their own rulers. Nay, from the traditions of the 'S ioma clann a huair coir uaiv 'S clann Aoidh. TRANSLATION. Many clans received grants of land of you Of these are the Munroes and the Roses, The Macleans from Dreolan, And the Mackays. [[spoke different languages; but his opinion was, that the Picts spoke the Cumreag, and the Scots the Irish Gaelic. His mode of arriving at this conclusion, however, by merely showing that the names of places in Ireland and those parts of Scotland first occupied by the Scots are similar, and evidently one language, is not satisfactory. The names of these places in Ireland and Scotland may have existed previously to the arrival of the Scots in either kingdom. He might have mentioned the Macintoshes also,|| who received from them the whole district of Lochaber. These grants are characteristic of feudalism, since the Lords of the Isles had thus been giving away what they never possessed, and was never theirs to give; as the King of Spain is said to have ceded the Oregon territories to the United States. But the fact is, that although the Gothic and Celtic dialects were different, the difference was not greater than may be found betwixt the provincialisms of England at this day. He who reads Mr. Bosworth's works, and acquires a knowledge of the different provincialisms in France, England, and Scotland, if he be a Gaelic scholar, can have no difficulty in believing that orthography and locality might be the cause of every difference to be discovered between one language and another at this day. At the same time, there is no doubt that the multitude of new inventions required at the building of such stupendous piles as Babel and Cholula, must have had a powerful effect on the pri mitive language, and might well have puzzled the workmen, and still more the spectators. It is a remarkable fact, that the tradition about the Tower of Cholula is exactly the same with the Bible account as to the Tower of Babel; and they were built of similar materials. Although the Gothic and Celtic were merely dialects of the same language, as already mentioned, the distinction was sufficiently broad to enable us to see that they were spoken by different tribes. It is also well known that Malcolm Canmore, the first Scoto-Irish king who got himself firmly seated on the throne of Scotland, adopted the feudal system and laws of the Goths as the national polity, and the language of the Goths as the court language. The romantic story about his having imported them, along We accordingly find that the Scots are no sooner with his queen, from England, has more the air of seated on the throne than the kingdom receives & poetry than authentic history about it. We may also Gothic name; and the court, and the whole fertile plains very reasonably conclude that the Scots, when they occupied by its adherents, speak a Gothic language; and attained the upper-hand in Scotland, did not fail to a Gothic constitution and Gothic laws are then for the possess themselves of the more fertile plains or districts first time imposed, or attempted to be imposed, on the of their subject kingdom; for although they succeeded people. Nay, more, we find that the courtiers and the to the kingdom of Caledonia, as the heirs of the Cale-inhabitants of the plains call themselves Scots, and donian or Pictish dynasty, it is very evident, from the Gothic laws and language being immediately thereafter made the laws and the court language of Scotland, that they did not respect the laws, rights, or privileges, of the kingdom to which they had succeeded. their country Scotland; while the people of the glens and mountains call themselves Gael, and their country Albyn. They also call the people of the plains Gall, and their country Galltac, i.e., stranger and the strangers' land. We also know it to be equally consistent with While the above circumstances lead to the inference natural causes and historical facts, that the original that the Scots were a Gothic people, history affords no inhabitants of all countries, overwhelmed by strangers, substantial grounds for the contradiction of their own have clung longest to the possession of their glens and traditions, that they came from Asia to Portugal and their hills. From these and many other arguments, Spain-from Spain to Ireland-and from Ireland to too numerous to be stated here, the inference appears Scotland. But although they had thus selected for inevitable, that the Scots were a Gothic people, and themselves a separate and distinct line of operations, that the fertile plains of Scotland are occupied by their there is nothing in the circumstances to invalidate this descendants, purified and improved, no doubt, by conopinion of their Gothic extraction-supposing the tinual accessions from the free Gael of the hills. Hence Sythians to be the parent nation of all the Gothic || their dialect of the Gothic, unlike that of England, has tribes. Nor is there anything in this tradition of the retained its expressive brevity, without losing the lively Scots inconsistent with the tradition of the Caledonians, softness of its parent language. that they had previously colonised the north of Ireland, The war-cry of the feudal clans, unlike that of the under their name of "Cruthini," or wheat-growers; patriarchal, was merely the name of their lord or for the ancient names distinguishing the Pictish Low-leader. The Gothic confederation had been originally landers and Highlanders were "Caledonian" and 66 Maiate," or "Coil-dhaoine" and "Maigh-àtich;' i. e., the men of the woods and the cultivators of the plains whence, of course, the "Cruthini," or wheatgrowers of Ireland. Chalmers seems to have been satisfied that the Scots and Picts or Caledonians were of different races, and organised for the purposes of conquest and spoliation. Hence, the feudal clans recognised no ties but those of discipline, no motives of action excepting selfinterest and individual aggrandisement. They were, therefore, appropriately reminded, in every emergency or extremity, of the leader in whom was centred the absolute power to punish, and the prospective power to reward. Hence the very sound of his name, in ]] battle, carried in it a threat as well as a promisereminded them of the dungeon under the tower, with all its horrors, not less than the levee, with all its splendour. It seems in imitation of the "Song of the Swans!" were instinctively, in the direction indicated. Whether The elected chiefs of a free and a conservative people, on the other hand, were reminded, with equal dig-ceiving signals from their leader, and bending, as it nity and propriety, of some object in their common country, equally dear to all their associations-some object whose talismanic name, exalted by their united voices high above the noise and the tumult of battle, was capable of at once recalling to their hearts all the home affections and patriotic feelings which bind the hero to his kindred and his country, and nerve his arm in their defence. Oh, how much of the history of Scotland is lost to the reader who cannot open it with the key of tradition! A thousand apparently trivial remarks, incidentally made, afford the most conclusive evidence of the superior civilization, patriotism, and moral dignity of the very people whom the unconscious or one-sided writers would represent as thieves, outlaws, and barbarians! They have been long governed on principles well calculated to make them what they are said to have been. The philosophical reader of history can scarcely fail to see at this day, in the mercantile enterprise of some countries, the onward movement of the after-current of greed and ferocity which flung the gaunt and famishing Goth, in the days of old, on the naked steel interposed between his hunger and the fertile and well-cultivated plains of Europe. He may also recognise in the more cautious, nay suspicious, enterprise of the Celts, the hold-what-you-have habits so natural to the descendants of a people whose fields and folds had been the objects of the fearful Gothic crusade of spoliation and rapine which overwhelmed the civilization of Europe. Let us take care that when this after-current, which still stimulates the acquisitiveness of their descendants, shall have left the Celts nothing to lose, they may not turn on their spoilers, and become aggressive. Hardened by toil, inured to privations, stimulated by want, demoralised by suffering, and trained in cunning and ferocity by a knowledge of the power of organization and a sense of injustice, who can say that they may not exclaim, with Shylock, "The lesson you have taught us we will practise, and it will go hard but we better the instruction?" Then will the descendants of the Goths be put on the defensive, as those of the ancient Celts have been, to save their fields and their folds, until the prominent feature of their character becomes a trembling adhesion to their vanishing estates, and they shall first have become cottars, and then paupers, on the land which was once their own-just as the Celts have done. Then will the editor of some future Times or Scotsman taunt them with the poverty which shall have resulted from spoliation, class legislation, and feudal oppression, and ascribe it to the want of energy of the Gothic compared to the Celtic race! Dr. Smith, in his collection of ancient poems, quotes a stanza or two, composed at a remote age, to a melody GUILEAG EALA. A h-iorram grái air trái fo leon, Guileag i, guileag 0, Fann air cuan thig fúaim a vroin! ALBYN, LAND OF DEATHLESS FAME. Albyn, land of deathless fame, Echoes from the wailing shore. Albyn we will see no more! Land where heroes fought and bled, But should serried foes again While thy sacred thistle grows, While one arm its power retains, Land whose thrilling lays and lore Echoes from the lonely shore. Albyn we will see no more! COLONIAL QUESTION-CANADA.-III. liorating the condition of men of every tongue and of every clime. THE progress of events, in developing the mag-|| free on both sides; hence our earnestness in insistnitude and bearings of the colonial question, is ing upon the earlier definitions of "free trade," more rapid than a monthly article of the ordinary showing that they were based upon that reciprocal limits can by any means keep pace with. In the desire of intercourse, and of enterprise, common to proofs and illustrations of our opinions, elicited by civilised nations, which forms so important an colonial dispatches, and by parliamentary revela-element in the process of humanising and ame tions, nothing has transpired that does not confirm our statements, and increase our confidence in the opinions laid down in the outset of this inquiry. We cannot at present allude to the "Reciprocity We have also the gratification of observing that the question" more particularly than to assert our adsentiments expressed by us in November, as to the herence to the original and obvious idea, conveyed inadequacy, or want of reality in the causes assigned in the quotations from the Corn-law Catechism, for the excessive emigration of 1847, are becoming || and to protest against the spurious definitions and pretty general; in other words, that the "Waste forced meanings put upon plain English words. land, and law of entail question," is beginning to We will not claim its place in the public mind, and obtaining a much larger share of attention from the press, within the last few weeks, than our most sanguine hopes had anticipated. Strongly attached as we are to the idea of Englishmen being at liberty to claim a home and effect a settlement in every clime, we never forget that emigration is an alternative which it is the duty of an honest and judicious legislature to render an alternative, only in bad times-in seasons of inevitable depression in our industrial interests; and that it is the duty of the nation to exhaust her own territorial resources, before expatriating her children to seek a subsistence in less hospitable regions. These considerations cannot be too often repeated; they lie at the foundation of our colonial policy, and (permit us to introduce a neglected idea) our agrarian policy. Yes, agrarian policy is a neglected, not a new idea; it is the most ancient idea in the history of civilisation; it is the first in all good systems of political philosophy-philosophy, we say, not the legerdemain and slang which a few charlatans have attempted to pawn upon us for practical wisdom and common sense. Mr. Cobden stopped short in the agitation for "free trade in land;" Mr. M'Culloch, the Dictionary man, has written against it; so that one leading free trader|| has become an advocate for monopoly in land. We don't believe in political economy as a science, but we do believe that "the final view of all rational politics is, to produce the greatest quantities of happiness in a given tract of country,' and that, all that history records and celebrates is worthless, unless it contribute to the happiness of our country. We do believe in patriotism, but are sceptical of cosmopolitanism. We hold that "charity begins at home," and that all schemes for promoting human happiness, by patronising the world at large, are visionary-as much so as attempts at increasing the volume of the ocean by homoeopathic doses, or glassfuls, or bucketfuls of fresh water from the Thames or the Irwell. In order to secure free trade, we require the freedom not only to purchase, but liberty to sell. To sell our labour in a foreign market, after paying a tribute, or penalty, or customs tax of 40 per cent., is not freedom of trade; it is restriction, extortion, or suppression. Trade is exchange, and must be "To party give up what was meant for mankind." The objections of the official clique to reciprocity are too frivolous to bear discussion. They are the objections of hirelings, and can all be comprised in two sentences. 1st, "We won't work making trea ties;" 2d, "We in office are all right, and don't care for anybody else." These two sentences contain the substance of all that can be said or written against "reciprocity," by the friends of foreign and the opponents of British industry. Our task now becomes narrative, rather than argumentative. We sketch the progress of events from the ample periodical information which, in the course of business, passed through our hands at the time. CANADIAN DISCONTENT.-We have seen that the discontent of the Canadians arises partly from causes over which England has no control. Discontent has arisen from the machinations of the United States, from the blunders of the Provincial Government, as well as from seditious practices of certain members of that legislature. Passing over, for the present, the political aspect of affairs, let us take up the commercial and financial causes of discontent and injury to the colony, for which the British Government are in a great measure auswerable. We allude to the frequent and reckless alterations of the Canadian tariff, sanctioned by the Colonial Office in London. We cannot avoid noticing the pretexts for these alterations and augmentations of duties, which, on many descriptions of British manufactures, now amount to prohibitions. The protective principle has been shown to be an element in the old colonial connection. Right or wrong, it is a great historical fact. We need not discuss it, but deal with the difficulties arising out of it. The discussions in England, especially in Parliament, in 1845, had caused much anxiety in Canada, as to the admission of Americans to equal privileges with the colonists in the home market; * The present republican constitution of North Carolina, of date 1776, begins thus:-" Whereas, allegiance and protecties are in their nature reciprocal, and the one should of right be refused when the other is withdrawn; and whereas George the American colonies, hath not only withdrawn from them his proThird, King of Great Britain, and late Sovereign of the British tection, but by an act," &c. &c. and on the 28th January, 1846, Lord Cathcart || of the Colonial Secretary-an absurd, invidious, wrote to Mr. Gladstone, setting forth the necessity impracticable qualification; because, after permitof continuing to receive colonial wheat and flour ting the colonists to impose what import duties on the same favourable terms, which existed at the they please, the only check retained upon colonial date of contracting the heavy debts for the construc- errors, extortion, or exclusions, is the opposition of tion of canals, and showing that if New York flour an official, who may be either incompetent or unwilwere landed in Britain at the same duty as Cana-ling to place himself in collision with a colonial legisdian, the latter could not compete because of the higher freights of the St. Lawrence route; showing, in short, that the effect would be to drive the Canada trade into the hands of the United States, and ruin the St. Lawrence traffic and that of its canals. This dispatch was not published in Canada. Mr. Gladstone replied, 3d March, 1846. The reply created a great sensation in the colony. Fearing that the Government measure would be hurried through Parliament, and that remonstrance was now too late, the colonists, in sullen silence, began to prepare for the worst. Had they hoped for time to make themselves heard in Parliament, every locality, great and small, would have risen to petition for other treatment, and demanded indulgences in competing with their foreign rivals. This desponding silence was, by a perverse Ministry at home, construed into a consent. The address of the Assembly, on 25th March, 1846, confirmed Lord Cathcart's assertions and warnings, and would have done so much more emphatically, had his dispatch been laid before them along with Mr. Gladstone's. The Assembly prayed that colonial flour should enter Britain at a penny, instead of a shilling a barrel duty. lature. In Parliament it was shown that the bill "would overturn the colonial system of this coun. try, which had consisted in defraying the expenses of the colonies, by the monopoly which her subjects || had enjoyed with the colonies." In Canada the Possession Act was thus characterised by the press :— "It emancipates the colonies, or puts it in their power to emancipate themselves, from all duties compelling them to buy dear in the home market when they could buy cheaper in a foreign. In the opening speech of Lord Elgin to the Assembly, June 2, 1847, as if afraid that the Assembly might still give some advantages to the mother country, or perhaps forget to damage British industry, the Governor says "The Colonial legislature are empowered to repeal differential duties, heretofore imposed on the colonies in favour of British produce. It is probable that, by exercising this power, you may be enabled to benefit the consumer without injury to the revenue. I commend the subject to your consideration.' He inconsistently enough urges it upon them, and, towards the conclusion of his speech, with the genuine cant, recommends the Canadians to improve their natural advantages "as an integral part of an empire abounding in wealth and population." The tendencies and provisions of these acts were immediately appreciated and canvassed in Canada. The In the session of the Provincial Parliament, June, 1847, the anti-colonial language and acts of the home legislature formed the basis of new measures. Members on both sides of the house deplored the steps threatened by Sir R. Peel. "liberal" members were perhaps the more British in their tone. A new tariff was made, avowedly protectionist, and for revenue. Its retaliatory character was exhibited in the abolition of the differential duties which had, till then, given the British merchant and manufacturer a footing in the Canadian market. Peel's Bill declared the colonists to be alien in 1849. The new Canadian tariff destroyed the protection given to British goods, and told the American, the German, and the Belgian, that their goods should be received in the colony on the same terms as those of the mother country, the "imperial" or differential duties being totally abolished. A second address of Assembly, dated 12th May, 1846, reached London, was suppressed, and brought to light by Bentinck. It was of a similar tenor with the first, but much stronger, detailing the probable injury to be inflicted on the colony by Peel's measure, and expressing a "doubt whether remaining a portion of the British empire will be of that paramount importance which they have hitherto found it to be." Public meetings were held in the large towns in the summer of 1846. At these meetings, the prospects of the colony, in the event of a disadvantageous competition with the United States, were discussed, and resolutions adopted to prepare the colony for the change. The abandonment of the principle of protection was deplored; a free trade party was organised, who began the agitation for opening the St. Lawrence to flags of all nations, and increasing import duties, so as to raise nearly all the revenue, and restrict the importation of such articles as might interfere with the manufacturing industry of the colony. In 1846, Sir Robert Peel told the Canadians Although an influential and oft-quoted meetthat in a short time they should be treated as fo- ing of Canadian members of Assembly, and merreigners in what most deeply concerned their in-chants, took place in Montreal, in May, 1846, at terests, their resources, and their future prosperity. They were told that, notwithstanding their allegiance, and the peculiar disadvantages under which they laboured, they should, in 1849, be put upon the same footing in the home market with the "alien American." As a sort of compensation to the colonist for this hostile measure, the ministry carried through the British Possession Act-an act empowering the colonists to levy such import duties as they thought proper, subject only to the approval which the free trade theory was, as a whole, favourably received, it must be borne in mind that, after explanations made regarding the increased consumpt of timber in this country, coincident with reduced duties on timber, yet when it was shown that the immense demand for new railways fully accounted for the large consumpt, that meeting, convened to promote free trade, adopted an amendment to the effect that, though willing to co-operate in the great experiments of the mother country, yet than duties. Political quacks "haver" about those countries punishing themselves in taxing the consumer. The British manufacturer knows too well that these penalties prevent his consign. ments from paying cost; in short, that such enormous penalties put a stop to trade. the meeting was pledged to use its influence to || Wo call 30, 40, and 70 per cent, penalties, rather insure the continuance of protective duties on colonial produce in England. And the documents carrying into effect this promise were the very documents suppressed by the Colonial Office, while members of the home government attempted to persuade the nation that the colonists wished for no preferences, privileges, or protection from the mother country! RECIPROCITY. If ever we are to have even a beginning to free trade, it must be with our colonies; arrangements must be made on the basis of mutual nial Zollverein some years ago, but wanted influence or energy to carry out his ideas. It did not occur to him to request that the Colonial Governments should admit England to a similar commercial Let no one imagine we are going to advocate the old system of excessive protections, the complex bal-benefits-reciprocity. Earl Grey proposed a coloance of penalties and compensations-but our exports of manufactured goods to Canada are now little more than one-half of their amount five years ago; and we shall see by and bye, that the consumpt of the colony has not diminished, but is in-union-to admit England to free trade, or to creasing, the inhabitants being supplied by the Americans, and by their own prematurely created factories. reciprocal trade, with her own colonies.† By reciprocity, or equality of trade-using these words in their plain English meaning, avoiding all COLONIAL versus FOREIGN TRADE.-We some- technical or party definitions-we mean fair dealtimes hear shallow people say that we would doing; fair exchanges of the produce of our own more business with the colonies if they were inde- || country for that of other countries; reasonable adpendent than we do at present. Well, let us watch || vantages, with mutual consent, being the result to what progress we make with Canada, as it has been all parties. If we cannot exact unfair terms from shown to be in a transition state, and now rapidly foreigners, if we do not even wish for any unfair verging into a practical independence, the Posses-advantage over the foreigner, but rather afford him sions Act having conferred that independence in commercial matters. Let us watch whether the exports of British goods to Canada are increasing or declining. If the dogma quoted be correct, our exports ought to increase; if the exports have diminished, we must find out the reason. every facility in trading with us, and relieve him from every possible burden and restriction, at a loss of revenue to ourselves, surely it follows, in reason and in common sense, that we ought to be not less liberal to our own colonies, and that our colonies ought to be as liberal to us as they are to It is not true that colonies take less from us than foreigners. The Canadas ought not to levy higher independent states. Our exports to the United duties upon British produce and manufactures than States have been as high as £12,000,000; they are imposed on Canadian produce in British ports. now average between £6,000,000 and £7,000,000, WEST INDIES.-We ought not in justice to ex. although we have been greatly increasing our im- act a higher duty on West Indian sugar than the ports from thence of bread stuffs and cotton. Tho|| ad valorem duty paid on our goods in the West Americans are wealthy, but take only about 5s. Indian ports. We have no more right to levy ex8d. per head from us. France, from whom we cessive penalties on colonial sugar-" the corn of import £250,000 of merinoes alone, besides much the tropics"-in 1849, than we had a right in 1765 larger amounts of silks and wines, takes 1s. 6d. per to levy a stamp duty or a tea duty on the Boston head. Prussia, to whom we conceded great privi- || people. leges in shipping, takes sixpence per head! Our northern colonies, the poorest of all, take 35s. per head; the West Indies, £2 17s. 6d; the Cape of Good Hope, £3 28.; the Australian settlements, £7 10s. These figures have been often repeated; we merely transcribe them from the British Banner of 18th October last, which adds, that one-third of our total exports goes to the colonies. This large proportion of trade with our colonies is easily explained. The duties charged are from 2 to 4 per cent., with the exception of Canada, where, under the free trade experiment, the duties have advanced to 84 and 30 per cent., the average being 12 per cent., with prohibitions on many articles, as set forth in the Glasgow memorial to the Colonial Office. The average colonial duty of 3 per cent. contrasts favourably with those of our wealthy neighbours. France prohibits our staples of cotton and woollen goods; Belgium prohibits the staples, but admits certain things at from 8 to 15 per cent. The United States levy 30 to 40 | Caraccas, 25 to 33 per cent. The vulgar excuse about revenue is really no excuso at all; it is that of the Italian brigand, "It is the custom of his country." It is an easy method of raising revenue, yet other nations may disapprove of it. Englishmen do not like to be plundered in crossing the Alps, or travelling in Italy; neither do the West Indian colonists approve of our seizing upon their produce, and demanding enormous penalties, because we want a revenue. If we persist in this injustice, the day is coming, perhaps is not far distant, when the colonists may again remind us of doings in Boston Bay and at Bunker's Hill-doings which arose entirely out of ministerial ignorance and obstinacy in London. Besides their claim to common justice, the West Indians have claims on us arising out of our harsh usage of them, in the matter of labour. Fifteen years ago, we compelled them to give up entirely, and to annihilate, that kind of labour which is too common in the tropics, we compelled them to set free their slaves. We gave them a composition of *"Haver," Scotch for talking nonsense like a silly persona †See his despatch to Lord Elgin, December 31, 1846. |
