Correspondence.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 136, 5 December 1894, Page 2

Correspondence.

FREETRADE AND PROTECTION IN AMERICA.

TO TIIE RDITOR OP THE STAR. Sir,— l wonder whether your correspondent "Patriot" is an Amerioan patriot, and, if so, whether his patriotism embraces the interests of the great bulk of the American people as well the interests of the much smaller manufacturing class which is so greatly benefited by the unjust taxation of those who are least able to bear it. It is not my intention, nor have I at hand the requisite information, to reply in detail to your correspondent's letter, but I should not be at all surprised to find that those who are in a position to do so could scatter its reasoning, if not its statements, into fragments, and, imitating your correspondent's use oi that vulgar American phrase, "high falutin," which he applies to the Chairman of the Congress of the U.S.A., could retaliate by saying " Ditto, Brother Smut " (If I may be excused for making use of an English vulgar phrase). Ido not know what is the present condition of the laboring class of the Amerioan people, but I do know from my own knowledge and personal experience that during the last forty or fifty years, since the total abolition of Protection in England, the condition and comforts of the English laboring classes have improved to an unexampled extent. It is all very well for your correspondent to sneer at what he and other rabid Protectionists call " Cobden's School," and to style the opinions on political economy of the best thinkers and writers old fashioned and out of date, but their arguments and reasonings in favor of Freetrade never have been, and cannot be, refuted. As for the so-called " Cobden's School," I shall never forget the excitement in England when Cobden and Bright were so enthusiastically supported by the Manchester manufacturers at a single meeting, when, in the course of an hour or two, they subscribed the large snm of £80,000 in support of the Freetrade agitation. I am afraid, on " Patriot's " account, that his expectation that McKinley will become the next President of the United States wilj not be realised, but we shall see. I am, etc., Sami.. Goobehere. Feilding, December 4th, 1894.