own race, and demand for the same lands an enormous price for an acre.'

In modern times, the governments of civilized countries exercise their power over subsistence, by laws of restriction, prohibition, monopoly, and by TAXATION, in all its forms of insidious, indirect impost, and of direct personal payment or service. Salt is the savour of life,-without which the bodies of men would become living masses of worms and corruption. It has therefore been seized by the hand of fiscal power of every country as an article of taxation, and in some countries, it is held exclusively by the government. Throughout Asia, salt may be termed one of the instruments of despotism. In France, before its great revolution, salt was a government monopoly, and formed a productive source of its revenue; and, at present, the duties on salt appear considerable items in the national accounts of that country, and also of Spain. It is only

* Question by Committee of House of Lords, April and May, 1838: N.B.

Lord Durham's Company probably did not give for the million of acres more than forty or fifty pounds sterling?"

Answer by the Hon. F. Baring-" Probably not; they would give a certain number of muskets or blankets."

Evidence of John Ward, Secretary to the New Zealand Company—given before Committee of House of Commons, 17th July, 1840:

Land secured, about twenty millions of acres. Cost about £17,000. The Company paid altogether £45,000 for land in different parts of New Zealand." Answer, No. 645-" The cost appears to be about a half-penny

an acre."

In the London newspapers of January, 1842, the Court of Directors of the New Zealand Company advertised their lands, on sale, at 30 shillings

an acre!

"TAXES IN PRUSSIA.-The reduction of the taxes is estimated at 2,000,000 of Prussian dollars, of which 1,900,000 are to be allocated to diminish the price of salt, and so relieve the indigent classes." Extract from The Times of Dec. 9, 1842.

twenty years since the taxes on salt in Great Britain were abolished; the duty was fifteen shillings a bushel, equal to about fifteen hundred per cent. on the prime cost of the article. But although this monstrous tax was abolished, that on bread was retained, and still exists in a Christian land!

Among the more energetic races of savages, the desire to appropriate the food of their enemies is carried to an extraordinary height. The ancient Scythians drank the blood of the first enemy they slew. Among the ancient nations of Central America, the bodies of prisoners taken in war were claimed by the officers or soldiers who captured them, and were dressed and served up at an entertainment of friends, who assembled after the prisoners had been first sacrificed to their gods. Savages believe, that by eating the bodies, they acquire the courage and other martial virtues of their enemies. So strong is the digestion, and so fell the revenge, of the New Zealanders, that they cook the bodies of their enemies, and serve them at the feast made to celebrate the victory. In ancient times, and perhaps in the present day, in Eastern countries, the delivery of earth and water was the symbol or token of submission of one people to another; the elements of earth and water represented the subsistence of the people who came under the yoke.

Despotism and famine are allied, or rather they are cause and effect. The despotism throughout Asia is terrible, and, comparing the present with the past, appears destined to be perpetual, in the countries where the inhabitants are. fixed to the soil; but in the pastoral regions of Arabia, Persia, and Tartary, there exists a wild personal independence. It would be foreign to the design of this work, to enter into a disquisition on the state of the various races

that people Asia, and it will be sufficient merely to allude to one cause of the stern despotism, that grinds to the earth a nation of slaves. In the agricultural districts the soil perhaps is fertile, and under the sun, between the 30th and 45th degrees of north latitude, will produce every article of food required for the comfort and pleasure of man; and, provided there be sufficient moisture, in such abundance as would soon enable every man to obtain his subsistence, independent of the efforts of power. But, unfortunately, in those regions, from some meteorological causes, there occur periodically long and severe droughts, during which the earth yields no fruits; and from the days of Abraham and of Joseph, the inhabitants have alternated between devastations of famine, and the pressure of the most cruel despotism. In those times of physical calamity, the unhappy people must either perish of hunger, or be dependent for a precarious existence on the bounty of government. The inhabitants thus become debtors and slaves, and hence one of the sources of the misery in those countries. There has been only one Joseph in the whole history of mankind, and he was raised by the Almighty to be the preserver and benefactor of many nations.

The present state of Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and the countries farther to the eastward, is familiarly known to every reader of travels. The accounts of all travellers agree in describing a wretched state of society there; and, thanks to steam, a view of Eastern despotism can now be taken in its strongest hold; but, before the era of steam, many enterprising and enlightened travellers explored the East, and at great personal risk, communicated to Europe much information concerning the countries they visited. Burckhardt, in his account of Arabia, gives some particulars which elucidate the system of Eastern taxation of food, leading to an

oppression of the most terrible nature; he simply described the state of matters as they existed when he was in Arabia, without a view to the support of any system of political economy; and, as he wrote in the year 1814, he is perfectly innocent of any intentional allusion to the Britsh system of taxation of food. He says: "The corn-trade was formerly in the hands of individuals, and the Sherif Ghalib also speculated in it; but at present (1814) Mohammed Ali Pasha has taken it entirely into his own hands, and none is sold either at Suez or Cossier to private personsevery grain being shipped on account of the Pasha. This is likewise the case with all other provisions, as rice, butter, biscuits, and onions, of which large quantities are imported. At the time of my residence in Hedjaz, this country not producing a sufficiency, the Pasha sold the grain at Djiddah for the price of from 130 to 160 piastres per ardeb,' and every other provision in proportion: the corn cost him 12 piastres by the ardeb in Upper Egypt, and including the expense of carriage from Guana to Cossier, and freight thence to Djiddah, 25 to 30 piastres. This enormous profit was alone sufficient to defray his expenses in carrying on the Wahaby war; but it was ill-calculated to conciliate the good will of the people. His partisans, however, excused him, by alleging that in keeping grain at high prices, he secured the Bedouins of the Hedjaz in his interest, as they depend upon Mecca and Djiddah for provisions, and they were thus compelled to enter into his service, and receive his pay, to ESCAPE STARVATION."

Coffee is an absolute necessary of life in all Eastern countries, and is indeed the principal food of the inhabitants, in Arabia; "the poorest labourer never takes less than three or four cups a day :"-but the Pasha of Egypt. strictly prohibited the importation of West India Coffee

into his dominions, and no doubt justified such a law on the necessity to give protection to "native-grown coffee," meaning coffee from his own lands. He thus secured a monopoly, and a monopolist's price, for the three or four cups of coffee consumed by his poorest labourers. We have thus laid bare by Burckhardt, the principle on which Eastern despotism is based—the principle of the English corn-laws is precisely similar;-and we have thus the Arab of the Hedjaz, and the cotton-spinner of Manchester, compelled to buy grain at high prices to escape starvation.

Of all the fortified sea-ports on the globe, Acre on the coast of Syria, has been perhaps the most celebrated, both in ancient and modern times. Before the invasion of the Israelites, it was a place of great importance, and continued so through all the vicissitudes of history down to the termination of the Crusades. It was the last place held out by the Christians, the remnant of whom perished heroically in the defence of it. In the present century, twice has the British name been distinguished there; once by its successful defence against the conqueror of Europe, and again by its surrender to the British fleet anchored under its formidable batteries. The secret of this importance is explained by an impartial modern traveller in these words: "Acre, being the port by which all the rice, the staple food of the people, enters the country, the possessor of that place can produce a famine through the whole land." "*

Several definitions have been given of the word Power:it has been said, that "knowledge is power," and that "money is power." Knowledge may be termed moral power, and money may be denominated physical power. But if money, or capital, be considered as power, and analyzed, it will be

Illustrations of the Holy Land, by F. Arundale, 1837, page 106.