THE THREE KINGDOMS.

THE Gold-Diggings have been the theme of the
month—the basis of protectionist reasonings, the
ground of free-trade warnings, the hint for ministerial
comparisons. Lord Derby has declared himself one
of the happiest of adventurers in having dug up such
lumps of precious Ministerial ore as a Pakington,
a Malmesbury, a Manners, and a Christopher.
Protectionist philosophers have argued for high prices;
because whenever prices have been high, as they
soon will become by the influx of Australian gold, the
comforts of the people have infallibly increased.
Free trade wits have laughed at an argument excluding
the consideration of what it is that makes high prices,
—whether a scarcity, or a plenty, or simply a new
currency. Finally, there has come into the discussion,
much calmer than either party of the disputants,
certain passionless documents styled Revenue Returns,
which would have us believe beyond a doubt that
the true Gold Diggings are Unrestricted Imports.

Not a few people, perhaps, may agree in this, and
hold that it is as little to the fortunate adventurers
who have been digging for "placemen" in
Westminster, as to the lucky dogs who have been knocking
their spades against "placers" in Australia, that we
owe what these revenue papers show us to have been
in steady operation for at least five years. For even
that exact time, they quietly inform us, importation of
all kinds of food has been increasing, cultivation of the
soil improving, the price of corn falling, imports and
exports growing, shipping inward and outward
augmenting, taxation lightening, and even the returns of
Customs and Excise not lessening. They plainly
announce, for example, that while, during the last two
years alone, reductions in the revenue have been made
to the extent of three millions and a half, the last
year's return shows a deficiency of no more than half
a million, and the last quarter's return exhibits even
that deficiency as rapidly disappearing. To this in
fairness there should be added what the new Solicitor-
General notwithstanding protests, that though it may
be quite true that we have imported near five times
as much wheat as we did in 1846, yet foreigners
have reaped all the benefit; and it is they, therefore,
who are the real Gold Finders, and certainly not the
hungry Englishmen whose stomachs the importations
fill, or the suffering English squires whose pockets
the importations empty.

But for this ingenious argument of his, which
proceeds on the assumption that England is only to
be valued for the sake of her squires, just as the
estimable Herr Wagner thinks that England is only to
be valued for the sake of her money, the clever lawyer
has at least no open followers, whatever may be felt
or said in secret; for not with a more determined
confidence have the Rival Operas laid claim to
simultaneous possession of the same prima donna, daughter
of that over-shrewd Herr Wagner, than the rival
election candidates all over the country have been
vouching for their exclusive allegiance to the real
Simon Pure of Free-trade. That such vouchers are
given is certain, and given also in such abundance
that the general result of the elections will probably
depend on the amount of credence accorded to them.

When Mr. Milner Gibson was arguing the other
night for a remission of what are not improperly
called the taxes on knowledge, he read an extract
from a sporting paper which went to show that Lord
Derby had won a recent race by means of his good
horse Longbow. In like manner there appears to be
no inconsiderable reason to think that the same
spirited and unscrupulous creature may win another
race in the coming elections.

One man supports Lord Derby on behalf of the
thriving manufacturers, and another for the sake of the
suffering farmers; a third for spleen at the Pope, and a
fourth for a hit at Lord John who struck the Pope
so hard; a fifth because a too limited suffrage
discontents him, and a sixth because the too steady
advances of democracy alarm him. The haters and the
lovers of direct taxation are appealed to with equal
confidence on Lord Derby's behalf, and the addresses
of his candidates teem alike with praises of the Peel
tariff and denunciations of the Peel income tax.
Out of which apparent confusion, rational men draw
at least an assurance of the unassailable safety of free
trade, and, whatever their opinions on other subjects
may be, they are now joining in hearty congratulation
upon this.

The interminable Jew question has led to another
of those not very decorous exhibitions of judicial
disagreement too frequently resulting from the loose
condition of our laws. Not long ago, the judges
could not agree as to what constituted a newspaper;
our humble selves being the corpus vile on which
their Honours sat for consultation. As our readers
know, we escaped not much the worse for the pressure,
but certainly with no wish to undergo it again. Our
honourable opponents of the Board of Inland Revenue,
however, who had agreed to stand by the result
on that occasion, now plead the excuse of Benedick
that when they made the promise they did not know
that they should break it, and have asked leave for
their Honours to sit upon us again. To this we, of
course, have no power to say no. But, conceding the
right of a public board to do what private persons
might feel a shame in doing, it seems hardly
expedient to strain a doubtful law, when to enact a plain one
would be a course so much easier and more satisfactory.
From this our unhappy example, however, Mr.
Alderman Salomons may take the comfort of reflecting,
that even if the balance of Exchequer barons
had been as clearly in his favour as it was in ours, he
would probably have been no better off than he finds
himself at this moment, with only one solitary Exchequer
baron to take part with him. He has at least the
satisfaction of knowing at once the worst. If he incline
to believe that particular baron who tells him that he
might fairly have refused to swear by the faith of a