Mr. Grant Duff presided at the department of " Economy
and Trade" in the Social Science Congress, and the most interesting part of his address was, as might be expected, its graphic per- sonal touches. In recalling the period of the Anglo-French Com- mercial Treaty of 1860, he spoke of Napoleon's motives for en- couraging Free-trade in France, and especially Free-trade with England. " You recollect, I dare say," he said (what, of course, no one remembered), " Henrich Heine's phrase, 'the future be- longs to our enemies the Communists, and Napoleon is only their John the Baptist." But it was not solely the wish to herald prosperity to the masses which made Louis Napoleon so anxious for a treaty with England ; he had also been deeply imbued, said Mr. Grant Duff, with the idea lately expressed by M. Lavaleye, in a parody on one of the scriptural proverbs, " The fear .of England is the beginning of wisdom," and he knew that if he did not make it the interest of France to be at one with England, he should be forced, by the high pressure of that time, to pick a quarrel with her. Ac- cordingly the treaty was concluded, and by virtue of its pro- visions and the effect of the " most-favoured-nation clause " in that and other treaties, it came about that after only three years the value of our trade with France and with Belgium had more than trebled. Mr. Grant Duff then went on to review the pros- pects of the next few years, using the recent papers printed by the Cobden Club, to show where there is danger of a retrograde movement, and why. But Mr. Grant Duff is essentially more literary than economical. To shut him up in a politico-economical discussion is like putting a cover over a chandelier, or twisting up fine hair in curl-papers. When he fell into statistics, he became indistinguishable from any other man.
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