PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. [From Bell's Weekly Messenger, November 29.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 712, 29 May 1852, Page 4

PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. [From Bell's Weekly Messenger, November 29.]

" There is hardly a society of merchants that would not have it thought the whole prosperity of the kingdom depended on their single traffic ; so that at any time when they come to be consulted, their answers are dark and partial ; and when they deliberate themselves in assemblies, it is generally with a bias, and a secret eye to their own advantage." So wrote Davenant, in bis " Treatise on the Revenues and Trade of England," in 1698, and his criticism has lost none of its truth in our days. Mercantile centralisation only differs from political centralisation in the objects sought to be gained ; the spirit of both is the same, and the common end of both is monopoly, in the one case of government, in the other of uade. However varied in character, absolutism is as vigorous \a Manchester as at S . Petersburgh. Was it not despotism that opposed the Ten Hours Bill ? Is it not despotism that insists that every industry shall be subordinate to the manufacture of cotton ? It is the first duty of a statesman to view the nation he governs as a whole, without any bias in favour of class or section ; and a British statesman should regard the colonies with as much interest as the United Kingdom. Since it is the destiny 'of our iace r to live by labour, his chief anxietj shoulU be to enlarge the field of employment, without which peace and order cannot be maintained in society. This is the essence of a truly Protective policy, from which all exclusiveness is necessarily rejected ; and if these principles are applied to Agriculture, it may be asked whether the tendency of free imports is calculated to throw a portion of British land out of culture ? — for if it does, it is plain that the field of employment must be proportionably contracted. When prices rise, inferior land is brought under the plough, and the worse its quality the more labour is required for its cultivation. When prices fall, the poorer soils, which employ most labour, are the first to be abandoned, and the demand for labour will be lessened in a greater ratio even than the, amount of produce. But the labourers remain, and the competition among them becoming fiercer, not only will wages decline, but pauperism much increase. Can these men, driven from the plough, hope to find permanent occupation at the loom? If they did, such an immigration from the rural into the manufacturing districts would fearfully reduce the reward of industry through competition ; but even a greater evil must arise, for machinery is always displacing the human hand, and inventing new processes to supersede labour. Were the Manchester school to retain its present ascendancy for a few years longer, a system of industrial centralization would be perfected, and we should witness a monopoly of the most hideous form, springing from the unsuspected source of Free-trade, which seeks to concentrate — not. to distribute — what is accumulated. Wealth, or the theory of the increase of wealth, has been regarded as the special object of political economy ; but it has left it to be inferred, whether man belongs to wealth, or wealth belongs ,to man. Personal slavery is the sternest form in which " man belongs to, wealth ; " and though, in this country, slavery is abolished, capital is the master 6f industry, and a» , commercial centralU sation advances, capital will approach nearer and nearer to despotism. The modern maxim, "Buy in the cheapest, sell in the dearest ' mai ket, tr is one of the exponents of this' maxim. To buy produce,, is to buy the results of labour, and the cheaper it is bought, the more "is, added To the purchasing power of capital. This doctrine, forgetting persons, and solely intent on things, makes the success of »one class depend on the ruin of some other' class' through the process of underselling, and in the pursuit'of material objects sacrifices producers. It fails to perceive that wealth is an. attribute, jnot an essence, and' that its nature changes with the persons and things to which it is attributed. By heaping up riches, concentrated in few hands, and placing tbem beyond the reach of the great body of the people, it simply realises the fable of Tantalus. Manchester protects the capital in which its own manufactures are interested by abandoning humanity ; and while, in general terms, it denounces class legislation, it puts, forward aud enforces an exceptional reservation in favour of its own fabrics. It grasps at clothing the world while repudiating monopoly. It is not the British agricoltntist alone who is sacrificed to this system ; the British merchant shares. the same fate. -He buys certain goods in Lancashire' and Yorkshire, to »end, for instance,

to Calcutta or Ghina, or other distant markets;' but when bis demand is completed, machinery continues its. untiring energies: an additional stock is accumulated, and is forced speculatively into the same markets to which the merchant has sent his consignment. , Then prices fall to au unremunerating level under this new form of competition, by which the manufacturer ruins hi* own customer. Tins is the very cannibalism of commerce. Manchester boasts of its ability to supply the whole world with textile fabrics, bur, wiih incredible blindness, concurs in measures by which the home trade is most deeply injured. The foreigner meets us with hostile tariffs, having the wisdom to foster his own native industry. Manchester upholds a <policy which impoverishes its own customers within the rajige of the British Empire, to whom it has easy .and uninterrupted access, and thus- shows itself really ignorant of what constitutes a market. "Let us but consider," says Mr. Jamec Mill, " what is meant by a market. Is anything else understood by it than that something is ready to be exchanged for the commodity which we would dispose ■of 1 When goods are carried to maiket, what is wanted^ is somebody to buy. But to buy, one must have wherewithal to pay. It is obviously therefore ihe collective means of payment which exist in the whole nation, that constitute the entire market, of the nation. But wherein consists the collective means 'of payment of: the-whole nation ? Do they not consist in its annual produce, in the annual revenue of the general mess of the inhabitants 1 But if a nation's power of purchasing is exactly measured by its annual pro-luce, as it undoubtedly is, the mote you increase the annual produce, the more by .that very act you extend the national maiket, the power of puroliai ing and the actual purchases of the nation." — "Commerce Defended," by James Mill, p 83, ; published 1808. Now, the Manchester school, and the legislation founded upon it, act in direct opposition to these wise principles. They would throw British land out of culture, destroy colonial agriculture, and deprive British ships of freight ; they would lower the annual produce of the empire, and therefore. \n the terms of Mr. Mill's argument, reduce its power of purchasing. If practical proof is required of the soundness of this reasoning, we appeal to Ireland, where wages are very low and food very cheap ; it is a bid customer to out manufacturing districts, because its collective' means of payment are small,* owing to its povevty. It is a seamy buyer, because it is a scanty seller. It would have been wise to have made a great effort to elevate Ireland to the condition of Eng-' land ; but Manchester desires, through cheapness, to lower England to the level of lieland. It is a fundamental error to look abroad for markets till those at home are fully supplied. Mr. Mill affirms that " a nation always has within itself a market equal to all the commodities of which it can possibly dispose.'' " Foreign commerce," therefore, he contends, " is in all cases a matter of expediency, rather than of uecesstty. The intention of it is not to furnish a vent tor the produce of the country, because that industry always furnishes a vent for itself. The intentisn of it is to exchange a part of our own commodiries for a part of the commodities which we prefer to our own of some other nation ; to exchange a set of commodities winch it peculiarly suits our country to produce, for a set of commodities whirli it peculiarly suits that other country to produce." This reasoning establishes an instructive distittctiou between rational and irrational Free trade ; it teaches us that we should import, exempt from duty, those articles which we cannot produce. This is not laid down as an arbitrary rule, not admitting any exception, but cs a general principle of international commerce. Tea is au article that cannot he grown in e-ur own climate. Were it admitted free, the consumption would be doubled, perhaps trebled ; and as five pounds of sugar are consumed for every. pound of tea, this arrangement would at once give an impulse to colonial trade, provided slave-gro-wn sugar were excluded. ' The demand for shipping 1 would be vastly increased, and every trade "ehgag-* ed in the construction or repair of vessels would be benefited. Nor would the advantage rest here.' The import of tea and sugar, so far from displacing any portion of British labour, would call hundreds of thousands of our artisans and mechanics into activity to create produce in exchange for double the quantity of tea, and fivefold the quantity of sugar. This is a very different operation from that recommended by the Manchester school, which freely admits the very articles which we can produce, and thus displaces a proportionate amount of native industry. If foreigners, in the race of competition on which we have entered, could undersell us in textile fabrics at some future date, and thus deprive the spinners and weavers of Lancashire of work and wages, then sound policy would exclude this ruinous competition from onr markets ; and. surely this rule ought now to be applied for the protection of those of our countrymen who earn a subsistence by making hats, shoes, boots, gloves, jewellery, and a vaiiety of other articles, and more especially/ to prevent the land of this kingdom from being thrown out of culture. In these discussions it should never lie forgotten that the competition which lowers the money , cost of commodities adds to the purchasing power, of all fixed annuities, and they who bold these, have pecuniary interests directly opposed to all who live on profits and wages. The 'fixed M-. nuitanUare Free-traders, for, to them. Fr.ee- trade is cheapness. It enables them to buy labour. en easier terms, and, in a great degree, to escape taxation. . Hence the monied monopolists, make common cause with the Manchester, party. The greater, therefore, is the reason ;wby all Protectionists should make common cause together against the common enemy, and waive or post-, pone minor points of difference. The shopkeepers of London are beginning to complain as well as the farmers ; and as those interested in the soil, will congregate into London during the middle of tiext month, we venture to hint that a public de-, monstration, including as many varieties as possible of the pioductive classes, rural and urban, might produce a happy influence on the accredited leaders of public opinion, and the future decision of the legislature. - - -