The prosperity that marked the close of the year 1859 and the commencement of 1860 was not calculated to promote the agitation in favour of reform. But if on the one hand the demand for it was less eager, on the other the dread of it was less violent. The question was regarded on all sides in a spirit of calmness and moderation, which seemed to promise a speedy and satisfactory settlement. Mr. Bright, having been consulted, was ready to accept the plan of reform prepared by Lord John Russell us a settlement of the question, at least for the present; and Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, after seeing the result of the last elections, had expressed their willingness to concede as much as Lord John Russell asked for. When, therefore, it was intimated in the Queen's speech that an attempt would be made to place the national representation on a broader and firmer basis, it seemed that the time had come when this long-vexed question, recommended to the attention of parliament in so many royal speeches, and the subject of so many abortive bills, would at length be discussed in a calm and business-like spirit, and that a practical and moderate measure would be carried through with the acquiescence of all parties.

This hopeful state of things was farther improved by the knowledge that Mr Cobden was engaged as the plenipotentiary of the English government in negotiating a commercial treaty with France based on free-trade principles, calculated to give an enormous impulse to the trade between the two countries, and to unite them by bonds that would render a war between them almost impossible. With Mr. Gladstone as the chief finance-minister of the country, and Mr. Cobden as the negotiator of the treaty, both acting together with the most cordial unanimity, the strongest confidence was felt that it would prove highly advantageous to this country; and this confidence was strengthened by the fact that the emperor had warmly embraced the principles of free trade, and was determined to use the power which his position gave him to overcome the strong opposition which the attempt to apply them was sure to encounter in France. The treaty was signed on the twenty-third of January in this year, and was soon after laid before the two Houses.

Such were the favourable auspices under which the

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session of 1860 commenced. It was opened by the Queen in person, with a ceremonial far more brilliant and an attendance more numerous and enthusiastic than had been witnessed for many years. Ministers evinced their desire to carry forward the business of the session as speedily as possible by fixing its beginning for the 24th of January, ten days earlier than the usual time, by announcing that the financial statement would be made on the 6th of February, and the reform bill brought forward on the 20th..

The budget was postponed from the day originally fixed for its introduction on account of the indisposition of the chancellor of the exchequer; but on the 10th of February he was sufficiently recovered to be able to introduce it. The delay that thus occurred whetted the public patience for a statement which it was known beforehand would derive a peculiar importance from the treaty which had been negotiated in France, and the fiscal changes which it would render necessary. Accordingly, when Mr. Gladstone rose the House and all its approaches were crowded, and he was received with loud and cordial cheers, not from the ministerial benches only, but from all parts of the House. Great as had been the interest with which his former statements had been received, this one excited higher expectations, and was listened to with a still more breathless attention.

It was, indeed, a speech of much historical value; and it so fully and clearly describes the great changes which affected beneficially not this country only, but France at least equally, and, we may say, the whole world, that we cannot better carry forward our narrative of events than by quoting largely from it. In the midst of the anxious expectation and deep interest which prevailed, Mr. Gladstone rose, and thus addressed the House of Commons, which had resolved itself into a committee of ways and

means:

'Sir, public expectation has long marked out the year 1860 as an important epoch in British finance. It has long been well known that in this year, for the first time, we were to receive, from a process not of our own creation, a very great relief in respect of our annual payments of interest upon the national debt; a relief amounting to no less a sum than 2,146,000l.; a relief such as we never have

known in times past, and such as I am afraid we never shall know in time to come. Besides that relief, other and more recent arrangements have added to the importance of this juncture. A revenue of nearly 12,000,000l. a year, levied by duties on tea and sugar, which still retain a portion of the additions made to them on account of the Russian war, is about to lapse absolutely on the 31st of March, unless it shall be renewed by parliament. The income-tax act, from which during the financial year we shall have derived a sum of between 9,000,000l. and 10,000,000l., is likewise to lapse at the very same time, although an amount not inconsiderable will still remain to be collected in virtue of the law about to expire. And lastly, an event of not less interest than any of these, which has caused public feeling to thrill from one end of the country to the other-I mean the treaty of commerce with France, which my noble friend the foreign minister (Lord John Russell) has just laid on the table-has rendered it a matter of propriety, nay almost of absolute necessity, for the government to request the House to deviate, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, from its usual, its salutary, its constitutional practice of voting the principal charges of the year before they proceed to consider the means of defraying them; and has induced the government to think they would best fulfil their duty by inviting attention on the earliest possible day to those financial arrangements for the coming year, which are materially affected by the treaty with France, and which, though they reach considerably beyond the limits of the treaty, yet, notwithstanding, can only be examined by the House in a satisfactory manner when examined as a whole. This must be our apology, if any apology is needed, for asking parliament at this unusually early period to take into its earnest consideration the matters which I am about to submit to it.'

Mr. Gladstone proceeded to state that the results of the year from a financial point of view had been eminently satisfactory, as far as the receipts were concerned. Going through the various branches of revenue, he showed the following general result-that whereas it had been estimated to produce 69,460,000l., it had actually produced at least 70,578,000. Turning then to the expenditure, after going

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through its various leading items, he stated as the general result, that whereas the estimated charges of the year were 69,270,000l., the total expenditure of the year, apart from certain disturbing causes, would probably be about 68,953,000l.; thus giving a surplus of income over expenditure of not less than 1,625,000l. From this amount, however, he found himself obliged to deduct expenses incurred by the additional charges caused by the Chinese expedition and the treaty with France, amounting together to 1,810,000l., which would have placed the government on the wrong side of the account but for the payment of a debt due by Spain of 500,000l., half of which sum would come to the credit of revenue before the 31st of March, leaving a surplus of 65,000l. He then proceeded to estimate the income and expenditure of the year 1860-1; and concluded by arriving at an apparent deficit of 9,400,000l., to the amount of which he proposed to add largely by making great commercial reforms, which would increase the wealth of the nation, and enable it better to bear, as in past years it had better borne, the heavy burdens that must be laid on it; and he proposed to meet the deficiency thus largely augmented, by continuing the income-tax, and by renewing for another year the tea and sugar duties at the present high rates of one shilling and fivepence per lb. on tea, and about three shillings per cwt. on sugar, and by the expected operation of the new French treaty, to which he referred in the following terms:

'Perhaps, sir, as the committee have not yet had an opportunity of reading the instrument itself, it may be convenient that I should in the first place state to them very briefly its principal covenants. First, I will take the engagements of France. France engages to reduce the duty on English coal and coke, from the 1st of July 1860; on bar and pig iron and steel, from the 1st of October 1860; on tools and machinery, from the 1st of December 1860; and on yarns and goods in flax and hemp, including, I believe, jute-this last an article comparatively new in commerce, but one in which a great and very just interest is felt in some great trading districts,-from the 1st of June 1861. That is the first important engagement into which France enters. Her second and greater engagement is postponed to the 1st of October 1861. I think it is pro

bably in the knowledge of the committee that this postponement is stipulated under a pledge given by the government of France to the classes who there, as here, have supposed themselves to be interested in the maintenance of prohibition. On the 1st of October, then, in tho year 1861, France engages to reduce the duties and to take away the prohibitions on all the articles of British production mentioned in a certain list, in such a manner that no duty upon any one of those articles shall thereafter exceed thirty per cent ad valorem. I do not speak of articles of food, which do not materially enter into the treaty; but the list to which I refer, sir, includes all the staples of British manufacture, whether of yarns, flax, hemp, hair, wool, silk, or cotton-all manufactures of skins, leather, bark, wood; iron and all other metals; glass, stoneware, earthenware, or porcelain. I will not go through the whole list; it is indeed needless, for I am not aware of any great or material article that is omitted. France also engages to commute those ad-valorem duties into rated duties by a separate convention, to be framed for the purpose of giving effect to the terms I have described. But if there should be a disagreement as to the terms on which they should be rated under the convention, then the maximum chargeable on every class at thirty per cent ad valorem will be levied at the proper period, not in the form of a rated duty, but upon the value; and the value will be determined by the process now in use in the English customs.

I come next, sir, to the English covenants. England engages, with a limited power of exception, which we propose to exercise only with regard to two or three articles, to abolish immediately and totally all duties upon all manufactured goods. There will be a sweep, summary, entire, and absolute, of what are known as manufactured goods from the face of the British tariff. Farther, England engages to reduce the duty on brandy, from 15s. the gallon to the level of the colonial duty, viz. 8s. 2d. per gallon. She engages to reduce immediately the duty on foreign wine. In the treaty it is of course French wine which is specified; but it is perfectly understood between France and ourselves, that we proceed with regard to the commodities of all countries alike. England engages, then,