by the Dutch Customs. As an English dealer in leaf tobacco I pay many pounds a year to the Dutch Government in this manner for the pleasure of giving employment to their citizens. In April 1904 Mr. Austen Chamberlain, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the object of compelling tobacco manufacturers to strip their tobacco in England instead of abroad, imposed a surtax of 3d. per pound on stripped tobaccos entering this country, making the tax as follows: leaf tobacco, 38. per pound; stripped tobacco, 38. 3d. per pound. Manufacturers therefore could still import the whole leaf at the old rate of duty, and this extra duty on strips acted as a pressure to induce them to import leaf instead of strips as before. The effect was immediate. Up to 1904 the import of strips and leaf was always about equal, sometimes one, and sometimes the other on top. The first clear year after Mr. Chamberlain's alteration there was a marked difference. Unmanufactured tobacco imports in 1905 were strips, 11,250,530; leaf, 71,926,383. There is not the least doubt that had the duty been left like this another year or two, no stripped tobacco would have been imported at all. The price of tobacco, cigars, and cigarettes to the consumers remained entirely unaltered. At first the manufacturer protested against the alteration. Many of them had large quantities of strips in bonded warehouses upon which they had to pay the surtax of 3d. per pound. This was an undeniable hardship, and Mr. Chamberlain in the following July granted partial relief by reducing the surtax 14d. per pound on stripped tobacco in bonded warehouses before the date of his Budget. After a time manufacturers had settled down to the fresh conditions, and were satisfied with the new order of things. There was a striking proof of this in the early part of 1905. A manufacturer in the North of England got up a petition to the Chancellor praying for the taking off of the extra 3d. on strips, but very few manufacturers could be induced to sign it. In Leicester and Nottingham only one out of thirty-five could be persuaded to do so. The other thirty-four stated that they preferred the extra 3d. to remain, as they had made their arrangements for stripping and were quite satisfied with the results. All were employing more strippers, and many had even enlarged their premises to accommodate the number of operatives they were training to this work. At the end of 1905, after one year and nine months working of the new duties, the results were as follows: First, an increase of Revenue. A few manufacturers still imported strips and paid the extra 3d. duty. Secondly, full and regular wellpaid extra employment for many hundreds of tobacco strippers. Thirdly, no increase of cost to consumer. Surely never in the whole history of Budget finance was there less excuse to interfere with a tax? More revenue, more employment, manufacturers satisfied, and no increase of cost to consumer. There could be only one reason for a Free Trade Chancellor's alteration, viz., that it was too good an illustration of the manifold blessings of a scientific tariff. In 1906 Mr. Asquith was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and reduced the duty on strips by 24d., making the duties: Leaf, 38. per pound, as before; strips, 38. Od. per pound, a reduction of 24d. The result of Mr. Asquith's alteration was exactly as tobacco manufacturers anticipated. The difference of d. per pound was totally inadequate to induce manufacturers to be at the trouble of stripping their tobacco. Almost at the very time the Government was voting considerable sums of the taxpayers' money for the relief of the unemployed, Mr. Asquith deliberately sacrificed revenue, and at the same time the means of finding well-paid work for a large number of people, without any compensating advantage either to manufacturer or consumer. The results of Mr. Asquith's alterations were: First, decrease of Revenue, strips only paying 38. Od., instead of 38. 3d. duty. Secondly, decrease of employment; manufacturers all over the country were discharging strippers. Thirdly, no decrease in cost to consumer. Looking back without any prejudice at the methods of the two Chancellors, one can only account for it on the ground that Mr. Austen Chamberlain was a business man and Mr. Asquith a lawyer. Mr. Asquith's alternative was immediate in its effect in finding employment -for the foreigner. Three out of the four stripping factories in Holland, closed altogether in 1904, and one just contrived to keep going. In 1906 they were all on full work again. I have a letter before me, written by one of the proprietors of these factories, raising his price for stripping one cent. per pound, because, as he stated, he had to pay his workers higher wages to induce them to come back to the stripping trade. So Mr. Asquith even raised the foreigners' wages at the expense of the English dealers and manufacturers. Immediately after Mr. Asquith's alteration, the import of strips commenced to rise: 1905, 11,250,530 pounds; 1906, 21,143,457 pounds; 1907, 48,939,136 pounds; until, in 1908, leaf and strips once again about balanced. 1908, strips, 58,452,653; leaf, 61,025,794 pounds. If the tobacco manufacturers were consulted as to what was the ideal tobacco tax for obtaining the maximum amount of revenue without crippling their industry, they would be almost unanimous in agreeing that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach's tax of 28. 8d. per pound was the best for both purposes, and I do not think one would be found to object to the tax on strips remaining as high as 38. or more per pound. This would mean that only leaf tobacco would be imported, and it would all have to be stripped here. To get at the amount of employment this would give, one must add 25 per cent. on to the amount of strips imported in 1908. That is much less than the average amount of stalk, &c., which has been taken from the leaf. The equivalent, therefore, would be 73,062,066 pounds of leaf imported in lieu of strips. One operative will strip weekly from 60 pounds to 120 pounds, say an average of 100 pounds, or 5000 pounds yearly, which is a high average. This import would mean work for 14,600 operatives. Averaging the wages of men and women at the sum of £1 per week, it would mean £730,000 wages paid in this country annually that are now paid abroad, without increasing cost to the consumer of either his tobacco, his cigar, or his cigarette. When Mr. Asquith in April 1906 reduced the surtax on strips from 3d. to d. he could not, and did not attempt to defend it on any of the counts I have mentioned. He could not point to a single instance of an addition of cost to the consumer, nor could he deny that the additional proportion of leaf imported in place of strips had found employment for 5000 people. He could only say that the 3d. was a protective duty, and he was therefore reducing it to d., which he considered an equalising duty and not a protective one. It would be interesting to have Free Traders' opinion of this protective duty, which in its results acted entirely contrary to their pet theories. I beg to remain, yours, &c., P. L. BAKER. To the Editor of THE NATIONAL Review THE UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND SIR,-The new National University of Ireland must be richly endowed, to judge by the announcement in various professional journals, of vacant professorships and lectureships which are to be filled in October. The fifty-four fortunate gentlemen appointed will draw salaries totalling a sum of £19,100 per annum, but the curious thing about it is that of this huge sum no less than £2200 per annum are to be spent in teaching the Irish language, literature, and history. We are to have: (1) A Professor of Celtic Archæology and Ancient Irish History at £600 per annum. (2) A Professor of Early Irish, £600 per annum. (3) A Professor of Modern Irish Language and Literature, £600 per annum. (4) A Lecturer on Modern Irish History, £250 per annum. (5) A Lecturer in Irish Language, £150 per annum. For the study of the despised English language and literature a paltry £900 per annum suffices, namely: (1) A Professor of English Literature at £500 per annum. (2) A Professor of English Language and Philology at £400 per annum. English history appears to be ignored. The above applies to the University College in Dublin alone, and similar appointments on a smaller scale are advertised for the Colleges of Cork and Galway. Loyal Irishmen may well ask to what end is this reviving of a moribund language? Is it not a deliberate attempt to build a wall of partition between the loyal Irish and the English on the one side and the disloyal Irish on the other? It will be interesting to learn what the Professor of Modern Irish Language and Literature may have to impart. I am, sir, Your obedient servant, "AN OLD QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY MAN." THE NATIONAL REVIEW No. 320. OCTOBER 1909 EPISODES OF THE MONTH A Dangerous EVERY enemy of England at home and abroad earnestly and passionately desires the prolongation of the present Parliament, and the continuance of the Lloyd George Government-to give its proper name to the Cabinet since the total eclipse and effacement of the titular Prime Minister, who is tamely content to follow his more active and aggressive colleague. There is a sinister intrigue afoot, fraught with peril to our national safety, with the object of perpetuating the life of this combination of Cobdenites and Communists, whose existence is regarded in Berlin and Potsdam as among the greatest of German assets, being reckoned equivalent to the addition of several battleships to the German Navy. Our readers are never surprised to learn that the President of the Board of Trade is involved in anything detrimental to England. William II. has made a practice of establishing private personal relations with one or other Cabinet Minister, whatever party is in power in this country, with the object, frequently realised, of influencing British policy in German interests. His confidant in the late Unionist Cabinet was an artless politician who flourished the Imperial letters in the faces of his colleagues as conclusive evidence of that monarch's profound attachment to Great Britain. On the formation of the Campbell- Bannerman Cabinet, Mr. Haldane, described in the inspired German Press VOL. LIV 12 as "Germany's best friend," was expected to be earmarked for the high honour of Imperial correspondent, and our new War Minister was made much of during a certain visit to Berlin, when he allowed his zeal to outrun his discretion. His policy of substituting Territorials for Regulars was warmly approved by the powers that be in Germany, but in spite of his German philosophy and his wishy-washy sentimentalism, it must in fairness be admitted that Mr. Haldane means to be a good Britonhe is not of the stuff of which traitors are made. His eyes have long been opened to the German danger, and there was not very much change to be got out of him, all the more as he is a loyal colleague and close personal friend of Sir Edward Grey, and would never be consciously a party to any cabal against the Foreign Minister, even to please the German Emperor. It is a matter of common knowledge that on his Majesty's last visit to this country in the autumn of 1907, when eloquent apostrophes to peace in London synchronised with the Imperial Interference promulgation of portentous naval programmes in Berlin, he selected our First Lord of the Admiralty as the recipient of his confidences, and it will be remembered that in the spring of 1908, while British Naval Estimates were being contested in the Cabinet between the big party of the Little Navy and the little party of the Big Navy, a letter arrived in the nick of time from the German Emperor, calculated to help the former cabal. William II. had for two years been making colossal additions to German naval plant unbeknown to the British Cabinet owing to the secretiveness of the Admiralty. But in this letter his Majesty adopted the pathetic attitude of a much misunderstood man, who lived with a single eye to the promotion of Anglo-German friendship. He had just persuaded his own people to endorse a policy involving the addition of at least four new "Dreadnoughts per annum to the German Navy, but he was shocked and grieved at the size of the British Navy and inferentially argued against its increase. Such was the disinterested advice of an honorary British Admiral in an informal letter to our First Lord of the Admiralty. Of course we were told that this Imperial missive had no effect upon our Naval |