motion was a necessary accompaniment of this exposure. In his last voyage, he comes to the conclusion that with proper precaution no serious injury can arise from the most intense cold of the Arctic regions. When we consider, therefore, that the proposed expedition would, in cases of drift or tempest, have always the boats in which to seek shelter, and in the perpetual northern twilight, could choose any part of the twenty-four hours for their journeyings, the risk of perishing with cold seems really not admissible, with reference to any well-conducted expedition. Captain Parry has treated the question of an earlier season; but only in connexion with the employment of rein-deer. When that particular is thrown out, his objections do not appear to have much weight. It would be necessary to winter at Spitzbergen. We should think this highly expedient in every event. The going out in spring involves delays and casualties, which it is impossible to foresee, and which, as in the late instance, may be deeply injurious. As for the dread he expresses of the physical strength of the men being reduced by this wintering, we really cannot entertain it, after the experience of his own four winters, two of them successive. The expedition would not require to set out till August, and the men thus would not be above seven months on shipboard before they began the grand movement. The additional supply of fuel and of clothing, which would be required, is of more importance, as making a very inconvenient addition to the weight of the equipage. We calculate, however, that both might be doubled for 300 libs., not quite a twelfth of the entire weight, which could not very materially affect the means of progress. There is another statement, applying equally to the expedition under any circumstances, and upon which we feel somewhat anxious. It appears to have been ascertained by the last experiment, that the portion of food allotted for each member was insufficient to support him under the hard labour and the inclemency of the elements. Hence, in the course of the journey, there was noticed a gradual abatement of strength, which, towards the close, became somewhat alarming. We are disposed to take this matter very seriously; for really it would be dreadful to think of sending a party to the pole upon short allowYet the required addition of one third to the weight of the victuals, would not be very practicable. This point must then be seriously considered; and the question is, since it is difficult greatly to enlarge the quantity, whether the quality of the food might not be raised. Are pemmican, or dried beef, and hard biscuit, the most concentrated forms into which human nutriment can be brought? Captain Parry thinks they are; ance. but upon this point we feel exceedingly sceptical. Our attainments in the culinary and dietetic sciences are certainly very limited; and yet it appears very easy to point out substances containing much more nourishment within the same space and weight, than the dry and ungenial aliments on which Captain Parry places his sole reliance. Portable soup, for instance, might surely be so prepared, as to comprise within the same limits a much greater amount of nutritive juice, in a fresher state, than dried meat, of which a large proportion must be fibrous and vascular; and, if judiciously and somewhat highly seasoned, would form a most comfortable mess under the snows of the pole. In the farinaceous department again, cakes, copiously impregnated with the nutritious matter of eggs and butter, would afford chyle much more copiously than mere dried flour. Salted butter and cheese, both the richest that could be had, seem deserving of mention. At all events, with such an object in view, the preponderance on the late occasion, of farinaceous food over animal, which affords so much more nourishment and strength, (628 libs. biscuit to 564 libs. pemmican,) seems very incomprehensible. Meat thoroughly dried, if we mistake not, could be eaten with very little bread. The Russian sailors, who wintered eight years in Spitzbergen, found that their dried meat could not only be eaten without bread, but could be eaten as bread with other meat. We can never then be persuaded that on these principles, and with a little contrivance, the deficient third might not be fully made up, without encumbering the equipment with any material addition of weight. Such are the hints which, with much diffidence, we venture to submit to the daring spirits who may again seek to arrive at this grand boundary point of earth and nature. Bold as the scheme may seem, we sincerely believe, after diligent search into the Arctic records, that it is, on the whole, the most secure as well as the most promising of any that could be adopted. It is submitted, however, as still subject to the strictest revision, by those who, having made personal observations on the phenomena of an Arctic expedition, may be able to point out particulars, which, though minute perhaps in themselves, must be carefully taken into account, in reference to a voyage beset with such peculiar perils and difficulties. ART. VII.-Report from and Minutes of Evidence taken before the Committee of the House of Lords, on the State of the British Wool Trade. Printed, by order of the House of Commons, 8th July, 1828. DURING last session of Parliament, numerous petitions were presented from the wool-growers, setting forth the difficulties under which they laboured, in consequence of the low price of British wool. The petitioners ascribed this low price to the large imports of foreign wool which had been made within the last few years; and they prayed that the duty on its importation might be again raised to the level at which it stood previously to its reduction in 1825. The views entertained by the petitioners were supported by a considerable party in both Houses; and, on a motion of the Duke of Richmond, a Committee of the House of Lords was appointed to examine into the subject. Government did not object to the appointment of this Committee; but it is of importance to observe, that it did not pledge itself to found any measure upon its report; the Duke of Wellington having, on the contrary, explicitly stated, that he agreed to the measure rather out of courtesy to the petitioners, than because either he or his colleagues had any doubt with respect to the policy of the alteration made in 1825. We are truly glad that government did not oppose the appointment of this Committee. The liberal system of commercial policy, of which the reduction of the wool duty is a part, has nothing to gain by concealment and the more thoroughly it is investigated, the more unfounded and unreasonable will the objections to it appear. This, at all events, has been very conspicuously the case in the present instance. Had there previously been any room for doubt with respect to the expediency, or rather the necessity, of reducing the duty in 1825, there can now be none: For the facts stated in the evidence before us, show that the admission of foreign wool under a low duty is indispensable, not to the prosperity only, but to the very existence, of several of the most important branches of our own manufac tures. Before proceeding to the consideration of the evidence, it may, perhaps, be worth while to observe, that the statements put forth by the wool-growers and their advocates, of their interests being sacrificed to a rage for innovation and theory, are ludicrously misplaced on the present occasion. When, indeed, an innova tion is called for by the circumstances of the case, or when a theory is a sound one, a government would be liable to the severest censure, if it obstinately refused to accommodate its policy to the exigencies of society, or to avail itself of the lights struck out by science and experience. In the present instance, however, Mr Huskisson did not innovate. The most superficial reader of our history cannot but know, that our government has, from the earliest ages, exerted itself to encourage the importation of the raw materials used in manufactures; and, in the case of the woollen manufacture, not only was there a free importation of foreign wool for upwards of three centuries, but, as a farther encouragement to the manufacture, the exportation of English raw wool was forbidden under the severest penalties. It was not, indeed, until 1803 that any one ever thought of laying a duty on foreign wool. When first imposed, the duty was comparatively light, amounting only to 5s. 3d. a cwt., or little more than d. a lb.; and it continued under 88. a cwt., or 1d. a lb., until 1819. In that year, however, Mr Vansittart, in order to secure the concurrence of the landed gentlemen to his notable project for the imposition of three millions of new taxes, raised the duty on foreign wool from 7s. 1ld. to 56s. a cwt., or from less than 1d. to 6d. a lb.! It is of importance, too, to observe, as evincing still more strongly the impolicy of this measure, that the export of woollen goods to foreign countries had been declining previously to 1819. Mr Vansittart did not lay a tax on the raw material of a manufacture, in which our superiority was firmly established; but, with a sagacity peculiar to himself, he laid it on one in which we had begun to lose our former ascendency, and were, at the very moment, exposed to a competition that was every day becoming closer and more severe. The manufacturers put Mr Vansittart on his guard;-they represented that this excessive increase of duty would have the most fatal influence on the trade, and that, in certain branches, it would give the foreigner a decided superiority; but Mr V. was not to be driven from his purpose by any representations of this sort. The tax was imposed; and all that the manufacturers had predicted of its effects was immediately found to be far short of the truth. So disastrous was its influence, that in the very first year of its operation, there was a falling off of about a fourth in the value of the woollen goods previously exported to foreign countries! But the following official account of the declared or real value of the woollens exported from Great Britain to all other countries, exclusive of Ireland, from 1816 to 1825, both inclusive, will set the effects of the increase of duty in 1819 in the clearest point of view. 1820, (duty increased,) L.5,989,622. 1825, do. 6,045,240. It is impossible, we think, to produce more certain and conclusive evidence of the injurious operation of any tax, than is afforded by this table. Government could not be insensible to the ruin with which the woollen manufacture, one of the principal branches of industry carried on in the kingdom, was thus threatened; and in 1825, in compliance with the urgent, and now obviously well-founded, representations of the manufacturers, Mr Huskisson reverted to the principle of the old system, from which Mr Vansittart had so recently and so unwisely departed. It was then enacted, that all foreign wool imported for home consumption, of the value of 1s. a lb. and upwards, should pay a duty of ld. a lb., or 9s. 4d. a cwt.; but when the value of foreign wool imported was under 1s. a lb., the duty was reduced to d. a lb., or 4s. 8d. a cwt. But at the same time that this reduction of duty was made in favour of the manufacturers, a boon was granted to the agriculturists, by the introduction of a new system with respect to the exportation of British wool; the growers of which were then, for the first time, allowed to export it to foreign markets, on payment of a duty of only 1d. a lb. Such are the symptoms of that rage for innovation and theory, of which we have lately heard so much, discovered by Mr Huskisson on this occa sion. The wool-growers, we have no doubt, are most anxious to return to Mr Vansittart's system, or rather they are desirous that a duty of 6d. a lb. should be again laid on foreign wool, while the exportation of English wool should be allowed duty free. That the prices of English wool have experienced a considerable decline during the last few years, is, indeed, most true; and it is also true, that during the same period there has been a large importation of foreign wool. The wool-growers, however, have not been able to show, that the fall in the price of English wool has been caused by foreign importations. On the contrary, it has been established, beyond all question, that English wool cannot be used, without an admixture of foreign wool, in the manufacture of many sorts of goods, for which there is an extensive demand both at home and abroad; and that the exclusion of foreign wool would not only be ultimately fatal to the manufacture, but would not even have the immediate effect of raising the price of |