posite system. The difficulty is, how far this policy can be carried. Will the authorities of Cornell University permit Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, author of "Ragnarok," to go before its classes and present the other side of the accredited geology? Mr. Donnelly's case is of the same kind, and quite as strong as Mr. Roberts's.
Mr. Roberts's theme is, "The Subject of Revenue, especially the getting of Money for the Public Treasury." It "relates to filling the Treasury, and not to emptying it; we are to find out about the income of states"; and this "will bring us immediately upon the relations of government to the people." We infer, from looking over his book, what seems to be confirmed by all history, that it is the great, primary, universal business of all government to get money out of the people; and the question is, as to the easiest and most effectual way of accomplishing this object. Mr. Roberts maintains, and we think he proves, that the most successful way of extracting money from the people is not openly to demand it, as something honestly due to government, but by the indirect process of levying exactions upon commerce. Mr. Roberts shows that this is the ancient, the favorite, and most extensively employed method; and, if the object of government be solely to raise money, without regard to any other consideration, beyond doubt the taxation of commerce is the best method. But the taxation of commerce is a burden upon it, restricting its freedom, and disturbing the price of the commodities taxed. This consequence of the repression of foreign commerce has been utilized for the regulation of the home industries of nations by the so-called protective system, which is a natural result of the revenue system expounded by Mr, Roberts, and they are accordingly both defended together.
There is one feature of our author's argument which at this time is something of a curiosity. He calls this old system of restriction and protection, which has been a favorite with kings, tyrants, and oligarchies from the beginning for plundering the people, "the American System." Many will remember the brilliant passage in Daniel Webster's celebrated free-trade speech of 1324 (left out of Everett's edition of Webster's works), in which he exposed with merciless invective the absurdity of Henry Clay in calling the ancient policy of commercial restriction "the American System." Yet sixty years later Mr. Roberts finds this designation quite as available as ever. But, after proclaiming "the American System" on his title-page, Mr. Roberts proceeds in the very first paragraph of his first chapter to show that the policy is as old as the Pharaohs. The King of Egypt "took his tribute also from ail merchants who entered his land." Among the various despotic ways of extorting money from the Egyptian people, "commerce contributed its full share by traffic in the name of the ruler, by charges on traders, and the first example of an export duty is traced to that ancient land." Not only the people, but both kings and priests, "were forbidden to use any article not produced in the country. The development of all classes of production was thus persistently fostered." The policy, it would seem, might thus be properly named the Egypto-American policy, but that our author shows that it has been substantially adopted by all governments from the time of the earliest Pharaoh to President Arthur.
Our author's reasoning upon this subject reminds us of the logic prevalent among the American people a quarter of a century ago in regard to the peculiar system of protecting the negro. It was maintained that this is best done by his enslavement, inasmuch as the enslavement of man, in one form or another, has been practiced in all communities and at all times. The restrictions upon trade and the regulation of industry by levies upon commerce are urged as having precisely this sanction, for, as Mr. Roberts says:
"No axiom of morals, no doctrine of any creed, hardly any fact in science outside of pure mathematics, has ever been so uniformly sustained by the teachings and practice, certainly not by such a consent of legislation, of mankind in all ages," as restraints upon the liberty of trade and the freedom of industry.
But Mr. Roberts evidently does not relish the idea of being ranked as an enemy of all freedom in the business affairs of the people in this country and in this age. He proclaims that men should be free to work or that they should be at liberty to produce
