In India the want of labour, or the expense thereof, cannot be adduced as an argument against the cultivation of flax. The same description of labour, and according to the steeping process, the same mode of procedure to a certain extent, as is applied to indigo, would be applicable to the preparation of the flax plant. The soil is indisputably adapted for it, and the required humidity of atmosphere can easily be found in the maritime districts of Bengal. There is nothing, in our opinion, wanting but the application of capital to this desirable object, and such facilities and encouragement as could be afforded by the East India Company and the Board of Control. The subject, we think, is well worth the attention of our large flax-spinners and manufacturers in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and as deserving of inquiry into its merits as the cotton resources of India. We trust the few remarks we have brought to bear on the question will be the means of eliciting further inquiry, and that some steps will shortly be taken by those connected with and interested in India, to carry out the objects we have proposed, in co-operation with those whose business and interest it is to secure to this country supplies of flax, without continued dependence on other nations, and promote the welfare and prosperity of our possessions.

An authority, whose numerous and laborious researches in commercial affairs have gained for him a lasting name-viz., Mr. G. R. Porter, the late talented author of the Tropical Agriculturist-has thrown some valuable light on the flax question. This gentleman, who was well known as being one of the Commissioners of the Boaad of Trade, while reading a paper before the British Association, in Edinburgh, August, 1850, said :

"There is a growing opinion that now, and for some years past, we have reached the maximum supply of cotton from the United States, a fact which, should it prove correct, makes it a matter of absolute necessity, either to seek for further supplies of the article from other sources, or to find some efficient substitute that shall provide the means of employment to our constantly growing numbers."

Now the necessity-if such existed-of the dependence of our manufacturers on supplies of cotton from American sources only, would be neutralized altogether, if a fair trial were given to the cultivation and preparation of flax. We might then dispense altogether with what Mr. Ferrand aptly terms "American bloodstained cotton;" for, it would appear from the invention held by some parties-(but by whom in particular is not yet clear)-flax can be turned into a material as nearly as possible resembling cotton, and

capable of being applied to all the purposes for which the latter is at present used. That the question has taken root with the Government, and with the manufacturing interest, there seems to be little reason to doubt, for deputations to the former have been recently well received; and with respect to the latter, experiments have been tried by certain parties at Manchester, to test the advantage of the new method of bleaching flax. We should observe, that by this discovery (to whomsoever the credit belongs) the necessity for the steeping process is dispensed with, and the splitting and softening the fibre is so effected as to render it fit for the requirements of the machinery hitherto adapted solely to the spinning and weaving of cotton wool; at least, as far as experiments have at present proceeded, it is reported that the texture and softness of cotton is gained, together with the durability of linen, unaccompanied by the cold, paper-like surface, hitherto peculiar to it; and as these advantages are alleged to be realizable at a cost of production considerably below the present price of cotton-wool, the question becomes of importance, not only as regards the culture of flax in India, but also as affecting the convenience and comfort of the community at large in Great Britain, both consumer and manufacturer.

COFFEE AND ITS ADULTERATIONS.

WE are said to live in an 66 age of progress." As a corollary from so great a fact, homilies are preached to us day by day with an energy which is at least remarkable, if it be not suspicious, to the effect that in the affairs of legislation, above all of commercial legislation, "you can never go back." That we are assured is a settled point. Onwards you may go, and welcome. But to hesitate in the glorious race of "progress" is to be lost. A or B may change his opinions; the man of science, with further light, may alter his; and we all know that distinguished statesmen have not been above the weakness of claiming for themselves the same privilege. But, according to the new doctrine, the collective" wisdom" of Parliament is perfect, and must be final; and for one Parliament to dare to question the decree of a former

Parliament, would be about as preposterous as for the Economists of the "Manchester school" to set up a parliament of their own in Manchester.

We confess that we are not of this school, and pronounce at once for Vandalism, with the hope of escaping from its hazes in the old way, rather than accept the alternative of the infallibility of any Parliament, past, present, or future. We are for "progress too; but we claim right to review, and if need be, to condemn the past, and as far as we can to aid in providing a remedy against its follies and mistakes in the future, even if the wisdom of Parliament should happen to be impugned by our independent labours.

Whatever may be the opinion of the new Parliament in respect to its own powers, we are pleased to think that the new Government at least asserts its right to judge for itself, and is prepared to stand or fall by its own acts.

In the famous question of coffee and its admixtures, the government of Lord Derby has arrived at a decision which we believe is adequate to the occasion-which will improve the revenue, will protect the fair dealer against his unscrupulous rival, and will secure to those who wish it a cup of genuine coffee-an article of which, as a nation, we were in some danger, in no long time, of losing the taste.

What, may we ask, are our "Liberal" contemporaries about that they should on this occasion forget their client "the consumer?" Has the Economist nothing to say for this mysterious person, whose importance to an industrial nation, beyond that of a thousand producers, our ingenious contemporary has long ago demonstrated? Here was an occasion where, if ever, "the interests of the consumer" were to be vindicated. The Government of Lord Derby having come to the rescue, surely the fact was worthy of acknowledgment at the hand of sundry of our "Liberal" friends, even if some credit should be gained by a "Protection" Government.

An account of the consumption and revenue of coffee for the last four years is now before us, of which the following is the result:

REVENUE.

:-

£746,436

710,270

643,213

566,822

The revenue in 1851 shows a further decline of 121,000; but since the reduction of duty, which took place in that year, is sufficient to account for that further decrease of revenue, we do not include the accounts of 1851.

We have thus in four years a decline in the consumption of coffee of 6,000,000 lbs., and in revenue of £180,000.

Of such results, increased duties, or enhanced prices, or both, will be at once set down as the certain cause or causes. So far from this, however, the duty was reduced 30 per cent. in 1844, and the Gazette price of coffee has been reduced 60 per cent. within the last ten or twelve years. In such circumstances, so far from declining, the consumption of coffee should have increased, according to the experience of similar cases, at the rate of 50 per cent. or more.

Other and powerful causes, therefore, must have been at work to account for the declining consumption of coffee; but it is clear that neither increase of price nor of duty are among those causes.

In 1832, chicory was first imported into England, subject to the same duty as that which was levied on Colonial coffee, and was allowed to be sold by grocers, but separately and as chicory.

In 1839-40, owing to the sudden emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies and the war with China, we had diminished supplies and greatly enhanced prices, both of tea and coffee.

In these circumstances the grocers, a body numbering, if we mistake not, in all the towns, more than 100,000, applied to the Government of Lord Melbourne to alter the law in respect to the sale of chicory, and to authorise its mixture with coffee, and by obvious inference the sale of the compound as coffee.

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What did my Lords of the Treasury do in reply to such a demand? Ordered, "That no objection be made on the part of the revenue to dealers and sellers of coffee mixing chicory with coffee, or to their having the same so mixed on their premises." My Lords do not consider such admixture will be a fraud on the revenue, so long as the chicory pays the proper duty." So bears the minute of the Treasury, of August, 1840.

But assuming that no loss of revenue should occur by the sale of one article for another, what is to be said for the public sanction of such a principle in the affairs of trade? Were there no fraud on the revenue, surely there is fraud on the buyer of coffee, who, instead of coffee finds that for years he has been drinking only a mixture of coffee and chicory, or still worse compounds.

We decidedly think the Lords of the Treasury went wrong in the measure which they sanctioned in 1840. But since that period the circumstances which led to the Treasury Minute have been altogether altered, and yet the case has gone from bad to worse. And, unless for the accident of a new market for Egyptian beans having sprung

up in a manufactory not far from the Thames, it is impossible to say when light would have been let in upon an extent of adulteration and fraud in the retail of coffee, which we believe is without a parallel in the trade of this country.

Foreign chicory, as we have said, paid a duty in 1840 equal to that on Colonial coffee. But since 1845, chicory has been cultivated to a considerable extent in this country, and is free of duty; while it is found that foreign chicory is imported through Guernsey and Jersey, and is thus imported duty-free. The circumstances, therefore, which, right or wrong, seemed to the Lords of the Treasury to justify their minute of 1840, have long ago ceased to operate; and the reasonableness of the demand on the part of the importers and dealers in taxed coffee to have the Treasury Minute withdrawn, appears to us to have been unanswerable.

The late Government, as our readers are aware, refused to interfere. The fullest proof of wholesale adulteration was laid before them, or was within their reach; but to every appeal they remained deaf as an adder, and if the proposal of relief to agricultural distress, by the remission of the duty on grass seeds, were not sufficiently ludicrous, certainly the exploits of the Chancellor, in the defence of the adulteration of coffee, left nothing lacking on that score.

Opinions vary as to the wholesomeness, or otherwise, of chicory. According to the sellers of that article it is a very wholesome beverage, and we are assured that the flavour is most agreeable to the public taste. On the other hand, according to Dr. Pereira, whose authority is cited by the Lancet, the properties of chicory are said to be analogous to those of taraxacum." But," says the Lancet," there is good reason to believe that chicory, from its narcotic character, also exerts injurious effects on the nervous system; so convinced of this is Professor Beer, of Vienna, that most celebrated German occulist, that he has enumerated chicory-coffee as among the causes of amaurotic blindness."

We shall offer no opinion of our own upon these questions, but are content to express our concurrence with M'Culloch, who says of chicory, that "as it wants the essential oil, and the rich aromatic flavour of coffee, it has little in common with the latter, except its colour, and has nothing to recommend it except its cheapness."

In a statement of the case of the importers of coffee, dated 16th July, 1851, submitted to the House of Peers, we learn," that the object of the motions submitted to the House of Commons has been not to prevent the sale or use of chicory, nor to impose any excise