through the recess for a hope of rescue like this at the end of it.

The late ministers very properly excused themselves from giving an immediate opinion with regard to a scheme so vast as to require much consideration; and Lord J. Russell satisfied himself with making some small objections which occurred to him at the moment. These gentlemen now found that Sir R. Peel had 'courage' to propose an income-tax; and those who were familiar with their social and domestic intercourses, knew that they were penetrated with admiration at the statesmanship now before them, and that the generosity of the most captious among them was roused for the time, and the evil spirit of jealousy laid asleep. But it was for only too short a time-only for three days or so. Then the evil awoke, as rancorous as ever, and stung the ex-ministers into acts of opposition, which shewed most meanly on the broad background of the government policy. When Lord J. Russell, aware of the desperate state of our financial management, asked in regard to the income-tax: 'What will France say ? it was felt that the meanness of opposition could go no further. The reply of the minister was: The noble lord says, "Do not impose the income-tax, because you will shew foreign nations that the resources of this country are exhausted." I say, never mind what may be the impression on foreign countries. Do that which you believe to be just, that which you think consistent with sound policy, and let foreign nations think what they will.' Lord John Russell, however, avowing this to be his strongest ground of objection against the tax, declared his determination to oppose it in every stage of discussion-on the resolutions, on the report, the first reading, the second reading, and the third reading. The minister was anxious to have the decision of the House before the Easter holidays; and some of the leading members of the opposition endeavoured to protect him from the abuse of the power of obtaining adjournments; but a small minority baffled them all, and deferred the decisive consideration of the measure till after the 4th of April.

The object was, of course, to rouse popular feeling against the bill. There could hardly be a more promising occasion; for, while every tax is disagreeable, and every heavy tax eminently so, there is something transcendently disgusting in an incometax, which not only takes a substantial sum immediately out of a man's pocket, but compels him to expose his affairs to a party that he would by no means choose for a confidant. The vexation and grumbling were great at the time, and have been so ever since. In the books at the Bank of England may be seen parenthetical exclamations, such as 'Damn Sir Robert Peel and all his crew!' and the like, so numerous that the book-keepers found it in vain to oppose such a method of pronouncing on the measure. Merchants old enough to remember the war property-tax anticipated surcharges, and the return of all the injured and angry feelings under which they used to suffer without redress. The young professional man quaked at the necessity he saw before him of either owning himself to be

earning less than £150 a year, or paying a tax out of his bare means of bread to keep up his professional credit. There was no lack of discontent and apprehension; and this the minister surely anticipated; but he anticipated no less confidently, and no less correctly, that the discontent and apprehension would be less powerful than the desire for financial release and security. Men would rather submit to the most disagreeable of taxes than go on as the nation had been doing for the last six years. They responded to the call of the government to rouse themselves to a great effort, to recover a position of safety and honour; and all attempts to excite them to opposition during the Easter recess completely failed. After the House met, there was a debate of four nights on an amendment, condemnatory of the tax, of Lord J. Russell's; but it merely exhibited the fact that the choice lay between an income-taxincluding a property-tax-and loans; the last being more eminently than a property-tax a resource proper to war-time, being indeed a disgrace in time of peace. The popular confidence in the new ministry had raised the funds; and some Whig leaders shewed what an advantageous time this would be for a loan; and it was this which occasioned the energetic passage of the debate which, greeted with cheers and counter-cheers and laughter in the House, met with the same reception everywhere, and became at once celebrated. 'I call upon you,' said Sir R. Peel, in reply to Lord J. Russell's suggestion of a new loan, 'I call upon you to make great exertion; and the first step you take towards recovery, the first demonstration of your willingness, will be half the victory. If you are afraid to submit to sacrifices; if you paint in glowing colours the miserable condition of those who are to pay taxes; if you say it is better to go on on the present system, increasing the debt a little more, funding at 91-why are the 3 per cents. at 91? Who has made them 91? Public credit is high, the funds have risen, and say you, "You can have a loan easily now!" O you miserable financiers! [Laughter and cheers.] I beg pardon if, in the heat of debate, I have used a word that may give offence. But the funds are high, because you have shewn a disposition not to resort to a system of loans in time of peace.' Lord J. Russell's amendment was rejected by a vote of 308 to 202, on the 13th of April; and another amendment, proposing the reading of the bill on that day six months, was thrown out on the 18th by a vote of 285 to 188. The progress of the bill through committee was rapid. After the rejection of a few amendments, little further opposition was made. Eighty clauses were disposed of on the night of the 2d of May; and on the 30th of May the third reading was carried by a majority of 130, and the bill passed the Commons. In the Lords, there was no debate till the third reading; and what there was, did not prevent the bill from passing the same evening, by a majority of 71.

The speech which appears to have most truly represented the predominant opinion and sentiment in regard to the income-tax, was that of Mr Raikes Currie, a member who had been in parliament since 1837, but had hardly opened his lips till now, when

CHAP. VI.]

he did it to more purpose than anybody else. He avowed that he came into parliament in the hope of aiding in a large and secure extension and protection of the suffrage; but that that hope had been balked by Lord John Russell's declaration that he considered the Reform Bill a final measure, and that it was by a determinate purpose that the preponderance of the landed interest in parliament was provided for. Under this preponderance of monopolists, all efforts of the Liberal party against monopolies must be hopeless; and especially while, as at present, there was no appearance of popular support of the Whigs. When Lord John Russell had slammed the door of the constitution in the face of the unrepresented,' he was surely bound to offer no factious opposition to measures in which liberal principles were embodied. The only hope left was in the carrying of liberal measures by those who had power to carry them. He considered himself at full liberty to consider separately, and in entire independence of party, the measures brought forward which contained any popular promise; and he certainly considered the proposal of the income-tax as full of such promise. He was aware of all the evils of that tax-from those on the surface to those in its depths; but it had the great virtue which could cover even that amount of evils-that it spared the poor, and laid the burden of taxation where it could best be borne. He saw the beginning of a new era in this appeal to the monied classes of the nation to restore the national resources; and, approving the measure, he felt himself bound over to candour towards its originator. He saw no use in driving the minister-if that were possible-into the arms of ultra-Protectionists by persecution. He remembered that minister's declaration, that he considered the prosperity of the manufacturing classes of more consequence to the landed interest than any protective laws; and he considered this a sufficient ground for giving him fair-play-even if he had not been now the only hope of popular progress. This statement, remarkable and much remarked on at the time, is even more valuable now. It then served as an exposition of a widely spread view, and as a guide to some who were still perplexed what to think and do; but now its political truth is so verified that the speech reads rather as a commentary on Sir R. Peel's course, and the state of parties during his term of office, than as a piece of reflection at the outset. The operation of the income-tax commenced from the 5th of April 1842.

It has been mentioned that a copy of the proposed tariff had been laid before parliament, and printed off for the benefit of the country. This first copy could not be the working one. As the minister explained, it was necessary, in preparing the measure, to avoid communication with persons actually interested in the supposed protection of particular articles; but it was next necessary to allow such persons time and opportunity to state their views on their own behalf. The changes made in consequence of such representations were not such as to occasion much delay; and by the 5th of May, the amended copy of the proposed tariff was on the table of the House. It may be questioned whether any measure connected

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with finance, brought forward in parliament at any former time, ever caused such deep and glowing satisfaction throughout the educated classes of this country as this new tariff. When it was considered that the minister's business was-not that of the amateur financier, to make out a perfect schemebut to propose a reform that would work, it was felt that this was the soundest and most remarkable budget ever brought forward; the soundest in its principle, and the most remarkable in its courage and comprehensiveness.

As the income-tax was intended to tax wealth, the new tariff was mainly designed to relieve manufacturing industry. The prospects now opened were very cheering. Owing to the high duties on foreign woods, we had not hitherto been able to keep those woods, and make them into furniture at home, but had been obliged to let them go to France and Germany, to employ the cabinetmakers there, and then to import the furniture. Now, the cabinettrade was to be so relieved, that there was hope that we might export furniture. The free command of dye-woods, again, was highly important to our manufactures. As for ores, copper had hitherto been smelted in bond, and actually sent away on account of the duties, while we had to import from France and Belgium copper smelted with our own coal. Oils and extracts, indispensable in many manufactures, were made freely accessible by reduction of duty. And above all these benefits was that of the change in the timber-duties. Colonial timber was to be admitted duty-free; and this would enable parliament to diminish the duties on Baltic timber, to the lowest point consistent with good faith towards Canada. The greatest authority on freetrade subjects, Mr Deacon Hume, had said, that if we had untaxed timber as we had untaxed coal and untaxed iron, we should be provided with the three great primary raw materials of employment and consumption. This we were henceforth to have. We should have better shipbuilding, and more of it. Our fisheries would extend, from the superior character of fishing-boats. The quality of our dwelling-houses, bridges, and utensils of various kinds, could not but be greatly improved.

Among the most interesting of the proposed changes, were those relating to food. The agriculturists would benefit by the introduction of clover and other seeds, which had hitherto paid a high duty. The farmers liked this very well; but they were dreadfully alarmed at what was to be done about cattle, salt-meat, and fish. There was no reason to apprehend that the British nation could be fed in independence of the British farmer and grazier; but it really seemed as if some people thought such a thing might happen. It was well that there were wide differences of opinion on each head. While some feared for our graziers from the introduction of cattle from the continent, others thought that the graziers would profit largely by the fattening of the lean beasts which would be imported; for there never was a doubt, unhappily, that the consumption of meat in England ought to be very much larger indeed than it had been any time within this century. The consumption of meat

was nowhere on the increase in any proportion to the increase of numbers; and in too many localities it was known that meat-eating was becoming confined to a higher and a higher class in society. The minister, for one, therefore, had no apprehension of the ruin of the graziers from the alteration; and he proposed to admit cattle, fresh and salted meat, hams, lard, salmon, and herrings, at duties considerably reduced. The immediate panic, among the ignorant agricultural class, was great; and there were, as usual, adventurers ready to make their market of it. Butchers' meat from Hamburg was advertised at 3d. per lb., while the people of Hamburg were themselves paying 6d. Numbers of graziers and farmers sold off their cattle for whatever they could get, and said that Sir R. Peel's tariff was ruining them. Every horned head seen on deck, on the arrival of vessels at Hull or Harwich, counted for a dozen to alarmed imaginations; and the pigs reported were innumerable. But these were mistakes sure of speedy correction; and in a few months, some people laughed, and others sighed, on finding how far the supply of animal food fell short of the national want.

The minister found some difficulty in carrying out the true principle of reducing duties to the point which should obviate smuggling. On this principle the duty on straw-plat had been reduced from 178. per lb. to 5s.; but the stir made was so great, and apparently so charitable towards the poor women and children in country districts, whose employment was supposed to be at stake, that the point was yielded so far as to raise the 5s. to 7s. 6d. But the minister pointed out the mistake in parliament, producing, to the great amusement of the House, and no doubt of the smuggling portion of society, an ordinary-looking bundle of straw for platting, in the centre of which was concealed a small roll of strawplat, such as it would still be worth while to smuggle, if the duty was higher than 5s. per lb. Some opposition was made to the new duties on swine, and fish, and apples, and butter, and other articles; but large majorities in every case affirmed the government duties. The Whitsuntide holidays had allowed time for consultation and reflection; the panic about the importation of cattle had ceased already, and mutton was again 7d. and even 8d. per lb.; so that all was fair for carrying the new tariff. The objec tions of opposition related to the omission of sugar from the tariff reductions, and the treatment of corn, and the difference between the duties on colonial and on foreign productions. The replies were that the reduction of the corn-duties was considerable enough for the present; that the case of sugar was an exceptional one; and that government had done all it could in freeing colonial produce-thus preparing for negotiation about foreign produce, and setting an example of fearless freedom of trade to other countries. On the whole, there was a more general assent than usual to the measure, and less party recrimination. The ex-ministers told of what they had intended to do in the same direction, if they had not been stopped by their failure in the treatment of the first two articles-corn and sugar. Here was the thing done-every one feeling that the corn

question was as truly a merely deferred one as the sugar. Both these remained to be dealt with hereafter; and meantime here was a provision for the extension of manufactures and commerce, the increase of food, and such a reduction in the general cost of living as would go far to enable the people to pay their new income-tax, and perhaps compensate for it. Men might differ, and did differ, as to whether this new tariff was valuable only as a move in the right direction, or whether it would also achieve what its authors hoped, in the extension of trade, and the improvement of comfort; but none-unless it were a few bigots in and out of parliament-doubted the Customs Acts reform to be a good thing. One gentleman would have free-trade in everything but herrings; another in everything but straw-plat; and Sir R. Peel and Lord J. Russell in everything but corn; but these separate opinions merged in general satisfaction that, out of 1200 articles that paid customs-duties, 750 were to be reduced; and a large majority of these to a merely nominal amount. The bill passed the Commons, amidst loud cheering, on the 28th of June.

In the other House, Lord Stanhope prophesied that the measure would be fatal to the power and reputation of the minister who brought it forward, and that we should end by having our navy and many other classes fed by foreigners instead of by British farmers. Lord Colchester thought he might vote for this bill without advocating the general principles of free-trade, and merely as an improvement in customs management. Lord Stanhope laboured hard with amendments in committee, and against the third reading-but in vain; and Lord Radnor was as energetic in opposition, for the reason that the bill did not go far enough. But those two were joined by only seven more on the last decisive occasion, when the bill passed by a vote of 52 to 9, on the 8th of July.

The article of sugar was not passed over this session because it did not stand in the tariff. It had a debate to itself. The subject was becoming a difficult one; and men were growing positive and peremptory as usual, in proportion to the difficulty. No difficulties, in all our mortal experience, are so formidable as those which-the result of wrong doing-attend the transition from wrong to right doing; and the perplexities about slave-produce were now shewing themselves to be in proportion to the moral mistake and offence of slavery. Amidst the never-ending complexities of the subject, and entanglements of the yearly debates, we may single out the two most important aspects of the question, and shew how they appeared at this time.

On the one hand, the West India planters urged that their lives had grown up, and their property been employed, under the legal institution of negro slavery, and a system of protective duties on sugar : now, slavery was abolished in their islands, but not in other sugar-producing countries; and they claimed the continuance of high sugar-duties, both as a carrying out of the system under which they had invested their fortunes in the West Indies, and as a necessary condition of their competing with countries where slave-labour was at command. On

CHAP. VI.]

the other hand, the friends of the poor in England shewed how sugar had become truly a necessary of life, when it was needful for the infants' food in the cottage, and for the temperate man's meal of tea or coffee-which were largely superseding intoxicating drinks-and for the use of many articles of food which could not be eaten without it. They shewed the hardship and, as they considered, the iniquity of making the British labourer, who had already paid so much to the planters as compensation for the loss of slave property, now go without sugar, or pay double for it, to bolster up the fortunes which had been invested under a bad system; a system whose badness insured its overthrow. Somebody must suffer as is always the case where a social sin has been committed; and that somebody ought to be anybody rather than the British labourer. Then, reasons were alleged why it ought to be, and must be, the planter-class that should suffer that a system requiring high duties cannot, in our age of the world, exist for any length of time; that the withdrawal of protection would compel the planters to better methods of cultivation-to more agricultural skill and improved management; and that, if estates could not be made to answer under such improved methods, they were not worth sustaining at all. This was one aspect of the controversy.

The other related to the condition of the institution of slavery in the world, to our relation to it, and to the effect upon it of our rate of sugarduty. The controversy here was as to whether we had so pledged ourselves to the cause of human liberty as to make it supersede the interests of our planters in the West Indies, and our labourers at home; whether, in short, it was a case in which we were unreservedly to sacrifice the interests of individuals to the maintenance of a great principle of social morals all over the world. In connection with this was the question whether, as a matter of fact, slavery was restrained by our high sugar-duties and other arrangements, and whether it would be aggravated by admitting free-trade principles into this department of international traffic. On the one hand, it was proved that the slave-trade was constantly on the increase, in spite of all arrangements, if not in consequence of them; and it was argued that the strongest political ground for the abolition of slavery was the superior value of free over slave labour: while, on the other hand, it was protested, that the peculiarity of the case took it out of the category of free-trade; and that, if slave-grown sugar were admitted to our markets under any duties which would leave it within reach of popular consumption, a great stimulus would be given to slave cultivation, and a new lease of life given to the criminal institution.

From year to year were these opposing views brought forward, and supported by their respective arguments. On the present occasion, the explanations of the government were looked forward to with impatience, from the increased eagerness of the friends of the people that they should have cheap sugar while enjoying so many other relaxations, and because the late ministers insisted on a reduction of the sugar-duties, as next in importance

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to their 88. corn-duty. On the 3d of June, the chancellor of the exchequer declared the inability of the government to reduce the sugar-duties that year, well pleased as they would be to do it. To reduce the colonial sugar, and not the foreign, would be to forfeit some revenue without effectually diminishing the cost to the consumer; and there were two objections to reducing the foreign sugar-duty-the loss to the revenue, which would be greater than could be adventured in the same year with the tariff reduction; and the delay of foreign powers in affording a sufficient guarantee against slavery and the slave-trade. An anti-slavery sentiment was springing up in slaveholding communities, and it might be eminently mischievous to the anti-slavery cause to throw open our markets at that juncture to slave-grown sugar. The government, therefore, could offer no change this year, and the reductions proposed by opposition members were rejected by large majorities. In the session of 1843, the same process was gone through; the ministers proposed no change, and gave the same reasons; and they were met by the same arguments and some fruitless amendments from the opposition.

There was not time, towards the close of the busy and profitable session, for a full discussion of the Poor-law Bill-so deeply as the question of pauper relief was affected by the urgent distress of the times. Many members had much to say against the existing law, and new arrangements to propose; and it was absolutely necessary to do something, for the commission had been renewed, by a vote in the preceding session, for one year; and there must be a provision made against the expiration of the term. With some trouble and difficulty, the home secretary obtained a renewal of the term of the commission for five years, and a settling of some indispensable practical points. A strong effort was made by Mr Escott to procure permission for magistrates to administer out-door relief at their discretion; but under no pressure of haste, or alarm at the prevailing distress, could the House be so mad as to vote away the essential principle of the great poor-law reform, though there seemed, at one moment, some fear that it might. Mr Escott's motion in favour of out-door relief at the discretion of the magistrates, was rejected by a majority of 90 to 55; and the commission was renewed for five years, under a promise from Sir James Graham that he would introduce a new bill early in the next session, in which some needful reforms should be proposed.

This year, 1842, settled the law of literary property, as it at present stands, and as it will stand for a long time to come. Before the days of Queen Anne, it was concluded, as a matter of course, that any book or other literary production, was the property of its author; and the old registers of the Stationers' Company shew that some thousands of books, even as early as the times of Elizabeth, passed from owner to owner, by descent or sale, like any other property. Acts of parliament, and Star-chamber decrees also afford evidence that political and legal authorities considered literary works to be the exclusive property of their authors. At no time does any one appear to have doubted the author's

exclusive right over his production while it remained in manuscript. The doubt, when it arose, related to his ownership when, by act of publication, he had made his ideas general property. The doubt seems to exhibit a mere confusion between the ideas and the vehicle in which they are communicated-between plagiarism and piracy. The people of the United States appear to be still unable to make the distinction. Because they can derive and reproduce ideas from an English book, they cannot see why they should not lay hands on the work itself, reprint it, pocket the proceeds of the sale without consideration of the author, and as long as our own laws allowed the practice, send their cheap copies to Europe, and sell them under the author's own eye. Yet more: they cannot see why they should not take a work by an English author whose name will secure a sale, cut out some portions of the book, alter the title, make it such as the author would not acknowledge, put his name to it, profit by that name, and send him no share of the proceeds. They cannot see why they should not put the author's name to a work which he has chosen to publish anonymously. Barbarous and base as this ignorance and cupidity appear-unable as such agents shew themselves to be to conceive of a book as a work of art which must no more be tampered with than a statue or a picture -it but little exceeds our own barbarism on this subject a century and a half ago, or even that which might be found among the unreflecting and unintel lectual up to the period of the passage of the Copyright Act of 1842.

If books were, before the eighteenth century, considered as of course the property of their authors, the supposition is now held to have been put an end to by the passage of a law which secured to authors and their heirs the property in their works for a term of years which was in fact taking the property from them after the expiration of that term of years. The act was passed in 1710; and the term fixed was twenty-one years from the day of publication for works already in print, and fourteen years for all works to be henceforward published; the latter term being once renewable, if the author should be still living at the end of the first fourteen years. More than half a century afterwards, however, Lord Mansfield and other authorities settled, as they thought, that the perpetual right of the author over his work was not put an end to by the statute of 1710; but again, five years afterwards, Lord Mansfield and those who agreed with him-the judges being in fact equally divided—were overruled; and it was decided, from 1774 onwards, that perpetual copyright was put an end to by the intervention of statutes. In 1814, the term was extended in favour of authors, it being now fixed at twenty-eight years for the author and his assigns, and furthermore for the term of the author's life, if he should survive the twenty-eight years' term.

The mischiefs of these restrictions were found to be such as had not been dreamed of by law-makers who believed they were granting a boon to authors; and by this time, some of these evils were becoming evident to the most careless and uninterested. The family of Sir Walter Scott, stripped by his great

losses, might be supposed to have an honourable provision in his splendid array of works, which the world was still buying, as eagerly as ever; but the term of copyright of Waverley was about to expire; and there was no one who could not see the injustice of transferring to the public a property so evidently sacred to heirs. Again, the poet Wordsworth was now an aged man. His was a reputation which it had taken half a century to bring out clear from the prejudices and false tastes of society in his early day. If he were to die now, his family would be deprived of all benefit from the sale of his works. Again, Southey came forward to declare that he had been prevented by the existing copyright law from undertaking works of weight, research, and permanent value, from inability to undertake labours whose fruits would be taken from him and his heirs just when the world was beginning to find the value of his books, and to buy them. It was clear that the operation of the law was to discourage the preparation of solid works, requiring research and the expenses which belong to it, and yielding pecuniary recompense only slowly and tardily; while it encouraged a flashy light literature, such as might command an immediate, though temporary sale. Probably the attention of the careless was fixed on this question of literary property by the petitions sent up to parliament by various authors about this time; and by none more than by the petition of Thomas Carlyle, which bears date in the spring of 1839. This petition is a remarkable document, which may well find its place here, from its including considerations of greater depth, and more importance to social philosophy and morals, than some matters to which a greater space has necessarily been given.

"To the Honourable the Commons of England, in Parliament assembled, the petition of THOMAS CARLYLE, a writer of books,

'Humbly sheweth,

That your petitioner has written certain books, being incited thereto by various innocent or laudable considerations, chiefly by the thought that said books might in the end be found to be worth something. That your petitioner had not the happiness to receive from Mr Thomas Tegg, or any publisher, republisher, printer, bookseller, bookbuyer, or other the like man or body of men, any encouragement or countenance in writing of said books, or to discern any chance of receiving such; but wrote them by effort of his own, and the favour of Heaven. That all useful labour is worthy of recompense; that all honest labour is worthy of the chance of recompense; that the giving and assuring to each man what recompense his labour has actually merited, may be said to be the business of all legislation, polity, government, and social arrangement whatever among men-a business indispensable to attempt, impossible to accomplish accurately, difficult to accomplish without inaccuracies, that become enormous, unsupportable, and the parent of social confusions which never altogether end. That your petitioner does not undertake to say what recompense in money this labour of his may deserve; whether it deserve any recompense in money, or whether money in any quantity could hire him to do the like. That this his labour has found hitherto, in money, or money's worth, small recompense or none; that he is by no means sure of its ever finding recompense; but thinks that, if so, it will be at a distant time, when he, the labourer, will probably no longer be in need of money, and those dear to