has he then to gain by a change of system? The Hanse towns, where no fiscal pressure is felt, will assuredly not consent to give up their present advantageous position for trade, unless forced to yield to considerations of a different kind, which we trust, for the well-being of the civilized world, will not be forced upon them, and which it clearly would be the sacred duty of a loyal British minister to the utmost to resist.

The evident advantages to the maritime states in refraining from a junction with the League, of which a few are here slightly sketched, will, we trust, prove a sufficient answer to the unseemly declarations of Prussian writers, who stigmatize all endeavours to resist the encroachments of the Zollverein as proceeding from a desire to keep Germany disunited. England, as we have repeatedly stated, has nothing to reap from disunion in Germany; on the contrary, she has but recently been a considerable gainer by the unanimity of feeling displayed by the German people on the late pretensions advanced by a French minister. But we deny that the union. demanded by Prussia, accompanied with the sacrifice of local interests and long-indulged peculiarities, would be of any advantage to Germany itself. The interference which would thus be permitted to despotic governments in the dearest concerns of constitutional monarchies and republics, and which in so many is from the commencement enforced by requiring the vote and representation of small states at the periodical financial congresses to be ceded to Prussia, would clearly rob Germany of the little breathing space for freedom which is now allowed. The power of making foreign alliances, now controlled by the confederation, and of giving vent to public opinion through the press, which is fettered by a decree of the same body, were enough to sacrifice to the passion for centralization, which has been termed nationality. The control over trade and the power of regulating taxation are matters which a nation cannot abandon while it has any pretensions to freedom, or its inhabitants profess to respect themselves.

On these grounds the non-ratification of the recent treaty respecting Luxemburg, proposed between Holland and Prussia, cannot be condemned, for the king of Holland clearly only rejected the union desired on account of the arbitrary and derogatory conditions annexed to it in the details under

which it was to be carried out. The proposal to a sovereign prince to cede all control over the fiscal arrangements and the trade of his states, and to resign these unconditionally to the monarch of a country with which he is willing to unite in commercial alliance, and who is thenceforth to become his representative and to legislate for him, is one of so strange a nature, that a monarch who should comply with it would have little reason to complain, if he found that with all the attributes of royalty he had resigned the very essence of his dignity. And yet these were the terms on which Luxemburg was expected to join the Prussian League, the rejection of which has formed a pretext for angry notes from the court of Berlin, and it is said, for an appeal to the diet of Frankfort to coerce the refractory member of the League. A witty German writer once described that diet as a bundle of rods tied together by the greater powers for the purpose of chastising the smaller ones. We doubt, however, very strongly whether the diet will suffer itself to be used for a purpose like this, although Austria can assuredly be outvoted on all commercial questions by the members of the Prussian League.

Opinions are thus extremely divided in Germany on the subject of this League, which is alternately put forward as the proof and as the test of unanimity of feeling, according as the one or the other best suits the views of the party declaiming. Our own opinion remains unchanged; and as our German opponents have allowed the force of one grand argument which we advanced in our review of Dr. Bowring's Report, perhaps they will allow us to express it without ascribing it to the ungenerous motive we have named. The operation of a tariff is now too well understood to admit of any misapprehension. Under the protection of high duties it is possible to raise up any branch of manufacture, or to encourage any particular manner of cultivating the soil; but this end is attained at the peril of the speculator, who invariably suffers by the loss of nearly all his investment upon so unsound a foundation. If, as in the case of most countries, the manufactures are the cause of the wealth of England instead of being the result of our prosperity, it is because we have advantages for manufacturing which are so well known as to make it idle to enumerate them. We do not consider the power of manufacturing cheaper than our

neighbours a relative advantage, because in the natural course of things we should ultimately exchange objects of low value, the produce of machinery, against wares of a more refined kind, or for works of art. The power of manufacturing cheaply is, however, a positive advantage of the highest kind, and that not only for the land possessing it, but for all who choose to partake of the benefit; for the common objects of necessity must be furnished before more refined productions can be demanded. If therefore any other country could furnish these more cheaply than we can produce them for ourselves, we should recommend purchasing them with productions of a higher value. This exchange, according to the present state of the case, is against us, under the operation of a law of nature which we cannot change at present, but which may at some future time be altered; as for instance by the substitution of any other power for moving machinery than one requiring coal and iron; or by the accumulation of population on some other favoured spot; or lastly, by the transmission of a large mass of the capital of this country to some other. In such a case, if we did not prefer having a population of labourers to a population of mechanics, we ought to do what Prussia now refuses to do, purchase what we could get cheaply by selling something at a dearer rate, and it would be our business to find out something which we could so sell. Now the maritime states of Germany take this view of the matter, and are better pleased to vest their spare capital for the moment as it would seem in shipsa speculation which remunerates without protection-than in manufactures. When that branch is exhausted, they are willing to trust to the resources and ingenuity of their population for another productive line of enterprise.

The system of the Prussian League is the converse of this system, and prescribes by a large bounty, raised by a heavy tax upon the consumers, a particular line of industry, which after all only gives the consumer at a dearer rate what he could have bought with greater moral benefit at a cheaper rate. That league rejects the notion that a population has resources and ingenuity sufficient to find out lines of manufacture which would yield a more valuable return to the workman than machine-work affords.

The Prussians have a right to their own opinion, but can

the maritime states be blamed for thinking for themselves? Can we as their allies, and benefited by an interchange which these states likewise hold advantageous to themselves, suffer them to be compelled, or even induced by other means than those of fair persuasion by argument, to change their system and renounce our alliance? We cannot; and the people of this country will not look tamely on at any aggression which may be attempted in the spirit of the threats with which a portion of the German press now teems. We can assure them that the proceedings on their side are strictly watched at this side, and we recommend to them to avail themselves of every possible means to give the greatest publicity to every step that may be taken.

On the grounds we have stated, our readers will find it easy to believe that Prussia has in her own hands the solution of all these difficulties. She can at a word unite all Germany under her ægis, and advance her League to the sea, while she really increases the physical and moral power of the states that join it. To effect this, she has only to leave the false basis on which her League now rests, and to adopt the sounder one of the maritime states. But it must be acknowledged that the sound basis supposes a renunciation of the principle of unnecessary centralization, and the encouragement of every local advantage for the benefit of the mechanic or the speculator. The adoption of such a system would consequently likewise afford a guarantee that free political institutions would not be meddled with. Need we ask whether, on these terms, the maritime states would hesitate to join the League; and whether the civilization of Europe under its operation would not in a few years be more advanced than through centuries of diplomatic intrigue backed by myriads of bayonets ?

In advocating such a system, are we really the enemies of Germany?

But if the argument which we have advanced has any force, it follows that a careful government would show more anxiety to secure the finer kinds of manufactures than the commoner ones to its subjects. If jealousy were admissible, we should expect to find the higher productions of skill and art more highly protected than any other. But the Prussian tariff does the reverse; it imposes the highest duties on the lowest de

scription of goods, on most of which it is wholly prohibitory, whilst it taxes lightly goods of a finer description. In cottons, for instance, the duties levied by weight equalled the following rates in 1837, and are now higher in proportion.

In the course of our argument we have made no allusion to a possible exchange of agricultural produce for manufactures, because the opinion which we put forward respecting the inability of Germany to furnish sufficient corn to supply our demand has been pronounced a correct one by the Germans themselves. The observation has been noted as novel and founded in fact by the writers in Germany who do not coincide with us in other respects.

This is an important concession, and we rejoice at having advanced the discussion so much as to have fixed this one geographical point. The bulk of the supplies required to satisfy our craving demand in a bad harvest must be drawn from Austria and Russia; and of course, if the admission of a regular trade caused an improvement of the communications with and in those distant countries, the price at which they could furnish grain would even in the cheapest years exclude the dearer German wheat from our markets. Oats and barley would stand the competition better. But this concession

which the advocates of manufacturing monopoly are now endeavouring to use as an argument against all reciprocity in trade with England, fully confirms the opinion we expressed of the nature of the late mission to Berlin, at the bottom of which a desire to cater to the prejudices of a narrow-minded party evidently lay, and prevailed over the sincere desire to learn the truth.

We shall not be charged with any desire to join in the outcry raised some time back respecting the danger of not finding foreign supplies if we opened our ports too freely. Our readers will remember that we were the first to combat that supposi