Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/337

 lay down, is not to consent to the smallest hypocrisy. The rest is matter of practical judgment, in which all that can be said is, Weigh all the considerations and act for the best."

Mr. Bright, in a letter to the Times, declared that when he saw me at home, he did not remember that we had any conversation about protection in.Australia, and as the opinions held by Mr. Mill were very like those I attributed to him, it seemed to him probable I had confounded one with another.

"If a government thought," Mr. Bright added, "that a new culture might be introduced into a country, such as of the grape or of tea, it might legitimately appropriate a sum of money to make the experiment, leaving its future progress or fate entirely to the industry and disposition of the people. But to enact a tariff imposing heavy duties on important articles of import was an unsound and injurious policy."

I replied that if I were trusting to my memory I would feel bound to accept Mr. Bright's denial, but I kept a diary at the time, and all fair men, and Mr. Bright among them, would acknowledge that after ten years it was more probable that he had forgotten the conversation than that I had misunderstood it the morning after it had happened. This was the extract from my diary:—

"Saturday, April 21, 1866:—Called upon John Bright, by appointment, at his lodgings, 4, Hanover Street. &hellip; Speaking of the colony, he asked me what was the system and condition of education, which he considered the question of questions. Seven generations of educated (men) had made the people of New England the first in the world, as they had shown in their recent contest with the South, and would probably show again in their present contest with their rowdy president (Andrew Johnson). I described the condition of the democracy in Victoria, the large majority for protection, and asked him what he would do in my place. He said he would endeavour, under the circumstances, to come to an arrangement with the protectionists to take an act imposing a duty of 25 per cent, for ten years upon certain articles, upon the understanding that it was then to cease. His free-trade convictions would not hinder him from doing this in the circumstances in which we found ourselves. I told