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LIVERPOOL ASSOCIATION.

provided that the duty in the two countries should be alike, whether on British or foreign vessels, the duty should be the same. Now, he was glad to find that there had been two importations of Venezuelan sugar into Liverpool, at 34s. per cwt. He understood that next month, or the month of March, they would have importations of sugar from Manilla, and they would also have some from the United States of America. But although so little sugar, almost none, had come in under this new regulation, yet he begged to be allowed to say, that the apprehension of increased supplies had done what the laws should have done—it had checked the price of sugar in the market, and they now had sugar at a much lower price, from the approhension that foreign sugars would be imported and would interfere with the sugar of the monopolists." Mr. Rawlins, secretary to the association, read the report, which was a very able and interesting document. It canvassed, among other subjects, the state of trade, the state of the representation, the chances of success; on which subject it was said, "The association had never looked with so much confidence to the ultimate and not far distant success of the free-trade cause as at the present moment. Aid had sprung up from the most unexpected quarters, and the ministry now in power, after deliberately giving in their adhesion to the truth of their principles, were gradually applying them to the destruction of the monopoly they were raised up by the monopolists to support. But the people demanded, not a free trade in principle, but a free trade in practice." "Nor is it altogether," proceeds the report, " to the efforts of the free-trade party that we are to attribute this rapid progress of our cause. Compared with former years, those efforts have been somewhat abated. But it is rather owing to the fact, that added experience is daily proving the truth of our principles. Events have, indeed, spoken trumpet-tongued in our favour. Every fallacy which a selfish policy endeavoured to impress on