tariff of prohibitory imposts; and, in several of these instances, this
war of restrictions against British industry commenced, or immediately
followed upon, those remarkable changes and reductions in the tariff of
this country which signalized the very opening of Sir Robert Peel's
administration. Conceding, however, this seeming concert of action to be
merely fortuitous, what will the vice-president of the Board of Trade
say to the long-laboured, but still unconsummated customs' union between
France and Belgium? Was that in the nature of a combination against
British commercial interests, or was it the reverse? It is no cabinet
secret--it has been publicly proclaimed, both by the French and Belgian
Governments and press, that the indispensable basis, the _sine qua non_
of that union, must be, not a calculated amalgamation of, not a
compromise between the differing and inconsistent tariffs of Belgium and
France, but the adoption, the imposition, of the tariff of France for
both countries in all its integrity, saving in some exceptional cases of
very slight importance, in deference to municipal dues and _octrois_ in
Belgium. When, after previous parley and cajoleries at Brussels,
commissioners were at length procured to be appointed by the French
ministry, and proceeded to meet and discuss the conditions of the
long-cherished project of the union, with the officials deputed on the
part of France to assist in the conference, it is well known that the
final cause of rupture was the dogged persistance of the French members
of the joint commission in urging the tariff of France, in all its
nakedness of prohibition, deformity, and fiscal rigour, as the one sole
and exclusive _régime_ for the union debated, without modification or
mitigation. On this ground alone the Belgian deputies withdrew from
their mission. How this result, this check, temporary only as it may
prove, chagrined the Government, if not the people, and the mining and
manufacturing interests of France, may be understood by the simple
citation of a few short but pithy sentences from the _Journal des