Here sugar-working in the present day requires for bare existence high protective duties. The Government, however, has had the common sense, and the Madeirans patriotic feeling enough, to defend their industry from certain ruinous vagaries, by taxing imported growths 80 reis (4_d_.) per kilo. A hard-grit free-trader would abolish this abomination and ruin half the island. And here I would remark that in England the world has seen for the first time a wealthy and commercial, a great and generous nation proclaim, and take pride in proclaiming, the most immoral doctrine. 'Free Trade,' so called, I presume, because it is practically the reverse of free or fair trade, openly abjures public spirit and the chief obligation of the citizen--to think of his neighbour as well as himself, and not to let charity end, as it often begins, at home. 'Buy cheap and sell dear' is the law delivered by its prophets, the whole duty of 'the merchant and the man.' When its theorists ask me the favourite question, 'Would you not buy in the cheapest market?' I reply, 'Yes, but my idea of cheapness is not yours: I want the best, no matter what its price, because it will prove cheapest in the end.' How long these Free-trade fads and fooleries will last no one can say; but they can hardly endure till that millennium when the world accepts the doctrine, and when Free Trade becomes free trade and fair trade. As regards _petite industrie_ in Madeira, there is a considerable traffic in 'products of native industry,' sold to steamer-passengers. The list gives jewellery and marquetry or inlaid woodwork; feather-flowers, straw hats, lace and embroidery, the latter an important item; boots and shoes of unblackened leather; sweetmeats, especially guava-cheese; wax-fruits, soap-berry bracelets, and 'Job's tears;' costumes in wood and clay; basketry, and the well-known wicker chairs, tables, and sofas. The cooperage is admirable; I have nowhere seen better-made casks. The handsomest shops, as we might expect, are the apothecaries'; and, here, as elsewhere, they thrive by charging a sixpence for what cost them a halfpenny.