and throughout all times, and applied, not simply to commerce, but to every item of the tariffs of the world; and if we are not mistaken in thinking that our principles are true, be assured that these results will follow, and at no very distant period (our italics). Why, it is a world's revolution, and nothing else; and every meeting we have held of this League, and this its last meeting, probably may be looked back upon as the germ of a movement which will ultimately comprehend the whole world in its embrace.-July 4, 1846.

It was in the same year that Cobden told the House of Commons: "I believe that if you abolish the Corn Law honestly and adopt Free Trade in its simplicity, there will not be a tariff in Europe that will not be changed in less than five years to follow your example." Is it not rather a strong order, in the face of these quotations, and other corroborative quotations that could be cited, to charge Mr. Chamberlain with inaccuracy in stating that Cobden promised universal Free Trade as a consequence of our opening our ports? Cobden's predictions would have been verified had his theories been sound, and he himself supplies the touchstone in the italicised sentence in the first of our extracts : "If we are not mistaken in thinking that our principles are true, be assured that these results will follow, and at no very distant period." As the results did not follow, on Cobden's own showing his principles must have been unsound. Other countries refused to be fired by Cobden's cosmopolitan ideal, and set up an alternative, viz., the national ideal. They unanimously refused to play our game by following our example, for the very simple reason that it would have been fatal to their national development, though it might have promoted the general international development, had they consented to act as the hewers of wood and drawers of water to industrial England, who, thanks to nearly three hundred years of scientific Protection, had developed a productive power which would have enabled her to dominate the markets of the world, and to strangle every foreign industry that was not defended by a tariff. For many years the world-wide failure of the Cobdenite creed was concealed from the English people owing to a series of happy accidents with which the Repeal of the Corn Laws had about as much connection as the man in the moon. In the first place the gold discoveries in California and Australia and the development of steam transportation caused an unparalleled expansion of international commerce, of which we secured the lion's share, not because we were Free Traders, but because we were fully equipped, thanks to our previous Protectionist system. We were also lucky in that our possible competitors who have now become our most formidable rivals, were unable, owing to internal troubles, to enter the commercial arena,

and their absence enabled us to establish a monopoly; and it was not till the seventies, when Prussia had marched through rapine to the unification of the German Empire, and the United States had recovered from the devastation of a bloody civil war, that the two systems, Unrestricted imports and Restricted imports, became fairly pitted against one another. At the end of thirty years' competition there is not a single unprotected British industry of any importance which does not occupy a relatively weaker position in the world than when this competition began. On the other hand, there is scarcely a single protected German or American industry which does not occupy a relatively stronger position. Indeed, Free Traders have exchanged that optimism which was the inspiration of their faith for an almost Oriental fatalism, which found expression in the recent counsel of despair of Mr. Leonard Courtney, who, in the course of a defence of Free Imports, gloomily-or gleefully-observed, "I have myself urged that our leadership in the industry of the world was passing away. We need not lose anything of the position we hold, but we have already ceased to be first in more than one commanding market."

Lord Rosebery's Record.

If we accept the Crombie quotation as authentic, which we are fully prepared to do if only for the sake of argument, it would simply confirm the well-known fact that, like politicians in general and Free Traders in particular, Cobden was all things to all men, and addressed conflicting arguments to different audiences. At a moment when he feared obstruction by the small but growing reciprocity party, who urged a postponement of Tariff Reform until we had made our bargains with foreign Powers, he may have uttered the words discovered in Aberdeenshire. We know from his authentic speeches that he was wont to promise one thing to the farmers and the opposite to the operatives. The former were told that the repeal of the Corn Laws was to open a new era of prosperity in British agriculture, and that not an acre of land would go out of cultivation, while the latter were promised cheaper and more abundant food from abroad. But Cobden's irreconcilable appeals to urban and rural England are not a patch on the performances of his most distinguished followers in the present controversy. On June 9, 1903, Lord Rosebery told an audience of Essex farmers that Mr. Chamberlain's policy "would stimulate the wheatgrowing capacity of Canada and Australia to such an extent that I think it would be very difficult to keep up prices in this

country, and that is the general effect it would have in the Empire as against you." Three days later the same statesman informed a meeting of the Liberal League that Mr. Chamberlain's policy

means a hindrance to the food-supply of a teeming and increasing population in a limited area, and in the second place it means the enhancing of the price of our food by the enhancing of the wages which is to follow the rise in the price of food, and, therefore, a greater difficulty than we have at present with regard to the placing of our manufactured goods, unaccompanied at the same time by benefit to the working classes, whose enhanced wages would scarcely meet the enhanced price of food.

This was not a bad volte face in three days, but it was eclipsed on December 12, when Lord Rosebery addressed two meetings, one mainly composed of Scotch farmers at the Empire Theatre, the other a working-class gathering at the Synod Hall. He told the producers:

Surely that must make some of our agricultural friends think of the policy they are supporting, which is to stimulate wheat-growing-already profitable in Canada, and already unprofitable here-to stimulate wheat-growing in Canada over 350,000,000 of acres of virgin land to be brought in competition with wheat grown here. I say, then, that the effect of this 2s. duty, which I do not think is likely to be increased (our italics), is, first, inadequate to benefit the British farmer directly; and, secondly, would only stimulate an illimitable area of competition.

And, a little further down:

I say that this gloomy factor in our agriculture, though not gloomy factor in our food consumption (our italics), would be incalculably increased in the near future.

And once again :

I think my agricultural friends are embarking in support of this policy in the hope of getting 5s., or 10s., or 25s., as the case may be, and the question that ought to occur to them is, Have they any chance of getting it? (Our italics.) Remember the fate of the Is. duty.

Having thus demonstrated to the producer that a 2s. preferential duty would be of no assistance to British farming, and that there was no likelihood of its being raised to any useful figure, Lord Rosebery hastened across to the Synod Hall, and demonstrated that the same policy would ruin the consumer for the precisely opposite reason, viz., that small duties necessarily developed into large ones. He quoted the analogies of France and Germany, "where duties originally low had gradually grown, that in Germany having begun at 1s. 2d. a quarter, and that in France at an even lower figure;" for in the latter country

It began at 7d. a quarter, much less than our discarded Is., much less than the 25. which are among the golden promises of the future. What is the duty in France now? 12s. 2d. a quarter! So you see I think by these two examples, if there were no others to cite, that Protection is a baby that has a tendency to

grow into a giant, and that if you once entertain the beginning you are not likely to see the end.

Cobden can't hold a candle to the modern Cobdenite.

Death of the
Duke of

We record with deep regret the death of the Duke of Cambridge, which took place at Gloucester House on March 17, at the great age of eighty-five. The Duke of Cambridge was a thoroughly original Cambridge. personality, who held a special place in the hearts of the English people. He was one of the most prominent figures in the kingdom throughout the long reign of his first cousin, Queen Victoria, and for most of his active life he held the conspicuous position of Commander-in-Chief, to which he was appointed in the year 1856, amid general approval, and to which he brought many soldierly qualities. During his career he was unsparing in his devotion to the Service, but he never pretended to be enamoured of change, and when the era of reform set in, he found himself somewhat out of sympathy with the times, though he never at any time forfeited his great popularity with the people. It is not, however, so much as a soldier that he will be remembered, but on account of his kindly, genial, human qualities, and above all for his exceptional gifts of racy speech. He was buried with full honours on March 22, and the huge concourse who turned out in the streets gave some evidence of the regard and affection in which the Duke of Cambridge was held.

THE RELIGIOUS CRISIS IN FRANCE

WHEN, last year, the National Review did me the honour to invite me to write an article on the subject of the religious crisis which agitates France, I was, to my great regret, unable to give an immediate assent to its kind request. I now, after an interval of several months, propose to discharge the debt which I then contracted; and though, perhaps, I owe an apology to the Review and to its readers for my long delay, I have, nevertheless, certain reasons for congratulating myself on my procrastination. The political situation in France is now, so far as the religious struggle is concerned, far more sharply defined than it then was. The march of events, which could have been foreseen a year ago by any one who was in a position to follow closely the natural development of affairs, enables me to-day to substitute arguments based on actual facts for the conjectures which I should then have had to make in order to make myself intelligible to the English public. After stating what those events are, I shall attempt to demonstrate their logical connection, to examine their cause from the point of view of history and philosophy, and to discover what their probable consequences will be. I shall hope thereby to establish the fact that the struggle which is maintained in this country by the Catholics with the support of the truly liberal section of the intellectual community far transcends the bounds of a purely political conflict and deserves the sympathetic attention of all foreigners who take an interest in the future of Christianity.

I do not deceive myself as to the difficulties attendant on the task which I have undertaken, for I know how different are the mental attitude, the manners and customs, and the intellectual habits of England and France, which, though they have become so familiar with each other owing to their geographical position and the relations produced by continual contact, are yet so widely sundered by their character, their historical development, and their social conceptions. I hope I shall not offend the readers of the National Review by saying that