The Australasian Customs' Bill passed through Com- mittee in the
Lords on Tuesday, intact, though Lord Grey continued his homily on the dogma that Free Trade is an article binding on the faith of all the Parliaments of the Empire. If so, the House of Commons had better take it upon itself to settle the Budgets of all the Colonies at once and once for all. A certain experiment of that kind made about a hundred years ago did not, however, produce altogether pleasing results. When Lord Grey inveighs against the colonies for "imposing taxes on British trade, subjecting it to unfair disadvantages, and creat- ing artificial barriers to the natural course of British commerce," the simple answer is, that if they are to settle their own finanoe at all, they must feel their way to the beat finance through the natural course of preliminary blundering ; that it is perfectly absurd to give them the power of taxing themselves, and not permit them to tax themselves amiss. No doubt, the doctrine of Pro- tection qua Protection is held in some of the Colonies, in which opinion is raw and ignorant, but on such questions, time may safely be trusted to teach.
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