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would, however, be a great moral gain, because, in addition to the benefits arising from the increased intercourse with France, the temptation to smuggling would be greatly diminished by the reduction of the duty; and if a proper reduction were, at the same time, made on tobacco-the only remaining article on which customs duty would be chargeable if Mr. Bright's plan were adopted-threefourths of the enormous expense now incurred for the coastguard service might be saved, in addition to saving probably seven-eighths of the otherwise connected expenses with the customs department. The late Joseph Hume obtained a great deal of evidence respecting the quantity of tobacco smuggled into this country; and he estimated the quantity which paid duty at only one-third of the quantity really consumed. He always argued that a reduction of the duty from 3s. 1d., the present rate of duty, to 1s. per pound weight would extinguish the smuggler, and ultimately be no loss to the public revenue; and many other able men have arrived at similar conclusions. But supposing the duty were reduced to one shilling, and the quantity taxed were only to be doubled-which is certainly a very moderate calculation-the loss of revenue would be about £1,850,000. Adding the loss on brandy, as before mentioned, the total loss, not included in Mr. Bright's schedule, would be £2,276,000; and this would require his 8s. tax to be increased to rather more than 8s. 6d. on every £100, if there were no saving of expenses arising out of the reduction; but with the large savings, which certainly would follow, 8s. 6d. on every £100 would be more than sufficient for all purposes.

We have hitherto dealt with the saving to be effected by the abolition of the customs duties, as if they were all simply ordinary taxes, and not protected duties; but many of them are plainly protective, as, for example, the duties on corn amount to £582,863; the duty on butter to £94,795; on cheese, £44,220; eggs, £23,864; tallow, £84,932; timber, £574,239; and silk manufactures, £295,073. These duties tend to increase the price of all articles of the same description produced in this country; and thus, from the great quantity of such home productions, occasion an enormous amount of additional, although unseen taxation, far beyond what the public have any idea of.

The value of corn and similar articles of ordinary food imported is, of itself, enormous; although forming only a small proportion of the value of the articles of food produced and consumed in this country-all of which are more or less enhanced in price by the tax, or protective duty, imposed on some of the imported articles, the several amounts of which have been already stated. According to the official rates of valuation (Finance Accounts, p. 92), the value of the corn, meal, and flour imported last year was £14,523,771; rice, £2,780,600; sago, £241,517; potatoes, £858,610; butter, £560,590; cheese, £551,375; tallow, £1,311,822; lard, £179,652; bacon, pork, hams, and beef, £682,151; fish, £234,757; oxen and sheep, £83,209. Although a small proportion of these articles was

afterwards exported, the quantity which remained shows that we are dependent on foreign countries for very large supplies of food; and that, although the value of the imported articles may, perhaps, not average more than one tenth part of the value of the homegrown produce we consume, the other ten parts must all be increased in price to some extent by the duties, however small, imposed on the foreign articles which come into competition with our home-grown produce; and the same remarks will apply to the duties on timber, French silks, gloves, and all other protected articles. As respects the duty on corn, the Tythes Commutation average prices of corn for the last seven years were published in the London Gazette of the 6th Jan., and they show that the average price of wheat was 59s.; barley, 36s. 4d.; and oats, 25s. The aggregate cost of one quarter of each is £6 0s. 4d., and the duty on each quarter being one shilling, the average protective duty on corn has thus been, for the last seven years, two-and-a-half per cent a large wholesale profit; but on oatmeal, the food of a large portion of the poorer classes in Scotland and Ireland, the duty, according to our usual rate, has been larger— equal to four per cent. on the average value of the oats. It has been correctly stated, that in order to ascertain the real extent of the burdens caused by our system of indirect taxation, we must not only calculate the amount of each tax, the profits of the trader thereon, and the expenses connected with its collection, but we must "enter into the minutiae of the unrecorded, but not the less felt, charges added both to duty and to cost of its collection, on each article of food, apparel, and domestic use, by the shackles which the baneful system imposes upon trade, commerce, and agriculture—thus often adding three to five hundred per cent. on the prime cost of the article, by the absurd and ruinous impediments it throws in their way. The estimated amount of the loss to the country occasioned by the combined operation of these causes on the whole of the existing indirect taxes, is estimated in "the People's Blue-Book" at one hundred and four millions of pounds on every seventy millions collected; and the Financial Reformer, quoting this authority, observes that any attempt to controvert these figures "would only end in showing how very much this estimate is under the truth; and if the whole truth were stated, it would be so astounding as to be incredible." (P. 118.) We are not, however, prepared to endorse those opinions to the full extent, although, as we have already proved, the burden must be enormous.

and

In concluding our paper, we cannot refrain from expressing our approbation of the principles of Mr. Bright's measure of Finance Reform, however modified they may be in its special details; while we cannot vouch for all the glowing results to follow it which the enthusiasm of the orator portrays, we are convinced that his expectations, though perhaps too sanguine, are based on the soundest evidence, when he says, that "if the Chancellor of the Exchequer would put the eight shilling tax in the hundred pounds, and the whole of these other taxes could be taken off, trade would

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be extended, intercourse with all nations would be vastly and immediately increased; shipping, manufactures, commerce, and agriculture would all feel new life at once; and, what is better than all, and the grand result of all, the comforts of the great body of the people would be enormously increased; shopkeepers, retailers, traders of every kind would be benefited, and would find business much improved; while the whole aspect of the country would be changed beyond everything we can imagine. Since 1846, when a large impulse was given to trade in consequence of the repeal of the corn laws, though it cannot perhaps be wholly laid to that change, there is no doubt that it was mainly owing to it, the exports of this country have been more than doubled in twelve or thirteen years. Make the alteration I am proposing, and a change would be effected in the condition of the country generally, and the gratulation among the people would exceed, beyond the power of language to describe, that which has been experienced during the last twelve years."

MISCELLANIES.

Brief Notices.

By Charles Kingsley.

2 vols. J. W. Parker and Son. 1859.

WE placed these two pleasant-looking volumes in the hands of a gentleman from whom we expected to receive a careful estimate of Mr. Kingsley's power, and a brief analysis of the good and evil elements of his influence over the middle classes of our English people. He has thought proper to put his criticism in the shape of a letter. His vivacity of manner well compensates for the gravity of a review, which

we

desiderate. At any rate, though he assumes the egotism of the "I," his judgment is as reliable as if he were masked in the infallible "We."

"Editor of ECLECTIC.

"Mr. Editor,-You and I remember very well the excitement with which we used to read some of the earlier of Mr. Kingsley's articles in the "North British "-how vivid, how hearty,

The

how vehement they were!
"North British" was sowing its
wild oats then, and we were con-
founded by the daring and impetu-
osity in which its editor permitted
his staff to indulge. It has become
steady as a mill-horse or a luggage-
train now, and on the whole the
change is for the better; but the life
and glow of its more erratic epoch
have departed. Whether Mr. Kings-
ley's fame will be heightened by the
re-publication of these impassioned de-
clamations-criticisms they never were
----may be doubted. In the "Review,"
we rushed through them in hot haste,
with all the enthusiasm with which
Mr. Bright's audiences listen to his
wonderful speeches; in these volumes
we cannot help reading them with
the quiet, critical humour with which
these same speeches are read by old
red-tape heroes in the Times next
morning. It would be easy to select
passages which look very rough on
close inspection, which, when read

hurriedly appeared to be miracles, of literary beauty. Strange and almost incredible inconsistencies force themselves here and there upon one's notice. But still the volumes are amazingly enjoyable. It would be hardly possible to have pleasanter reading for those quiet hours which are necessary to make the kindest and most intelligent society completely delightful."

"I wonder why Mr. Kingsley does not write his sermons in the same style as his reviews, his lectures, his novels, and his speeches. How is it he does not see that if he wants to do his true work in the pulpit, he should use there all the manifold powers with which God has so richly endowed him. If, instead of trying so desperately hard to be simple, he preached naturally, without thinking for a moment whether he was understood or not, we pledge our word that the good people at Eversley would listen to him with ten times more interest, delight, and profit. And if our estimate of the bucolic mind is false if Mr. Kingsley's parishioners would not comprehend their rector's free and unconstrained utterance of all that is in him-we think Mr. Kingsley should get another living. We have no idea that a preacher can be required permanently to crucify half his nature that he may "adapt" himself to his hearers. An artificial plainness of thought and style is only a little more respectable than an artificial ruin; nothing but the motive protects it from contempt. For every Divinely - commissioned preacher there are hearers who require the putting forth of every faculty God has given him; and it should be every preacher's business to find, as soon as possible, where these hearers are. Mr. Kingsley's writings are far better sermons than he preaches in Eversley Church, unless his published sermons are the worst he has ever delivered.

"That there are many fine and noble elements in Mr. Kingsley's books-and in these two volumes of Miscellanies,

for example-it would be uncandid and unjust to deny. Their excellences lie on the very surface, and it is impossible for the most careless reader to miss them. His style is rapid and free, beyond the rivalry of any contemporary author; and his power of word-painting-whatever may be the rank and honour due to that faculty is unsurpassed by any modern writer of prose, except Ruskin. His imagination, without being of the grandest order, sheds a rich lustre over every page he writes; and his hearty love and hearty hatred give a throbbing pulse to every

sentence.

"But the reading of these two volumes has confirmed the impression which I had formed long before, from a tolerably extensive acquaintance with Mr. Kingsley's more important books that he is destitute of some of the faculties which are most necessary to a trustworthy and really beneficial public teacher. I do not know whether it has ever struck your mind, but I have often thought that one of the most grievous and alarming characteristics of modern writing and thinking is the utter and obvious inability of many of our most popular and powerful authors to judge of the evidence by which truth and falsehood are really to be discriminated. It is a joke against new-married folks that they often choose their house by the prettiness of the papers which happen to be on the walls, without thinking at all about its substantial and permanent conveniences; and there are many well-known names which I could quote that seem obvious to the same charge in the formation of their opinions. If a

theory stimulates the fancy-if it has an air of freedom and magnanimity -if it is easily thrown into a beautiful and noble form- they seem to be abundantly well satisfied. In other words, they choose their creed, not for its truth but its beauty; they do not ask whether it be founded on an eternal rock, and equal to all the necessities of their mysterious being,

but whether it please the eye and delight the taste.

"I believe that this is the worst element of Mr. Kingsley's influence. Our mental habits are moulded insensibly by the books which interest and delight us most. Whatever may be our theory of logic, our practical logic will be derived from our favourite authors. And hence, although many of Mr. Kingsley's opinions are false and mischievous, his method is still more injurious. His writings are likely to ruin the mental soundness of his readers, to destroy the grave, serious, honest habit of refusing to receive anything, no matter how fascinating, which does not bring authoritative credentials, and receiving everything which is adequately demonstrated, no matter how antagonistic to all our tastes and sympathies. Mr. Kingsley's theory of the Universe seems to us to labour under the unfortunate objection of being formed without any regard to the facts which it ought to explain, or at any rate acknowledge. It is as mere a dream as any of the Cosmogonies which have been driven to eternal night by the doctrines of the Novum Organum. If right, it is by mere accident, and on some infinitely important matters it is grievously wrong. It is the creation of his own fancies, tastes, and wishes; and is as pure a work of fiction as any of his novels.

"If I mistake not, the next generation will suffer greatly in consequence of the extent to which the licentious habit of dealing with the Moral Universe is being strengthened by our popular literature. Not to speak of the evil results of this habit on all theological thought, and ultimately on the purity of our social life, it must impair, if not destroy, that practical sagacity which, for centuries, has been the greatest and most conspicuous attribute of English statesmanship. An empire like ours will always need at the head of its affairs, and filling many of the subordinate offices of state, men who

are trained to look with a clear and almost infallible eye on the actual condition of things with which they have to deal. The faculty of governing an imaginary commonwealth is a very poor endowment. Facts are chiels that winna ding; the rough material of human history will not be transformed into new shapes by any enchantments of fancy; it must be accepted just as it is. stern laws under which we live must be honestly and reverently acknowledged, or we can work no deliverance for our race.

The

"Mr. Kingsley's old misrepresentations of Evangelical religion ap pear, of course, in these Miscel lanies,' altogether unmodified. He knows as little about Evangelical Christians as he does about the inhabitants of Jupiter.

"That the religious world' have too much neglected the claims of secular benevolence, is a fact which cannot be denied, but Mr. Kingsley's explanations of it are equally uncharitable and fictitious. The true account of the matter, I believe, is this. Our English religious life is mainly the offspring of the great religious revival of the last century; and our theology and ethics, indeed all our traditions and habits, bear the stamp of our origin. Whitfield and Wesley were fired with a sublime passion for the salvation of men; they were under such an awful impression of the spiritual guilt and misery in which the mass of their countrymen were plunged, that it was simply impossible for them to give much heed to the transient sorrows of this life. There was one thing to be done, and that was, to save men from rebellion against God in this world, and from hell in the next-nothing was worthy of their thought or effort which did not minister more or less to this great end. This grand conviction gave to the whole movement which they originated its peculiar characteristics. Worship was thought far less important than preaching, for it is by the Word' that we are brought to

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