THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 FREE TRADE: 
 
 A PAPER READ 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 DRIFFIELD FAEMERS' CLUB, 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 JAMES HARBISON, 
 
 MERCHANT, OF GREAT DRIFFIELD, EAST YORKSHIRE, 
 
 On the 9 til of Decejnher, 1&51, 
 
 WITH 
 
 EXPLANATORY NOTES AND EURTBER REMARKS 
 
 BY HIS SON, 
 
 JAMES HABBISON, 
 
 LONDON. 
 OCTOBER, 1881. 
 
 [Entered at Stationers' Hall. All rights resewed.] 
 
 LONDON : 
 W. S. JOHNSON, " NASSAU STEAM PRESS," GO, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, W.C. 
 
 1881.
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 
 
 The animated discussions at present taking place in all parts of 
 the country have induced me to issue the following Paper, which 
 was read hy my Father, the late James Harrison, merchant, of 
 Driffield, East Yorkshire, to the Driffield Farmers' Club, on the 
 9th December, 1851. The events of the last 30 years have 
 naturally modified the full effect of many of the evils which he 
 apprehended. He could not, of course, have anticipated the 
 advance in corn prices, or, rather, the retarding of still lower 
 ones, caused by the great discoveries of gold in Australia and 
 California ; the Eussian War of 1853 to 1856 ; the American 
 Civil War ; the Franco -Italian and Franco- German Wars, and 
 many other events, which, by distracting the attention of the 
 people of foreign countries to other matters, withheld them from 
 that keen competition, not only for the trade of their own lands, 
 but for our home trade, upon which they now appear to have 
 entered with such powers and opportunities as to be most in- 
 jurious to every merchant, manufacturer, and producer in this 
 kingdom, and which, if not regulated by prudent legislation, 
 upon the same reciprocal principles as influence men in their 
 deahngs with each other, will, I firmly believe, and much fear, 
 fully justify the most gloomy forebodings of the author of the 
 " Fallacies of Free Trade." 
 
 JAMES HABEISON. 
 
 London, October, 1881. 
 
 A 2

 
 THE FALLACIES 
 
 OF 
 
 FREE TRADE. 
 
 -:o:- 
 
 I AM well aware that an apology is due from me for ventming 
 to address you on so important a subject as the recent changes 
 in our commercial legislation ; and, believe me, it is only because 
 I am convinced (fi'om a lengthened and somewhat extensive 
 experience of mercantile as well as farming pursuits''') that the 
 welfare of every individual in this kingdom is intimately con- Weifore of all 
 nected with the prosperity of agriculture, that I am emboldened ^^iJS'^gricSi. 
 to take this step. In doing so I am well aware that I shall tiire. 
 render myself liable to all the scandal and abuse which the Free 
 Trade Party and their press are such proficients in.f If, how- 
 ever, I can succeed in showing only one of my hearers these Satisfied if can 
 miscalled Free Trade principles in their just and proper light, SnehJarerf^^ 
 my object will have been served, and I shall feel that the labour 
 involved in the compilation of such an array of evidence has not 
 been in vain. 
 
 It is a difficult matter to bring the fallacies of Free Trade into Every i^edic- 
 a reasonable compass, because everyone of the many predictions Siers f afii- 
 of Free Traders has been entirely falsified ; but in order to select ^'^^' 
 a few, and especially as regards the price of corn, I will first 
 refer you to Peel's reply to Lord George Bentinck, in 1846, when Peel's reply to 
 he said, " He did not expect the price of wheat would fall BeutinckSf 
 materially, and consequently there was no need of a measure to ^^^'^^^ averages, 
 regulate afresh the tithe averages." And again on the IGth 
 February: "I shall be disappointed if there is any such great Peel on prices, 
 reduction in the price of wheat, in consequence of more extended 
 importation, as seriously to injure the agricultural interest." 
 
 * He had been 30 years in active business both in English and Foreign 
 grain. — J. H. 
 
 t At that time party feehng was very strong, and it was too much the 
 fashion of the liberal press to let abuse take the place of argument. — J. H.
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Average prices 
 preceding and 
 subsequent to 
 Free Trade. 
 
 Richard 
 Cobden. 
 
 Peel returned 
 as the repre- 
 sentative of 
 agriculture. 
 
 Peel advised 
 continued im- 
 provements. 
 Peel : no im- 
 portation 
 under 51s. 
 
 Peel: price 
 should be 54s. 
 to 58fi. 
 
 Average from 
 1843 to 1848, 
 55s. Id. 
 
 Sidney 
 Herbert, 
 
 See page 13. 
 
 Exports from 
 Odessa for the 
 month of 
 October, 1850, 
 180,000 quarters 
 See page 13. 
 
 Stock at 
 Odessa in 
 October, 1851. 
 See page 23. 
 
 See page 34. 
 
 Sir James 
 Graham* 
 
 Now, you must bear in mind that the average of the four pre- 
 ceding years was 61s. lOc?., whereas for 1849 and 1850 it has 
 been 42.9. M., and the average of this year will be still lower/'' 
 
 But Peel's most remarkable speech was in 1842, when he was 
 in possession of his calm and sober judgment, and had not 
 yielded to the fallacious iDromises of Free Trade, enforced upon 
 an unwilling people and legislature, mainly by what Peel him- 
 self afterwards called "the unadorned" eloquence of Eichard 
 Cobden. 
 
 In 1842, the great Prime Minister returned to represent the 
 agricultural interest in the House of Commons, said : " I do say 
 it is for the public advantage that I tell the farmer, ' Continue 
 your improvements, I cannot undertake to guarantee to you by 
 legislation a particular price.' But this I will say, ' That as 
 loiKj as wheat is under 51s. pt'r quarter^ you shall not he exj^osed to 
 the importation of foreign corn.' Now, with reference to the 
 probable remunerating price, I should say that for the protec- 
 tion of the agricultural interest, the price of wheat ought to vary 
 from 54.S'. to 58s., and I, for one, should never wish to see it vary 
 more than I have said." 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that the average of the six years 
 following was 55s. Id. But I will now refer you to what 
 passed in Parliament in 1846, when the present ruinous unfair 
 Free Trade measures were passing through the House. 
 
 The Honorable Sidney Herbert said : " One lolace from which 
 a very large supply of corn is expected, and which might, it is 
 supposed, interfere materially with our own produce, is Odessa. 
 I have made enquiries as to the state of the markets there, and 
 I find that the price has frequently been 30s. to 32s. per quarter. 
 At Malta also, which is supplied with Odessa wheat, the average 
 price is about 32s. to 33s., and the cost of the transit of that 
 wheat to this country would bring it to a price at which it could 
 scarcely enter into competition with our own. You will find it 
 impossible that any great quantites of corn can be brought here, 
 from either Dantsic or Odessa, to compete successfully with our 
 home produce, and those are the two great ports from which 
 supplies are expected. The exports of flour and wheat from 
 the United States have been gradually diminishing for the last 
 15 years, and it is now time that we should allay the apprehen- 
 sions which exist on this subject, and that we should prevent the 
 agriculturists of this country from being scared from their pro- 
 priety by alarms which are founded in delusion." 
 
 Sir James Graham, who a few years before had said, " The corn 
 laws would never be abolished ; that, if they were, this was the 
 last country he would wish to inhabit, and that despotism itself 
 could not inflict a greater cruelty on the poor than the system 
 
 * The average from 1845 to 1848, the four years preceding Free Trade 
 was o4.s. 2d., and from 1849 to 1852, the four subsequent years, 405. llrf.— J. H*
 
 FREE TRADE. 7 
 
 of Free Trade," had by that time found reasons (satisfactory, 
 doubtless, to himself) to change his opinion ; and on the 10th 
 February, 1846, he said: "I do not beheve the abolition of 
 Protection will materially lower the price of corn," and, on 
 the 27tli March : " It is notorious that we have no trade whatever See page 16. 
 in corn with France,"" and on the 11th May in the same year 
 he further said, " If this measure was passed he did not believe 
 that any considerable fall below that of the last three years 
 would take place in the price of corn." 
 
 Sir George Clark also stated that " English prices would not sir George 
 fall to the continental level, but continental prices would be 
 raised to the English level. "t 
 
 On the 23rd March, 1846, Mr. Childers (Lord FitzwilHam's chiiders., 
 member for Malton, and wdio himself was once a speculator in 
 wheat) said, " If this measure passed and a Free Trade in corn 
 were sanctioned, although we might draw our supplies from see note to 
 Dantsic, Odessa, and other places where corn was cheap, he was p^s^i^. 
 satisfied, from the great demand which existed in this country, Sec page 12. 
 that prices would not fall below what they were under the i3resent 
 system." 
 
 Lord Grey also said, "He did not expect there would be a see note to 
 great fall in the price of corn, but that an average price would page 6. 
 be produced not greatly lower than the average of the last 12 
 years." 
 
 But what said Mr. Dennison, one of the members for tli6 genm^on at 
 West Eiding of Yorkshire, who a few weeks ago, at Sheffield, 
 uttered such strange inconsistencies about the benefits of Free 
 Trade ? Surely this cannot be the'same man who, on the 26th Febru- 
 ary, 1846, only 5 years ago, said *' He was convinced the corn laws Dennison: 
 were for the benefit of the working classes ; the electors of the benefit of 
 West Eiding had returned him in the belief that he would Jj^gggJ^ 
 maintain the corn laws, and he felt as much compelled to keep 
 his word as if it had been his bond, nay, more, for he might Sturne?to 
 break his bond, — his word he would not break." support Corn 
 
 And what says Mr. Wilson, of The Economist, the member for 
 Westbury, a man whose calculations and figures have been much 
 lauded by the Free Traders, but who has shown a greater amount 
 of ignorance about the value of grain, and especially about the 
 cost of its transit, than anyone could suppose possible, particularly 
 on the part of the editor of a paper which claims to lead on 
 financial and fiscal questions. Mr. Wilson wrote: "Our belief ^jJ^°^o^^*^<3 
 
 * In 1849 we imported from France 742,023 quarters, the lafgest quantity 
 from any one country in that year, and, in 1850, tne import reached the 
 enormous total of 1,145,405 quarters. — J. H. 
 
 t This has proved in practice partially correct, thereby establishing the fact, 
 only imperfectly grasped by many, but which cannot be too often inculcated, 
 that any nation exporting its sinylus produce pays a large proportion, in some 
 cases the whole, of the import duties levied by nations willing (but not anxious) 
 to receive such surplus.— J. H.
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Anticipating 
 higher prices 
 tinder Free 
 Trade. 
 
 Wilson: pro- 
 duce should 
 not be below 
 cost of pro- 
 duction. 
 
 The Times : 
 Agricultural 
 prices below 
 remunerative 
 level. 
 
 is that, if we had had Free Trade in corn since 1815, the average 
 price of the whole period, would have been higher than it has 
 been ; and that if, for the next 20 years, the whole protec- 
 tive system be abandoned, the average price of wheat will be higher 
 than it has been for the last seven years (viz. 52s. 2fL), or than 
 it would be in future, with a continuance of the present system." 
 Mr. Wilson further writes: "It never can be advantageous" for 
 the community at large, that they should consume the produce 
 of any one party, below the cost of its production." Why, The 
 Times of the 7th July last says, " It is very true that, for 
 nearly two and a half years, agricultural prices have been below 
 a renumerative level, " and, as you are well aware, prices are now 
 much lower than during that period. 
 Loss to farmers Mr. Villiers stated in the House of Commons, that the deprecia- 
 lion^s annually, tioii ill the value of agricultural produce, under the present system, 
 amounted to the enormous sum of 91 millions per annum, and 
 Mr. M'Gregor, M.P. for Glasgow, and Vice- Secretary to the Board 
 of Trade, estimated the reduction at two millions sterling per 
 week. Assuming these figures to be correct, how can any mere 
 remission of taxation (however extensive) help you materially; 
 and is it not really pitiful to see how all these facts belie the 
 former predictions of the Free Traders ? 
 
 Mr. Tooke, another great authority, assumes the price would 
 be 45s., and says the quantity we should probably import at 
 that price might, perhaps, approach to 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 
 quarters,''' and if there were a fixed duty of 8s. per quarter, he 
 very much doubts if that quantity could be imported. 
 
 But how stands the fact ? In place of 2,000,000 quarters annu- 
 ally, the import from the 26th June, 1846, to the 5th November, 
 1847, a little over 16 months, was 7,229,916 quarters! wheat, 
 and the total of all kinds of grain was 16,331,882 quarters. 
 
 Colonel Thompson, who had for many years advocated the 
 Eepeal of the Corn Laws, when he saw the time for their abolition 
 drawing near, appeared so delighted at the prospect of an ad- 
 vance in the price of grain, and the pleasure of filling his pockets 
 thereby, that he refused to let any of his farms on lease, as he 
 said he fully expected higher rents when the Corn Laws were 
 repealed; perhaps he was encouraged in this feeling by that 
 Apostle of Free Trade and Universal Peace — Eichard Cobden, 
 who, having received a special retaining fee of £70,000 from the 
 distressed manufacturers to cry out for cheap bread (and, as they 
 hoped, consequently lower wages), stated: "That under the 
 i^rci and tenant Eepeal of the Coiii Laws the landlord and tenant would both 
 both better off ^^ better off; there would be no complaining poor in our streets, 
 
 Eemission 
 of taxation 
 inadequate. 
 
 Tooke's esti- 
 mate of price 
 and importa- 
 tion. 
 
 See also page 
 13. 
 
 Colonel 
 Thompson. 
 
 Cobden 
 £70,000. 
 
 Richard 
 Cobden: Land 
 
 * The imports of the four years following Free Trade, 1849 to 1853, were 
 145,857,469 cwts., equal to an everage of 8,103,193 quarters per year. — J. H. 
 
 t The imports for the last four years, 1877 to 1880, have amounted to 
 526,836,146 cwts., or equal to an average of 29,268,672 qrs. per year.— J. H.
 
 FREE TRADE. 9 
 
 no Income Tax, no Property Tax [what bitter irony all this is], 
 no Poor Rates, but all classes would be benefited by the adop- 
 tion of Free Trade." 
 
 But I should weary you were I to attempt to recite one-tenth 
 of the nonsense uttered and of the gross ignorance displayed by 
 the people who were compelled (by the frightful threats of the 
 Corn Law League and the hypocrisy of Sir Robert Peel, the Hyioocrisy of 
 trusted leader of the Conservative Party) to carry the Repeal of ^^^^' 
 the Corn Laws, their conduct calling forth the memorable words 
 of the ever-to-be-lamented Lord George Bentinck : ''There never Lord George 
 had been more gross delusion than that which the Government Bentinck. 
 encom-aged." 
 
 I have hitherto merely stated a few of the opinions expressed 
 as to the probable prices and future supply of grain, and have 
 shown how entirely they have proved to be at variance with the 
 actually realised facts. 
 
 I could now refer you to what was said would be the result in Faiicacious 
 decreasing crime, encouraging trade, giving contentment to the ^re'e'Tradfrs 
 poor, checking agitation, and, in fact, turning this Protectionist as to decrease 
 Wilderness into a Free Trade Paradise. But it will suffice to °^ '^^■^^^' **'• 
 notice briefly how all those exuberant prognostications have com- 
 pletely failed to fulfil their promise. And, first, as regards the 
 decrease of crime. The Times of the 4th March last says : "At Gaol caiendai- 
 Chelmsford the gaol calendar presents a fearful increase of ^* ^^'^^'^'^'''■'^• 
 crime, there being 76 prisoners for trial, and nearly the whole of 
 the cases are of the most atrocious description. Lord Chief Lord chief 
 Justice Campbell said he was horror-stricken in looking over campbeii. 
 the calendar, and so much weighed down by observing the 
 extent of crime that was to be disposed of, that he could do no 
 more than ask the grand jury at once to retire to their duties." 
 
 The same paper quotes : " Oxford has the unusual number of Oxford. 
 65 prisoners, several of whom are charged with serious offences, 
 and at Winchester there are 146 prisoners for trial." And, Winchester, 
 further, in The Times of the 27th October last, the editor, after 
 lamenting the increase of crime, writes : " In examples of brutal Times on crime 
 acts, ferocious savagery, of murderous outrage, and systematic "^ ^°^'^°"- 
 disrespect for human life, we very much doubt whether London 
 can be surpassed by any city on this side of the Atlantic." 
 
 The same paper also quotes the remarkable fact that, even in increase of 
 these days of Free Trade and universal prosperity, Manchester cist'of pSr\u 
 has begun to make loud complaints about the increase of poor, Manchester, 
 as she has now to maintain every week 1,212 more families than 
 in 1846 (only five years since), and at an increased weekly cost 
 of £139 10s. And the editor further remarks that, ''ks Times: 
 Manchester has come off so decidedly the best in the late war beSteJat 
 of interests, and has feathered her nest so entirely at the ex- the cost of aii 
 pense of the community at large [pray mark this, and from The "^^'^^ ^^e^'^^*^ 
 Times, too], any complaint she may make will meet with more 
 derision than sympathy."
 
 10 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Beverley But to come nearer home. In our own county you may, 
 
 prolonged. perhaps, remember that the Beverley Sessions for Michaelmas, 
 1850, were continued until the Friday morning, and the same 
 sessions in Leeds had an unusual number of cases, and which 
 Leeds Mercury The Leeds Mevcuvij attributed to the low price of food, encouraging 
 of food. ^ ^ intoxication, and thence crime. In the same paper, of the 
 8th November last, you will find the editor states that the ratio 
 Leeds Mercurij of Clime ill the Wcst Kiding exceeds that of the East Biding by 
 andmcrease of ^^I^Q^^^ 10 per ceiit., and that of the North Riding by about 
 23 per cent., and also that a meeting of the West Biding magis- 
 trates had been held, to consider the advisability of employing 
 number^ of additional police. I believe there is also at present an unusual 
 prisoners in number of prisoiicrs in York Castle. 
 
 York Castle. Amoiigst other crimes of violence we read of upwards of 60 
 
 Incendiary incendiary fires reported in The Mark Lane Exjrress alone during 
 
 the last six weeks, and, as regards minor offences, your own 
 
 recent daily experience will have sliowii you that the country is 
 
 Increase of pestered with more vagrants than was ever before known to be 
 
 vagrants. ^j^^ ^^^^^ 
 
 Ireland. But we wiU HOW turn to Ireland. The expected increase of 
 
 population there, the depressed and distressed condition of the 
 Irish peasantry, the recent famine, the reports of that calamity 
 being highly coloured (nay, even in many cases manufactured) 
 for party pm-poses, — these were all urged by the Free Traders as 
 strong and cogent reasons for the repeal of the Corn Laws. But 
 what has followed the abolition of the duties ? I will read you 
 the following remarks from The Times of the 7th October, 1851 : 
 See page 42, in " The Celtic exodus continues to be the marvel of the day. 
 nSkl^o^n t he ^rom morning to night, h'om the arrival of the first trains before 
 Fallacies of daybreak to the last which reach in the evening, nothing scarcely 
 fo^^diiSnution^ is to be seen along the line of splendid quays wdiich adorn 
 of popiiiation^ Dublin but the never-ending stream of emigrants flying, as if 
 from Ireland, from a 2'estilence, to seek the means of existence which their own 
 inhospitable land denies to labour, and the modest ambition to 
 live and die beyond the gloomy precincts of the Irish workhouse. 
 Numbers of these adventurers are of the better class of farmers, 
 and appear to lack none of the appliances requisite towards the 
 bettering of their condition at the other side of the Atlantic — a 
 liealthy and more than comely progeny, a good supply of the 
 most requisite articles of furniture and clothing, with some small 
 capital to commence operations. The majority, however, have 
 no such advantages to boast of, for a more miserable, sickly- 
 looking, and poverty-stricken set of creatures it would be 
 impossible to imagine even, hundreds of them — men, women, 
 and children^being unprovided with shoes to their feet, and the 
 females with no better covering for their heads than the com* 
 monest cotton handkerchiefs in lieu of bonnets, while not one in 
 50 could lay claim to the luxury of a cloak as a protection against 
 the inclemency of the coming winter. All hardships appear as
 
 FREE TRADE. 11 
 
 nothing, so that the one great end may be achieved — flight from 
 the Irish shores, no matter at what risk, or with what amount 
 of danger and privation in perspective. Day after day vessels 
 leave this port freighted with their limnan cargoes, without any 
 diminution being perceptible in the throngs of peasantry which 
 swarm the streets in the neighbourhood of the quays. Three 
 sailed at the close of last week with their full complements on 
 board ; three more have just come into dock, and it is expected 
 that they, too, will clear out before Saturday next, if not sooner. 
 Judging from present appearances, it is more than probable that The popuia- 
 the severest months of the season will have little or no effect in ^^a^cUminished 
 checking the prevailing and altogether unparalleled mania. The upwards of 
 'rush' from the southern ports, too, is rather on the increase n^-fiio^'^ li^Je* 
 than otherwise, and is far and away on a more extensive scale ib31. See 
 than we in the metropolis have any idea. On Saturday a steamer ^^^^ 
 left Waterford for Liverpool with nearly 400 emigrants on board, 
 whose ultimate destination is the ' h-ee land of the west.' The 
 day was intensely severe, but wind and weather, be they what 
 they may, have no terrors for these voluntary exiles. The 
 average numbers which sail from the port of Waterford alone 
 since the season set in appear to be at the rate of 500 weekly. 
 Respecting the progress of emigration in Ulster The Western Star 
 publishes the following extract of a letter received from a gentle- 
 man who has been travelling through the northern province : 
 ' Having had occasion within the past three weeks to traverse a 
 considerable part of Ulster, I made it my business to enquire, as 
 I went along, into the condition of the small farmers — a race of 
 as industrious a people as are to be found on the habitable globe. 
 Having been heretofore led to believe that they were most 
 favourably circumstanced as regarded their position with the 
 landlords, and fi'om other causes, I must own I was not at all 
 prepared for the almost general feeling of discontent which 
 exhibited itself. I was much struck with the remarks of an 
 intelligent middle-aged man, the occupier of a farm of about 30 
 acres, who after informing me that he formed one of a party of 
 70 persons, comprising a dozen famihes, who were preparing to 
 emigrate to Australia, thus proceeded : Before next spring is 
 over many hundreds of the people of this province will have 
 quitted it for ever, and many others will follow ; we have always 
 been loyal to England, even in the worst of times, and although 
 all that is now forgotten, the day may come when the Govern- 
 ment will regret that they allowed the interests of the industrious 
 northmen to be sacrificed to such an extent as to force them to leave 
 the homes of their fathers to seek a resting place in a foreign land.' " 
 Now I contend that this single article in itself — and the truth 
 of which is being ratified and confirmed every day — fully answers 
 all the volumes of rubbish that have been written extolling the 
 advantages of Free Trade, and may be well kept on record as
 
 12 
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Expatriation 
 of one-fourth 
 of the inhabi- 
 tants of 
 Ii-eland. 
 
 Diminution of 
 population in 
 rural parishes 
 hi the south of 
 England- 
 
 Decrease in 
 the population 
 of villages in 
 the East 
 Biding of 
 Yorkshire. 
 
 Emigration. 
 
 Poverty in 
 
 manufacturin£ 
 
 districts. 
 
 Great Exhibi- 
 tion of 1851— 
 an exposure 
 of the secrets 
 of our trade. 
 
 See Sidney 
 Herbert's pre- 
 dictions, pages 
 6 and 7 ; also 
 Childers, page 
 7; Sir G.Clark, 
 page 7. 
 
 BeeTooke's 
 estimate, 
 page 8. 
 
 Sturges, Bir- 
 mingham, 
 ridiculed the 
 idea of large 
 Biipplies and 
 low prices. 
 
 a sufficient answer to all the abuse and contumely which the 
 promoters of that system have not hesitated to expend liberally 
 upon the farmers and all others who ventured to question the 
 correctness of their theories. The startling fact of the ex- 
 patriation of one-fourth of the inhabitants of Ireland as a first 
 instalment of the great benefits of Free Trade, should rouse all 
 true patriots to endeavour to check the suicidal policy of their 
 rulers ere it be too late. 
 
 We need not, however, go to Ireland to observe the effect 
 which recent legislation has had upon the poor. There are 
 several parishes in the South of England where the population 
 has so decreased, that the farmers have had great difficulty in 
 securing the harvest ; and in our own neighbomdiood you will 
 find, on reference to the last Census, a decrease in the population 
 of the following villages : Garton, 28 ; Elmswell, 24 ; Butter- 
 wick, 11 ; Cowlam, 27 ; Helperthorpe, 14 ; Kelk, 13 ; Lowthorpe, 
 25 ; Skerne, 19 ; Middleton, 10 ; Sledmere, 4 ; Southburn, 5 ; 
 and Watton, 14. The " Bold peasantry their country's pride," 
 written of by the poet, appears to be yielding to a rapid progress 
 of disintegration, under the baneful effects of a system which, 
 denying them a home in the land of their birth, drives them to 
 foreign climes for a livelihood, " While shouting folly hails them 
 from the shore." But it is not only in the rural districts that 
 the picture is gloomy ; if we may credit the reports from the 
 pawnbrokers' shops in the manufacturing districts, we shall 
 find that, even there, the great benefits of Free Trade have 
 not left the labouring classes with much surplus cash in 
 hand, as they have, during the summer, been pawning their 
 little treasures, nay, even their household necessaries (although 
 the rail fare has been as low as five shillings to London and 
 back), to enable them to visit that reckless exposure of every 
 secret of their native industry to the intelligent, adaptive, and 
 appreciative foreigner, recently held in Hyde Park, under the 
 name of the Great Exhibition. 
 
 Now, as regards the supply of corn (it is unnecessary to say 
 anything to you about the iDiice), I have previously named the 
 enormous arrivals in 1846 and 1847, but you will find that in 
 the year 1850, the two ports of Ibrail and Galatz alone shipped 
 upwards of one million quarters of wheat to this country, and that 
 on the 3rd March, 1851, the London circulars state the arrival oft' 
 the coast of Black Sea wheat alone to amount to 350,000 quar- 
 ters, and the total quantity of grain imported during the twelve 
 months ending June, 1851, was eight-and-a-quarter millions of 
 quarters, and upwards of five million hundredweights of flour. 
 
 Messrs. Sturge, of Birmingham, are leading people in the corn 
 trade, and when the Free Trade measures were passing through 
 Parliament, they stigmatised as foolish the expectation of large 
 supplies or low prices, on the ground that the freight and
 
 FREE TRADE. 13 
 
 charges from Odessa would usually average about 20s. per Freights from 
 quarter, whereas vessels are now offering at 8s. iSd. In 1849, ^tlft ^^^ 
 the freight was 7s., and on the 3rd April, 1850, the same firm consumption 
 writes that "The fr-eight fc-om Odessa had fallen to 5s. per J^^^J^^^Jg 
 quarter,-'' that the consumption of bread in the manufacturing surplus corn 
 districts had decreased, and although there was no profit on uuitedTing- 
 importing corn, still it would come to be sold at the best <iom to be sold, 
 disposable price ;" and on the 4th December, 1850, they further pSce. 
 say that " The exports fr-om Odessa for the month of October see Tooke's 
 alone, amount to 180,000 quarters," and on the 10th October, ^'agfg^*^' 
 1851, their circular states that "Wheat is quite as low as at wheat as low 
 any time during the past century, that bread is under Id. per J^j^^g tJejSs^t 
 pound, and that with the exception of the finest descriptions of century, 
 wheat, it is almost impossible to effect sales at much over the Bread under 
 
 P • P T Id. per lb. 
 
 price 01 pig-ieed. 
 
 Turning om* eyes to the manufacturing and general trades of ^.^^^^^"^^ trades 
 the country, we find but little to encourage optimism, and much ^ ^coun ry. 
 to make us apprehensive for the future. In their circular for Littiedaie's 
 March, 1850, Messrs. Littledales, of Liverpool (the largest March^isso. 
 brokers in the world), write: "Great complaints are made of 
 the bad state of the country shopkeepers in the agricultural 
 districts. We have closely questioned some of our wholesale 
 grocers and tea dealers, who assure us that there is.no dis- 
 guising the fact that such is the case ; and the general answer 
 received from travellers, is that they can get neither money nor 
 orders ;" and in April, they again say : " We believe the small 
 tradesmen and shopkeepers in the rural districts were seldom or 
 never in a worse position than at present.} To what class then 
 are the present ruinously low prices of grain a blessing ? We No class beue- 
 emphatically say, to none ; indeed, it is quite impossible for so 
 large a portion of the community as that connected with agri- 
 culture to be depressed, and the other portions long to continue 
 prosperous ; and probably the best impulse we could receive in 
 the present inactive state of om- colonial markets, would be an 
 advance of 5s. to 10s. per quarter in the price of wheat. 
 
 In September, 1851, the same eminent firm write : " There Littiedaie's 
 has been little or no mitigation of the long-pending depression. tember?i85L 
 The diminished rate of increase in oui* population, as shown by 
 the Census returns, the depressed state of the agricultiu'al por- 
 tion of the country, and the diminished power of spending by 
 landlords and tenants, are causes secretly but surely at work to 
 prevent that annual increase of consumption of imported pro- 
 ducts which has hitherto been looked upon as a certainty, and 
 should not be lost sight of in calculations of supply and demand." 
 
 In their circular of the 4th October, 1851, Messrs. Littlcdale Littiedaie's 
 say: "Nothing seems to chancre the untoward course of events circular of 4th 
 
 _. ^ ° . _ _ _ October, 1851. 
 
 * I have since known them down to 2s. GfZ. per quarter by steamer. — J. PI. 
 t I fear this applies with still greater force now, — September, 1881. — J. H.
 
 U THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Abundant in tliis memorable year."'- An abundant harvest has been 
 harvest in 1851. gathered with less damage and at less cost than for many years, 
 which, it was hoped, would have proved the turning point in 
 commercial matters ; instead of which, the depression seems 
 only to increase fi'om day to day, without any apparent prospect 
 of its termination. The losses on imports of every kind are 
 alarming, and yet the tide is unabated ; and had it not been for 
 Abundance of the abundance of moneys we should doubtless have had a repetition 
 money. ^^ 1847, to some extent, at the present time." 
 
 Bradford Wool The report of the Bradford Wool Market of the 5th June, 
 Market. jggj^ jg ^g follows : "The state of the Yarn Market is most 
 
 Loinfin^his're- glooi^Yj ^^^^ ^0 effect salcs of many kinds the prices of spinning, 
 cent Free wages must he wholly sacrificed. At no period, even in the time of 
 andendeavour- the greatest distress in 1847 and 1848, has the position of the 
 manuf ac^-^^ *^^ spimiers been so ruinous as at present, and the whole trade is full 
 turers, re- of gloominess and murmuring.* ' t And in the last week of October, 
 ''othe?nSons 1851, the Bradford Market Report reads as follows : '' Wool.— 
 ^eriodsof de- ^^^^ market cannot be duller, for no one seems in the slightest 
 pression as liumour to buy. The quantity now consuming is far less than it 
 selves? °and 1^^^ been for several years past. Yarns. — It is quite impossible 
 observed that for this branch of our trade to be worse, nor was it at any period 
 from Snerica evcr kiiowii to be SO bad as at present ; the number of spinning 
 65 mtuions^in™ frames HOW standing is very considerable. Pieces. — The quantity 
 1800 to 27 mu- of looms standing is very great, and from Leeds, Huddersfield, 
 we^must^^^"' Rochdale, Leicester, Manchester, and Dundee, all the reports tell 
 
 *^Sm?fhatMr *^^® ^^^^ gloomy tale." 
 
 chSmberiain" If we tum to the Iron Districts, the reports from Birmingham 
 thefTcTtSf^ ii^ August last state : " Throughout every branch of business, com- 
 the Civil War plaints of losses and waiit of remuneration are most energetic, 
 period fuiiy^ The occupicrs of Coal and Ironstone Works assert that their 
 the°decrease — ^ii^^s are being exhausted at rates that scarcely realise the royal- 
 September, ' ties to the proprietors, and the enormous burdens of taxation and 
 1881.— j.H. parochial payments to which they are subject. The owners of 
 anTii'on dS Blast Furnaces affirm that even with the present thankless price 
 tricts. of materials, the cost exceeds the marketable value of their pigs, 
 
 SeSs ^^' ^^^^ ^^^^ manufacturer declares that he can obtain no return for 
 Blast furnaces, his capital or risk. Confidence is fast giving way to a feeling of 
 
 anxiety as to the result of the present ruinous circumstances." 
 Staffordshire The Mark Lane Express of the 20th October, 1851, quotes from 
 dSiSiinc Arts' s Birmingham Gazette, as follows : " We cannot disguise 
 
 the fact, that the energies of trade in Staffordshire are declining ; 
 
 * It is somewhat remarkable that the same promise of a cure for all our 
 ills should be made to us now after a lapse of 30 years. I fear it will prove 
 a palliation only, not a cure, — the wound is too deep to be cauterised. — J. H. 
 
 t The manufacturers of Bradford, and of West Yorkshire and Lancashire 
 generally, who are protesting (and with every principle of right and justice 
 on their side) against the inequalities proposed in the new French Tariff, will, 
 I fear, find their present position too plainly sketched in this report of 30 
 years ago. — J. H.
 
 FREE TRADE. , 15 
 
 Indeed, the prospect of extricating it from its present profitless 
 and unsatisfactory condition seems fm*tlier than ever removed." 
 
 Were confirmation of the nnfortmiate position of these esta- constant 
 Wished industries needed, we have it in the constant faihn-es of f'^ii^'^^s. 
 old houses in London — lately, one of them to the amount of half 
 a million, caused entirely hy {he fall in the value of colonial 
 produce ; of the Welsh Bank to the like amount, and to the fi*e- 
 quent stoppages in Liverpool, Leith, Glasgow, Sunderland, and Frequent 
 all our great towns — in fact, to the general gloom which per- ia?ge towns? 
 vades the whole countiy — and the forebodings of still further 
 evil, expressed in all the circulars and market reports published 
 during the last few months. I have said nothing about the shipping in- 
 shipping interest, for lack of time, but it would be easy to show *^^^^^- 
 that this important branch of our industry is in a state of great 
 aud ruinous depression, and if no early change takes place, the 
 wooden walls of old England will soon be reduced to as small a 
 compass, and the country will be in as helpless a state to resist country unable 
 foreign aggression, or to defend our colonies, as the most noisy agg?es?ion!^^^ 
 " peace at. any price " man could desire. 
 
 I must also, for the same reason, pass over the corn-milling value of com 
 interest, the capital invested in which far exceeds that laid out in J^^^t^of^Son 
 cotton mills ; but entirely owing to the abolition of the corn duties, mills. 
 corn-grinding is now worthless in England, and ruinous in L-e- 
 land, in which latter country it was at one time a very important 
 industry. Personally (as I need scarcely tell you, my near position of 
 neighbours), I have known the business of this district well for small farmers, 
 more than 30 years, and can safely declare that I never knew 
 the small farmers in such serious straits before.''- 
 
 As regards my own business, whether as factor, miller, or ship- 
 owner, the daily loss and annoyance in business of all kinds, and 
 the constant complaints of the bad state of trade which reach 
 me on all hands, are such as I never before experienced. 
 
 Keciprocity, as a fiscal system between nations, had at one Reciprocity, 
 time numerous advocates, and justly so, for there is apparently 
 no better method under which friendly nations can interchange 
 their respective products. Many of the most thoughtful and Foreigners 
 careful of our legislators and public men were anxious to see how i^et^us bS ore 
 far the foreigner would meet us, before we gave away all to him. we threw off 
 Again, the specious promises of the Free Traders were brought ^ °"^ ^ ^®^- 
 into play, and, in too many instances, with fatal effect: " All adoption of 
 nations would follow our excellent example ; " *' Strong nations otJer'nTtiousy 
 would be converted and persuaded ; " " Weak powers would bo 
 obliged to adopt Free Trade." Eichard Cobden said: " Within cobden's pre- 
 seven years of our repealing our duties, there will not be ^custoni^^*° 
 custom-house in Europe." Such were some of the delusive in- Houses, 
 ducements held out to us to abandon the system which had 
 
 * How " History repeats itself!" I fear these words might be written of 
 the small farmers, with even greater truth now, — September, 1881. — J.H.
 
 16 
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Politico- 
 economic 
 theory that 
 exports must 
 equal imports. 
 
 Trade with 
 Russia, Hol- 
 land, and Bel- 
 gium. 
 
 helped to make our country the commercial wonder of the world. 
 Could they have been reaHsed, they would probably have done 
 much to alleviate the evils under which we are at present 
 suffering. But how stands the fact ? America, Germany, and 
 Switzerland have all raised their import duties on British 
 goods ; and France''' (from which country we received our largest 
 supply of corn and flour) has completely prohibited our cotton 
 goods and hardware. Some Political Economists are very fond 
 of asserting that our exports must necessarily equal our im- 
 ports ; the experience of the last few years tells sadly against 
 this pleasant theory, and, as shown by the following table, our 
 exports, in many cases, decrease as our imports increase. 
 
 IMPOETED FEOM EUSSIA. 
 
 Value of exports to 
 that country. 
 
 33,764 qrs. Grain 1845 £2,153,491 
 
 599,556 „ „ 1849 1,556,175 
 
 See page 7. 
 Trade with 
 France. 
 
 Imports to 
 France in- 
 creased 
 twentyfold. 
 
 Exports 
 thereto 
 diminished to 
 one-fourth. 
 
 Increased ex- 
 port princi- 
 pally to India 
 and Australia. 
 
 Exports have 
 declined to 
 countries from 
 which we re- 
 ceive largest 
 imports. 
 
 1,614 qrs. Grain 
 308,482 „ 
 
 HOLLAND. 
 
 ... 1845 
 ... 1849 
 
 £3,439,035 
 3,499,937 
 
 BELGIUM. 
 
 983 qrs. Grain 1845 £1,479,058 
 
 366,099 „ „ 1849 ... ... 1,457,586 
 
 And fi-om France, that country from which Sir James Graham 
 said we should have no corn, the quantity, in 1845, was 
 32,133 quarters, and the value of our exports to that country 
 £2,791,238, and in 1849 we received 742,023 quarters! corn, and 
 the value of our exports was only £634,126 ; so that from France 
 alone our imports have increased above twentyfold, and our 
 exports have decreased to one-fourth. The total exports of the 
 country in 1849 were 63|- millions, and the imports 105f mil- 
 lions ; and, although you will be told that our exports for 1850 
 have increased eight millions over those of 1849, if you examine 
 the retm-ns you will find this increase is principally to om- own 
 colonies, but especially to India and Australia, neither of which 
 countries can by any possibility benefit by Free Trade. | 
 
 The fact remains, that to the places from which we receive 
 our largest imports of corn, viz., Prussia, Eussia, Austria, 
 Sweden, Norway, and Belgium, om- exports have declined to 
 each and all of them, and it is a positive fact that every six- 
 
 * Written before the reciprocal Treaty made by Cobden in 1860. — J. H. 
 
 t These are startling figures, particularly at a time when our commercial 
 arrangements with France are about to undergo a revision. — J. H. 
 
 \ A practice then very common (and which is, unfortunately, still preva- 
 lent to some extent) of consigning goods to India in the hope of a rise in 
 the markets, helped to swell these exports ; they were not bond fide sold at 
 the time, but were afterwards forced off at prices, in many cases, ruinous 
 to the shijjper. — J. H.
 
 FREE TRADE. 17 
 
 pence wc send to tlie foreigners for corn is laid out by tliem in Foreigners 
 the erection of factories, with which to render themselves indc- tSs"^' ^^ 
 pendent of us for manufactured goods."''' 
 
 The Income Tax returns under Schedule D were, in 1843, incorae Tax 
 above 63 milhons, and in 1850 below 55 millions, a clear pi'oof J_^*^J^J^gj. 
 that Free Trade has reduced the profits of the trading portion Free Trade, 
 of the community eight millions per annum, or that some of 
 those who profess to have benefited by its operation have given 
 in false returns. 
 
 It is certainly strange, in these days of Free Trade and manu- 
 facturing prosperity, that in 1848 there were only 9,000 people 
 who, under Schedule D, returned a profit of over £1,000, and in 
 that year the total amount was £1,685,977 ; but it is still more 
 strange that in 1849 the numbers above £1,000 were reduced to 
 7,837, and the amount to £1,529,938, and there is no doubt 
 that 1850 will show a still further decline. 
 
 The opinion of other nations as to our recent legislation opinions of 
 should be entitled to some consideration. A letter h'om America, other nations, 
 which appears in The Times of the 12th June, 1851, runs as 
 follows: "We have said before, and we repeat the conviction, Letter from 
 that an adherence to the existing Free Trade in bread stuffs at Amenca. 
 the expense of the entire landed interest and every agricultural 
 labourer in Great Britain, for the sole purpose of enabling 
 the manufacturer to reduce the cost of labour becausa the price 
 of bread is cheapened, will not much longer be submitted to by 
 the people of England, or, if it be, that inevitable ruin must be 
 the consequence." 
 
 Again, the recent speech of the American President — a man speech of the. 
 taken from the people, Vv^hose absolute freedom from all aristo- president, 
 cratic prejudices should command the respect for his views of 
 all Liberal Free Traders — should have some weight. In a 
 thoroughly constitutional speech, sketching fair measures of 
 justice to all (not the ruin of one class for the imagined benefit 
 of others), he says : "More than three-fourths of our population 
 are engaged in the cultivation of the soil. The commercial, au interests 
 manufacturing, and navigating interests are all, to a great 2pou^a|Scui- 
 extent, dejjendent on the agricultural. It is, therefore, the most ture. 
 important interest of the nation, and has a just claim to the 
 fostering care and protection of the Government. All experience 
 has demonstrated the wisdom and policy of raising a large 
 portion of revenue for the support of Government from duties on 
 goods imported. The power to lay these duties is unquestion- 
 
 * Herein lies the greatest mischief of our Free Trade measures ; the ractolian 
 stream which Ave poured upon the foreigner when we reHcved him from the 
 obligation of paying our duties, doubtless made him, for a time, a better 
 customer for our manufactures ; but as soon as he had capitalized our 
 generosity he erected his own mills, and, when we ask for a share of his 
 trade, puts on prohibitive duties. — J. H. 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 TEE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Incidence of a 
 duty upon ex- 
 traneous 
 products. 
 
 Incidence of a 
 duty upon 
 indigenous 
 products. 
 
 Independence 
 in war. 
 
 Absence of 
 
 common 
 
 honesty. 
 
 Peel's perfidy. 
 
 able, and its chief object, of course, is to replenish the Treasury. 
 But if, in doing this, an incidental advantage may be gained by 
 encouraging the industry of our own citizens, it is our duty to 
 avail ourselves of that advantage. A dutij laid iqjon an article 
 irhicJi cannot he produced in this country, such as tea or coffee, adds 
 to the cost of the article, and is chiejiy or ivholly jMid, by the con- 
 sumer. But a duty laid upon an article ivhicli may he jJi'odicced 
 here, stimulates the skill and industry of our own country to lyroduce 
 the same article, which is brought into the market in competition ivith 
 the foreign article, and the importer is thus compelled to reduce his 
 price to that at vihich the domestic article can be sold, thereby 
 throwing a ^M?t of the duty upon the producer of the foreign article. 
 The continuance of this process creates the skill, and invites the 
 capital, which finally enable us to produce the article much 
 cheaper than it could have been procured from abroad, thereby 
 benefiting both the producer and consumer at home. The con- 
 sequence of this is, that the artisan and the agriculturist are 
 brought together ; each affords a ready market for the ^Droduce 
 of the other ; the whole country becomes prosperous ; and the 
 ability to produce every necessary of life renders us independent 
 in war as ivell as in peace. A high tariff can never be per- 
 manent. It will cause dissatisfaction, and will be changed. 
 It excludes competition, and thereby invites the investment of 
 capital in manufactures to such an excess, that, when changed, 
 it brings distress, bankruptcy, and ruin upon all who have been 
 misled by its faithless protection. What the manufacturer wants 
 is uniformity and permanency, that he may feel a conMence 
 that he is not to be ruined by sudden changes." 
 
 I have now surely said enough to prove that these Free Trade 
 measures were passed in entire ignorance of their real result, and 
 have most signally failed in every instance ; but it was not likely, 
 considering the way in which they were forced through an 
 unwilling Parliament, that it should be otherwise. Was there 
 not such a want of common honesty, and such political perfidy 
 disiDlayed, as has^e not been witnessed in this country since 
 politics ceased to be venal, and principles and party were held to 
 have some responsible cohesion ? Had the measure been carried 
 by proper and constitutional means, had the voice of the country 
 been fairly asked upon it, there would be some satisfaction in 
 submitting patiently to the verdict of the majority of our 
 countrymen. But such was not the case ; a pow^erful minister, 
 whose political perfidy has now, unfortunately, equalled his great 
 and undoubted talents, made use of the votes, the influence, and 
 the authority entrusted to his care by a confiding people, to 
 destroy the very interests which he had undertaken to defend, 
 and as the chosen representative of which he had been returned 
 to Parliament. Future ages will scan our past history in vain 
 for so flagrant an instance of political tergiversation.
 
 FREE TRADE. 19 
 
 Threats dangerous to his personal safety, nay, even to his sir Robert Peoi 
 Hfe, were undoubtedly used to Sir Eobert Peel, and there is *^^'=''^**^^^'^- 
 good ground for believing that the publication of his papers 
 and correspondence would expose the existence of such influ- 
 ences brought to bear upon him to terrify, threaten, or cajole 
 him towards the objects of the Free Traders, as are fortu- 
 nately very rare in modern political life. 
 
 An advanced Free Trader said in my hearing the other day : 
 " I approve entirely and unreservedly of Free Trade, but I 
 regret the method adopted by Sir Eobert Peel to carry the 
 measure ; his conduct has given such a blow to political honesty 
 in England, as it never before received.'"'' 
 
 And now. Gentlemen, having shewn you a few of the evils 
 which have already resulted from the recent Free Trade mea- 
 sures, and feeling convinced that if persevered in they will bring 
 the whole country to desolation, I would ask what is there to Return to the 
 XDrevent our forsaking the error of our ways, and returning to ^y^Jf^J^J^"" 
 the good old system of protection to our native industry, a sys- tive industry, 
 tem under which England became the mistress of the world, 
 extended her commerce to the limits of the habitable globe. Advantages 
 planted her Colonies wherever human life could be sustained, ai?seS5omtbo 
 enlarged her political representation at home and abroad, and old system, 
 made her commercial progress the envy, the admiration, and 
 the wonder of foreign nations ? • 
 
 Public opinion is unquestionably undergoing a great change 
 on this question of miscalled Free Trade, which takes everything 
 from us and gives nothing in return, f The great apprehensions 
 of the Free Traders may be fairly measured by the violence of their 
 threats, of which the speech of Dictator Cobden to his embryo 
 Parliament assembled at Leeds in December, 1849, may be 
 taken as a sample. He said: "I admit that in some of our Cobden's 
 rural villages, where men (or, rather, we ought to call them old fJeeds^ ""* 
 women) still put horseshoes over their stable doors to keep the 
 witches from their horses, there may in some of these parishes 
 be found men who will gape and cheer when they are told that 
 we are going back to Protection ; it is nothing but an agitation of 
 the squire, his agent, and probably a parson and doctor ; but I 
 tell those Protectionist noodles they shall never have one farthing's 
 worth of Protection. Let the English landlords enter this 
 Unholy Alliance with the bankrupt, beggarly, degraded landlords 
 of Ireland (the veiy name of whom stinks in the nostrils 
 
 * These were the words of the late CI. W. Harrison, of Wakeiield, the 
 Brother of the author of " The Fallacies of Free Trade," but a man who 
 held entirely opposite views on all political and rehgious subjects.— J. H. 
 
 t However this statement may have been correct 30 years since, it is 
 undoubtedly true now ; and the perusal of every daily paper shows that the 
 trading classes of this country are determined not to be ruined for a mere 
 PoHtico-Economic theory, which has totally failed to fulfil its promises.— J. H.
 
 20 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 of the whole civiHzed world), and I ranch mistake the temper 
 of Englishmen if yon don't make snch an example of the con- 
 spirators as will make them regret the day they ever at- 
 tempted it. Let them take my word for it, they will never have 
 another Leagne agitation carried on with that snbserviency to 
 strict logical argnment which was observed in the last ; they 
 will hear the qnestion argned in a very different manner, and in 
 a very different spirit. They will have the whole aristocratic 
 system nnder which this conntry has been governed for the last 
 150 years torn to pieces ; they will have the laws of primogenitnre 
 and the whole fendal system bronght np in a way which they, 
 weak and foolish men, little expect ; let them once enter the 
 lists again, and I give them my word of promise they will be 
 glad to escape." Is not this professed Liberal mnch better 
 qnalified to be a tyrant in Enssia or Anstria than to represent 
 the West Biding of Yorkshire in a Free Parliament ? But to 
 confirm my assertion that opinions are changing, I will read you 
 a letter addressed to Mr. G. F. Young, M.P. for Scarborough, 
 Letter to dated Manchester, 24th April, 1851. The writer says : "One 
 
 Esq.",M!p.?fe'om of ^^1® most foolish acts of my life was, when under the influence 
 Manchester, of the delusion of Fcee Trade, I put down a sum, which I am 
 ashamed to mention, as the subscription of our house to what was 
 then called ' Cobden's Testimonial,' but to which a very different 
 term is now often applied. And I can tell you with equal truth 
 and honesty that a great number of those who were thus cajoled 
 into parting with their money, like myself, now bitterly repent 
 their folly. In 1849 our eyes began to be opened to the conse- 
 quences of the present unwise policy, and you may rest assured 
 that the feeling of great numbers, even in this town (the hot- 
 bed of League and Free Trade doctrines), is going rapidly round 
 to the same views that I have now expressed, and I shall be 
 rejoiced to see the cause of Protection to National Industry 
 brought to a successful issue. Talk of class legislation, indeed ; 
 why, I can see plainly enough now, that the entire legislation of 
 the last five years on commercial matters has been done at the 
 bidding of that knot of men who, to carry out their own wild 
 theories, or to further their own selfish ends, have not scrupled 
 to demand the sacrifice of any or every other interest however 
 important to the nation. But, thank God, there is now a 
 promise of their race being nearly run, and it is not too much to 
 predict that, ere long, as in the case of other quacks who have 
 preceded them, the popular feeling upon which they have thus, 
 for years, fraudulently traded (and which has already assumed a 
 character of marked indifference towards them), will, with even 
 great numbers here, change into one of absolute and well-merited 
 contempt." 
 
 I think there is now evidence that the writer of this letter is 
 quite wide-awake.
 
 FREE TRADE. 21 
 
 But we may take further ^encouragement fi-om the late elections Late elections 
 at Knaresboro' and Scarboro'. At the latter place, I am credibly and Knares^^^ 
 informed that the feeling in favour of Mr. Young and the policy borough, 
 which he advocates, was so strong that, even if there had been 
 Universal Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, or any other democratic 
 mode of election, he would still have been returned,''- the vapom-- 
 ing of The Times and its plentiful abuse of the gentry and ship- 
 owners of Scarboro' notwithstanding. Looking, therefore, to 
 this reflux of the wave of public opinion, I say to the farmers of Advice to 
 England, wait patiently for the next election, and do not be led F'^^^'^i^ers. 
 away by any of the specious jDromises of those so-called Reform 
 Associations (the title should be ' Revolutionary ') which are 
 merely brought out for the sake of some noisy man gaining popu- 
 larity, but whose ultimate object is the overthrow of the Throne, 
 the Church, and all our cherished established institutions, which 
 (whatever their faults) have enabled a larger population to 
 inhabit these comparatively small islands with a greater 
 amount of individual as well as general freedom than is re- 
 corded in the history of any other ancient or modern nation, 
 be it empire, kingdom, commonwealth, or republic. You ^^ Parliament 
 will recollect (I again repeat the statement) that the people of ever returned 
 this country never returned a Parliament instructed to repeal Free^Trade. 
 the Corn Laws, nor dared the Government (bent upon carrying 
 the measure) appeal fairly to the people upon it ; and you must 
 also remember that in 1841 there were above 18 millions of our in i84i, is mii- 
 population dependent upon agriculture, against only eight \^o^Ji°tion^'de 
 millions engaged in manufactures ; and, further, that the value of pendent upon 
 our home trade was shown at that time to be more than double S o"dy8^'uii- 
 the value of our foreign trade. Out of a manufacturing trade of iio»siipon ^ 
 which the total value was £187,184,292, the proportions were: gonae worth ' 
 home trade £128,600,000, foreign trade £58,584,292 ; and out of double the 
 a population of nearly 27 millions, the whole number of persons fo^'eign trade, 
 actually engaged in manufactures was 1,440,908, and it was 
 for the supposed benefit of these small minorities that we 
 violently changed the whole system of commercial legislation 
 under which this country had prospered for a century and a 
 half. As a body the farmers of England form the great con- Farmers form 
 servative nucleus of the country, and it is to their hatred of JJucil^g^'^*^^® 
 innovation, sound constitutional feeling, and determined loyalty 
 (and not to cheap bread or Free Trade), that we owe our 
 immunity from those democratic convulsions which have taken 
 place in almost every other part of Europe. 
 
 Such revolutionary speeches as that made by John Bright, at johnBright's 
 Manchester, on the occasion of the visit of the Republican Exile Manche^ster. 
 (Kossuth), should open the eyes of all the real friends of liberty 
 
 * This was written before concealment of principle by secret voting was 
 legalised. — J, H.
 
 22 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 and order to the dangerous designs of those who dehght to call 
 themselves the " Party of Progress," especially when we see the 
 effect produced in France by the principles which they so freely 
 enunciate. It is no use whatever your asking the present 
 Ministry or the present Parliament for anything ; you have 
 been so insulted, and treated with such contempt by them, that 
 you would only expose yourselves to a repetition of the same 
 conduct. But at the next election, if you all in every part of the 
 kingdom exert yourselves, you will have a very different House 
 of Commons. You must then steadily, calmly, and firmly, but 
 by strictly constitutional means, demand the restoration of your 
 rights, which have been forcibly taken from you ; but do not 
 follow the example of your opponents, and seek to terrify an 
 unwilling minister into compliance by threats directed against 
 his personal safety. 
 Farming in- Why is the farming interest to be the only one in the Kingdom 
 
 oulunpi?)^''^^ unprotected ? The manufacturers have a list of 70 articles all 
 tected. protected by a duty of from 10 to 25 per cent., including cotton 
 
 goods, linen, thread, lace, woollens, blankets, and many other 
 articles of daily use.''' 
 Imaginary You have been taunted and insulted about an imaginary offer 
 
 affixed duty, of an 8s. fixed duty, which it is implied was offered to you a few 
 years ago, and which it is said you ought to have accepted. In 
 the first place, it was never offered in a hand fide manner, and, in 
 the next place, if it had been, I say you would have done quite 
 right to refuse it, as it was not at that time your due. Suppose 
 one of your neighbours who was fairly indebted to you in the 
 sum of 206'. (for fighting his battles and taking care of his property 
 for him), should come into your house with his pocket full of 
 money, and offer you 8s., would you accept it? And if, after a 
 few years, his riches still increasing (and prnicipally through your 
 exertions), he should again make his appearance and say, " You 
 would not take 8s. when I offered it to you, so now , I shall pay 
 you nothing ; " and in addition to this wrong, should call you 
 clodhopper and chaw-bacon, and several other similar choice 
 names, taken from the elegant vocabulary of The Times, Cobden, 
 Bright, and other advanced schools,! would not your English spirit 
 of hatred of injustice be aroused ? and you would endeavour by 
 ]3ractical punishment to show him your opinion of his views of 
 Political Economy, 
 objections to a J ^^a opposed to a fixed duty of any exact sum per quarter, 
 ^^ ^* as, from what I have before said, you will find that corn can 
 be bought so low abroad that no reasonable fixed duty would 
 
 * Many of these duties have since been repealed ; hence the present serious 
 complaints of the manufacturers — September, 1881. — J. H. 
 
 t The calling of hard names, and particularly the attaching of offensive 
 epithets to all connected with farming, were unfortunately very rife at that 
 period. — J. H.
 
 FREE TRADE. 23 
 
 do you any good, and a small one of 5s. to 8.s. per quarter would |^J^J^i J^Jy,^i. 
 advance the price very little here, and would not make it any- vancetiio price 
 thing near what you are fairly entitled to. in this country. 
 
 The averages at Dantsic were, in 1824, 18.s. Q>d. per quarter ; Avoragosat 
 in 1825, 17s. 3^?.; in 1826, 18s. 6^^. ; in 1827, 22s. 3^/.; and S^nriS? 
 £i-om 1883 to 1837, 21s. to 25s.- 
 
 The evidence of Mr. Sandars before the House of Lords 
 shows, that if 15s. per quarter could be insured to the Pohsh 
 landowners, the growth would increase, and the quantity that 
 could be sent would be inexhaustible ; and as a proof that this 
 opinion is well founded, I will read an extract from the Times 
 of the 29th October, 1851: "Advices from Odessa state ^^^^^ l^y^^se^^^V- 
 an expectation exists that large supplies of wheat will be for- beWs proguos- 
 warded from that port to the United Kingdom, the harvest ticatious. 
 having been abundant and the quality superior to that of any 
 former season. Prices had been declining for some time, and 
 although the stock in hand was 730,000 quarters, further large 
 supplies were expected before the close of the season." 
 
 On the 15th October I had a letter from Alexandria reporting ^'f/^^^^^.^j, 
 supplies as very abundant, and stating that orders might be 
 executed for the best wheat at 16s. per quarter, beans 18s. to 
 14s., and barley 9s. 6tZ., all free on board ; and on the 5th 
 November last I had further advices, that upwards of 100 vessels 
 had arrived out, and were all chartered to load grain for England 
 at fi-om Q>s. 6d. to 7s. nd. per quarter freight,— so that, you see, ^Jt'^gJ'o'j^si^jf.^ 
 low prices in England do not stop supplies. It is therefore piies. see 
 evident that a fixed duty would not bring the price to anything ^/^^g'^^^^^'^' ''* 
 near what you were promised by Peel in 1842, and which all 
 your opponents then thought low enough. 
 
 At the same time there can be but little hope of assistance 
 fi'om any advance in prices, as such help could, from causes 
 which I have already sketched, be only temporary. Confirming 
 my views on this subject, I will read you an extract from the 
 circular of the largest house in the grain trade in Scotland. After 
 giving the usual market quotations, etc., they say: " The crops 
 generally at home (and, of wheat especially, in England) are 
 larger, and of better quality, than last year ; we have consider- 
 ably larger granary stocks of foreign wheat than at this time 
 twelve months ; America, the Black Sea, and Egypt have plenty 
 to spare, and we apprehend France, too, will contribute both 
 flour and wheat to our supplies ; we have thus no scarcity to 
 ax)preliend betwixt and spring, after which prices will be governed 
 by the appearance of the season, and the importations to be 
 
 * I have been unable to obtain the average price at Dantsic during the 
 last few years, but it is sufiiciently dearer to prove my assertions at pages 
 29, 30, 31 and 32 of " Further Komarks on the Fallacies of Free Trade," that 
 the duties formerly levied at our ports were paid by the foreigners, or at 
 least a very large portion of them. — J. H.
 
 24 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 expected from every quarter, which will then be opened to us. 
 
 Free Trade has given an imjndse to cultivation throughout the world, 
 
 the surplus of every country is poured out on Britain, and while 
 
 this continues ive cannot look for greatly improved prices, till such 
 
 time as the British farmer is driven from being longer able to cultivate 
 
 successfully" 
 
 Advocacy of The sliding scale, if properly arranged and honestly worked, 
 
 sliding scale. -^ ^j^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^i parties, although I know it was much abused 
 
 when in operation, and also that those abuses went unchecked 
 
 by the Government of the day because they were anxious to 
 
 bring the law into disrepute, with a view to the adoption of some 
 
 of the new-fangled theories which have since prevailed. Still, 
 
 Eleven million the admission of above 11 million quarters of wheat between 
 
 wTearfm- 1828 and 1841, at an average duty of 5s. Qd. per quarter, may 
 
 i89?aid'?84i^^ ^^ taken as a proof that the sliding scale did not work very 
 
 at'an average badly for the coiisumcr. It is a remarkable fact, but one well 
 
 dutyof ss.GcZ. i^j-^Q^j-^ ^Q the corn trade, that nearly all the firms that were 
 
 known to be concerned in false or spurious returns have been 
 
 obliged to go through the bankrupt or insolvent list, thus proving 
 
 the truth of the old adage (and which will apply to Governments 
 
 as well as to individuals) that "honesty is the best policy." If, 
 
 then, experience has shown some difficulty in getting correct corn 
 
 Fanners to retums from the grain trade, let us now try the farmers, and let 
 
 ^turus?^" them give in the returns. Exclude all the ports, and any place 
 
 where it is possible the same bulk might be returned twice, and 
 
 let the average really represent the price which the farmer 
 
 actually receives. 
 
 Then, when the price of English wheat is below 40s., prohibit 
 the importation of Foreign corn altogether, as I contend the 
 consumer has no right to go abroad when he can get a cheap 
 supply of home-grown produce. 
 Scheme for At 40s. let the duty be 10s., decreasing Is. as the price advances 
 
 sliding scale. ^^^^ ^nd at 50s. let the duty cease entirely; this would not 
 only save the farmers from ruin, but would encourage the manu- 
 facturers by increasing the purchasing power of their home 
 customers, and would enable the millers to supply the poor with 
 good flour below 40s. per sack, and which would be a lower 
 XDrice than in the good old times of our forefathers, with whom 
 Average price the average price of wheat from 1646 to 1688, a period of 43 
 i646'to^i688.°™ years, was 50s. Qd. per quarter, and who in 1670 passed a 
 Corn Law corii law imposing a duty of 16s. per quarter on corn, when the 
 passed in 1670. ^^^.g ^f ^j^g^t fell to 43s. U. or under. 
 
 Speech of Lord I am afraid I liave trespassed too long upon your time, but 
 Naas. still I feel I must add the eloquent peroration to Lord Naas's 
 
 excellent speech on this subject, recently delivered by him 
 in the House of Lords. He said : " Of one thing I am cer- 
 tain, the iDrinciples I have this night humbly endeavoured 
 to advocate are everlasting and indestructible. I cannot
 
 FREE TRADE. 25 
 
 imagine that a system mider which, with God's blessing, 
 England had attained to a degree of power and glory mi- 
 Imown to history, can merely, by Act of Parliament, be swept 
 from the hearts and recollections of the people of this comitry. 
 I cannot believe that the nation will soon forget a system which 
 made England the queen of commerce and the mistress of the 
 seas — a system which made your merchant princes, and enabled 
 you to send your sons to govern, with Imperial sway, distant 
 nations in every quarter of the globle — a system based upon a 
 principle implanted in every bosom, and so deeply rooted in our 
 hearts, that it finds expression in one of the homeliest proverbs 
 in our tongue — ' The first law of nature — self-preservation.' " 
 And finally, in the hope of stimulating the landlords to 
 assist you in the good work of restoring the languishing 
 trade of the country, I will conclude with an extract from 
 the letter of Mr. G. F. Young, M.P., to the Landed Pro- 
 prietors of the United Kingdom. He writes: "Is it, I ven- Letter of g. f. 
 tm*e to ask, just, is it generous, is it safe, for the landed m?p!^^' ^^'^'' 
 aristocracy to stand coldly aloof in selfish isolation, while the 
 tenant-farmers are bearing the brunt of the struggle in which 
 they are engaged, for the preservation (if my reasoning be right) 
 equally of your estates as of their own property and position ? 
 Can you fail to perceive that, if tenants are ruined, labourers 
 reduced to mendicancy and landlords impoverished and degraded, 
 a social revolution will be consummated and a political revolution 
 will be inevitable ? In the name, then, of all that is honourable, 
 prudent, and just — as you would retain the inheritance you have 
 received from your ancestors ; as you would avert fi-om society 
 the mischiefs which separation between classes (whose interests 
 are identical) must engender, and would preserve your country 
 from the degradation and danger of becoming dependent on 
 foreign nations for subsistence ; as you would discharge the 
 public and private duties devolving on you from the station in 
 life to which it has pleased God to call you — I beseech you, even 
 at this the eleventh hour, to hold out the right hand of fellowship 
 to your suffering, hitherto neglected, and now naturally indignant 
 tenantry, and to take the lead, as honom-ably becomes you, in 
 the struggle they are so manfully maintaining for the restoration 
 of just and equal protection to every British interest against the 
 withering blight of unlimited foreign competition."
 
 FURTHER REMARKS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 FALLACIES OF FREE TRADE. 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES HAKRISON, 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 The foregoing pages deal so fully with the question of Free 
 Trade as it stood at the time of their composition, that (beyond 
 the notes which I have ventured to introduce) it is scarcely 
 necessary to make any remark upon them. The flight of 30 
 years since they were written, has however, produced such 
 changes, that the son of the author of " The Fallacies of Free 
 Trade" (holding and endorsing, after an equally lengthened 
 experience of business, his late father's opinions) may, perhaps, 
 be allowed to place on record his views of the present position of 
 the controversy, and to contribute his humble quota towards its 
 discussion. 
 
 The greatest difficulty experienced by the present " advocates of speech of f.b. 
 measures for the encouragement of native industry," has been so Jp^^hSI."^^^'' 
 well sketched by Mr. F. B. Grotrian, of Hull, that I cannot do ' ' 
 better than quote his words : " There was so much to be threshed 
 out before one could hope to get hold of the minds of the general 
 public — such an enormous mass of confusing and misleading 
 figures and statistics — that was to say, correct and true in them- 
 selves, but confusing and misleading when tied up with false 
 theories — theories which one would hold to be obviously false, 
 but which had got to be so accepted as gospel — that most people 
 adopted the easy road of swallowing them right off, rather than 
 the narrow and tortuous lanes of thought and reason." 
 
 The first and most important error appears to be a blind 
 adhesion to the Policy of " Free Trade at any price,'' without mak- 
 ing allowance for the changes which have occurred during the 
 thirty years which have elapsed since the adoption of the system, 
 and without taking into consideration how far the promises of its 
 promoters have been realised, or the predictions of its opponents 
 fulfilled.
 
 28 
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Cobden's 
 prophecy, 
 
 Disraeli's 
 prediction 
 
 Letter from 
 J. B. D. Tolle 
 mache, Esq., 
 M.P. 
 
 To quote from The Globe newspaper: "Thirty years ago Mr. 
 Cobden declared the time was at hand when other nations 
 would be compelled by self-interest and by the reality of our pros- 
 perity to follow our example and adopt Free Trade. About the 
 same time, as Sir Edward Sullivan pointed out in a recent article, 
 Mr. Disraeli said in the House of Commons, ' The time will come 
 when the working classes of England will come to you on bended 
 knees and pray you to undo your present legislation.' This was in 
 1852, and now in 1881 we can judge from the speeches of econo- 
 mists and the cry of the public who was right in his forecast." 
 
 And the short but able letter of Mr. J. E. D. Tollemache may 
 well be added: "Fair Trade. — To the editor of The Morning Post. 
 — Sir, — Many people daily read with great interest the letters 
 that appear in your columns on the subject of Fair Trade. I trust 
 you will continue to use your powerful influence in the same 
 direction — viz., of showing how disastrously the effect of Free 
 Trade has been, and is now operating, on every industry in this 
 country. The United States are oiow the most jirosperous community 
 on the face of the earth, and at the same time the most highly 
 2)rotected one. Certain Leaders of the Liberal party have long 
 misled the public mind, but there is no doubt that the working class 
 — and also every other class — are now beginning to perceive 
 how completely they have been gulled. Mr. Cobden's prophecy 
 that other nations would soon follow our example when we adopted 
 Free Trade, has been falsified to an absurd degree. Li fact they 
 have done just the reverse, and are now laughing at us for having 
 been such dupes. — Your obedient servant, J. R. D. Tollemache. 
 — 8, St. James's-square, Sept. 8." 
 
 Surely there is no reason why the dissapointed Free Trader of 
 1846 should not become the hopeful Fair Trader of 1881. 
 
 The actual position of affairs has, however, been so ably 
 and succinctly sketched by Lord Borthwick in his letter to 
 The Times, of the 6th September, that it may be re-quoted here 
 with advantage. He writes : — 
 
 "British Trade. — To the editor of The Times. — Sir, — In reading 
 Mr. Challis's letter on British trade in The Times of the 29th ult., 
 I question whether a committee such as he suggests would much 
 aid us towards a solution of the difficulties which at present em- 
 barrass the controversy for and against Free Trade. A short 
 review of matters at the time of the Corn Law League may, 
 however, possibly help to account for the seeming change in 
 public opinion as to the unqualified advantages of the system, 
 and for the getting up of fair trade and other leagues consequent 
 on this change. The Corn Law League of 1846 was, no doubt, 
 League of 1846. the sequence to the fact becoming more and more evident 
 every year that our population had been growing beyond the 
 means of maintaining it from the agricultural products at home, 
 owing to the continuous increase for years past of our manu- 
 
 Corn Law
 
 FREE TRADE. 29 
 
 facturing industries. Abundant and easily accessible coal and Coai and iron 
 iron in the hands of a naturally energetic, ingenious, and accessible, 
 mechanical people had been giving us the power of working to 
 advantage for others as well as ourselves, and at rates, too, which 
 gave us the command at that time of the markets of the world. 
 The demand for our exports was in effect the employment and 
 actual rcmon cVetre of an ever-increasing industrial class among 
 us, till by degrees the numbers came so to press on our own 
 power to supply food from land at home that relief fi"om existing 
 restrictions on its supply from abroad became imperative, and 
 the Corn Law League originating in the manufacturing districts 
 gave force and cohesion to the movement. Our manufacturing 
 industries and great trading propensities otherwise acting and 
 re-acting on each other for the better part of the last century, 
 now leave us with numbers nearly double what can be supplied 
 from our own agricultural resources. As it happened, the Railways and 
 development of railways and steam navigation w^as coincident cident^-Jdth^^"' 
 with the adoption of Free Trade in England, and these, all Free Trade, 
 acting in one direction, gave rise to actual leaps and bounds in 
 our national prosperity fi-om that time forward. During the 
 process, however, we have been gradually teaching and en- 
 couraging in every way our foreign customers to supply them- 
 selves with that which has been the chief cause of our national 
 advance in wealth, numbers, and profitable emplQ^ixient for 
 them, and the inevitable result is now beginning to show itself 
 in an excess of workmen beyond the demand for their labour. 
 I would suggest that the advocates of Free Trade on abstract 
 principles, when establishing their doctrine in practice, over- Control over 
 looked one point in the game, and that was that, while having ov^J'r'^exports.^ 
 dontrol over imports so long as we may choose to exercise any, 
 we have no power whatever over exports beyond what it may be 
 the interest or prejudice of the foreigner to admit or exclude. 
 Export of our manufactures means, as already expressed, the 
 payment of our artisan's wages by the foreign consumers, and 
 import of foreign manufactures, in like manner, means our pay- 
 ing the wages of theirs. Seeing this, American and European 
 nationalities are encouraging now by every means in their power 
 the process of excessive duties on our exports to them, while 
 politely, if not cynically, accepting the correctness and duties of 
 Free Trade, so far as applied by us in our free importation of the 
 results of theirs in competition with and subversion of om* own. 
 The popular mind seems to have been led astray by the tempting 
 dictum that we must be allowed to buy in the cheapest market 
 and sell in the dearest, the corollary being that duties levied on 
 imported goods cost the importing nation the amount of such 
 duties. The individual consumer, no doubt, has to pay the 
 enhanced price ; but the nation collectively has to pay in other 
 taxation exactly so much the less towards the year's revenue as
 
 30 
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Purchasers of 
 luxuries 
 exempt from 
 taxation. 
 
 Theory of dllty 
 paid by con- 
 sumer. 
 
 Taxing the 
 
 poor man's 
 
 bread. 
 
 A catching 
 
 title. 
 
 is represented by the duty assessed. The price, for instance, of 
 tobacco is raised to the consumer probably 20 times its importing 
 price by reason of the customs' duty exacted ; the price of alcohol, 
 let us say, is in like manner affected by the excise duty imposed ; 
 but this is no loss in any reasonable sense to the nation. We 
 require a revenue at present of some 80 millions sterling a year. 
 The consumers of the above severely-taxed commodities con- 
 tribute, I think, in duties paid nearly one-fourth part of this 
 amount to the relief of taxpayers otherwise. The purchasers of 
 French silks, gloves, and wines, of the thousand-and-one various 
 articles of American and continental articles of luxury and 
 fashion, get off comparatively scot free. But were a revenue 
 duty exacted whereby, let us say, five millions only were paid 
 by the Avell-to-do consumers of such fashionable wares into the 
 Exchequer, a gifted Chancellor of the same might be able to 
 cheapen considerably the thirsty operative's pot of beer or pipe 
 of tobacco. Any such duty would fall mainly on foreign goods 
 not of first, if indeed of any, necessity to the masses here ; and 
 goods, besides, comprised of materials which, if brought into 
 this country duty free, could in most cases be equally well, if not 
 also equally cheaply, manufactured by our own artisans. We 
 are in all this, I maintain, burning the candle at both ends in 
 order to support a doctrine conceived in haste and brought forth 
 in iniquity — except adopted by all nations alike. Is it political 
 spleen or cowardice that makes us unable to acknowledge and 
 correct mistakes now being made manifest in the light of results 
 which contradict previous conclusions ? Whichever party in the 
 State may first rise to the occasion, that party, I venture to 
 predict, will be carried shoulder-high into popular favour and 
 joower before long. — I am, sir, your obedient servant, Bortli- 
 wick. — Eavenstone, Sept. G." 
 
 Speaking at the dinner of the Fair Trade Conference, on the 
 loth September, Sir Algernon Borthwick ably described Free Trade 
 " as a policy which, carried to its logical conclusion, would 
 squander the accumulations of the past, extract those of the pre- 
 sent, and discount those of the future. Mr. Sampson Lloyd 
 c.vphdned Fair Trade to be freedom not only to purchase the pro- 
 ducts of other men's labour, but freedom to dispose of the pro- 
 ducts of their own." 
 
 A most erroneous theory to be refuted is that which alleges 
 that the amount of a duty is paid by the consumer in the shape 
 of an enhanced price of the commodity to him ; and hence 
 many very good and kind-hearted people shrink from even 
 ai^proaching the subject of what the advocates of free importa= 
 tions have euphoniously styled " taxing the poor man's bread." 
 
 The title is a catching one (to the unthinking), but neverthe- 
 less erroneous. It is gratifying to observe that some speakers 
 are boldly tackling this bugbear ; it was properly defined by
 
 FREE TRADE. 31 
 
 Mr. Maxsted, of Hull, the other night, when he said " Yes " e. p. Maxstea, 
 
 to the question of putting a duty upon corn — " No " to the ■^^'^■"^■■'^'' ■^ * 
 
 question of taxing the poor man's food. A moderate duty Moder&te aniy 
 
 would tw more he paid hu the consumer, than the few nuineas ^^t}]?:'^?J^^ 
 
 1 • • T • 1 n r -iV 7 T » consumer. 
 
 subscnption which Mr, Maxsted or any other corn merchant 
 
 pays for the privileye of entry to the different Corn Eivchanyes 
 
 which he attends, is jyaid by the miller who comes there to 
 
 buy. 
 
 A gentleman signing himself D.D.S.D. writes to The Eastern Lettev of 
 Morniny News, asking : "1. If the duties he (Mr. Maxsted) named Efsfe^i' ^^ 
 would be ' raised and maintained entu'ely by the foreigners,' why Morning Neivs, 
 they should not be levied sufficiently high to pay the whole of the 
 national expenditure, as well as to gradually sweep off the 
 national debt, and, possibly, to provide a useful yearly bonus for 
 John Bull ? 2. If he thinks that the duties he names could not 
 be advanced beyond his figures without inflicting taxation on 
 ourselves, how he arrives at the exact figures the foreigner 
 would be willing to pay, and how he finds the point where a 
 duty would be ' felt ' ? " 
 
 The answers are very obvious : 1st. The excessive duties 
 which he suggests would be as prohibitive as a fee of several 
 hundred guineas for entering a Corn Exchange : in this question 
 he has reached the arymnentum ad ahsurduin, and 2nd. He will 
 find on reference that Mr. Maxsted does not arbitrarily state his 
 figures as the exact amount which foreign corn would pay 
 without cost to ourselves, but advances it as his proposal. 
 Personally, I hold that a duty of Is. per cwt. would be better, Duty of is. per 
 and would allow a difi'erence per imperial quarter in duty for ^^^' 
 the difierent qualities of corn according to their weight and 
 value. The gentleman asks a further question: "Whether on 
 reflection Mr. Maxsted's own large experience of the American 
 grain trade does not prove to him that grain is not forced on 
 England at what we are willing to pay ; if it is not true that 
 during the last three years the Americans have many times 
 held their grain at prices relatively higher than were being 
 paid in England ; if they are not doing so at the present 
 moment, with the result of causing a large advance all over the 
 world ?" 
 
 Doubtless the Americans have frequently endeavoured by Americau corn 
 forming what they term a '"ring" to bull the priceof grain, but in 
 eveiy instance they have signally failed in their efforts ; during 
 the last week or two they have made the same attempt, and, 
 backed by the very bad weather have had more than their usual 
 success ; but the bad weather is the cause of the '* advance all 
 over the world," not the American ring. That our prices are 
 not entirely influenced by those abroad has been sufficiently 
 shown at page 23 of " The Fallacies of Free Trade," and 
 from a Parliamentary return, recently printed, it appears 
 
 xmt,
 
 32 
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Prices of wheat 
 from 1820 to 
 1850, and from 
 1850 to 1880. 
 See Parlia- 
 mentary 
 return recently 
 obtained by 
 John Talbot, 
 Esq., M.P. 
 
 Surplus pro- 
 duct. 
 
 Senders con- 
 tribute to our 
 revenue. 
 
 New French 
 tariff. 
 
 Nations having 
 surplus pro- 
 ducts must 
 pay reasonable 
 duties. 
 
 John Stuart 
 Mill. 
 
 Discussion 
 witli an 
 exporter. 
 
 that the price of wheat from 1820 to 1850 was only Q>s. 4rt. 
 per quarter higher than fi'om 1850 to 1880. The average 
 amount of duty during that period I have not heen able to 
 obtain, but from my recollection of figm-es I believe it to have 
 reached a much higher average than 6s. 4cL Dantsic has been 
 already quoted, but if we take Egypt, Russia, Hungary, 
 Poland, Turkey, America and all other places which send us 
 their surplus jyroduct of grain, we shall find that the prices in those 
 countries have advanced much more than the duties which we 
 threw off, showing clearly that the corn would have come to this 
 country notwithstanding a duty imder which the senders would 
 have contributed their quota to our revenue. 
 
 If the axiom I have laid down as to the payment of duties, 
 or, at least, a considerable portion of them by the senders of 
 goods seekimj a market, be incorrect, then why the anxiety dis- 
 played by our manufacturers at present about the more stringent 
 clauses anticipated in the new French Tariff ? Surely there is no 
 such feeling of cosmopolitan charity suddenly sprimg up as to 
 make them regret the increased cost which [according to the Free- 
 Trade-at-any -price theory) the French are about to impose upon 
 themselves, — certainly not ; our manufacturers know perfectly 
 well that an increased duty on the other side will have to he 2)aid 
 for by them if they seek to send their surplus 'products there. 
 
 Any nation, having surplus products of raw material or manufac- 
 tures, must, in seeking a market for such surplus, hear the duties and 
 charges (within reasonable limits), ivhich the recijnent nation may 
 think fit to levy. 
 
 That favourite authority with Free Traders, John Stuart Mill, 
 says : " It may, therefore, be laid down as a principle, that a tax 
 upon important commodities, when it really operates as a tax, 
 and not as a prohibition either total or partial, almost always 
 falls in part upon the foreigners who consume our goods, and 
 that this is a mode in which a nation may appropriate to itself, 
 at the expense of foreigners, a larger share than would other- 
 wise belong to it of the increase in the general productiveness 
 of the labour and capital of the world, which results from the 
 interchange of commodities among nations." 
 
 Some little time since, it was my fate to take part in a dis- 
 cussion where many interests were represented, and where the 
 conversation turned upon the depressed condition of English 
 trade, remedial measures, reciprocity. Free Trade, etc., etc. 
 Amongst the company was the representative of a large 
 export house, who, while admitting that the present levying 
 of duties upon English goods by foreign countries was unfair, 
 did not see his way to our imposing corresponding duties 
 upon their imports, for, as he very justly said, " You could not 
 exempt corn, and then you would tax the food of the people." 
 An old Protectionist present asked him, " Do you export your 
 goods to France and Germany, and pay their duties ?" " Yes,"
 
 FREE TRADE. 33 
 
 he replied, " largely." " Then," said the enquirer, " do you find 
 that you can obtain the same price for your goods, after deduct- 
 ing freight charges and duty, that you net in England ?" " Oh, Our exporters 
 no," he answered, "we can only sell a certain portion of our oTfoJeYS^^^^ 
 manufactiu-es at home, the surplus must find a market in foreign imposts, 
 countries, and be subject to the duties, or a considerable portion 
 of them, which those countries impose." 
 
 It is needless to say that the old Protectionist did not think 
 it necessary to ask any further questions on that point, and (to 
 reasoning minds) it ought to be equally unnecessary to say that 
 corn occupies the same position, and the surplus product r;/ r/W importers to 
 countries comiivj to Ewjlcmd would hear the incidence of the impost l^y ^^^^^^^^ 
 placed tqwn it. This is more especially the case as regards corn, on their sm-- 
 it being one of the easily raised products of virgin soils, and ^^ ^^ ^^° ^^ ' 
 most fi'equently grown in new or imperfectly developed countries, very small 
 where costs of production being light, a very small net return ^fJl p^^J^" 
 to the grower will recoup him for his outlay, and induce him foreign grower 
 to continue cultivation. ^^ ^°^^' 
 
 I have observed the letter of Mr. William Halls, in The Letter of Mr. 
 Eastern Morning News, fi'om which I append the following ex- ^o ^jfsT ?i^^^^ 
 tract: — "To the editor of The Eastern Mornin;/ Neivs. — Fvee Morning ncivs. 
 Trade or Protection. — Sir, — I refer to your paper of the 16th, 
 and to the arguments used at the Conservative meeting' held in 
 Hull on the previous evening. I find I can, in Eotterdam, buy 
 a box containing one pound of cigars for 2s. 6d. ; in Bordeaux, 
 a bottle of brandy, containing one-sixth of a gallon, for 2^. ; in 
 Stettin, one quarter of wheat for, say, 40s. I know if I bring 
 them with me to Hull I shall, in addition to the fi-eight, pay 
 6s. 6d. duty on the cigars, 2s. Gd. on the brandy, and, if there 
 were a duty on the wheat of Is. per quarter, shall I not take out 
 of my own purse 9s. for the cigars, 4s. 6d. for the brandy, and 
 41s. for the wheat ? Of course I shall. If I import ten million 
 bottles of brandy, or ten million quarters of wheat, shall I not 
 take out of my own purse ten million half-crowns and ten million 
 shillings ? Of course I shall." 
 
 Mr. Hall's views are valuable, but principally as showing how Mistake as to 
 Free Traders are liable to mix the incidence of a duty upoyi goods a\iuly"^® °* 
 ivhich cannot be produced at home, with an impost upon raw materials 
 or manufactures which are indigenous to the importing in common 
 with the exporting country. We do not produce tobacco or 
 brandy, the duties (which for purposes of revenue, or as a tax 
 upon luxuries, w'e may think it well to levy) must, therefore, be 
 paid by ourselves. The wheat comes in a different category ; 
 had there been a duty of Is. per quarter on it, Mr. Halls would 
 have bought it at 39.s. per quarter at Dantsic instead of 40s., 
 and his position would only have been changed, in that he would 
 have had the patriotic satisfaction of being the medium of 
 
 c
 
 34 
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Article from 
 Eastern Morn- 
 ing Neivs, of 
 the 21st July 
 last. 
 
 Sec page 6. 
 
 See page 44, 
 English seed 
 crushing. 
 
 conveyance of Is. fi'om the foreign grower of the corn to our 
 British exchequer. 
 
 In support of the correctness of these views, I refer to the 
 speech of the American President, at page 17 of the foregoing 
 Paper ; and as a proof of their result upon the prosperity of a 
 nation, I annex an article which appeared in The Eastern 
 Morninfj News, of the 21st July last : 
 
 **Envy, according to all the copybooks, disfigures the features 
 and distorts the mind ; but if the copybooks did not warn us, we 
 might feel envy on reading such a report as that just presented to 
 Parliament on the commerce of the United States. Written by 
 the First Secretary of Legation inWashington, it is, much as though 
 it had been written by an American, one long record of success. 
 Mr. Drummond is even pleonastic in his praise, for he speaks of 
 increasing prosperity not only being maintained, but steadily 
 progressing. American exports e.vceed American imports. The 
 rise in the value of American land is on an average eight per cent. 
 ' Financially the United States is in the soundest condition.' 
 ' In agriculture great progress has been made,' and the progress 
 is proved by figures. The acreage of wheat has increased nearly 
 eleven per cent., and has given a crop last year calculated at 
 480,847,000 bushels, against 448,756,000 bushels in 1879 ; this 
 leaves an estimated surplus of 205,000,000 bushels for export. 
 ' Great progress ' has also been made in the textile trade. ' The 
 manufactures of cotton and woollen have been on an unpre- 
 cedented scale, as is shown by the great increase in the con- 
 sumption of raw cotton and the great production of carpets, 
 rugs, and blankets. All the mills have been fully engaged, and 
 production of goods has been sold ahead. Thus, notwith- 
 standing the large quanity of new machinery, there was very 
 little accumulation of goods, and the mills were, and are, in a 
 very prosperous condition. Owing to increased cost of material 
 and labour, the earnings of manufacturers have not, in a general 
 way, averaged more than in 1879. The producing capacity will 
 shortly be largQly increased, both in the Northern and Southern 
 States. The actual increase in domestic consumption has been, 
 it is calculated, in the Northern States, 15 per cent., in the 
 Southern States 18 per cent., more bales of cotton than in the 
 previous year. An advance of prices may be reasonably ex- 
 pected.' Nor is this all. Large fortunes are now to be made 
 out of cotton seeds previously thrown away as useless. ' The 
 almost unrealised portion of the ^Droduct of a single year's 
 cultivation of the cotton plant on the area now in use for that 
 purpose (about 13,000,000 acres, or less than two per cent, of 
 the area of the cotton States) may therefore consist of 75,000,000 
 to 90,000,000 gallons of oil, 500,000 to 750,000 tons of paper, 
 or 50,000,000 to 100,000,000 pounds of fine clothing wool ; and 
 a^s an incident of this progress, 50 to 100 per cent, more cotton
 
 FREE TRADE. 35 
 
 fibre from the same area of land now cultivated will be produced 
 
 with less labour than is now expended, because the large crop 
 
 on a fertile acre can be picked with as little labour as the small 
 
 crop on a sterile one, and the limit of the production of cotton 
 
 is in the power of picking the cotton, not in the power of 
 
 cultivating.' Another discovery is that the cotton seeds may 
 
 have the oil taken from them by the action of diluted sulphuric ^Jif f^^ift'^^iKi 
 
 acid, not only without destrojdng their fertility, but even with another tWes 
 
 increased faciHty of production. Then the silk production is j;^'g^;^^jj;« ^^ 
 
 increasing. The American rivers are being again stocked with 
 
 fish. The American oyster trade is advancing with enormous 
 
 strides. Of the fruit trade it is needless to speak : our shops at 
 
 this moment bear witness to it. In fact, the increase of the 
 
 trade is such that every immigrant who enters the country finds 
 
 work to do, and more than half a million a-year are rushing into 
 
 the land.^' The Americans mourn over only one fact. They p^gef^Sj^eren- 
 
 have not the carrying trade. More than half of the carrying tiai duties on 
 
 trade of America is done in British vessels. Only a quarter ^ is seSu-rdrrymg 
 
 done in American vessels. The Yankees want now to seize trade. 
 
 that by iDiotective laws. Surely they can let us have this one 
 
 consolation." 
 
 One of the most fi-equently advanced and favourite arguments 
 of the advocates of imports unjustly freed from their due share 
 of our taxation, is the increase in the volume of our trade ^oSlof" 
 during the last 30 years, and it is argued that such an in- trade. 
 crease could not have taken place under a system of duties 
 levied at our ports. This argument makes no allowance what- 
 ever for all the inventions and improvements of the same period, J2ip!"vemeStsl 
 for the increase of the circulating medium (and consequent 
 extension of trade), caused by the discoveries of gold in California gj°^^^^j.fj|- 
 and Austraha, for the improvement of means of communication 
 developed by railways, steamers, and telegraphs ; nor for the JScatiin^'"" 
 spread of intelligence amongst mankind, developing that greater spread of 
 knowledge of each other which has ever been one of the most iuteiiigcuce. 
 advanced pioneers of Commerce. 
 
 To place all the gains which the Free Traders claim for their 
 idol to the operations of their favourite dogma, is to state one of naif truths, 
 those half-truths which are worse to contend with than absolute 
 falsehood, which spring from that "little knowledge which is a ^ ^^^^^^ 
 dangerous thing," and which, as Mr. Grotrian very properly said, F^^B.^GiStrian, 
 " have to be threshed out " before we can get at the real facts Esq, j.p., Huii. 
 of the case. 
 
 A sam^Dle of these mis-statements appeared in The Echo The Echo. 
 some little time since. The editor, after alluding to a Parlia- 
 mentary return of the imports of grain, flour, and other pro- parliamentary 
 visions during the last GO years, which has recently been obtained return ob- 
 bv Mr. John Talbot, and which return I recommend to all who john Taibot, 
 
 _1 [ Esq, M.P. 
 
 * Thereby increasing the product of porn to swamp our agriculture.
 
 36 TEE FALLACIES OF 
 
 wish to study the question of statistics of our food imports, 
 proceeds to say : " If the Protectionist poHcy of Mr. Talbot's 
 friends had prevailed, the people would have been deprived of 
 the chief portion of this food supply." 
 
 Now here is a half-truth ; there is no proof whatever that under 
 
 a moderate duty " the people would have been deprived of the 
 
 Acreage under chief portion of this food supply," but there is strong presumptive 
 
 dtoSiished'by evidence, based upon long experience, that under such a system 
 
 1,000,000 acres the 1,000,000 acres of land in the United Kingdom which have 
 
 gone out of wheat cultivation since 1868, constituting one-fourth 
 
 of the whole area at that time under that cereal, would have 
 
 been smiling with crops, the producers of which would have 
 
 been consumers of our home manufactures, whereas, in the 
 
 other case, the growers of the corn have spent their money in 
 
 the home which they foster and encourage — America. And fur- 
 
 Diity of Is. per tlier, the statement fails to point out, that a duty of Is. per 
 
 Snported"^^ cwt. ou the com alonc, imported during 1880, would have 
 
 iiav?raile?*^^ raised nearly 6f millions of money, which the " advocates of 
 
 6^ millions. measiu'cs for the encouragement of native industry" contend 
 
 neiioi to homo ivould have been _paw^ by the foreigner, and would, to that extent, 
 
 axa ion. j^^^^ relieved us from a great part of the income tax, or some other 
 
 equally opjjrcssive burthen. 
 
 While on this subject of the volume of trade, we shall (to use 
 
 the words of the secretaries of the National League, in their 
 
 Increase in letter to The Morning Post of the 27th August last) learn much 
 
 foreign by " studying the increase in the trade of foreign protective 
 
 countries as countries, ill comparisoii with that of England, during the past 
 
 compared with '^ -i i o • i.- rrn x / r 
 
 England. 10 years under her one-sided tree import system. The trade oi 
 
 the whole world has increased 36 per cent. That of the United 
 States 68 per cent. ; Belgium and Holland each 57 per cent. ; 
 France 51 per cent. ; Germany only 39 per cent, (she having 
 traded for part of the time on the fi-ee port system) ; and England 
 hut 21 'per cent, increase of trade. 
 
 If we now turn to Mr. Newmarch's paper on ' The Progress 
 of the Foreign Trade of the United Kingdom, 1856-77,' read 
 in 1878 before the Statistical Society, we find the president 
 of that society, the Eight Hon. G. J. Shaw Lefevre, M.P., 
 stating, during the discussion, that ' If one looked at the 
 paper from the point of view of foreign Protectionists, he 
 was not quite so sure that it would be so conclusive to their 
 
 Sa?Ru^?l." niinds as it was to our own. Taking, for instance, France, 
 Austria, and Eussia, he would apply to them the same prin- 
 ciple which Mr. Newmarch had applied to this country, namely, 
 compare their export and import trade for the last 15 years. 
 The import and export trade of those countries had increased 
 from £326,000,000 to £612,000,000, which was nearly 100 
 per cent. This was a very great increase, and was also, in 
 fact, proportionately somewhat greater than the increase of trade
 
 FREE TRADE. 37 
 
 of our own country. He thought, however, it u-as not fair to 
 
 ascribe the whole of the enormous increase of trade in this countri/ 
 
 to Free Trade, because other causes had been at work in 
 
 other countries, and the increase in those countries had been 
 
 very great indeed " — so great, indeed, that we can now clearly Foreign 
 
 see how, that hij means of their revenue duties on im.j)orts, or gaiicrUnOTo^ 
 
 protective tarifs levied against England, foreign nations have appro- ^^^^^^^^f^^ 
 
 ptriated to themselves, at the expense of this country, a larger s/wrc crease of trade 
 
 than would otherwise below/ to them of the increase in the general 
 
 productiveness of the labour and capital of the world, ivhich results 
 
 from the interchange of commodities among nations, mid for this we 
 
 have only to thank our past one-sided trade jjolicy. 
 
 It has been assumed that a duty upon imports by restricting Theory that 
 them would recoil upon our export trade. While not admitting f^^^Jo^H 
 this theory I will briefly examine it. The annexed letter from restricts ex- 
 Mr. Walt. P. Bearpark, of London, puts the matter very fairly : Lniied^" 
 " To the editor of The Eastern Morning News. — Dr. Eollit and Letter from 
 Eeciprocity. — Sir, — As an old Hullite, and therefore deeply in- ^(^^x^S^,' 
 terested in the present controversial aspect of political circles in London, to 
 Hull, I should like, through the kindly agency of your columns, Morning News, 
 to submit to Dr. Kollit's consideration two queries suggested by ^^^i- 
 a perusal of his recent address on the ' Tariff Question.' Be it first 
 miderstood that I am a Tory, hanging iiTesolute between Free 
 Trade and Eeciprocity. Bound on the one hand to I^ree Trade 
 by the striking plausibility of the economic theory, I am yet 
 inclined to Eeciprocity on the other, by a suspicion of some irre- 
 gularity in the practice — a suspicion, however, which I am 
 bound to confess seems more connected with an old party bias 
 than with any substantial ground of dissent. In this dilemma 
 I would appeal for enlightenment to the noteworthy courtesy of 
 our conservative fugleman, hoping that, in the effort to remove 
 my doubt, he may also be rendering satisfaction to many Hull 
 electors who are similarly dubious on the same points. The 
 fii'st question bears on the whole scope of the subject. By im- 
 posing duties we must restrict our imports. But it is only by 
 importing that we are enabled to export, for it is admitted as a 
 Free Trade truism that commercial relations between nation and 
 nation consist merely in the interchange of commodities. How, 
 then, would the doctor compensate our producers for the loss of 
 their foreign market ? It appears to me that, either our export 
 trade would be curtailed in exact proportion to the restriction of 
 our imports, or that, in case of our resorting for the same articles 
 to other countries not previously capable of competing in our 
 markets, we should be compelled to pay a higher price for the 
 same or perhaps inferior commodities. If there be any latent 
 inaccm-acy in this view, I shall be most happy to receive correc- 
 tion. The second question relates to a passage in his speech,
 
 38 
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Sec French 
 surtaxe 
 (Ventrcpot, 
 page 39. 
 
 Example of 
 America. 
 
 America 
 retains home 
 markets for 
 her own manu- 
 factures. 
 
 wherein the doctor, m comparing imports and exports, declares 
 himself as being justified in deducting from the exports a sum 
 of about £50,000,000, as representing re-exports of foreign and 
 colonial produce, which give ' little or no work to the English 
 manufacturer or workman.' Why are manufacturers and opera- 
 tives thus specified ? No doubt, the part played by the manu- 
 facturing element is of vast importance, and worthy of every 
 study and consideration. But there are other interests as great, 
 and it seems to me that the national value of a commercial 
 transaction is gauged, not by its eftect on a particular class or 
 faction, but by its general operation upon the community at 
 large. The shipping trade, the wharves and dock companies, 
 together with the vast number of brokers, etc., etc., who contri- 
 bute so largely to the wealth of Mincing Lane and the City 
 generally, reap an enormous benefit from these very transactions 
 which the doctor so complacently ' pooh-poohs,' and, of course, 
 this benefit is shared by a large number of einjdoyes, both clerks 
 and ' workmen.' I sincerely trust that a more convincing pos- 
 ture of this argument may be forthcoming. Under any circum- 
 stances, hov/ever, these exportations cannot be omitted from any 
 statistics on the subject unless the previous importation of the 
 same goods be similarly ignored. This alone would somewhat 
 disturb the doctor's figures. — With apologies for thus monopo- 
 lising your space, I am, yours obediently, Walt. P. Bearpark. 
 London, July 21st, 1881." 
 
 If, however, "it is only by importing that we are able to 
 export," I would ask how does America contrive by a system 
 under which her exports far exceed her imports, to pay off 
 her national debt with great rapidity, to encourage her own 
 industries till she will soon be independent of all other nations, 
 and to present to the world the most wonderful example of 
 progress, while all other countries (except, perhaps, France, 
 anotlier protectionist country) are complaining bitterly ? The 
 reply to this will also meet Mr. Bearpark's further question : 
 " How then would the doctor compensate our producers for the 
 loss [imaginary? J. H.] of our foreign trade?" The answer to 
 Mr. Bearpark's as well as to my own question is : America 
 encourcKjes home manufactures bij doiufj her utmost to retain the 
 home market for them. 
 
 Has this policy aftected her exports ? She has marvellously 
 increased their efiiux — v\^itness those of corn and provisions- 
 while her high protective duties almost prohibit imports. 
 
 What Mr. Bearpark calls his second question, is certainly of 
 great importance to this country ; but even under this head of 
 re- shipment, we find our astute nearest neighbour across the 
 channel determined to make all her fiscal regulations for her 
 own benefit, without reference to any other interests* A meeting
 
 FREE TRADE. 39 
 
 on Commercial Treaties, free from party bias, was recently held 
 at the City Terminus Hotel, where, after other business had 
 been disposed of, Mr. Maclver, M.P., " Keferring to the trans- French tariff, 
 lation of the French tariff, which was just issued on the motion 
 of Lord Sandon, drew attention to the surta.ve cV entrepot, by which 
 a tax of about 30 francs a ton was imposed on all merchandise 
 imported from a country other than the country of jproduction. Shipping 
 The tax had been revived, because France wished vessels to go from LiVe^- 
 to French ports instead of to English ports, and as a result, ships pooitoBor- 
 that had been in the habit of going from Liverpool direct, now 
 went to Bordeaux, thereby seriously prejudicing the shipping 
 business. In conclusion, he thought no treaty ought to be 
 entered into which allowed the surtaxe cVentre2)ut to exist, which Surtaxe 
 was so prejudicial to the trade of every merchant and broker ^ '^"^"^^^"*' 
 in all our great ports." 
 
 We are not, however, the only nation resisting this French Meeting at 
 impost. Eeuter's telegram from Genoa, under date 7th Sept., ^^^^o^^- 
 says : " A largely-attended meeting of merchants, shipowners, 
 and manafactiu-ers was held here to-day, under the presidency 
 of Senator Casaretto, who was supported by several deputies, for 
 the purpose of recording their views with regard to the pro- 
 posed new Commercial Treaty with France. After some dis- 
 cussion an order of the day was voted by acclamation, declar- 
 ing no treaty ought to be concluded with France whicli did not 
 concede equal treatment as regards customs' duties and the 
 coasting trade, as well as the abolition of the surtaxe (V entrepot, surtaxe 
 and demanding that if these conditions should be refused the ^'entrciidt. 
 Government should resort to retaliatory measures, in order to 
 defend Italian commerce. Notices of adhesion to this resolu- 
 tion, the terms of which had been agreed upon beforehand, 
 were received from several other commercial centres of Italy." 
 
 It will be well for English manufacturers (in the present 
 depressed condition of their industry) to note the energy of their 
 Italian compeers, who, according to a recent issue of The Morning 
 Post, followed their previous action by the following step : — 
 
 *' Fair Trade in Italy. — More than 100 among the most Fair Trade in 
 influential merchants, manufacturers, shipbuilders, and merchant ^^'^^y- 
 captains of Leghorn met a few days ago in the great hall of the 
 Chamber of Commerce to discuss the negotiations for the 
 commercial and maritime treaty between Italy and France. 
 The chairman (Signer Nardini) presented, in the name of the 
 promoters, an order of the day to the following effect : — ' Con- 
 sidering that the commercial and maritime treaties now in force 
 with France were suggested rather more by political than com- 
 mercial considerations ; considering that while these treaties have 
 accorded great concessions to France and have deprived Italian 
 commerce and navigation of reciprocal advantages ; considering
 
 40 
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Italians de- 
 mand Reci- 
 procity. 
 
 Caird & Go's, 
 trade removed 
 to Havre. 
 
 America able 
 to pay 15 to 20 
 per cent, 
 higher wages 
 than England. 
 
 that if such a state of affairs has been tolerated so long it would be 
 now incompatible with the interests and the dignity of the nation ; 
 considering that in order to put a stop to this state of things it 
 is indispensable that the new commercial treaty should be 
 settled on a basis of equal reciprocity and fair treatment, causing 
 those piiviler/es so long enjoyed by France to disappear ; considering 
 that, so far as the navigation is concerned, owing to the different 
 geographical position of the two countries, a complete reciprocity 
 is impossible, the merchants, manufacturers, and shipbuilders of 
 Leghorn have united to petition the Government : — 1. That the 
 new commercial treaty with France be made on the basis of a 
 perfect reciprocity. 2. That France be invited to abolish all 
 differential rights, surtaxe d' entrepot, which heavily weigh on our 
 indirect importations and which make it impossible for Italy to 
 extend her commerce to French markets, while France is allowed 
 to do this freely to all Italian markets ; and should France 
 refuse the abolition of these rights the undersigned consider it 
 indispensable that an equal tax should then be imposed to protect 
 our commerce, thus p>lacing the two countries on equal conditions. 
 3. The undersigned do likewise demand that the navigation treaty 
 with France be not renewed.' " 
 
 While willing and anxious to co-operate with all who seek 
 real Free or Fair Trade, we must, however, carefully watch 
 our own national interests, and we may be quite certain that 
 the effect of French bounties and duties must be most in- 
 jurious to our trade. The public prints have recently announced 
 that Messrs. Caird & Co., the great Clyde shipbuilders, in order 
 to profit by the French shipping bounties, are removing their 
 trade, with its employment of 2,000 to 3,000 hands, to Havi^e, 
 where they have taken land upon lease, and are about to com- 
 mence shipbuilding on a gigantic scale. 
 
 To retm-n to American trade ; three such excellent letters 
 (amongst many others) have recently appeared in The Morning 
 Post, that I reproduce them here : — 
 
 " To the editor of The Morning Post. — Sir, — Will you allow 
 me to ask through youi* columns one simple question ? How is 
 it that America (which has a higher protective tariff than any 
 other nation) has been able to pay off the whole of her national 
 debt, and is able to pay her own and British workmen from 15 
 to 20 per cent, more wages than they can earn in this country ? 
 I enclose my card. — I remain, sir, yours obediently, A. T. T.— 
 12, Alh-ed-place, Bedford -square, Sept. 17*" 
 
 " The Fair Trade question. — To the editor of The Morning 
 Post. — Sir, — Your correspondent * A. T. T.' asks, ' How is it 
 that America (which has a higher protective tariff than any 
 other nation) has been able to pay off the whole (? a large 
 portion) of her national debt, and is able to pay her own
 
 FREE TRADE. 41 
 
 and British workmen froiQ 15 to 20 i^er cent, more wages 
 than they can earn in this country ? ' I can answer that causes of 
 question in almost as few words as he has used in putting it. American pro- 
 Slie has done it bj/ 7iot going in for ' cheapness ' for the con- 
 sumer. She 2wgs labour a higher price, cajntal large profits, 
 and she secures these terms for the home trade by j^'^otection. 
 The consequence, that that portion of the national revenue 
 which is collected from native sources is paid out of the larger 
 rates of remuneration which prevail all round without being felt. 
 Twenty per cent, profit on returns of £150 for the same 
 commodities which would be sold here for, say, £100, leaves a 
 margin of £30, instead of £20, from which to pay these taxes, 
 etc. Another result of high prices and high remuneration is 
 a full consumption of commodities, which insures a full revenue 
 for those who live upon invested capital as well as those who 
 live by labour. It also raises prices to the level at which foreign 
 commodities partially enter to supply demands temporarily in 
 excess of the home supply. The duties on these goods form 
 another and important item in the national revenue to the relief 
 of that levied on native sources, or for the redemption of debt. — 
 Yom-s very respectfully, William H. Laird. — Lorn House, 
 Mildmay Park." 
 
 " To the editor of The Morning Post. — Sir, — I was talking to 
 a gentleman engaged in commerce the other day. He was by 
 profession a Free Trader, and in the course of our discussion he 
 disclosed some curious facts. I said to him, ' If you want to 
 export your goods to America what duty will you have to pay ? ' 
 ' Thirty-eight per cent.,' he replied ; ' but that is not the worst of 
 it. The Americans have got more than half my trade away, and 
 men who used to travel for me are now selling American goods 
 to my customers cheaper than I can. If the principle at present 
 existing is to be maintained, I cannot see how we are to get a 
 living.' Money must be had to buy corn, let it be never so cheap, 
 and where is the money to come from ? If not only farmers', 
 but every other industry, is to be prosecuted at a loss, it won't 
 be prosecuted long ; and supposing you are placed at a disadvan- 
 tage of 38 per cent, your assets will speedily become 38 per cent, 
 less than nothing. There is one thing that the agitators for an 
 alteration in the existing state of things must not lose sight of. 
 Now, if it is so profitable to the foreigner, as many of your 
 correspondents point out, foreign money will not be wanting to 
 maintain the f)resent conditions. A few thousands judiciously 
 spent might do a good deal, and where so much is dependent on 
 it you may rely upon it money will be forthcoming. It is a 
 much easier safer, and more profitable wag of ruining England 
 than a war would be. Put the patient in a jvarm, Free Trade 
 bath and open his veins. That is the process ; so that you will
 
 42 TEE FALLACIES OF 
 
 kave to combat foreign interests not only abroad but at home. — 
 F. F." 
 
 But to recross the Atlantic ; how has Free Trade affected 
 the sister kingdom of Ireland? A reference to page 10 of *' The 
 Fallacies of Free Trade " will show the promises of improved 
 condition which were made to our long-suffering fellow sub- 
 Diminution of jects of the British Crown. While Ireland was an exportina: 
 
 exports from '',, , i-'-ir^jrii, 
 
 Ireland. Country, she was also a prosperous one ; and m 1843, she sent 
 
 to Great Britain, 8,206,484 quarters of grain ; but in 1851, the 
 quantity had fallen to 1,324,688 quarters, and has since, I 
 believe, almost entirely ceased. The population of that un- 
 fortunate country (the plaything of pseudo-Liberal statesmen, by 
 whom she has been alternately cajoled, traduced, and coerced) 
 FrishTopSa- '^^^ ^^^ ^^^^' 7,767,401 ; in 1871, 5,411,416 ; and in 1881, had 
 tiou. Seepages further decreased to 5,139,839. Is it not probable that a more 
 10 and 11. patriotic policy than our hard and cruel doctrine of " buy in the 
 
 cheapest, sell in the dearest market," would have kept these 
 two-and-a-half millions of English speaking men, women, and 
 children at home, growing corn for our wants, instead of in- 
 hospitably driving them to emigration ? 
 
 I am old enough to remember hearing of the expressions of 
 satisfaction which were indulged in by those who had success- 
 fully advocated negro emancipation, when, to use their own 
 phrase, their " sugar was sweeter, being no longer moistened by 
 irish-grovrn the tears or the blood of a slave." Would not the same sentiment 
 to^AmeiiSin'^*^ ^'^'^^V ^^^ to ciijoy bread produced by contented Irishmen on the 
 banks of the Shannon, the Liffey, or the Boyne, rather than 
 that grown by discontented Irishmen on the shores of the 
 Mississippi, the Missouri, or the St. Lawrence, particularly when, 
 as in the latter case, the grain is too often accompanied, not 
 merely by a curse upon the policy which has expatriated the 
 grower, but by his liberal contribution to a movement seeking to 
 produce the disintegation of the British Empire ? The following 
 letter to The Morniwj Post shows the present feeling in Ireland ; 
 but I cannot endorse the ^viiter's views as to the imposition of 
 any duties, as between England and her poorer sister : — 
 
 "Protection, an Irish remedy — To the editor of The Morning 
 Post.— 
 
 ' The shin is further off than the knee ; 
 Let me have something myself.' — 
 
 Buckley's Theocritus. 
 Sir, — Nothing can place Ireland in a condition much worse 
 than that into which the arrangements of the present Ministry 
 have allowed her to drift, if they have not thrust her into it. 
 The law is openly set at defiance. The measure of spoliation 
 that has been passed may rob the landlords but it will not satisfy 
 the people, and Mr. Parnell has manifestly no intention to allow 
 it to be considered final, or indeed in any other Hght than as a
 
 FREE TRADE. 43 
 
 useful step towards complete separation, the annulling of the 
 Union of 1801. It must now be taken for granted that the 
 Liberal legislation, so loudly boasted about, has failed to appease 
 Ireland, and, like all concessions that fail, the weakness exhibited 
 has only rendered matters worse. A native Parliament will not 
 satisfy now, so we are finally landed upon what we ought to have 
 commenced with — a prompt resort to physical force. The 
 sooner this is entered upon and military law is proclaimed the 
 better it will be, not only for England, but for Ireland herself. 
 But, though an essential preliminary to all legislation, the mere 
 establishment of order in Ireland is not enough. She is not to 
 be treated, and she ought never to have been treated, as a con- 
 quered country. Order itself will prove useless if legislation 
 afterwards is to be perverse. Protection would immediately be set 
 up if the Irish had a native Parliament, — refuse them a Parlia- 
 ment but give them protection ; do for them what their first act 
 would be to do for themselves. That masculine writer, Dean Dean Swift. 
 Swift, says : ' One cause of a country's thriving is the industry of the 
 ])eople in workiny uj) all their native commodities to the last ; to carry 
 out their own yoods as much mamifactured, and briny in those of 
 others as 'little manufactured, as the nature of mutual commerce 
 will allow.' He goes on to add that butter and linen are the only 
 two things Ireland is allowed to trade in, so that if they do 
 flourish it must be like the thorn of Glastonbury blooming at 
 Christmas against all the laws of nature. Serjeant Byles quoted 
 this, and pointed out that Free Trade with England had crushed 
 Irish enterprise. She could not compete against English selfish- 
 ness. Our wholesale manufactures swamped her completely. 
 There was no resisting the cheapness of the English goods. 
 The same thiny that is now said about cheap bread for the Eng- 
 lish people was said about low-jmced fabrics thrown into Ireland. 
 How much better it was to pay 4d. than 6d. a yard. The 
 wholesale destruction of native industry was naturally followed^ 
 as it must soon be here in Enyland, by the entire cessation of 
 employment. A well-regulated protective system is efective, the 
 only one that can keep a. people on work steadily. Steadily, I 
 say, for fluctuations destroy industry, interfering with what 
 may be called the periodical of national life, veiy soon de- 
 moralise a country, and render it ripe for lawlessness, con- 
 spiracy, and agrarian murders. An act of spoliation will not 
 accommodate matters ; it can only aggravate them. Free Trade 
 as applied by the English to Ireland was an act of j^ractical 
 spoliation, though it had the legislative merit of legality of form 
 to recommend it. It has laid upon the Irish an enforced idle- 
 ness, and the devil, if not, perhaps, Mr. Gladstone, has furnished 
 the mischief for idle hands to do. If Ireland were now protected 
 against English trade, and the term guaranteed for 20 years, 
 English unemployed capital, that now seeks imsafe investment
 
 44 
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 abroad, would gravitate to it, establish manufactures, reclaim 
 the bogs, send food supplies to England, and completely re- 
 establish Irish industry. With industry peace would come. 
 The demagogue and agitator waste eloquence upon full bellies. 
 The hungry and the idle form the audience of most orators. 
 — (Signed) About Sledge." 
 
 To encourage the growth of corn in Ireland, by putting a duty 
 upon foreign grain, would do more to ^jromote the peace, 
 prosperity, and happiness of the country, and would bind her 
 more closely to England, than all the Church, Land, or Peace 
 Preservation Acts that ever emanated fi-om the teeming brain of 
 the most prolific fi-amer of Acts of Parliament of the present or 
 any other reign. 
 
 There is, x^robably, no trade in the United Kingdom which 
 has suffered more from our present system of one-sided Free 
 Seed crushing. Trade than that of seed crushing, a trade largely carried on 
 at many of our ports, and one of the staple trades of Hull. 
 The Americans can buy their seed in competition with our- 
 selves, from our possessions in the East Indies, or any 
 other country, without special export duty or differential charge 
 of any kind ; they can then crush it in their own mills, and 
 export their cakes to this country subject to no import duty, but 
 they close their market against our oil by a duty of about £18 per 
 ton, or nearly 75 per cent, upon the present value. The result is 
 serious depression in the English crushing trade ; the absolute 
 closing of many mills, particularly in Hull ; and heavy losses in 
 many cases, as exemplified by the accounts of leading limited 
 companies. The summer export of linseed oil to America was, 
 within 20 years, looked forward to by the trade as a legitimate 
 outlet for a part of the winter's make ; it has entirely ceased ; 
 the import of American cakes has largely increased. Is this 
 really Free Trade, and what benefit can such a system confer 
 upon any class in this country ? American seed crushing mills 
 increase almost daily — England closes hers. 
 
 The word Eeciprocity appears to produce such a sad effect upon 
 many Free Traders, even to the extent of so destroying their 
 ability as to prevent their understanding its meaning (as witness 
 the late speech of Mr. Councillor Pool, of Hull),''= that one might 
 well hesitate to introduce it, were it not that we have the 
 high authority of the late Kichard Cobden for its first 
 
 See page 34, 
 American seed 
 crushing. 
 
 Closmg of 
 miUs. 
 
 Summer ex 
 port of oil. 
 
 Speech of Mr. 
 Councillor 
 Poole, of Hull. 
 
 * Mr. Poole is reported to have said, " He confessed he was one of those 
 stupid people who could not discover the difference between Keciprocity, 
 Eetaliation, and Fair Trade." 
 
 A dictionary at my elbow gives the meaning of the word Eeciprocity as 
 •'reciprocal olaligation or right" I fear, however, this will scarcely help the 
 worthy councillor; the capacity which would fail to grasp the original wordj 
 would, in this case, be equally at sea as to the meanings given. — J. H.
 
 FREE TRADE. 45 
 
 practical application in the French Treaty of 1860. If 
 ever Keciprocity was hrought into play in this world, it was French Treaty 
 in that treaty ; its main fault was, that we gave away so pro^cai/^'^^" 
 very much and received so very little. Doubtless, Cobden looked cobden's hopes 
 to the future, anticipating that, after a lapse of time, the French 5?eaty^^^"^^ 
 (seeing its virtues) would adopt unrestricted Free Trade. The 
 same promises were made dm^ing the agitation for the Repeal of 
 the Corn Laws, and how have they been reahsed ? Every nation 
 in the world has raised its duties against us of late years, and 
 we have allowed the system to go on till om* manufacturers have Manufacturers 
 lost nearly the whole of their foreign markets, and have now the SaSltJboth 
 mortification of seing their home trade passing into the hands of ^^^^^ ^^^ 
 strangers, who, in return, contribute nothing to our national 
 exchequer. There is much to be said for this system of 
 Reciprocity, but it has been so well m-ged in a recent article 
 in The Lynn Advertiser, and in letters to The Eastern Morning 
 News, from Dr. J. Dix and Mr. Arthur K. Dibb, of Hull, that 
 it will suffice to place the views of the writers on record : — 
 '' Reciprocity — What is it ? There is no word in the dictionary Leading article 
 which stirs up and excites the fanatical Free Trader so much SomSiJwn 
 as the apparently harmless word ' reciprocity ;' no unmanage- Advertiser. 
 able bull is ever raised to more sudden fury by the sight 
 of a red rag than is your old and thorough-going Free Trader 
 by the sound of the word ' reciprocity.' The Free Trader 
 in former years staked his entire reputation upon the imme- 
 diate conversion of the world to his doctrine of Free Trade. 
 No sooner, he told us, should this idol of Free Trade be set up 
 in the face of the world than all the nations would fall down and 
 worship it ; monarchies would not be able to resist the ardour 
 of their people to join in the solemn league and covenant, and 
 republics would rush into the alliance with a devotion character- 
 istic of their large and generous regard for the wealth and ad- 
 vancement of the universal family of man. But now, what a 
 falling off is here ! How lame and impotent is the conclusion 
 from these glowing premises ! Well may the Free Trader feel 
 chagrin and vexation at the non-fulfilment of his predictions. 
 Well may he gnash his teeth as he looks over the history of the 
 world since the days of the Anti- Corn-Law League. Since the 
 days when he indulged in those venturesome prophecies of the 
 coming millennium of Free Trade, not a convert has come in ; 
 no nation has yet cast its idols of Protection to the moles and to 
 the bats. The very Republicans, who of all men are the high- 
 priests of humanity, free fi'om the dominion of prejudice and 
 ignorance, even they disown the beneficent faith. They still 
 stand in the outer court, and take no part in the new-fangled wor- 
 ship. A more utter disappointment and defeat no political party
 
 46 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 ever suffered ; a more entire falsification of every ^j^'^^ZiV'iiow he 
 had uttered never happened to any mortal man. The late Dr. 
 Gumming was not more completely at fault in his forecasts of 
 the future than were the Anti-Corn-Law-Leaguers in their con- 
 fident assertion of the coming triumph of Free Trade. England 
 still stands alone. Colonies, populated by working men, acknow- 
 ledge no allegiance to Free Trade ; everywhere they raise the 
 flag of Protection. Despotisms and democracies have this one 
 thing in common, that they alike repudiate and revile the 
 practice of Free Trade. We will concede to the Free Traders 
 that they have the best of the argument ; that the world ought 
 to be converted to their faith ; that for every nation it is theo- 
 retically best to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the 
 dearest. But statesmen have to deal with the world as it is ; 
 they have to make the best of existing institutions. It may 
 seem a very low-minded and inferior policy to take care of a 
 nation's own interest ; but as other nations will continue to do 
 this, there is nothing for it in the meantime but that we should 
 each go and do likewise. British interests, however much they 
 may be sneered at by modern Kadicals, are, or ought to be, the 
 prominent consideration of British statesmen ; and cosmopolitan 
 ideas and considerations, when they interfere with those interests, 
 may be very properly postponed. What is there in the word 
 " reciprocity " which kindles so greatly the ire of the Free 
 Trader ? Recijrrocity is, in fact, regulated and equalised Free 
 Trade ; but then the Free Trader was pledged to the immediate 
 and unqualified adoption of absolute Free Trade by all the world, 
 if only England would set the example. Well, England has set 
 the example, and the world obstinately and persistently refuses 
 to follow her ; and then the Free Trader says he will have all or 
 nothing ; and because he has put himself into a position in which 
 reciprocity is all but impossible to him, he denounces it as the 
 most pernicious of heresies. All the while, however, he is ne- 
 gotiating with the French for the renewal of a commercial treaty. 
 The rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and a nego- 
 tiation hy which there is to be a mutual remission and regulation 
 of duties is something so like reciprocity that the differeiice is 
 hardly perceptible. The French are to get access to our mar- 
 kets for certain commodities of theirs, and we, on our side, are 
 to have the opportunity, by a lower scale of duties, of selling our 
 goods in their markets. Apply this method to all the world, 
 and the result would be this fatal system of reciprocity. We 
 repeat that the world Avould be better off if each country pro- 
 duced those articles which are best suited to its climate and 
 situation, and then freely exchanged them wherever customers 
 could be found. But the world declines to carry on its affairs
 
 FREE TRADE, 47 
 
 in this manner ; each country believes that its own special cir- 
 cumstances and objects are best promoted by an opposite policy. 
 It is willing to buy what it cannot do without, upon any prac- 
 ticable terms ; but it determines to make for itself many other 
 needful things, though they should cost more than the foreigner 
 would charge for them. Nations are not wholly governed by 
 economic considerations ; they keep up armies at a vast expense, 
 because they consider them necessary for the national safety ; 
 and they encourage manufacturing, and mining, and navigation 
 as means of national advancement, even though they should in 
 the first instance be somewhat costly. This being the condition 
 of the world, how can v/e turn it to the best account ? There 
 are many articles w^e must buy upon the best terms we can 
 make ; there are others which we can dispense with, or which 
 rich persons can afford to pay for. These latter we can subject 
 to duties, and by means of these duties we can put the foreigner 
 upon terms, so that he will be glad to admit our goods at a more 
 moderate tariff. French wine, French silk, and French gim- 
 cracks give employment to much labour in J'rance ; they are all 
 mere articles of luxury in England ; and our men and our ma- 
 chinery can produce some sort of equivalent for them in case we 
 exclude or restrict the importation of them by our increased 
 duties. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the* gander. 
 We should prefer to buy certain French commodities, but we 
 can do without them ; and we shall probably make the best 
 bargain — and trade is all bargaining — by letting it be clearly 
 understood that u-e mean to exclude French (jouds from our ■market, 
 if they determine to keep our goods out of their vtarket.'' — Lynn 
 Advertiser, 23rd July, 1881. 
 
 "Free Trade v. Eeciprocity. — Sir, — Your paper of Thursday j. Dix, Esq., 
 last contains a report of an address by Mr. Councillor Stuart, Fi'fe'Trade?^ 
 J.P., on the subject of 'Free Trade versus Reciprocity.' The Reciprocity. * 
 speaker begins by bantering his own party. He complains of the 
 short time that was given him ' to concentrate his thoughts upon 
 the subject,' but he bravely adds, ' that he w^ould try, though he 
 feared with little success, to make known those thoughts to 
 them.' This appeal ad iiiiserecordiaiih is somewhat undignified, 
 and quite out of place in the mouth of such an accomplished 
 orator ; moreover, it robs the speech of that authority and impor- 
 tance which would otherwise attach to the manifesto of a recog- 
 nised party leader. Also, it places the critic at a disadvantage, 
 for, if the speaker gets worsted in discussion, he falls back 
 on the plea that he had not had time ' to concentrate his 
 thoughts.' If, on the other hand, I fail to do justice to his 
 arguments, I must plead his own excuse, that he has had but 
 ' little success in making known his thoughts.' But, at any 
 rate, I will not be guilty of wilful misrepresentation, to avoid
 
 48 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 which I shall, as far as possible, quote his own words, which will 
 be indicated in the usual way. First, then, he states that 
 Eeciprocity is the same thing as Protection — ' an old friend in 
 a new name.' He is not the first who has said this. It is a 
 confusion of ideas which suits the Free Trade advocate — but I 
 think the speaker will see, when he has had more time ' to con- 
 centrate his thoughts,' that it is not quite an accurate statement 
 of the case. Protection and Eeciprocity are certainly not con- 
 vertible terms — a tax may represent one or the other, or it may 
 combine the two. I will give an illustration of each variety. 
 Thus (1) a duty might be levied on French silk, woollen, and 
 cotton fabrics, for the benefit of the weavers of Coventry, and 
 the spinners of Bradford and Manchester, without any reference 
 to the tariff of France. That would be Protection. (2) The 
 duty on French wines might be doubled in retaliation for the 
 French tax on our iron. That would be Eeciprocity, viz., 'a 
 mutual return,' to give the dictionary meaning of the word ; or, 
 as it might be put, to do to them as they do to us. But it 
 would not be Protection, because no home product competes 
 with the clarets of France. (3) A duty on French sugar as re- 
 taliation for their bounties would be Eeciprocity and also Pro- 
 tection, because it would, at the same time, benefit or protect 
 the British sugar refiner. Another distinction may be men- 
 tioned. Eeciprocity aims at coercing other nations ; Protection 
 aims only at benefiting our own. Again, a tax for Protection 
 must include all countries alike who send in the same class of 
 goods. Eeciprocity may be special or discriminative — taxing 
 only those who tax us ; thus we might ]Dut a duty on the wines 
 of France without taxing those of Spain or Portugal. Lastly, 
 Eeciprocity may be not taxation at all, but a remission of duties, 
 and the true ' Eeciprocitarian ' — what a horrid word — is not the 
 Protectionist, hut the concocter of a treaty of commerce, that 
 fagrant violatio7i of the principles of Free Trade — that glaring 
 instance of the hollo wness and insufficiency of its dogmas, when 
 brought to the test of experience and practice. Sir, Mr. Stuart's 
 speech occupies two columns of your paper. I cannot do justice 
 to it in a single letter, but, having thus cleared up an important 
 preliminary, I will ask your permission to renew the skirmish. 
 I am, etc., J. Dix.— Hull, June 20th, 1881." 
 Arthur K Dibb " ^^ ^^^^ editor of The Eastern Morning News. — Eeciprocity and 
 Esq., Hull, on ' Protection. — Sir, — In your issue of Monday last were two letters 
 and'prS on Ecciprocity and Protection. Mr. Shepherd and Mr. Forbes, 
 tion. like too many Liberal writers on this subject, seem fond of 
 
 imagining their case and then arguing against the stiTicture of 
 their own creation. Thus they say that Eeciprocity is but 
 Protection in disguise. They cannot imagine such a thing as
 
 FREE TRADE. 49 
 
 differential duties, and they assert that if "we imposed duties at 
 all there would be no limit, and all om* imports would have to 
 be taxed. With the question distorted to this extent they try 
 to deal, and no doubt with partial success. What we advocate 
 is the imposition of some import duty on foreign manufactm'es, 
 and chiefly on what we may call luxuries, so that we may be in 
 a better position to bargain with other countries for the admis- 
 sion of our manufactures, and for the Keciprocal reduction of 
 tariffs. We would endeavour to bind the interests of our colo- 
 nies still closer to us by encouraging our trade with them. Mr. 
 FaiTer Ecroyd points out, in a letter to The Times of yesterday, 
 that each inhabitant of our Australian colonies, is 16 times as 
 large a customer for the production of our industries as each citizen 
 of the United States : and he shows that the British ivorkman 
 would he wise in even jjaying a trifle more for his bread-loaf to 
 food growers who will employ him in return, instead of to those ivho 
 would starve him, out by prohibitive duties. We are told that 
 we cannot possibly hope to persuade other nations to lower 
 their tariffs and accept the doctrnies of Free Trade, if we 
 revert to import duties ourselves. We have proved we 
 cannot do it as we trade at present, and there would cer- 
 tainly seem more chance of success if we had something to 
 concede in return for concessions asked. It adds nothing of 
 value to the controversy to speak of those who advocate this 
 theory as lunatics. Are the financiers and political economists 
 of France and America lunatics? Our grievances are not 
 imaginary, but real. What I would ask, sir, of gentlemen like 
 Mr. Shepherd and Mr. Forbes, who no doubt devote themselves 
 deeply to the study of this question, is some direct and clear 
 answer to the many questions that have been asked by Dr. 
 Kollit and Mr. Grotrian, and have not yet been answered. If 
 we point to the fact of our imports exceeding our exports by 
 scores of millions, we are answered almost in terms of com- 
 passion, and we are told that ' this was all settled 40 years ago.' 
 If we point to Bradford and Manchester, and appear alarmed at 
 how our industries are being driven from the country, and how 
 our mills are being closed, we are told exultingly that ' prices 
 are well kept down.' I would hke to point to one passage 
 in Mr. Forbes' letter. He assigns the cause of bad trade and 
 distress in Bradford to our manufacturers using old-fashioned, 
 ill-adapted machinery, while on the Continent improvements 
 and alterations have iDeen made. He evidently is not aware, 
 that at present one of our most important exports is the very 
 machinery that maniifactures in other countries the goods that 
 compete with ours. The question must be treated with different 
 arguments to this. — I am, sir, your obedient servant, Arthur K. 
 Dibb.— July 19th, 1881." 
 
 D
 
 50 
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Index. 
 
 Eastern Morn- 
 ing News, Hull. 
 
 Answer to 
 Index. 
 
 Heavy losses 
 in business 
 during last four 
 or five years. 
 
 Unpublished 
 losses far 
 exceed those 
 made public. 
 
 Credit sensi- 
 tive. 
 
 Losses con- 
 cealed. 
 
 Total alarm- 
 ing. 
 
 Business being 
 done without 
 profit. 
 
 Railway 
 returns 
 fallacious. 
 
 A writer, under the soubriquet of " Index," whose frequently 
 witty and occasionally sparkling inspirations help to make The 
 Eastern Morning News a very readable paper, wrote the other day : 
 " After reading the recent speeches delivered at Hull, I wish to 
 say something on Protection and Free Trade. Once again (but 
 Protectionists never attempt to meet this argument), if the 
 entire nation be carrying on a losing trade, the several indi- 
 vidual traders must be losing and not gaining by their traffic. 
 It is impossible (the foggiest mind must perceive it to be im- 
 possible) that every single shopkeeper anywhere should be 
 thriving, and the whole street, town, or nation of shopkeepers 
 should be losing." 
 
 I trust I may be pardoned the audacity of undertaking to 
 answer this argument which, " Index " says. Protectionists 
 never attempt to meet. It is a well-known fact to all those 
 engaged in business (I hope " Index" has the good fortune to be 
 out of it), that the losses amongst merchants, manufacturers, 
 shopkeepers, and all other traders, have never been greater 
 than during the last four or five years. There have been, unfor- 
 tunately, quite a sufficient number of bankruptcies, liquidations, 
 compositions by private arrangement, etc., to prove this statement ; 
 but " worse remains behind." The necessarily published losses of 
 bad trade never represent more than a mere tithe of the actual 
 depletion of capital which takes place. Where such a sensitive 
 organisation as credit exists, prudent men do not speak of their 
 own personal losses or experiences in business except where they 
 can mention them as general, or write of them under a nom de 
 jjkime. The losses are in many cases not rapid or large in each 
 amount, but gradual, and alarming in their total ; and it is, 
 perhaps, only when actual loss (or absence of profit) has trenched 
 to a dangerous degree upon capital that many men begin to see 
 the full extent of the mischief. The operation is insidious but 
 certain. On all hands we can hear that, while there is undoubt- 
 edly business going on, it is leaving nothing for the capital em- 
 ployed in it. The Times recently quoted our railway returns 
 for the half-year as a barometer of the state of trade, whereas 
 they more jDrobably represent the spasmodic effort to keep doing 
 something (in the hope of better times), which has too long been 
 characteristic of modern business. The fact of the matter is, 
 the trade of the great middle class of this country is dying out 
 from inanition (brought about by the causes previously sketched), 
 and our great capitalists on the one hand and our working 
 classes on the other will, I fear, only find it out when the evil 
 is past remedy, and the trade of the whilom " Workshop of the 
 World " has passed irrecoverably into the hands of those who 
 used to be its customers. Even Mr. Mongredien, with all his 
 devotion to Free Trade, recognises the unfortunate position of
 
 FREE TRADE. 51 
 
 the middle classes, and says " the fall in prices has pressed far See "Free 
 more heavily on the mercantile than on the operative classes. "=■■ ingifsiT'com- 
 
 I ventiu'e to assert that, if but a very small proportion of the merce," by 
 loss and suffering which have been borne by the middle classes MouSSileu, 
 during the last few years had fallen upon the wage-receiving P^se 70. 
 portion of the community, they would not have submitted so 
 patiently, but by agitation and excitement they would have 
 brought their wants so much " within the range of practical 
 politics" (violence being now recognised as the only noticeable Range oi 
 factor to that end) that they would have compelled the attention ^jj^if^fc^;^^ 
 of the Government of the day, which would not have been able to cheap bread 
 allay their importunity by the offer of cheap bread, unless they no use without 
 could also have given the wage-producing work with which to wages^"^^ 
 purchase it. 
 
 Our home trade is much undervalued by many. In 1841 , it was Home Trade 
 more than double the value of our foreign imports. Surely it is not undervalued. 
 too much to ask that we may retain English Trade for English Eugifsh'meTi. 
 hands and English capital, even if we cannot induce the foreigner 
 to let us have a portion of his business. 
 
 It is exceedingly difficult where relationships are so complex Producers and 
 as in this country, to ^mark the exact spot where producers consumers. 
 end and consumers begin. It is, however, to be hoped that censu?. 
 the forthcoming Census, by giving us statistical details as to 
 the numbers engaged in various pursuits, will enable us to 
 arrive at a more accurate definition. 
 
 I annex an extract from a letter written by Mr. Alfred 
 Morris to The Mominy Post, under date of the 2nd inst., dealing 
 with this matter: "Although almost all the national returns 
 equally point to a decrease in national prosperity, those of the 
 Board of Trade would seem to present this conclusion in its 
 most marked form, and therein may the clue to the cause of the 
 evil most probably be found to lie. As I have suggested in a 
 previous letter, it is clear that the application of the principle of 
 Free Trade, without due regard to reciprocity, has acted as a 
 stimulus to consumption ; but a policy which stimulates consump- 
 tion without at the same time in an equal degree stimulatimj 
 p7'ocluctio7i, a7id, as a consequence, the earning capacity of the 
 population, ccmnot surely be regarded as a wise econovnc policy. 
 The advocates of the bastard Free Trade of these days say that 
 the greater number must be considered, that producers are few 
 and consumers many. That the greater advantage of the greater 
 number must be studied is a proposition that none will call in 
 question ; but, sir, it is not true that the producers are few and Not true that 
 
 _^ [ f_ "^ l)roducers are 
 
 * This remarkably able, concise, and well written pamphlet would do more sumers many 
 towards convincing those who dissent from Mr. Mongredien's views, if the 
 pleasure with which he surveys Free Trade could be extended to their actual 
 experience of the results of English commerce.
 
 52 
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Proportion of 
 consumers to 
 producers. 
 
 Changes of 
 1846 carried 
 by a noisy 
 minority. 
 
 Wealthiest 
 have benefited 
 most. 
 
 Real Free 
 Trade no harm 
 to England. 
 
 Beciprocal 
 concessions 
 most likely to 
 bring ultimate 
 Free Trade. 
 
 French 
 
 the consumers many. For all practical purposes the producer 
 and the consumer is one. It cannot he disputed that every 
 producer is a consumer, while the converse is not so apparent on 
 the surface ; but when it is considered that the consumers who do 
 not produce are dependent on the producers for the incomes which 
 enable them to consume without producing, it is difficult to 
 understand in what real sense their interests are separate from 
 the interests of the producers. In 1880 there were, roundly 
 speaking, 1,500,000 persons of independent means. Government 
 officials, professionals and traders, who, with their wives, child- 
 ren, and dependants are consumers and not directly producers, 
 and who alone benefit, if any one benefits, from the bastard Free 
 Trade of the day and from the cheapness of the necessaries of life 
 resulting thereh^om, if indeed cheapness exists to-day anywhere 
 but in the brains of theorists. On the other hand, there are 
 11,600,000 persons who are producers, and, with their wives, 
 children, and dependants, are also consumers, whose earning 
 cajmcitij is restricted by the ajypUcation of a bastard Free Trade 
 in a larger degree than that in which the necessaries of life can 
 by any jwssibility be cheapened to them. Which is numerically 
 the more important of these two branches of the population, and 
 how far the greater advantage is with the greater number, I 
 leave to the consideration of your readers." 
 
 As has been already shown, the violent changes of 1846 were 
 carried by a noisy minority. How strange if it should be 
 ultimately proved that the measure had benefited most the 
 fundholders and recipients of regular incomes, who least needed 
 relief, and not the mercantile or agricultural portion of the 
 community, or even the toiling millions of the working class. 
 
 Free Trade in the proper sense of the word, viz., the fi-ee 
 interchange of the products of all nations with each other, 
 could do England no harm, she can hold her own against the 
 world with a fair field and no favour ; but even she is not strong 
 enough to run a race heavily handicapped, and she can no 
 longer afford to ruin herself, that other nations may learn Free 
 Trade from her unfortunate example. As a nation, we postponed 
 indefinitely the real era of universal Free Trade when we lightly 
 abandoned the duties with which (at a subsequent period) 
 we might have hoped to have obtained concessions favourable 
 to our trade from foreign nations. Our present unfortunate 
 position with France is a proof of this. 
 
 The French press during the last few months has tauntingly 
 asked, " "Why should we give anything to England — what has she 
 to give us in return ?" To have had in our hands the lever of a 
 duty upon silks, wine, and other luxuries (the consumers of which 
 should scarcely have been amongst the first to be considered), 
 would have placed us in a position to purchase by reciprocity
 
 FREE TRADE. 53 
 
 the advantages which we sought. Now, we are much in the 
 
 position of the hoy who asked the apple-woman to give him 
 
 some of her tempting fruit, and we meet with much the same 
 
 reply : " Nothing for nothing here, and very little for sixpence." 
 
 Let those who think France will meet us in what is often called 
 
 (it appears to me sarcastically) a liberal spirit, obtain a copy of 
 
 the return of which Lord Sandon moved for the translation ; in Retmn moved 
 
 that document they will find abundant evidence that French saiuion.^^' 
 
 legislation is based upon French interests, and knows none of 
 
 that strange cosmopolitan sentiment which appears to make our 
 
 present rulers 
 
 " Friends of every country save their own." 
 
 The opinions of the late much-esteemed and justly-lamented opinions of the 
 President Garfield, reaching us, as they now unfortunately do, Jfar^M^^^^^* 
 with posthumous weight, may well be placed on record here. 
 The Liverpool Daily Post, of Wednesday the 21st September, 
 amongst other sketches of his life and career, says : — 
 
 " In reference to the tariff, his record is equally positive and 
 clear. At Williams College he was as a student schooled in 
 Political Economy by Professor Perry, who was then, as now, 
 one of the leading American advocates of Free Trade. The 
 text-book was Wayland's ' Political Economy,' but youTng Gar- 
 field was not a student who followed blindly any teacher or text- 
 book. He read all collateral authorities which the college library 
 could supply, and did his own thinking. At the close of the 
 term. Professor Perry asked him what had been his conclusions 
 in respect to Protection, and the reply was so definite and cha- 
 racteristic that the instructor wrote it down in his memorandum- 
 book. ' As an abstract theory,' said Garfield, ' the doctrine of 
 Free Trade seems to be universally true ; but as a question of 
 practicability, m a country like ours, the Protective system seems 
 to be indispensable.' His creed was declared in 18G6 in these 
 words : ' Duties should be so high that our manufacturers can 
 fairly compete with the foreign product, but not so high as to 
 enable them to diive out the foreign article, enjoy a monopoly of 
 the trade, and regulate the price as they please. This is my 
 doctrine of Protection. If Congress pm-sues this line of policy • 
 steadily, we shall year by year approach more nearly to the basis 
 of Free Trade, because we shall be more iiearly able to compete u'ith 
 other nations on equal terms. 1 am for a Protection which leads to 
 ultimate Free Trade. I am for that Free Trade which can only be 
 achieved through a reasonable Protection.'' " 
 
 In conclusion, while admitting that I have sketched a gloomy. Question 
 but, I fear, too true a picture, I take some hope from the fact poSI/seSi- 
 that the important question of our fiscal relations with foreign ^ercantu 
 powers is passing to some extent from political to commercial experience.
 
 54 
 
 THE FALLACIES OF 
 
 Meeting of the 
 Fair Trade 
 League. 
 
 Our one-sided 
 Free Trade 
 an attempt to 
 anticipate the 
 millennium. 
 
 hands, and is leaving the regions of poHtical sentiment for those 
 of mercantile experience. The speakers at the late Fair Trade 
 League Meeting have been very careful (and properly so) to 
 eliminate politics, and to conj&ne the discussion to points affect- 
 ing their various trades ; thus, Mr. Pettifer very sensibly said : 
 " Mr. Chamberlain said there was less pauperism in the country 
 than in 1869, but out-door relief had ceased, and men staid as 
 long as possible out of the unions. The pauper list was no cri- 
 terion of the state of labour, for men out of work did not seek 
 parish relief, and did not figure in the pauper list. (Cheers.) As 
 regarded goods coming into the country in payment for the 
 freights or of interest, he did not consider in what guise they 
 came ivlien they interfered with his living. (Cheers)." 
 
 Many ardent, high-spirited and benevolent men joined the 
 Free Trade movement in its first inception, attracted by the ap- 
 parently missionary spirit in which it sought to make the measure 
 (through the medium of extended and more intimate business 
 relations between nations) the harbinger of that peace on earth, 
 which has been the dream of the poets and philosophers of all 
 ages, and which has ever had the God-speeding good wishes 
 of all right-thinking men. But did we not therein, some- 
 what arrogantly, as a nation, pre-date the millennium, and 
 endeavour to anticipate its issues ? We deal with men as 
 they are, not as we would wish them to be, and we must 
 treat nations in the same way. England was strong, proud, 
 and arrogant in her unexampled commercial success, and spite 
 the opinion of all other nations, she said : " We will pass 
 these Free Trade measures and you will doubtless all soon follow 
 our good example." The exact reverse has proved to be the case ; 
 and now England must retrace her steps, in so far as fitting her 
 polity to that of other nations with whom she trades, if she 
 would wish to retain her power for usefulness in influencing the 
 commercial policy of the world in the future. Strong as our 
 country is, she cannot carry on for long a commercial system 
 differing from that of the whole world, and it behoves her com- 
 mercial men to look their present difficulties fairly in the face, to 
 discover where the real faults lie, and to remedy them with 
 no unsparing hand ; but, above all, the country looks to them to 
 devise such measures as shall avert the ruin which now threatens 
 the manufacturing, mercantile, and agricultural portions of the 
 community, and through them of every other interest in the land. 
 It is too early as yet in our history to write " Delenda est 
 Carthage" over our portals ; still less should we submit to have 
 it written there owing to a blind adhesion to a false principle 
 of commerce, a doctrine impracticable where singular, and a 
 Politico-Economic crotchet which has failed to realise every 
 promise of its promoters, which has ruined thousands of the
 
 FREE TRADE. 55 
 
 steady-going, law-abiding (hitherto law-making) middle-class of 
 the country, has sent millions of her sons to seek a home on 
 foreign shores, and will, if persisted in, put England back 200 years 
 in the scale of history, by making her dependent upon foreign 
 nations for the supply of all her wants, and, by the destruction 
 of the independence of her people, will eventually deprive her 
 of that proudest of her titles — " The Home of Free Institutions." 
 To avert such calamities, I trust all will take example fi-om the 
 best period of Roman history, so beautifully described by 
 Macaulay when he wrote : 
 
 " Then none were for a party, 
 
 Then all were for the state ; 
 Then the rich man helped the poor, 
 And the poor man loved the great." 
 
 And to complete the stanzas in prophetic parody, I earnestly 
 hope we may be able, ere long, to add : 
 
 " With imports fairly weighted. 
 And native goods well sold, 
 England returns, rejoicing. 
 To the brave days of old."