28 NOVEMBER 1903, Page 16

THE LATE LORD HERSCHELL ON PROTECTION.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—A short biography of the greatest of recent Lord Chancellors (by Mr. Victor Williamson, (J.M.G., in the Journal of Comparative Law and Legislation, 1899, in memoriam of the late Lord Herschel') tells us that Lord Herschell just before he died at Washington, U.S.A., while on a mission to adjust disputes between Canada and the United States, writing to an intimate private friend, said : "My thoughts are all occupied with free fish," free lumber," free hay,' and the boundary of Alaska. When I left England I regarded 'Protection' as an economic blunder. I now view it as a. crime, as un-Christian, indeed as anti- Christian." Only a day or two before his death he told his secretary he thought he would devote his old age to writing

a book upon the subject.—I am, Sir, &c., T. R. B.