one exception, every conceivable economical condition that could constitute a test of the principles and practice of Free Trade has occurred, the one condition untried being universal Free Trade. In these circumstances, and with all this varied experience, one would suppose that there was not much room for differences of opinion as to the results achieved, and as to our national condition at the end of the ordeal. Yet, from what is passing around, we cannot but see that extreme divergences exist. While, on the one hand, the Free Trader contemplates with satisfaction the position which his country has attained by her commercial policy, and appeals with confidence to the facts which abound on every side, and which, to his mind, verify to the fullest the theories he has embraced; on the other we find a school of neo-protectionists lamenting what seems to them to be the decadence of their country, and appealing also to facts which appear to them to bear out their views. But, the most astounding thing is, that some of the very same facts which are appealed to by one party as evidence of our abounding prosperity, are held up by the other as the certain proofs of our decay! A crucial example of this is to be found in the various conclusions drawn from the figures which appear in our Board of Trade Returns under the head of "Imports and Exports." The views of the writer upon this and other cognate subjects are, of course, those of the Free Trader. They are set forth in the following chapters in a manner which, it is hoped, will be sufficiently clear. They may perhaps aid the candid inquirer in a search for the truth, and tend to dissipate the "craze."
II.
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.
"Pons Asinorum."
The fact that year after year the money value of our imports vastly exceeds the money value of our exports, and that this excess tends to increase is, to many minds, not only a
