ANNALS OF BRITISH LEGISLATION: BEING A CLASSIFIED AND ANALYSED SUMMARY OF PUBLIC BILLS, STATUTES, PROFESSOR OF THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF COMMERCE AT KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON; AUTHOR OF Dedicated by special permission to H. B. H. the Prince Consort. VOL. IX. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER & & CO., 65, CORNHILL. PREFACE. THE ninth volume of the ANNALS has now been completed, and we trust it may be found to comprise documents of great historical value and national interest. Although in the brief review of its contents, which we offer in the form of a Preface, we can do no more than indicate some of the principal documents therein inserted, we still hope it may be useful to our readers, and we accordingly follow the plan pursued in former volumes. Series A, "Finance, Commerce, and Agriculture," contains the important report on Tax Bills, illustrative of the constitutional power of both Houses of Parliament to deal with financial measures. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer produced his famous budget, announcing the conclusion of the Treaty of Commerce with France, and the changes proposed to be introduced in our Tariff, the finances of the empire were not in a satisfactory condition; the large expenditure still required for our military and naval forces rendering it necessary to provide for a revenue larger than usual in time of peace. But although the contemplated loss to the revenue from the reduction of the wine duty, and from the abolition of Custom duties on so many articles, was considerable, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in proposing the free importation of foreign paper, seized the opportunity for abolishing the excise duty on Paper which had long pressed upon that branch of British manufacture, and which, both directly and indirectly, affected the diffusion of knowledge. After a lengthened |