francs almost twenty-five per cent have been expended on account of collection and management. In fact, considering its nett produce, this of all imposts is the most expensive; consequently, it is the first of which it would be desirable to endeavour to disencumber the contributors, if the matter were considered merely in a pecuniary point of view.

But the customs are not merely a tax-they are also, and indeed especially, an instrument of administration, the necessary regulator of the efforts of industry and national commerce, a mean of defence that should not be allowed to slip, against the invasion of foreign trade and industry, a charge like that of the administration of justice and the maintenance of strong holds, to which society should submit even though the public treasury could not derive from it any advantage. Of all the numerous and complicated considerations which the budget comprehends, this (of the customs) is one of the most difficult and delicate, when viewed not only as a financial question, but as a question of economy. It is with reference to this latter head, exclusively, that the commission of inquiry has been occupied. Nowhere is the consideration of the amount of pecuniary produce more secondary,in no case would it be so mischievous that that consideration should predominate.

The industrious population is divided into two productive classes, productive by different means, and in many respects opposed in interest. The one, which comprehends the husbandman, the miner, the herdsman, and all the various branches of these three principal divisions, finds employment in exVOL. LXXI.

tracting from the bosom of the earth substances useful to man. Its products, which are raw and necessary materials, possess a commercial value determined by the amount of capital which it is necessary to expend in obtaining them, and never greatly exceeding

that amount.

To the other class belong the manufacturer, the workman, the artificer of all sorts of things, who work up the raw material into an infinite variety of forms, and by the mere labour of their hands add to its value a price indeterminate, and, it may be said, without limit.

In every country the former of these two classes has more to lose than gain by importation. Among us what is at present necessary for it almost exclusively is, that it should continue mistress of the markets of the interior—that is, that we should shut out the competition of foreign products, which this class can scarcely sustain upon any point. It seeks to be protected from the introduction of the grain of Odessa, the sugar of India, the iron of Sweden, the hardware of England, the wool of Spain, and black cattle from beyond the Rhine. To effect this, it calls for the assistance of customs, and always finds the tariffs too low.

The class of manufacturing industry has also some interest in excluding from our markets certain rival productions of foreign fabric. But, in addition to this, competition becoming daily less formidable to it in proportion to its own increased skill, freedom of importation in general will more than compensate it for any injury it may sustain by the fall which will thus be occasioned in the price of necessaries. The class of jewellers, therefore, every thing considered,

2 D

It is the same, and for a stronger reason, with consumers at large, who, without understanding the question generally, perceive in the operation of the customs nothing but an obstacle to their procuring provisions, clothing, and household goods, at the best market.

Then beyond these clashing private interests rise the interests of the public; the necessity of holding equally, if not inclining in favour of France, the balance of trade with foreign nations, so as not to give to the latter the advantage over us which a creditor has over a debtor, but if possible to preserve that advantage over them; the necessity of attaching a revenue to territorial property, in order not to expose to the risk of perishing this, if one may so call it, eldest branch of the social family, and by the same stroke to dry up the most certain as well as the most abundant source of the national wealth; in fine, the great importance which it is to the future prosperity of the country to protect the national industry, feeble as it still is in many respects, and to afford it time and opportunity to acquire sufficient force to maintain the contest which it is called upon to sustain in the competition with foreign industry. Such are the end and incontestable utility of the customs, considered as an instrument of govern ment; such are the interests which the commission of inquiry is called upon to consider, and if possible to reconcile one with another.

Let us observe, on the other hand, for this is the grand objection, that the prohibitive action of the customs on the import trade, which it is necessary to restrict to

point upon our export trade, which it would be desirable to extend as much as possible. It will be readily perceived, that our neighbours as well as ourselves must be anxious to maintain the balance of trade, and with that view, to oppose on their side the introduction of our produce, by the same restric tions and the same duties by which we resist the introduction of theirs. Thus we see that every where the wines of France are subjected to those enormous import duties, of which the departments of the South complain so vehemently this year, and which they chiefly attribute to that kind of prohibition to which the introduction of foreign iron is subjected.

This question of iron, which occupied the earliest attention of the commission, affords also an example, remarkably singular, of the utility of the operation of the customs, and of rigorous tariffs for the development and maintenance of certain branches of the national industry.

The necessity of our supplying ourselves during twenty-five years of maritime warfare, and of continental blockade, gave rise to a great many speculations and estab lishments for the working and improvement of our native iron. These created employment for vast capital and for a great many hands. The value of property in wood (the only fuel then used in forges) was soon very considerably increased, and this increase gave rise to new fortunes and new interests. In the year 1818, the (iron) manufactories of France gave to commerce 800,000 quintals of wrought iron, which, in leaving the manufactories, represented a value of 40,000,000 of francs, 50 francs the

metrical quintal, the lowest price at which our forge-masters could sell it.

In the mean time the English, on their side, unknown to us, discovered and perfected the mode of employing pit-coal, and using it in the smelting of iron ores. This advantage, joined to that which they always enjoyed of an abundance of iron ores, was such, that when commercial intercourse was opened, it was found that the English could supply our markets with wrought iron, at 21 francs the metrical quintal, nearly sixty per cent less than that at which our ironmasters could produce it in France. It would undoubtedly happen that the inevitable effect of this so great difference of price between the foreign and domestic produce would be to us the cessation and total abandonment, without chance of restoration, of the whole of the iron manufacture of France, the ruin of thousands of families who had already applied themselves to that branch of industry, an enormous and sudden decline in the value of property in woods and forests; and altogether to throw into the balance of trade in favour of England the price of all the iron which might be consumed in France.

To guard against such individual disasters, as well as so great a public loss, it became necessary that the produce of the English forges should not be allowed into our markets at a lower price than that of the forges of France. It was to this that the operation of the customs was directed. By means of an import duty of 27f. 50c. per quintal, this foreign iron could not

The value of the wood consumed in each year in the manufacture of iron has been valued at 30 millions of francs.

come into the market under 48f. 50c. The same price, within three per cent at which the iron of France then was. This regulation was doubtless adopted in order not to make any change in the condition of the consumers, indeed rather to ameliorate it a little, and at the same time to stimulate the industry of the home manufacturer by giving him the alternative either of having this 3 per cent taken from his pockets, or of finding means of producing, at a less expense, this article, which was especially necessary for the great interests of the country. The preservation of the national industry being thus guaranteed, and the trade fortified by the protecting duty, the manufac turers did direct their attention, as well to the improvement of the old process of working, as to enable themselves to use the new process. The quantity of wrought-iron, which had been only 800,000 quintals in 1818, in 1826 had risen to 14,000,000, and since then it has increased about 100,000

more.

In the latter end of 1828 there were already in France fourteen blast-furnaces, worked like those of England with coke or pit-coal, and capable themselves alone of producing 800,000 quintals of iron. At the same period there were twelve other furnaces of this description building, and companies. were forming for the establishment of a greater number.

Within the last three or four years there have also been discovered in the departments of Gard and Aveyron, coal-pits of more or less extent, close to abundant strata of iron ore of excellent quality.

We have reason to believe, that when the facility of conveyance by

means of canals and railways shall have been added to the improvements and discoveries already made, the forges of France will produce a sufficient quantity, and at so reasonably low a price, as to put an end to the necessity of importation, at the same time that the artisan and consumer will have no cause to regret the low price of foreign iron.

Under these considerations, and many others which have resulted from the inquiry, the commission, after mature deliberation, being unanimously convinced that the period has not yet arrived for abandoning the iron trade to itself, and for depriving it of the protection of the import duty, is of opinion that "for the present there should be no change made in the import duty upon iron, but that the tariff may be reduced one-fifth (20f. instead of 25f.) in the course of five years."

same.

As regards sugar, the state of the question is very nearly the The object in view was, to secure a preference in our markets to sugar grown in our own colonies, over that coming from those of other countries, and at the same time to take care that the very low price of either should not become an obstacle to the propagation and the progress of a branch of the national industry altogether new, and the creation of which arose from the continental blockade at a time when colonial sugar cost five or six times more in France than in any other country. We speak of the art of extracting sugar from beet-root, the first attempts at which did not, as will be remembered, make the fortunes of those who engaged in them, and were very far from promising what we have good grounds at present

to expect, or indeed the success that has been already obtained.

One of the manufacturers examined before the commission has stated, that the beet-root sugar which he sells in the market at 1 franc 20 centimes the kilogram, with a profit of eleven per cent, stood him in 5 francs in the year 1811, on which he was satisfied to sustain a loss of ten per cent. On the other hand, it appears from tables laid before the commission by the Minister of Commerce, that there are at present in France eighty-nine sugar factories, the produce of which may be estimated at 4,400,000 kilogrammes; that is to say, equal to about a fifth of the quantity of foreign sugar consumed in France. This industry, it is said in the exposé of the minister, makes this very moment, as well by the preparations which are making for the erection of new factories as by the adoption of new processes, an advance calculated to give a very rapid increase of production.

But for this purpose it will be necessary that the duty should assist it for some years to come. The makers of native sugar insist, then, upon the keeping up of the present tariffs. Moreover, these manufacturers, admitting fully that beetroot sugar may and ought at some period to be taxed, maintain that to subject it at present to any duty whatever would be to ruin almost all the factories in existence, while it would, at the same time, prevent the creation of any new establishment. They also argue, that as long as we have colonies, it will be but justice to secure their produce a preference in our markets.

To sum up, the commission of inquiry has come to this conclusion,