ENGLAND’S ISOLATED FREE TRADE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6504, 31 December 1881, Page 5

ENGLAND’S ISOLATED FREE TRADE.

(IKiutMMth Cmitury.)

The meet sanguine moat allow there is something ratten in the state of England. We have a population of 81,000,000 of the best working race ia the world, aeons* tamed for generations to agricultural and manafootnring industries. We have ample capital, better banking facilities and credit, cheaper coal and iron, and better engineers and mechanics and machinery than any other nation in the world; greater facilities for importing raw materials for our industries ; our climate is bettor adapted for labour of all kinds all the year round than any other climate in the world t our soil, take it all through, is better suited for agricultural industries than any soil in Europe or America 4 we hare the flnesi breed of horses, beasts, pigs and sheep ia the world) and yet the agricultural interest is on the verge of ruin, and the manufacturing interest is ia a condition that alarms all who are engaged in it. Mow why is this P Great Britain has lost nons of her natural advantage*. Her ebal, her iron, her vast capital, her soil, her climate are etill the same 1 her population in increasing. We ars told that, the Ifcenoh and Belgians beat us because they ore more thrifty than we are) bat the French ;and Belgians were equally thrifty, and the English equally extravagant fifteen years ago, and they did not beat ue then. We are told the American* are more enterprising, and no doubt they ore, but it is toe enterprise born cl prosperous end in* creasing trade os contrasted with the depression inseparable from « steadily decreasing one. England is the only country in the world that ha® adopted what is called free trade, and England is the only country in the world that i* retrograding in industrial prosperity. “ Isolated’’ free trade has removed the restriction from foreign trade, but not from English trade) it ha* not conferred a single Meeting on this country that every other country has not enjoyed under absolute protection] but it has done this for us, it has rained our great agricultural interest. It has year by year reduced our food-producing power. It hoe thrown one quarter (soon,aloe! most probably to become one-half) of our wheat area out of cultivation. It has extinguished our dairy farming, our fruit and vegetables, and all minor agricultural industries. It has enabled foreigners to flood our markets with cheep, and often nasty, manufactured goods) it has transferred the production of between fifty and sixty millions* worth of manufactured goods from English manufacturers and English operative* to foreigner*. It ha* made our immense manufacturing capital wnremuneiative. It has made the employment of our operatives uncertain and spasmodic. It ha* very much deteriorated the quality of our manufactured good*. It boa increased the balance of trade against ns, til! it has reached the alarming figure of 8186,00h000. It has absolutely destroyed all confidence in the present and future of our manufacturing Industries. It baa reduced the industries of England to this condition, that with the exception of the bankers, the brokers, the brewers, the distillers, and the publicans, and the Importers of foreign goods, every class in (he community is either losing money or working without, profit. Wages have risen more rapidly in proportion in protective France, Belgium end America, than in freetrade England, and, what is of Infinitely more importance, employment has been more steady ana continuous. The position of the operative under protection in America ia better in every respect than the position of his mate under BVee Trade. Openllveo from aU parts of the world flock to America, the land of protection 5 not one ever comes to England, the land of Fra# Trade. I. I# it 1 probable or even possible that England con 1 return to protection P 2. If shr did eo, 1 would the working classes be benefited by it? 1 The answer to the first question must be {

•ought In » careful antJyil# of the census, It appears probable that the operative classes, ••ft body, wilt go for *' protection to land I ftnd labour j " if they do to, the manufacturer)!, tto landowner it, the tenant farmer*, the labourer*, every tradesman and shopkeeper in the manufacturing and. agricultural towtae and village* throughout the country, the brewer*, the publican*, the carrier*, and all the small induetrici. directly or indirectly dependent on the prosperity and spending power of the operative and agricultural does**, will follow them to a man. Secondly. Supposing England doe* return to protection, wifli the working classes bo benefited by it? 'Will foreign nation* buy more of onr good* boeause we put a doty on their good* ? Cor* U inly not j they will continue to boy from o* just what they do now, neither more nor le«e, what they cannot make themielve*, and what they oasinot buy better elsewhere. But, on the other hand, we should buy £40,000,000 or £60,000,000 In* of their goods, and consume £40,000,000 or £60,000,000 more of onr own goods t and £20,000,000 or £25,000,000 of wages that now go into the pookete of foreign operative* would go into the pocket* of English operative*. My confidence, therefore, i* most abioluto (hat when the nation realises it* tone industrial position, and common sente ha* removed the question from the arena of party politics, the demand throughout the country from almost every class for a return to protection will be irresistible.