has not fairly quoted his authorities. The sections referred to are almost literally as follows:

And whereas it may happen that the tea imported by the said Company may not always be sufficient to answer the consumption thereof in Great Britain, and to keep the price of tea in this kingdom upon an equality with the price thereof in other neighbouring countries of Europe; be it enacted, &c. that it shall and may be lawful for the Company to import such quantities of tea as they shall think necessary, from any parts of Europe, under license from the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, § 10.

If the said Company shall at any time neglect to keep the market supplied with a sufficient quantity of tea, at reasonable prices, to answer the consumption thereof in Great Britain, it shall and may be lawful for the said Commissioners of the Treasury to grant licenses to other persons to import tea into Great Britain from Europe, § 11.

It is impossible not to perceive, from these two sections, that the act of Geo. II. was passed to obviate the stringency of the restriction against the importation of tea from Europe, and the temptation to smuggling owing to the high duties imposed upon that article. The 10th section, therefore, authorized the Company, if they pleased, to import tea from Europe; and in order that the country might not be at the mercy of a public body, which, through impolicy or imprudence, as well as selfishness, might deprive it of a necessary of life, it invested the Lords of the Treasury with the power of allowing other persons to import tea from Europe.

It is a fact uncandidly concealed by the reporter, that this law was passed for the purpose of suppressing the system of smuggling, through the medium of the Swedish and Danish Company's imports, the chief part of which was directed to the supply of this country. A committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1745 to inquire into the causes of smuggling; and the duty on tea was reduced to 1s. per lb. and 25 per cent. on the gross sale price. A sudden stoppage, however, of the usual supply from Europe might have been prejudicial, and therefore a legal mode of introducing tea from Sweden. and Denmark was provided.*

But assuming that the act was passed to compel the Company " to keep the price of tea in this kingdom upon an equality with the price thereof in other neighbouring countries of Europe;" and assuming that the Company have failed to fulfil this condition, or, to use the words of the report, that they have "taken a shameful advantage of their supposed privileges;" what is the penalty? The Lords of the Treasury may (not shall) allow other persons to import tea from Europe. Have no persons applied for licenses; or has the Treasury refused them? In either case, how are the Company to blame? Circumstances may render the latter willing to allow such an interference with their monopoly ; and if the law is imperative upon the Treasury, why does not the Liverpool Association apply for licenses? In a moral point of view, this Association is more culpable than the Company; the members affect to see an exorbitant profit extorted from their fellow subjects: they have the means of counteracting it, and they tamely look on.

But independent of this consideration, what lawyer or practical man would have the assurance to hold the act of Geo. II. to be now in operation as regards the import of tea from Europe, in the face of the eighth section of the 53d Geo. III. c. 155, which, after it had been enacted (§ 2) that all prior acts relating to the trade in tea, repugnant to that act, were thereby repealed, declares

*In 1784, it was computed that of the eleven millions of pounds of tea consumed in this country, eight millions were smuggled. The quantity now smuggled, it is supposed, from official data, is not more than 20,000 lbs.

declares that "it shall not be lawful for any person or persons, save with the special leave or license of the Company, to import any tea into the United Kingdom from any port or place whatsoever?" The reason had ceased, and the law was suffered to expire.

The Commutation Act of 1784 (24 Geo. III. c. 38) which, in the passage already quoted from the report, is described as making “further provisions for securing to the public cheap teas,”— '-an act the wisdom and policy of which are seldom disputed,—it now suits the "reporter” to designate as “a measure of the minister of the day to support the East-India Company at the expense of the nation," which, he affirms, was, after it passed, "worse off than during the smuggling system." How stands the fact? From 1784 to 1786 the importation of tea rose from five millions of pounds to twenty-one million pounds and a half; the putting-up prices, instead of being set at the arbitrary will of the Company, were fixed by the act, and the Company were required to sell the tea without reserve, if but a penny per pound advance was made upon those prices.* If it be meant that the nation could buy tea moré cheaply of smugglers, who paid no duty, than of the Company who paid 12 per cent., we can understand the proposition; but if it be asserted that the nation lost by the quadrupling of the regular importation of tea, and by its being offered them at a price reduced by sixpence per pound on the average of all teas, and by two shillings per pound on some sorts, the statement is

untrue.

With respect to the prices thus fixed by the Commutation Act, the writer says, “it is remarkable that the Company's prices, down to the present hour, exceed this (maximum) by full 15 per cent." This is intelligible enough; it is a charge that the East-India Company contravene the law. We were about to examine the truth of this allegation, when, reading a little further, we found this sapient reporter endeavouring to demonstrate the extravagant disproportion between the reduction in the Dutch prices of tea and those of the English Company, by a comparison between the respective prices of 1772 and 1827; in doing which it must have been his object to represent the Company's prices in the latter year as high as possible; yet (will it be believed?) the putting-up prices of the year 1827 are stated precisely the same as are set forth in the Commutation Act, although the writer had previously asserted that they were fifteen per cent. higher !

The Report contains the following passage respecting the Canadian tea trade :

. The Company has lately sent teas direct from China to Canada. The results of this speculation afford matter of curious illustration. Your committee have before them the account of one of these sales, which took place at Quebec in the month of September last, and it enables them to exhibit the following comparison with the Company's sale prices in London, of a corresponding period.

In some sorts of tea, the Company have voluntarily reduced the advance to one farthing.

This statement exhibits an average difference of 9,8d. per lb, in favour of the Quebec sales; or in other words, the London prices exceed those of Quebec by 27 per cent. It clearly follows from this, that, if the statute be complied with in both cases, the EastIndia Company exacts 30 per cent. profit from the British, and only 24 per cent. from a colonial customer. If this be not the true explanation, then the Company have one way of complying with the statute in Canada and another in London. They have, according to circumstances, two prices, which is not considered respectable in any trader whatever, and is altogether unpardonable in merchants who are sovereigns, enjoying a monopoly, which puts the whole of their countrymen at their mercy for a necessary of life! Your committee really fear the true fact is, that in the United Kingdom, where the Company have a complete monopoly, they fleece their countrymen of the last penny they can give, while in Canada, where they have to compete with the American smugglers, they must be content with what they can get.

This passage is decisive as to the animus of the reporter. He assumes that tea of a certain denomination is universally of the same quality, or that the same quality of tea is invariably shipped by the Company from Canton to England and to Quebec; whereas the very account before him shews the contrary. The putting-up prices of the teas in that account are from 4d. to 9d. per lb. lower than those expressed in the Commutation Act; the relative proportions of the prices of the different teas are utterly at variance with those in the London market; the inferior Souchong of London is fifty per cent. higher than the Congou; whereas the inferior Souchong sent to the Quebec market is more than eight per cent. lower than the Congou, &c. These obvious facts would have led a candid writer to the conclusion, not that the Company "fleece their countrymen of the last penny they can give," but that the tea sent to North America is of a different quality from that selected for the English market.

Another grand ground of attack upon the Company is that they have violated the provisions of the Commutation Act, by neglecting to provide the country with a supply of tea adequate to the demand. In order to prove this charge, the writer divides the quantity of tea annually consumed in the United Kingdom by the number of the population, according to the official returns, in the years 1800, 1810, and 1820; and finding, by this arithmetical process, that each individual would have only from nineteen and a half to twenty-seven and three-quarters ounces per annum, whilst "the poor convict population of New South Wales" consume sixty-five ounces per annum per head, he gives scope to his fiery indignation against "the monopoly-system." Now let us try the result by another mode. First, we would remark that the reporter, in the plentitude of his dexterity, assumes the quantity of tea. which paid duty at 26,398,805 lbs., which we presume to be correct, and includes amongst the consumers of this quantity the whole population of Ireland, not one individual of which tasted an ounce of it, unless he was a visitor in England. The tea destined for Irish consumption is shipped in bond free of duty (of which fact a Liverpool man must be fully aware); so that instead of representing the consumers of the twenty-six millions in 1800 at 15,149,258, the number should have been stated at 10,942,646. Even if the Irish were included, the consumption of tea is so small in that country (three millions and a half of pounds amongst nearly seven millions of souls), owing to the inability of the poorer classes to purchase it at any price, that it should have been left out of the calculation altogether. The quantity assignable to each individual will then be, not twenty-seven and three-quarters ounces per head, but about thirty-six and three-quarters ounces. But the reporter has, very conveniently for his argument, overlooked the article of coffee. If

he

he will remedy this trifling omission before he prepares ins text "eport. will find that by deducting from the population of Engiand he Timber consumers of coffee, and also the number of hose who train TOM T through fashion, caprice, or absolute incurable poverty, the lowane f tea to each individual in this country is pretty nearly the are a far si te "poor convict population of New South Wales.”

Again, the writer says: "At present, the consumption Day E G S has been already stated, at 28,300,000 bs., and he 10mulation gmated. at 22,700,000, the average per head is near twenty ances. DE DADELI of tea, therefore, in reference to the numerical poiation my, and VISIONE any relation at all to the augmented wealth and comfort of the one strat of increasing, as it would have done in a fee rate, i la of a D six years by twenty-eight per cent. Instead of being a 11 resent. 28,300,000 lbs., it ought in fact to have been, se mer the BOSCRIT system, no less than 39,556,582 bs. ;-so much or the soff to EatIndia Company to the nation. It is the high manager mes i te ZatIndia Company which have arrested the increase of the acutection fa Here we must once more take leave to reseat he wri afe? be SEED adopted by government of late years, of encourge banca reduction of duties, has completely succeeded ʼn mne price ms-tat coffee, the consumption of which has doubled. This awes out of view by our ingenious report-naker.

།

But, after all, we have suffered the mestione ai te pre affirms that the Commutation Act hinds the Company a ir be wary with a supply of tea adequate to the demand.* This genions nóvoa a wonderfully shy of employing the ectic language of is authore section to which he refers is as silows:

The said Company shall from time to time send vries for the portate f meta quantities of tea, and provide sufficient tips to import he ane ang ama te stock in their warehouses, and to the quantities ordered and stares, al ascent z a sufficient supply for the keeping a stuck at est equal a me's according to the sales of the last precetting year, always beforehand.

Does the reporter mean to assert that the Company are not supled with this enactment? Will he persist in asserting at this eatment winds he Company to furnish the country with such a singly off a anal sea a seven pounds and a half for each individual of the pociation wanity which he declares to be a moderate allowance ?*

After a few more statements and deductions derived from the errorems representations we have particularized, the writer tigresses to the subject of the India trade:

Your committee will say a few words upon this subject before they proceed. The total exports of the East-India Company, from Great Britain to China, in 1814, were £987,788; their whole exports to India in the same year were only £74,301. On the average of the four subsequent years, it appears the Company's exports to China had fallen off to £864,375. Through the infusion of free trade, the Indian commerez had advanced in the same period to £3,850,360. The commissioners of the customs w the East-India Company, or both, refuse, for the satisfaction of the public, to sear rate the Chinese from the Indian trade, and on this account it is not practicable to give the necessary comparison between free and monopoly trade, for a later period. Ome important fact, however, may be stated: in 1814 our total export, from Great Britain and China together, amounted only to £2,559,093; in 1996 it was £4-11,100. The trade, by sufferance, carried on between British India and Cung thustrates, in a remarkable manner, the commercial capabilities of the aller country.

has not fairly quoted his authorities. The sections referred to are almost literally as follows:

And whereas it may happen that the tea imported by the said Company may not always be sufficient to answer the consumption thereof in Great Britain, and to keep the price of tea in this kingdom upon an equality with the price thereof in other neighbouring countries of Europe; be it enacted, &c. that it shall and may be lawful for the Company to import such quantities of tea as they shall think necessary, from any parts of Europe, under license from the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, § 10.

If the said Company shall at any time neglect to keep the market supplied with a sufficient quantity of tea, at reasonable prices, to answer the consumption thereof in Great Britain, it shall and may be lawful for the said Commissioners of the Treasury to grant licenses to other persons to import tea into Great Britain from Europe, § 11.

It is impossible not to perceive, from these two sections, that the act of Geo. II. was passed to obviate the stringency of the restriction against the importation of tea from Europe, and the temptation to smuggling owing to the high duties imposed upon that article. The 10th section, therefore, authorized the Company, if they pleased, to import tea from Europe; and in order that the country might not be at the mercy of a public body, which, through impolicy or imprudence, as well as selfishness, might deprive it of a necessary of life, it invested the Lords of the Treasury with the power of allowing other persons to import tea from Europe.

It is a fact uncandidly concealed by the reporter, that this law was passed for the purpose of suppressing the system of smuggling, through the medium of the Swedish and Danish Company's imports, the chief part of which was directed to the supply of this country. A committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1745 to inquire into the causes of smuggling; and the duty on tea was reduced to 1s. per lb. and 25 per cent. on the gross sale price. A sudden stoppage, however, of the usual supply from Europe might have been prejudicial, and therefore a legal mode of introducing tea from Sweden. and Denmark was provided.*

But assuming that the act was passed to compel the Company" to keep the price of tea in this kingdom upon an equality with the price thereof in other neighbouring countries of Europe;" and assuming that the Company have failed to fulfil this condition, or, to use the words of the report, that they have "taken a shameful advantage of their supposed privileges;" what is the penalty? The Lords of the Treasury may (not shall) allow other persons to import tea from Europe. Have no persons applied for licenses; or has the Treasury refused them? In either case, how are the Company to blame? Circumstances may render the latter willing to allow such an interference with their monopoly; and if the law is imperative upon the Treasury, why does not the Liverpool Association apply for licenses? In a moral point of view, this Association is more culpable than the Company; the members affect to see an exorbitant profit extorted from their fellow subjects: they have the means of counteracting it, and they tamely look on.

But independent of this consideration, what lawyer or practical man would have the assurance to hold the act of Geo. II. to be now in operation as regards the import of tea from Europe, in the face of the eighth section of the 53d Geo. III. c. 155, which, after it had been enacted (§ 2) that all prior acts relating to the trade in tea, repugnant to that act, were thereby repealed, declares

*In 1784, it was computed that of the eleven millions of pounds of tea consumed in this country, eight millions were smuggled. The quantity now smuggled, it is supposed, from official data, is not more than 20,000 lbs.