It is, however, the tax on corn and flour hich has raised the greatest outery. Sir Michael points out that this so-called "Registration" duty remained in force for years after Sir Robert Peel repealed the corn laws. It was only abolished ly Robert Lowe in 1869, and nobody felt it a burden in the intervening years, Even so good a Freetrader as Sir Robert Giffen has advocated its reimposition, on the ground principally that the Durden of direct taxation is becoming i supportable, and that a small food-tax is practically the' only alternative. Still, it cannot be denied that the reimposed tax principle Protective. I places a burden, however small, on foreign wheatend flour which is not borne by that produced at home. The Protectionists therefore hail it as the first step towards an abandonment of Free Trade, and Freetraders similarly denounce it as the introduction of the "thin end of the wedge."
Spion Kop.
'Goaded by Sir Redvers Buller's challenge the Government have at last published full the Spion Kop dispatches. _In_ his recent correspondence with Mr. Balfour, Sir Redvers, it may be remembered, accused the Government of having ' manipulated' the dispatches, and Mr. Balfour replied "The omissions were made solely for the purpose of, if possible, sparing your feelings and maintaining your military reputation." The full publication bears out absolutely Mr. Balfour's assertion. It contains a confession in Sir Redvers Buller's own words that, having become convinced that Sir Charles Warren was endangering the success of the whole operations by bad generalship, it was his duty to assume command himself, and that for strange and far-fetched reasons he did not do so. "I blame myself now," he said, writing on the 30th of January, 1900, "for not having done so," Why Sir Redvers should have insisted on this full publication no one can imagine. It is simply astonishing," remarks the "Times," " ti at a soldier and a manof the world who has risen to such high rank in the army, should so entirely misjudge the purport' of his own admissions as to insist on extorting them from the too friendly hands which strove to consign them to a charitable oblivion. Upon the possible causes of so strange a perversion of view in a man who has served his country with zeal and courage, if not always with intelligence, we prefer not to speculate."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.