250 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE. 
•world there lay first of all, the produce of the countr}’. Develop 
that and you would make your port. Produce what you can 
and put your produce before the world. A great deal had been 
said about the difficulties placed in the way of trade by the 
imposition of duties. There was something more sacred than 
the strange laws of the Medes and Persians, more sacred now 
even than the gospel, but in his own opinion he did not think 
it even should have been sacred. He did not think that the 
principle of free trade was ever a true principle in any country. 
He thought that his countrymen could claim their shares in the 
glories of the Empire, but they and their fellow Celts, the Scots, 
were junior partners iu the firm, and whilst admiring the Empire 
as one of the greatest that ever appeared, he could not claim 
for the Empire the exclusive possession either of all virtue or of 
all knowledge, and he found that other Empires had reasons for 
differing from us on that very important point and rejecting the 
principle of free trade. It was all very well to talk of free 
trade, but even accepting the principle of the trade in the sense 
•of its first apostles, Cobden and Bright, what gave them force 
was pressure on the poor brought about by taxation on bread- 
stuffs. But it was one tiling to allow grain to enter free from 
the wide fields of America, Russia and elsewhere, and it was 
quite another thing to allow flour actually manufactured in 
America to enter. No man in his senses would impose a tax on 
grain. If Cobden or Bright were alive at the present day and 
not their small disciples, lie thought they would put restrictions 
where the absence of these restrictions had the effect of impover- 
ishing the people. The importation of manufactured flour had led 
to the closing of thousands of mills in the three kingdoms and 
he doubted whether cheap bread was not more thnn paid for by 
the increased burdens thrown on the Boor Law bv the stonnage 
of the factories. ' 
“ r - McCarthy expressed his thanks to the other speakers and 
said he would not trouble the audience with his views on free 
trade versus protection, feeling sure that ho was as comfortable 
in Ins raith as the Rev. gentleman was in his. 
