THE FREE-TRADE IDOLATRY.

It is singular that many of those who call themselves Liberals, and who permit themselves to freely examine and question every principle of political or social economy hitherto accepted as sound by the Liberal party, should so stoutly refuse to examine Free Trade.' There is every reason for courting inquiry if our present system is a wise one. For there is a strong feeling growing up against it among the wage-earning classes, and the cheap loaf' that has done so much in the past will not for ever stand in the place of an intelligent inquiry into the working of a system now nearly forty years old, which, for good or evil, must largely influence our country's welfare in the future.

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One can hardly fail to agree with Mr. Fawcett, when, in his temperate and careful treatise in favour of Free Trade, he says:

It is unfortunate that in discussing the subject English Free Traders frequently adopt a tone which is not calculated to convince those who differ from them. When Protectionists are spoken of as if they were either solely prompted by a desire to sacrifice the welfare of the community in order to promote their own selfish ends, or when they are derided as the victims of economic fallacies so transparent that they ought not to mislead a child, it should be remembered that it is not many years since the great majority of the English people were ardent Protectionists, and the fallacies for which we now feel so much contempt were unhesitatingly accepted by many of the most eminent of our countrymen.

In the ten years between 1870 and 1880 the industries of all nations, says Mr. Mulhall, in his Balance Sheet of the World, show an advance of 22 per cent. since 1870, and he goes on:

At present Great Britain holds the foremost place, but the United States will probably pass us in the next decade. Europe in the meantime is losing weight in the balance of labour. This is due not only to the rise of the United States, but also to that of the British Colonies, which are already assuming the importance of kingdoms.

Surely here is food for reflection-Who is it that overtakes and threatens to pass us in the race? Why, the very community that has carried the principle of Protection twice as far as any other nation-I mean the United States--while our own Colonies are fast following in her footsteps. Canada indeed almost rivals America. 'It is thoroughly protective,' says Mr. Farrar, in his pamphlet entitled Free Trade and Fair Trade.

It was expressly intended so by its authors, and bids fair, if the spirit in which it was proposed continues to prevail there, to rival the monstrous tariff of the United States.

That we stand alone in the wide world after forty years' display of the benefits of Free Trade,' as we call it, gives us also food for reflection. The French, the Germans, the Italians, not to mention our own keen-witted cousins the Americans-races that have produced philosophers, calculators and reasoners second to none-have heard our arguments, watched our celebrated system of Free Imports' for nearly half a century, and deliberately decline to adopt it. Are we really, then, so much wiser than the rest of the world? Surely here again is food for reflection! The reason given by the writers for the Cobden Club for this conduct on the part of foreign nations is not complimentary to them and can hardly satisfy us.

In Mr. Medley's pamphlet entitled England under Free Trade I find it thus explained. After stating that it is the cost of wars which necessitates heavy taxation in these countries, he goes on thus:

The persons who impose that taxation are for the most part ignorant of political economy. They take the first impost which occurs to them, and they lay it on the people they misgovern. They know nothing of the possible consequences, in an economic point of view, of what they do.

And now we have to brace ourselves, it seems, for a struggle to maintain our supremacy in trade. When it is coming on to blow, a sailor looks to his tackle, and I venture to think we should do no harm in looking to ours.

These considerations have led me to ask myself whether we can safely rely upon this abstract principle, under the domination of which we are not even at liberty to discuss any proposal for the imposition of an import duty upon any article the like of which we make in this country. Those who uphold the system of Free Imports,' the socalled Free Traders' of the present day, assert this principle in its plainest and boldest form. I shall refer here, and indeed throughout the observations I desire to make, to the pamphlets issued either by or under the patronage of the Cobden Club; and upon them I feel justified in relying, not only for the statement of principles, but for the facts and figures to which it is necessary to have recourse. In the pamphlet entitled Pleas for Protection Examined (at p. 1) is the following:

The test that shall draw the line between true Free Traders' and sham 'Free

Traders' is simple and easy of application. 'Free Trade' does not allow of any import duties being imposed on such articles as are likewise produced at home.

It is this abstract principle, I may at once say, held so sacred and so devoutly acted upon, which I wish to discuss; not its application to corn or any other species of goods whatever. It is of incalculable

value to the nation that the truth concerning it should be ascertained.

The intelligence of the country has been awakened to a discussion of the causes and possible remedies for the present depression, not only in agriculture, but in many departments of trade-a depression from which they seem unable, as on all former occasions, to emerge. It is a natural consequence that all sorts of plans and remedies should be proposed, and there is no lack of them. Many of the proposed remedies involve some fresh arrangement of our import duties. It is here that the imperative principles of what is called 'Free Trade' play a serious part-they forbid discussion. An expansion of trade, and an enlarged market for our manufactures, and the products, in all forms, of our industries (hitherto more stringently excluded every year from the markets of the foreigner), is the obvious desideratum. But no new arrangement of duties, designed to foster trade with our Colonies, can be even considered on its merits without infringing the sacred principle of Free Imports.' All plans for opening or widening the market for our manufactures, in concert with foreign countries, or by making it less their interest to keep their markets closed to us, must, in like manner, be abandoned without discussion, if they involve a duty, however slight, upon imported goods of any kind. No matter whether the consumers of these goods are the poor and many, or the rich and few; whether they minister to need or luxury, the principle of Free Imports' is imperative, and any such duty must be condemned unheard. If the above principle of Free Imports' is a sound one, it is right enough to sweep on one side all proposals that conflict with it; but we ought to be very sure that it is sound, and that we are right, and all the rest of the world wrong, before we yield it so blind and so far-reaching an obedience. I know not whether any of these plans are feasible, still less whether they would be beneficial, but in the interests of the community, it is, I think, a pity that they should not be discussed upon their merits. I have myself no plan to offer, no system of taxation to advocate, but if it were otherwise I should hardly feel that I had any such experience in matters of commerce as to justify me in coming before the public as a Mentor in such matters. But abstract principles and the fair result of facts and arguments are within the reach of all, and may be discussed without special knowledge or experience, and if after a long and careful consideration of them, I have come to the conclusion that the principle in question is unsound, and erroneous, I may perhaps be pardoned for stating in what manner this conclusion has been reached.

I feel assured that it will be found on reflection that no general or universal rule applicable to all importing countries, and applicable to all species of goods without reference to their nature or the classes that consume them, or the classes that produce similar goods in this country, can be safely laid down.

The question of duty or no duty is a separate question for each article of import, to be determined by the Legislature in each instance upon a review of all the circumstances of the case, and decided according as the balance of advantage to the whole of the community may be found to lie in taxation or freedom from duty. And I proceed to state why. But before doing so, let me remove an obstruction from my way. I know it is said that this question was finally settled and the principle under discussion was finally accepted by the national judgment in 1846, when the Corn Laws were repealed; but I cannot so regard it. At that time, and during the long contest which preceded it, there was not a speaker or writer, from Mr. Cobden and Sir Robert Peel down to the least instructed of the paid lecturers who laboured to inform public opinion, who did not count with absolute certainty upon the following by foreign countries of our example. Over and over again they asserted, with the certainty of conviction, rather than the modest reserve of prophecy, that once the example set by us, other nations could not fail to follow it. It was only a question of time, they said. Mr. Cobden, I think, put the time at ten years at the furthest. Others were more sanguine, but as to the ultimate result all were equally positive; the only difficulty was to find language strong enough to express the certainty of it. One or two quotations will be sufficient.

Mr. Fawcett, in his pamphlet entitled Free Trade and Protection, says:

Nothing could exceed the confidence with which it was predicted that when England had once enjoyed the advantages of unrestricted commerce, other countries would be led to follow her example by the irresistible force of self-interest. During the memorable debates which took place thirty years since, when the financial reforms of Sir Robert Peel were before Parliament, it was again and again unhesitatingly asserted that all commercial countries would soon be eagerly striving to share with England the advantage of buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market. Even as recently as 1860, when the French commercial treaty was on the eve of ratification, its author declared that ' nothing would be able to withstand the moral contagion of the example of England and France acting together on the principles of Free Trade;' and he predicted that the stimulus thus given to Free Trade would extend far beyond the limits of the two countries.'

Mr. Cobden went even further. Speaking in 1844, he is reported to have said: "You have no more right to doubt that the sun will rise to-morrow than you have to doubt that in less than ten years from the time when England inaugurates the glorious era of commercial freedom every civilised community will be Free Traders to the backbone.'

Upon this conviction indeed the whole fabric of the new system rested. It was a grand conception, and broadly stated it came to this. In place of each nation selfishly striving to foster within the limits of its own population every manufacture and industry without discrimination, let each nation, they said, devote the labours of its

people to the work to which soil, climate, mineral resources, and the genius of its inhabitants naturally incline it-let the selfishness of individual protection be swept away, and an interchange of commerce absolutely free take its place-thus will the economy of production throughout the world be exalted to its highest level, and in the general welfare of all will the highest prosperity of each be secured. Forty years have passed away, the sun has continued to rise, but the peoples of the earth, including our own brethren in America, and our children in the Colonies, have absolutely refused to accept our views or adopt our practice, and the beneficent project of 1845 reveals itself in 1885 as little better than a baseless dream. This is no reproach to those who framed the system-for the system has not failed—it has never been tried. It could not be tried without the co-operation of other nations--and they have refused to co-operate. And so we still stand alone-having performed, and still performing, our part of the general interchange, to no purpose as far as the original ends and objects of the system are concerned, and to the advantage only, I am afraid, of those who have refused to join us. It is as though a man had learnt his part in a concerted piece of music and were to insist on performing it though the other performers had obstinately refused their co-operation.

It is natural that those who laboured to erect this system, which both in its direct and indirect effects would have been a priceless blessing to mankind, should be loth to retrace their steps-loth to resign hope under the pitiless pressure of experience. But the Nation cannot be content to do this. It is fatuity to shut our eyes to the fact that what we accepted in 1845 was Free Trade-that is, a free interchange of commodities unfettered by fiscal laws and that what we are living under in 1885 is Free Imports' in our own country and a commerce loaded with fetters abroad. The difference between the two is well and plainly stated by Mr. Medley, writing under the patronage of the Cobden Club (in England under Free Trade, p. 1), as follows:

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In the abstract, Free Trade may be defined as that state of affairs in which the nations exchange with each other their various products, untrammelled by hostile prohibitory tariffs. Well, we know that Free Trade' thus defined does not exist. We are said to be living under 'Free Trade,' but in a strict sense that is not so. We are living under a system in which our imports alone are free, our exports for some of the principal markets not being free.

This system of Free Imports,' then, may be a good thing or it may not, but it is not the thing that the national judgment approved when the Corn Laws were repealed. It is a new and very different thing. That distribution of production among the nations of the earth which was to be guided only by national aptitudes, is now regulated in all countries but our own by laws made in the interest of each. The very essence, therefore, of the system which was promulgated by