WHAT HAS FREE TRADE DONE?

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1613, 19 July 1887, Page 4

WHAT HAS FREE TRADE DONE?

At a- time like the present, when party feeling runs high and when one of the issues of the approaching general election will be whether the colony is to be committed to a Free Trade or Protection policy, it might be well for . a few momeuts to hush the strife o debate, and calmly ask ourselves the very pertinent question, " What has Free Trade done for Great Britain " — the only nation which has given that policy a fair trial. We hear the advocates of that system talk volubly of the benefits which Free Trade will confer on the whole civilised world. But this is not exactly what is wanted, which is, what has Free Trade done for those countries where its principles have been adopted. This, it must be allowed, is a crucial test. Surely, if m some thirty or forty years, Free Trade has failed to achieve that which its arch-priest Richard Cobden predicted with the utmost confidence, it would accomplish m ten years, there is very little probability of it ever doing so. The advocates of Free Trade maintain a discreet silence as to what it has done, and confine their utterances to what they and other clever men anticipate it will do. But this will not satisfy the electors unless they are of an exceptionally plastic type. They will argue something m this style. " Richard Cobden was a clever man, we know — far cleverer than those candidates who, if returned as members of the House of Representatives, would commit the i colony to Free Trade — and if Cobden was deceived or mistaken, how much more likely is it that these lesser lights — these less clever men — wfll be equally deceived and mistaken. No 1 no ! we don't want to know what Free Trade will do, but what it has done." Now it is utterly useless to expect that the advocats of Free Trade will tell them this, for the simple reason that they do not know. In saying this we | do not intend any dfscourtesy to tho3e worthy gentlemen who have adopted and believe m the principles of Free Trade ; for we do not remember to have seen the results of that policy intelligently and intelligibly set forth. In fact, we cannot well see how it could be otherwise, situate as we are, remote from the Mother Country, and debarred from access to her official records. Indeed, if we were m possession of i these records it would take more time and more persevering labor to arrive at the result than any of our politicians would care to devote to the task, Fortunately for us this has been done, and ably done. We have before us one of a series of statistics, annually compiled by Mr H. L. Sherlock, of Liverpool — a gentleman whose business makes him familiar with the subject — showing " the importation of foreign manufactured goods admitted into this ceuntry (Great Britain) m the fourteen years ending 3isr December, 1884, entirely duey free. They are : — Silk Manufactures .. .. £148,097,194 Woollens, Carpets and Rugs.. 96,830,043 Cotton Manufactures . . . . 27,337,579 Chemicals 15,969,544 Clocks and "Watches . . . . 13,152,249 Copper, manufactured . . 38,828,539 Gloves of Leather . » . . 22 687,900 Glrss and Manufactures . . 22,737,634 Hats and Bonneia, of Straw . . 889,927 Iron and Steel Manufdctures and Machinery . . . . 35,393,684 Leather, tanned .. „ 44,868\581 Lead, manufactured .. .. 21,688,850 Oil Seed Cake 22,135,072 Paper .. N 15,639,845 Sugar, Refined, and Candy . . 58,618,583 Zinc Manufactures . » . . 5,286,672 Goods Unenumerated „ 556,927,485 Total .. .. £1,146,989,281 The above figures are extracted from the returns issued by the Board q£ Trade known as ' Trade and Navi'ga- ' tion,' and published by order of the House of Commons," but not focussed as above. They show to what an ' extent the British manufacturer and the British workmen have been damnified by the admission, duty, free of the manufactures of foreign countries where labor is cheap. We cease to wonder at wages being reduced, or mills being closed through not being able to woik at a profit, or even at riots, such as those that occurred at Nottingham, taking place, when we fiud that m fourteen years upwards of eleven hundred million pounds sterling of cheap labor manufactures were admitted into the United Kingdom duty free. But this is not all that Free Trade has done fnr the good people at Home. Not only has it starved the manufucturing industries and impoverished the work people, but it bas also entirely ruined the agricultural interest, and depreciated the value of real estate m Great Britain by hundreds of millions sterling.