ive per cent beyond its real amount, as
tested _seriatim_ and starting upon his own arithmetical elements of gross
numbers and values. We arrived at the truth by the careful process of
dissecting, analysing, and classifying, under each colonial head, the
various items of which his gross sum of aggregates must necessarily be
composed; and the result was, that of the _four millions and a-half
sterling_, with such dauntless assurance set down as the proportion of
army charge incurred for the colonies by the parent state, it was found,
and proved in detail by official returns, colony by colony, and summed up
in tabular array at the close, that the very conscientiously calculating
Leaguer had made no scruple, under his lumping system, of overlaying
colonial trade with upwards of one million and a half of army expenditure,
one million and a quarter of which, in all probability, appertaining to,
and forming part of the cost nationally at which foreign trade was carried
on. The cunning feat was bravely accomplished by ranging Gibraltar, Malta,
&c. &c., as trading and producing colonies, for the purpose of swelling
out the colonial army cost; whilst, to complete the cheat cleverly, they
were again turned to account in his comparative statistics of foreign and
colonial trade, to the detriment of the latter, by carrying all the
commerce with, or through them, to the credit of foreign trade. This was
ringing the changes to one tune with some effect, for the time being--and
so astutely timed and intended, that no discussion could be taken in the
House of Commons upon the informal motion, serving as the peg on which to
hang the prepared speech of deceptive figures and assertions inflicted on
the House the 22d of June last; whilst thus, as the Leaguer shrewdly
anticipated, it might run uncontroverted for months to come until another
session, and, through _Anti-Corn-Law circulars_ and tracts of the League,
do the dirty work of the time for which concocted, when no matter how
consigned and forgotten afterwards among the numberless other lies of the
day, fabricated by the League. Unluckily for the crafty combination,
_Blackwood_ was neither slow to detect, nor tardy in unmasking, the
premeditated imposture, the crowning and final points of which we now
propose to deal with and demolish. Betwixt the relative importance in the
cost, and in the profit and loss sense, of foreign and colonial trade, on
which the question of the advantages or dis