the individuals engaged in it, protection in all their transactions in foreign countries, whether they carried them on under the faith of particular treaties, or in the courtesy usually extended by one nation to

another in time of peace: and it was quite as hard to make traders pay for consular protection at the seaports of a friendly nation, as it would be to make travellers pay for the support of the ministers whom we maintained at the different courts of the continent. He proposed, therefore, to grant to all the consuls a reasonable fixed salary, to be paid out of the public purse. He should retain, however, certain fees for acts which were extra-consular, such, for instance, as notarial facts, but their amount should, in no instance, exceed two dollars. With regard to the other expenses of consular establishments, such as the maintenance of the church, the payment of the chaplain, and the support of the other duties of religion, British merchants would find no difficulty in levying, by a species of voluntary tax, a rate upon themselves, calculated to cover and defray hem: particularly, as government would be empowered to subscribe a sum to aid them, equal to half the sum which they should subscribe among themselves, to pay the chaplain's salary, or defray the erection of a church.

Though some members of the House expressed an apprehension that the consequence of the proposed changes in our commercial policy might be injurious, yet in general the propositions of Mr. Huskisson were extremely acceptable both to parliament and to the country. The resolutions, in which they were embodied, were adopted without a dissenting voice, and they were afterwards carried into execution by bills framed in conformity to them.

Connected with these changes in our commercial policy was the surrender of the charter of the VOL. LXVII.

Levant company. That company was established by royal charter, in the reign of James the 1st, when considerable privileges were bestowed upon it; and, in consequence of those privileges, considerable duties were imposed upon it. They were allowed by their charter to appoint all the consuls in the sea-ports in the Levant: they were subsequently allowed by act of parliament to levy for the maintenance of their consuls duties on all English ships which came to those parts. They exercised, also, a certain jurisdiction within the territories of the Ottoman Porte, which was reserved to them by several treaties made between the government of this country and that of Turkey. These powers and trusts had been exercised by the servants of the company, for two centuries, often under very difficult circumstances; and, generally speaking, with correctness, fidelity, and discretion. In the present state, however, of a great part of the countries in which those consuls resided, and looking to our relations with Turkey as well as with other powers, to the delicate and important questions of international law, which must constantly arise out of the intercourse of commerce with a country in a state of civil war-questions involving discussions, not only with the contending parties in that country, but with other trading and neutral powersit was deemed expedient upon political considerations alone, that the public servants of this country, in Turkey, should hold their appointments from the Crown. It was to the Crown that foreign powers would naturally look for regulating and controlling the conduct of those officers in the exercise of

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their authority; and it was certainly most fit, not only on this account, but for the due maintenance of that authority, that they should be named, not by a trading company, but, like other consuls, directly by the Crown. Besides, the dues which the company was authorised to levy, were very considerable, amounting to a tax not much short of two per cent upon the whole of that trade; a charge quite sufficient, in these times, to divert a considerable part of it

from the shipping of this country to that of other states. Accordingly, in consequence of a communication from the ministers, a meeting of the company was called in

February last; a letter from Mr. Canning was read; lord Grenville, the governor of the company, proposed the surrender of their charter, and to this proposition the company acceded. That surrender was accepted, and an act of parliament was passed, for carrying it into effect.

N the 28th of February the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave an exposition of the financial situation of the country, and of the pecuniary arrangements for the year. In the former session he had assumed that at the expiration of 1824, there would be a clear surplus of about 1,050,000l.; and upon that assumption the House had made a reduction in our taxes to the amount of 1,260,000l., of which sum it was calculated that the revenue would in that year lose about one half, or 630,000l.; so that, if, at the end of the year, the surplus had been 420,000l., his estimate would have been realized. However, notwithstanding the reduction was made, and notwithstanding that a more immediate effect was given to that reduction, and greater loss consequently sustained than had been originally contemplated, the actual surplus of the year was 1,437,744., exceeding even that surplus which might have been expected had there been no diminution of the taxes. Mr. Robinson made some observations upon the different branches of the revenue in which this increase had taken place. In the Customs, the receipt had been estimated at 11,550,000l.; and as Customs duties were afterwards repealed to the amount of at least

900,000l., of which it was anticipated that 450,000l. would be lost to the revenue in 1824, his calculations would have been verified, if the actual receipt had been 11,100,000l.: in addition, however, to the loss sustained by the immediate effect of reduced duty, the nett receipt of the Customs was still further lowered by the payment, of no less than 460,000l. upon the stock in hand of silk, in order to give more immediate efficacy to the change of system in regard to that article: and yet, in spite of these two circumstances, the nett produce of the Customs for 1824 was no less than 11,327,000l. "What are the causes" said Mr. Robinson which have produced this important result? The proximate cause, doubtless, is the increased capacity of the people of this country to consume the produce of other countries, aided and invigorated by the reciprocal facility which our consumption of foreign articles gives to other nations in the extended use of the products of our own industry. That increase may arise in some degree from the demonstrated tendency of popu→ lation to increase: but independently of that cause, there is a principle in the constitution of social man which leads nations to open their arms to each other, and