scale of 1828) to 20s. ; and in 1846 he further reduced it, as and from the 1st of February, 1849, to the nominal duty of 1s., or two per cent.: so that, in seven years, he diminished the protection on wheat, 66 per cent., or two thirds; retaining fifteen per cent. on silk; and ten per cent. on cotton and woollen goods made up, and upon all miscellaneous manufactures. I remember some one remarking at the time" If Parliament, on reducing the maximum in 1842 to 20s., had kept it there five years, with a further decline of 1s. per annum till it reached a point deemed advisable, as a duty for revenue, British agriculture would have met the gradual change without apprehension; but to reduce the protection on a quarter of wheat of the value of 50s., from 20s. to 1s. (or forty per cent.), in a few months, is, considering the magnitude of the interests at stake, the most scandalous example of spoliation and robbery ever set by a government not professedly revolutionary."* And, singular enough! a revolution has, since that time, swept over the face of Europe; and yet, not a single government, nor popular assembly, however revolutionary, has sanctioned, or even proposed, such a measure of downright confiscation.

ARISTOCRAT.

Surely, Madam, you must have forgotten Monsieur Proudhon.

* Letter, &c., from a Conservative. 1847.

PROTECTION.

Proudhon, indeed! Why, Sir, what was his proposal?

ARISTOCRAT.

As well as I can remember, Madam, M. Proudhon, in July, 1848, in the dog-days, coolly proposed to the National Assembly of France, a plan of financial reform, which he styled "An organization of a reciprocal credit between citizens." According to this plan, all were to gain, and none to lose. Farmers were to pay a third less rent; debtors were to be released from a third of their obligations; the national debt was to be reduced a third; and these reductions, by lowering the taxes one third also, would enable all to regain in cheapness what they lost in cash. It was first an advance, which Capital was to make to Industry; and which Industry was to repay in cheapness. As Thiers said of him, "Tandis que les autres créaient la cherté par le monopole, il a voulu, lui, créer le bon marché." He assured the landowners that, although they would lose onethird of their income, all exchangeable commodities would be reduced in value in the same proportion; consequently their means wo ld remain relatively as before; indeed, as all articles of consumption must fall, they might find, perhaps, that by paying less for their bread, and their meat, and their clothing, they would gain even more than they lost.

PROTECTION.

Well, Sir, and are not those the very words of Sir Robert Peel? Pray, Sir, proceed.

ARISTOCRAT.

And all who had borrowed money on mortgage, or on personal security, were to deduct one-third from the amount; while the national debt also was to be reduced one-third.

PROTECTION.

Well, Sir; and did he not pilfer that from Sir James Graham? I think you have stated Proudhon's plan with perfect correctness: but, I only ask you, was there ever a more pitiful plagiarist? and yet, by merely skilfully combining the projects of Sir James Graham, and Sir Robert Peel, without the slightest acknowledgment, he contrived to give an air of originality to a scheme, which was scouted by a mob of Radical-Socialists as "confiscation"; but which scheme I deliberately affirm to be more just in its principle, and less cruel in its operation, than either the Book of Sir James Graham, which is not the law, or the Bill of Sir Robert Perl, which is.

ARISTOCRAT.

Might not the French statesman have been compelled of necessity to make this fusion of Peel and

Graham, as Dryden says of Milton, with regard to
Homer and Virgil ?

"The force of Nature could no further go:
To make a third, she joined the other two."

PROTECTION.

Well, I confess, that never occurred to me before. But, at all events, I repeat, that, of the three propositions, Proudhon's is the most comprehensive, and consequently the most just.

Each of the other two is quite a one-sided affair. While Sir James exalts the landowner, at the cost of the Jew, and the jobber; and while Sir Robert cuts down Landlords to pigmies, that Leaguers may strut about as giants; Procrustes Proudhon turns all out of his bed of torture, dwarfed down to a dumpy égalité! He does not, like our Graham, rob Peter to pay Paul, nor does he, like our Peel, rob Paul to pay Peter; but, borrowing from his British prototypes, the characteristic excellence of each system, he robs both Peter and Paul, without paying either; and vindicates his claim to social disinterestedness, at the expense of his political invention. Nor should your praiseworthy partiality for your own countrymen blind you to the fact, that, even on the score of consistency, the palm must be awarded to Proudhon. In what estaminet, of Paris, had that patriotic citizen declared, during the first three weeks of February, "I contemplate no alteration"? No, no: while Peel and Graham were Free-Traders

"du lendemain," Proudhon was a Socialist "de la veille."— Vile hypocrites that we are! at the mote in our brother's eye we scream out "Confiscation!" while the beam in our own, we calmly christen "Free Trade!"

ARISTOCRAT.

Can we wonder then, that the People are losing their trust in our statesmen, and their reverence for our institutions, when they are being taught, by suffering, that Confiscation may flourish under "regular government," and fail under "revolution?" The loyalty of our most loyal classes is fast being undermined. Woe to us! if the aristocratical principle of our institutions be put in danger! What, at this hour, is the boasted liberty of France? Power, relying on the unrelaxing pressure of the bayonet, for every moment she can call repose. Not so-yet at least-with us. Thanks to the aristocratical influences of birth, of manners, of wealth, of talent, blended so harmoniously in this our free and glorious England, Power is so universally, yet so mildly and equably diffused, as to be scarcely acknowledged by us in the daily business of our civil life. We must reflect, to be conscious of its existence; though "to us invivisible, or dimly seen," we feel, indeed, that it is there; pervading and vivifying the whole mass, and held there in solution for the peace and happiness of all but once apply to it the test of Democracy, and we are startled, as the precipitate re