and fifty, the reductions made in the British
tariff, according to official calculations, represent
a sum of nearly eleven millions sterling.
In spite of this enormous drawback, the
produce of the customs, far from being reduced,
rose to a higher figure than it had ever
reached before.

In England the expense of collecting the
customs' revenue does not now exceed more
than five or six per cent. In France, it may
be stated, without any great fear of error,
at more than a quarter, and nearly amounts to
a third of the total produce. But we must
not forget that the great extent of the French
land-frontier offers a serious disadvantage.
France, therefore, can scarcely hope to reduce
the expense of collecting so low as one
twentieth or thereabouts, as in England.
Nevertheless, the overwhelming cost of the
customs' machinery may clearly be cut down
by the mere process of simplifying it.
While making the comparison, it is also just
to observe, that in France the sale of tobacco
and its preparations produces nothing for
the customs, as it does with us. Its manufacture
being a government monopoly, the
proceeds enter (as likewise does a portion of
the duty levied on sugars) into the inland
taxes which are claimed by the administration
of the Contributions Indirectes.

In old countries, like England and France,
the civil relations of the government with
such of its subjects as are not criminals or
lunatics, may be compared to the authority
which a parent exercises over his grown-up
children. Their education, the experience of
past ages, has raised them above the position
of babes whom it is necessary to support
with leading-strings; they are supposed to
be capable of going alone and taking care of
themselves. The wise parent does not inter-
meddle with the private routine of his
daughter's housekeeping, nor with
circumstantial details of his son's business; those
persons being considered competent to manage
their own ordinary affairs. If all goes right, the
parent is satisfied, and takes no further care
or thought. It is only at any great crisis or
emergency, in any unforeseen important case,
that the elder volunteers his advice.

The effect of the French Tarif upon the
children (native or adopted) of France is the
very reverse of this dignified non-
interference. It is like the conduct of a fussy
mother-in-law, who insists upon auditing
trumpery weekly accounts, balancing candles'-
ends, and half-pints of milk; who pries into
matters she had best let alone, makes
mischief, scolds, annoys, vexes, causes needless
expense, must have a finger in every pie,
never lets her young folk have their own
way, punishes them when she can, and is
sometimes sorry for it afterwards. To judge
by the Tarif—losing sight for an instant of
the long-armed nightmare-phantom Protection
—you would take French commercial
men to be raw apprentices who require
constant checking and admonishing. You musn't
do this, they are told; you can't take that;
you must sell this instead of the other;
these drawers are not to be touched without
word of command.

The youngster starts in the cotton line, for
instance. He asks what he may do with
cotton, and what he may not. Answer:
"Cotton, in wool or in sheets carded and
gummed; see Filaments. Cotton, spun; see
Thread of cotton. Cotton, seed of; see Fruits
to be sown for seed. Cotton, in powder; see
Wool, Wadding, Flock-paper." Depressed
and bewildered, he resolves to confine himself
to thread of cotton. He learns that
unbleached cotton threads (of the kind called
number one hundred and forty-three of the
metrical system, which is represented by
number one hundred and seventy of the
English system,) may, as well as higher
numbers, be imported on the payment of eight
francs the kilo, which, with the war double
decime, amounts to a duty of from ten to fifty
per cent. upon the value of the cotton. For,
whether thread of the coarser number cost
seven shillings the pound, or of the finer number
five-and-twenty shillings, the duty is the
same. The lower numbers of English cotton
thread are the coarser: they begin at numbers
twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, and so on. But the
French Tarif chooses to protect the spinners of
coarse cotton because they cannot spin fine
cotton. It will not therefore let coarse cotton
come in; but it will fine, because it must
and cannot help it. To keep coarse cotton
thread at a distance, it is only when thread
has arrived at the fineness of number one
hundred and seventy, that it is allowed to
come in at all. Every lower number, without
distinction of kind, is prohibited. Our
youngster therefore orders cotton thread
from England, specially mentioning number
one hundred and seventy. It comes, and
is sharply examined at the custom-house.
By an almost unavoidable circumstance
attendant on the process of spinning, some
of it is found to be a little coarser than the
motherly Tarif allows it to be. The whole of
it is seized; he is ruined, and retires to a
garret or a lunatic asylum.

The above is no imaginary picture. Only
very lately, a seizure of the kind was made,
though happily not ending in ruin, small
thanks to the benevolent Tarif. Cotton
thread is allowed to be imported only at the
ports of Dunkerque, Calais, Boulogne, and
Havre—another agreeable little shackle on
industry. All numbers of thread below
number one hundred and forty-three French
being entirely prohibited, any thread which
might correspond to number one hundred
and forty-two or number one hundred and
forty-one is mercilessly seized. No margin—
not the least in the world—is allowed. This
is a grievous injustice, because English cotton-
spinners only use such numbers as are
multiples of ten. For instance, they have nothing