Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 1892.

Manawatu Herald, 7 June 1892, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 1892.

Free Trade. ♦ TH&New Zealand Times in yesterdays issue notes with evident pleasure the peculiar remarks of 1 Carlyle on Freetrade, and publishes the following extract from Sir Gavan Duffy's reminescences : — " After Cobden'a death, speaking of 'a

p"acfe oi idle shrieking creatures goiug ', about crying oat that the great Richnrd was dead.' Carlyle said, ' Their Preetrade was the most intends nonsense that ever provoked human patience. The people of Australia were quite right to protect their industries and teach their young men trades in completo disregard of parliamentary and platform palaver. No nation ever got niauufactures in any other way.' This would appear very handy for a ' Liberal ' government, standing by itself, but it is worthy of note that to the Liberals do the English owe their Free Trade* and that the greatest leader of the Liberals, Mr. Gladstone, lately said, in answer to the question whether he was satisfied with the results of the reforming activity of the last sixty years. " In political affairs I think progress has been almost wholly good. But I am not an optimist, and I am convinced that the duties of government will always be more or less imperfectly performed. As society becomes more complex, the work of the government will become more and more difficult. Still political progress has been good and almost wholly good. In Free Trader for instance, it has been entirely good. 1 look upon that with the most perfect complacency. They speak sometimes of the greed of competition, but the greed of competition is not to be compared with the greed of the monopolist. The greedy competitor at least shares his gains with the public ; but the greed of the monopolist is the greed of the robber." It is curious to find the organ of the government which professes such great liberal views, bringing forward the opinions of Mr Carlyle to back up protection, and ignoring the opinions of the great leader of the English Liberals. Cobden was a friend of Mr Gladstone's and together they fought the fight of Free Trade, and at the first dinner of the Cobden Club, instituted to spread and develop Cobden's principles, Mr Gladstone was in the chair. Mr Gladstone has stated in the conversation quoted above, that he has always upheld Free Trade, a fact of which Carlyle must have been iully aware. Mr Carlyle had small love for Mr Gladstone and a very good story is related of the very unreasoning nature for his dislike, and the story further shows that Carlyle's opinions on men or deeds were often arrived at in a most curious manner, thus militating against their usefulness, and certainly places his condemnation of Free Trade as a matter of but small moment. The story goes " There is that Gladstone," growled Mr Carlyle, " who is running up and down the country talking and talking, filling whole acres of the papers with his speech, and never so far as I can see, a single wise word in the whole of it." " Really, Mr Carlyle," I ventured to say, " I should have thought you would have been delighted with one of his recent speeches in which he expressed in his own way the same ideas as those you have been impressing on me. Do you not remember ? The speech was made only a week or two since." " Remember," said Mr Carlyle with disgust, " why, do you think I ever read his speeches. I have never read a word of them."