TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3229, 4 November 1881, Page 2

TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1881.

That a reaction in the direction of Protection is spreading in England is an accepted fact; and that it is spreading widely amongst the very class that has benefitted the most by Free Trade is a matter to be regretted, but not very much fo be wondered at. Any cry of increased wages, however deluding and baseless, is sure to find many sympathisers amongst the great mass of the unthinking. That such men as Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote Bhould take advantage of this tendency to reaction for, party purposes was to be expected, and that they should be followed by the large body of landed proprietors, who have ever sigbed for a return to the flesh pot« of that Egypt of Protection in which they revelled so long, can be no matter of surprise. "That under the name of " fairtrade " this sneaking towards protection is making progress is shown by the fact that Lord Derby took occasion, in a recent speech, to enter a most emphatic protest against anything like retrogression towards the bonds of Protection. And that it is finding adherents among the very class which ought to fear a retrogression of this kind the most, is shown by the efforts of the more intelligent leaders among the working men, both in the press.and on the platform, to counteract the insidious working of the so called " Fair Trade League." Mr George Potter, who has been for long a consistent and temperate advocate of the claims of the working man to political power, in a recent article published in the Nineteenth Century, puts the matter very clearly before bis fellow workmen. Tbe first question he asks is who repents the repeal of the corn laws. If a protective policy, modified or otherwise, is intended to succor distressed industries, then the English farmer would be the first to claim its care. _ The trade between England and the United States is what these new " Leaguers " would Call-"unfair," the Americans imposing a heavy duty upon many English exports, and American goods being admitted free into England. Mr Potter asks at once are you prepared to recommend a tax upon the importation of American corn P and then points out that the immediate

effect of BUf;*-i a policy would be to enable that hete noire of the Irish peasant, the landlord to exact higher rents. Another immediate result would be a rise in the price of bread. But no real good would be done either to the farmer or to the owner of the soil. The fact is that protectionists, and the " fair-trader" is just a protectionist under another name, iguore the principle of free-trade that it is tbe country which imposes restrictive tariffs whose trade suffers in the long run, not the countries against whom tbe duties are imposed. Thus we see the United States, with all their gigantic resources, possessed of no foreign, trade ia native manufactures worth mentioning, stripped almost entirely of an over-sea carrying trade, and very sensitive in their raw produce trade to competition from any part of the world. The American correspondent of a contemporary f-ays:-—"Protective tariffs are an unnatural impediment to free commerce, and, in so far as they are obstructive, are sinful. The United States has done and are now making vigorous efforts to promote and maintain commercial relations with the world by means of liberal treaties, maintaining a diploi matic representative at every capital, a consulate at every important port, keeping in commission an expensive navy, expending vast sums for improvement of rivers and harbors, subsidising steamship companies upon both Atlantic and Pacific Oceans—all in order to facilitate commerce with foreign nations; but at the same time interposes artificial obstacles more difficult to overcome than all the natural obstacles I have named in the shape of protective tariffs, which practically place a penalty upon trade with foreign nations. All such restrictions are unnatural, impolitic, and injurious, and, unless trade is restricted altogether, must necessarily be partial and unjast. Such laws, under the deceitful name of ' protection to home industry,' lay heavy duties upon foreign products in order to enable those who produce the same articles at home to charge a higher price for them, and at the same time give them control of the home market, which means only to compel the people to buy of the favored individual at a higher price than they could but for those laws.'*.'lt is evident that another free-trade struggle is about to take place is England, but the champions of free trade will not have to meet the mass of ignorance and prejudice which met them on their first campaign. Many of the old leaders have passed away, but their mantles have fallen upon worthy shoulders. The fight may be sharp, but the result will be decisive, and cannot be doubted by those who have watched the course of commercial legislation during recent years.