AMERICA AND RETALIATION.
[TO THE EDITOR OE TUE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In your " News of the Week " (Spectator, December 19th) you state that the American Legislature " would be far more likely to reply to retaliation by an export-duty on cotton so heavy as to half ruin Lancashire." This fear was also ex- pressed by Mr. Morley at Manchester on October 19th. The writer of the American article in the National Review for December states that Clause V. of Article IX. of the Consti- ttition of the United States runs as follows :—" No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State." The
writer goes on to say that it is almost impossible, and extremely unlikely, that any part of so stable an edifice as the Constitu- tion of the United States should be defaced or altered in order to retaliate against any fiscal policy we may choose to adopt. Further, it should be the wish of every Imperialist that within an appreciable time cotton, as well as other raw material, will be supplied to England from various parts of the British Empire,—e.g., the enormous increase of the cotton crop which has already taken place in Egypt, and which is predicted for the future, owing to the gigantic schemes of irrigation which are being carried out in that country.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Norwich. H. J. STARLING, M.D. Lond.
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