"The common watchword, or cuckoo-note of the advocates of restriction in affairs of trade is, 'Protection to Native Industry.' In the principle fairly involved in this motto we cordially agree. We are as anxious as the most vehement advocate for high import duties on foreign products can be, that the industry of our fellow-countrymen should be protected(!) We only differ as to the means. Their theory of protection is to guard against competition those branches of industry which, without such extraneous help, could never be successfully pursued: ours, is that of enlarging, to the uttermost, those other branches for the prosecution of which our countrymen possess the greatest aptitude, and of thereby securing for their skill and capital the greatest return. This protection is best afforded by governments when they leave, without interference, the productive industry of the country to find its true level; for we may be certain that the interest of individuals will always lead them to prefer those pursuits which they find most gainful. There is, in fact, no mode of interference with entire freedom of action which must not be, in some degree, hurtful; but _the mischief which follows upon legislation in affairs of trade, in any given country, is then most noxious when it tends to foster branches of industry for which other countries have a greater aptitude_." You will, I think, find some difficulty in discovering the protective principle enunciated by this sagacious scribe, who, like many others of his limited calibre, is fain to take refuge in nonsense when he cannot extricate his meaning. You may also, very reasonably, entertain doubts whether the protective theory, which our friend of the Blue and Yellow puts into the mouth of his opponents, was ever entertained or promulgated by any rational being, at least in the broad sense which he wishes to imply. The true protective theory has reference to the State burdens, which, in so far as they are exacted from the produce of native industry, or, in other words, from labour, we wish to see counterbalanced by a fair import-duty, which shall reduce the foreign and the native producer to an equality in the home market. When the reviewer talks of the non-interference of Government with regard to the productive industry of the country, he altogether omits mention of that most stringent interference which is the direct result of taxation. If the farmer were allowed to till the ground, to sow the seed, and to reap the harvest, without any interference from Government, then I admit at once that a demand for protection would be preposterous. But when Government requires him to pay income-tax, assessed taxes, church and poor-rates, besides other direct burdens, out of the fruit of his industry--when it prevents him from growing on his own