Page:The reciprocity craze.djvu/31

 Let the reader turn to p. 7, supra; let him note the figures there given in a little calculation of three lines, and let him attentively consider the deductions which the Quarterly Reviewer draws from them, and the idea which he would give us of Sir Robert Peel's possible "dreams." First, as to his figures. What can be the writer's qualifications for discoursing on British Trade? He does not seem to know or comprehend the meaning of "re-exports of foreign and colonial produce." If he did, he would not have made the egregious blunder of leaving out this item, which amounts to 63 millions. He makes out that the excess of our imports last year was 187 millions, but as he has taken no account of commodities merely passing through our ports, he overstates this excess by 63 millions! Next, as to what Sir Robert Peel would have thought of a state of affairs which does not exist. If Sir Robert had lived in our day, and were as ignorant as this writer is, he might express alarm as this writer does, at the magnitude of our import trade. But Sir Robert had some acquaintance with the subject, and would not have been oblivious, or regardless, as this writer is, of the fact that Great Britain does more than half the world's ocean carrying trade, and that she has interest to receive on her foreign investments besides other trifles of this sort; and that before she need do any bargaining as to her exports or imports, she has to receive from creation, by way of interest on loans, &c., and for work and labour done, in money, or in kind, considerably over 100 millions of pounds sterling a year! No wonder a writer in The Times money article cites this blunder as "a measure of the intelligence of the new reciprocitarians."

Now for an instance of "hopeless muddle." In p. 291 of his article, the Quarterly Reviewer makes a kind of effort to explain how poor indebted England discharges this (according to him and his school) annually increasing adverse balance of trade. He says:—"We have about 2,000 millions invested in American and other foreign bonds, and with this we are paying for a large part of the difference between our imports and our exports. We are constantly told that gold is disappearing, and we know that instead of being an importer of the precious metal we are now