whilst we are generally at one on matters of detail, we hold them to be of some importance.  This, however, is not the occasion proper for urging them, when engaged on a special theme.  But on a question of fact, which has a bearing upon the subject in hand, we may be allowed to express our decided dissent from the dictum somewhat arbitrarily launched, in the article referred to, in the following terms:—­“We shall urge that foreign countries neither have combined, nor ought to combine, nor can combine, against the commerce of Great Britain; and we shall treat as a calumny the imputation that they are disposed to enter into such a combination.”  The italics, it must be observed, are ours.

We have at this moment evidence lying on our table sufficiently explanatory and decisive to our minds that such a spirit of combination is abroad against British commercial interests.  We might indeed appeal to events of historical publicity, which would seem confirmatory of a tacitly understood combination, from the simultaneity of action apparent.  We have, for example, France reducing the duties on Belgian iron, coal, linen, yarn, and cloths, whilst she raises those on similar British products; the German Customs’ League imposing higher and prohibitory duties on British fabrics of mixed materials, such as wool, cotton, silk, &c.; puny Portugal interdicting woollens by exorbitant rates of impost, and scarcely tolerating the admission of cotton manufactures; the United States, with sweeping action, passing a whole tariff of prohibitory imposts; and, in several of these instances, this war of restrictions against British industry commenced, or immediately followed upon, those remarkable changes and reductions in the tariff of this country which signalized the very opening of Sir Robert Peel’s administration.  Conceding, however, this seeming concert of action to be merely fortuitous, what will the vice-president of the Board of Trade say to the long-laboured, but still unconsummated customs’ union between France and Belgium?  Was that in the nature of a combination against British commercial interests, or was it the reverse?  It is no cabinet secret—­it has been publicly proclaimed, both by the French and Belgian Governments and press, that the indispensable basis, the sine qua non of that union, must be, not a calculated amalgamation of, not a compromise between the differing and inconsistent tariffs of Belgium and France, but the adoption, the imposition, of the tariff of France for both countries in all its integrity, saving in some exceptional cases of very slight importance, in deference to municipal dues and octrois in Belgium.  When, after previous parley and cajoleries at Brussels, commissioners were at length procured to be appointed by the French ministry, and proceeded to meet and discuss the conditions of the long-cherished project of the union, with the officials deputed on the part of France to assist in the conference, it