In spite of the return to higher duties the present protectionist policy has retained many of the changes of the period of free trade. The statesmen who guide the commercial policy of European countries have discarded prohibitions, and use duties discriminating against particular countries only exceptionally. Down to the close of the century they have continued to grant to nations in general the treatment accorded to the most favored nation, and in some ways have extended the scope of this practice. The general level of duties, moreover, though it may seem high in comparison even with the general average of the period of prohibitions, offers a much less effective bar to trade, because of the reduction of the expense of transportation. It is impossible to state accurately the relative height of various tariffs. The following table gives an estimate of the tariffs on some important manufactures towards the close of the century: Russia 130 per cent, United States 72 per cent, France 30 per cent, Germany 25 per cent, Belgium 13 per cent, New Zealand 9 per cent, etc. =416. Colonial policy.=—Colonial policy, a topic which has had for some years a leading place in public discussion, can receive only brief consideration in this history. The colonial ventures of the recent period may in time bring forth the commercial results which their projectors promise; up to the present the results have been small. Until far into the century European governments showed little interest in the expansion of their people or the extension of their power in distant parts of the world. Their attention was absorbed by the problems of domestic and foreign policy in Europe. The colonial question, however, like every other political and economic question, assumed a new aspect under the changes wrought by steam and the telegraph. Distant continents were, by those changes, brought nearer to European capitals than parts of the home territory had been before. The immense increase of transmarine commerce which marked the latter part of the century was carried on largely by English-speaking people, and seemed to promise to states of the Continent similar results if they could spread broadcast their people and power as England had done. The best parts of the world had already been occupied, it is true, but great stretches of territory were still free from claimants of European descent. France began to raise her flag over new territory in Africa, Asia, and Oceanica; the Belgian king established his authority in the region of the Congo; the movement quickened to a scramble in the ‘80’s; and soon all parts of the habitable world except certain countries in Asia and Africa had been brought under the sovereignty of European powers. The colonial question—what to do with these possessions now that they have been secured, how to govern them—has not yet become a part of history; it is still a question of the day. QUESTIONS AND TOPICS