SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not been roomed for review in other forms.1 Sixty Years of Protection in Canada. By Edward Porritt. (Macmillan and Co. 5s. net.)—" Where Industry Leans on the Politician," adds Mr. Porritt by way of sub-title. That summarises as forcibly as possible the mischievous tendency of the whole system. An eminent economist in the United States told us some time ago that a certain Senator was commonly spoken of as the Senator—not from "Annaland," which he nominally represented —but from" X and Co.," an eminent firm of sugar-refiners. That is a neat illustration of how the system works. Here is a parallel from Canada. "Soap was the prime favourite when the Cayley tariff was enacted. The following year-1859—when Galt amended the tariff of 1858, sugar was easily in the lead ; and then was bestowed on a single refinery at Montreal, and con- tinued to it until 1868, a largess which was never equalled until after 1897, when the Laurier Government made the iron and steel industry its particular care." Mr. Porritt tells a most instructive, if scarcely edifying, story. We cannot follow its course, but we commend it to the attention of our readers. Here is the con- clusion of the whole matter, bearing a special reference to the contention that a Protectionist system in this country could be contrived so as to work with the Protectionist system of Canada : "Tariff politics are obviously and essentially the most unsocial and provincial of politics. They set every man's hand against his neighbour; class against class; farmers and importers against manufacturers ; coal producers against coal consumers ; province against province ; and Colonial manufacturers against manufac- turers in the Motherland. They are, moreover, utterly antagonistic to any neighbourly policy among nations, or to any large concep- tion of Empire."
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