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enjoyment. Throw aside political economy. It is the theory of a mere shopkeeper. Address all the faculties of your minds to the task of devising in practice some way of life by which human beings may all be enabled to live as such without grinding poverty or want.'

There was much in this doctrine which I think no one can complain of. It, no doubt, was so preached as to impress powerfully on many rich people their moral duties; but it has also great defects, at least in my opinion, and it is preached by innumerable writers without that clear recognition, which was one distinctive feature of Carlyle's teaching, that such a process implies a well-organised and really powerful government, which knows and does not shrink from doing its duty, and that the measures which it recommends cannot be carried out merely by exhortations to charity.

The great defect of teaching of this sort (and Carlyle was as deficient in that respect as any one else) is that it is for the most part entirely silent on two matters of capital importance—namely, first, the duties of the poor, and, secondly, the truth of the fundamental principles of political economy in its old-fashioned form-the political economy of half a century ago, of the new Poor Law and Freetrade-principles which, teme, at least, appear to be as true as the second table of the Ten Commandments, with which they are closely connected, and which these principles resemble in being deeply rooted in the most permanent parts of human nature.

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This is little more than saying that this teaching is too absolute. Moral teaching of all kinds, whether addressed to individuals or to societies, always takes an absolute form, but ought always to be limited by the circumstances of the age to which it is given. These circumstances supply unexpressed exceptions which cannot be neglected without the worst results. The precepts of the Sermon on the Mount would destroy all human society and convert the world into a vast monastery if they were accepted absolutely and carried into full execution on all occasions. In the present day we have for many years past heard so much of the wrongs and woes of the poor, of the quasi-sinfulness of being rich, of mankind being all brothers and sisters, and of the duties of property, that it has become extremely important to insist upon the neglected truth, that poverty has its duties as well as its rights; that human nature is so constituted that nearly all our conduct, immensely the greater part of it, is and ought to be regulated much more by a regard to ourselves and to our own interests than by a regard to other people and their interests; that this is the basis on which almost all law reposes, and in particular that important part of it which assumes the existence of property-that is to say, the power of men to be, for purposes not forbidden by law, absolute masters of such things as they acquire by lawful means—and which pro

tects liberty, which means for one thing the protection of the owners of property from being coerced in the exercise of their rights over their property, by any means whatever not authorised by law. These principles have till quite lately been accepted as of course. They might be now and then set forth in express words when it was desired to refute any theory which was inconsistent with them, but more often they were accepted and acted upon unconsciously. In the present day virtues which in truth are founded upon them, and which assume their existence, have been so much. insisted upon as illogically to call into question the principle on which they depend.

Divide amongst the poor the superfluities of the rich, and all charity and generosity is at an end, unless it is charitable and generous to pay one's poor rates. Take away the great characteristic feature of property-the owner's absolute dominion over it—and it is no longer true that property has its duties in the sense of moral as distinguished from legal duties. Strain the quality of mercy, and it is mercy no longer. I am far from saying there should be no poor rate. I do not even say there should be no education rate, and it is fairly arguable whether education should be gratuitous; but I do say that these are exceptions to the general rule, justifiable only on the special grounds that rich and poor alike have a vital interest in the results which poor rates and education rates are supposed to procure, and that there is a dangerous tendency in the present day to enlarge the exceptions and to narrow the rule.

Apart from the special immediate reasons which exist for dealing with the subject of boycotting, the reflections just made supply a strong general reason for it. The adoption of such measures would assert vigorously and strikingly illustrate these fundamental principles. It is of the last importance to assert and vindicate the truth that legislative power must not be usurped; and that if property is to be redistributed, as many persons wish it to be-though they do not often propose it in so many plain words-they must at least obtain their object by lawful means.

JAMES FITZJAMES STEPHEN.

NOVA SCOTIA'S CRY FOR HOME RULE.

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HAVING spent much time in Nova Scotia, I am often asked-Why does that province wish to sever connection with the Dominion, and what means her cry of Repeal and Reciprocity'? And some of my friends are not a little shocked that, at a time when the question of Imperial Federation is so much discussed, our nearest kinsfolk on the American continent should be agitating for what at the first glance looks like separation, though it is far from being so intended. Imperial Federation is indeed a grand scheme, or will be when it attains the dignity of a scheme. At present it seems little better than a vague, but decidedly alluring, dream. And it is likely so to remain unless, among other safeguards, each unit which makes up the mass is allowed such a measure of self-government as shall secure it against possible harsh treatment on the part of any other unit which happens to be stronger.

Why the inhabitants of the Acadian peninsula want repeal of the union with Canada, and reciprocity with the United States and other countries, I propose in the following article to show.

When Nova Scotia, in 1867, entered the Confederation her debt amounted to some 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 dollars. To-day her share of the rapidly increasing Dominion Debt, which during the last eighteen years has advanced from 96,000,000 to 281,000,000 dollars, is fully 28,000,000 dollars (Ottawa says 40,000,000 dollars), a burden far too heavy for her altered circumstances. And to-day the Dominion's annual expenditure, which at the time of Confederation was 13,000,000 dollars, and in the last year of Liberal Government. (1878) 23,000,000 dollars, has, to the dismay of Canada's wisest statesmen, already reached 35,000,000 dollars, and ere the close of the present year is expected to touch 38,000,000 dollars. Of this charge Nova Scotia pays a tenth, if not a seventh, and of her contribution a large portion is spent outside her borders and in ways which benefit her not at all. Previous to the Union,' her Premier, Mr. Fielding, tells us, ' Nova Scotia had the lowest tariff, and was in the best financial condition of any of the provinces.' To-day she has the highest tariff, since she pays some three dollars more on every hundred dollars' worth of imported dutiable goods than her fellow

provinces, and is, the same high authority assures us, in the worst financial condition. The reason is not far to seek. Not only does she, with the most liberal hand, subscribe to fill the common Treasury, but for her own needs she gets back the smallest proportional share, the allowance meted out to the seven principal provinces being somewhat as follows::-

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While on the subject of monetary payments, it would scarcely be out of place to instance another grievance. When the International Fisheries Commission, which sat at Halifax in 1877, paid the Ottawan Tory Government, in November 1878, the five-and-a-half million dollars indemnity for the injury sustained by the fishermen of the Dominion, Nova Scotia, which had suffered most, received no share. Newfoundland was more fortunate. She was outside the Confederation; thus there was no excuse for withholding her portion. As the grand old island' (to quote Captain Kennedy) keeps an attentive eye on the doings of her near neighbours, she is likely to remain outside.

The improvements, such as they are, made in Nova Scotia by the Ottawan Government, Mr. Fraser, a member of the local Parliament, assures us, are not paid for out of the taxes levied in the province, but are charged to the National Debt. It is to be hoped the improvements are of a lasting and beneficial character, so that the prospect of getting out of debt again may be less desperate than in the case of sundry other undertakings. For instance, the Halifax Chronicle, of June 11, tells us that 500,000 dollars have been spent in establishing a sugar refinery at Richmond, a suburb of Halifax, every cent of which is lost;' also that 350,000 dollars have been sunk in a cotton-mill hard by which is probably worth ten cents in the dollar, and has never yet paid a dividend. To keep life in these and other bantling industries, the Ottawan Government imposes pretty stiff duties on imported sugar and cotton, whether to commemorate the throwing away of the 850,000 dollars and other enormous sums on similar undertakings elsewhere, or to give cause for a new reading (by substitution of the word Protectionists) of a sneering old proverb anent the wisdom of our ancestors, I know not.

Among other efforts, some colonists, foolishly relying on that spirit of private enterprise which it seems to be the paternal mission 1 See Halifax Chronicle, June 15, and other dates.

of Protection to thwart, once sought to rival Crosse and Blackwell by setting up a pickle factory. The vegetables were cheap and plentiful enough, but the duty on imported glass bottles was sufficient to cause the infant industry to die that premature death to which most of the infant industries seem doomed whose misfortune it is to be Protection's foster-children.

Let us examine awhile this matter of Protection, which has so much to do with Nova Scotia's discontent, and see whether it be true, as some of our friends so confidently and at times so flippantly assure us, that the doctrines taught by Cobden, Bright, and others are all wrong, and that we had much better return to that halcyon period when commerce lived in shackles and cheap bread was not. Abler pens than mine have exhausted the subject as regards Europe and the United States; therefore I will chiefly confine myself, because I can speak as an eye-witness, to the question as it affects the Acadian peninsula. And it may not a little astonish fair traders' to learn. that the condition to which Nova Scotia is reduced is that which all sound political economists would expect, that she is indeed an existing 'awful example,' some 2,500 miles away, of the hideous folly of reverting to Protectionist principles. Her taxation is swollen some 150 per cent., and the tariff, being purposely framed to bar out foreign trade as much as possible, does her serious injury; albeit Protectionists on her side of the Atlantic labour with a zeal worthy a better cause (though fruitlessly, I am glad to say, for Acadians are not mostly fools') to make her people believe that an imported article which formerly came in free, or with only a 10 per cent. duty charged, is no dearer now when a 25 to 35 per cent. duty is paid. And, as the last report of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce declares, Protection presses especially hard upon a 'people who are chiefly fishermen, agriculturists, miners, and farmers.' 'Repeal,' says the Chronicle of May 12, 'would mean closer trade relations with all our natural markets,' to wit, New England, the West Indies, and other places, with which, says another writer, the province is bound together socially, commercially, and geographically.' These trade relations, so far from being cultivated, are, as I will still further show, distinctly discouraged. And one effect of this unduly heavy taxation, unequal distribution of its proceeds, and enforced isolation is to cause more favoured provinces to flourish at Nova Scotia's

expense.

I spoke just now of altered circumstances. Let us glance at these. To do so is not to wander from the subject of Protection, as will at once appear. Halifax's two miles or so of fine wharves are doing far less business than of yore, and have so decreased in value that, as the Attorney-General, Mr. Longley, says, those which once could not be purchased for 50,000 dollars now will not sell for 20,000 dollars. One wharf, the Chronicle tells us, which fifteen years ago sold

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