The Daily News MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1905. THE FISCAL ISSUE IN ENGLAND.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7737, 13 February 1905, Page 2

The Daily News MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1905. THE FISCAL ISSUE IN ENGLAND.

The problem of the unemployed, with which Xew Zealand in past times was not unfamiliur, has reached a more than usually acute stage in England at the present time. Whatever Mr Balfour's plans may be for the temporary relief of the willing workers who can at present find nothing to do, and are living on the verge of.death from starvation, thero can be no serious help afforded until the statesmen of Great llritain" recognise that a new era has set in, in which England is no longer the undisputed mistress of the manufacturing world. For years past there has been a continuous flood of literature poured out by the radical press of England, pointing out the trend of events, and the measures necessary to preserve some share of the prosperity to which Great llritain has attained. But until quite recently all these warnings have been brushed aside as the mere pessimistic utterances of men without courage or confidence, and England has gone on steadily losing more and more of its foreign trade, and even the control of its own home markets. At present, largely on account of the fiscal agitation brought to a head by the determined action of Mr Chamberlain, there is considerably more interest being taken in nil phases of industrial reform than at any other period of England's history during the last sixty years. The unemployed problem is merely a symptom of the general weakness which has fallen upon industrialism in Great Britain since she has had to cope with the competition of America, Germany, Belgium, and, In a less degree, with the other protective nations of the world. It is of course in vain to hope that any one country can again for any length of time dominate the commerce of the world, as England did during the greater part of last century. America had only just begun to enter into competition in the world's markets, when the Civil War of the sixties gave her a set-back that took many years to overcome. Germany, as a world's manufacturer, did not take any serious position until the unification of the kingdoms and principalities after" the war with France. France, in lack of the shipping and the colonics which had boon lost to her in long wars with England, was practically a negligible quantity. Largely in virtue of these difficulties of her neighbours, England had things in her own hands for several decades. She was ahead in machinery, coal, industrial resources, and skill, and was, as she still is, the world's chief carrier. Colydcnism became the fetish of the mMdle-clasS Englishman, for temporarily it had made England rich and prosperous. Freetrade got the credit which was really due partly to the system of rigid ijrotection'which had enabled England to found factories and industries in advance of the rest of the world. The theory that England should import her raw material from all ends of the earth, work it up in manufactured goods, and export it to the other countries, worked out beautifully in practice for many years. The effect on the population of England, and particularly on the rural industries, was what might have been expected. More and more land went out. of cultivation—for the simple reason that without protective duties the English farmer could not compete with America and .Russia, Australia, and other great agricultural and pastoral areas. The theory was that this did not matter—that America, and Kussia, and Australia, would continue to devote themselves to the production of raw material, and wouhjL always be magnificent markets for England's manufactures. It was not foreseen that each and all of those countries, and the world at large as well, would not be satisfied with this arrangement, and would, in course of time, establish manufacturing industries of their own following the example of England bv building them up by a system of bonuses and protection. Even when this process begun it was not appraised «t its ultimate value. The more belated countries needed machinery to establish their own factories. This they bought from England in enormous quantities, and, consequently, there was no immediate check" to the growth of her prosperity and riches. But during recent years the pinch of competition has become keener and keener. England's exports have fallen off enormously, and in consequence of her adherence to her Freetrade policy she has been made the dumping ground of the surplus products of Europe and America. The result is that at last it has come home io many leading men that Freetrade must go. Likewise it is realised thut it is not a good thing for any country that its workers should have to compete with pauper immigrants I from the continent. Conventions and commissions are the order of the day, and methods of re-establishing the waning prosperity of the country are being keenly debated by every journal in thie I'nited Kingdom. The unshot, i>p course, must be the re-establishment of .some form of protection—probably modified more or less by reciprocity ngivvmcnjf ! With her own communities beyoivii tbf' .sea. Probably, also, there will yet Ik. given to the colonies some share in tin* shaping of England's' imperial policy. Thps»> measures are , in the air at present, and will, sooner or Inter, let us hope, materialise into some plan that will rentier 1 Great Britain commercially safe till the far distant future,The Duchess of Marlborough, Sir John WfnfieSd Bonscr, and others '.have gone to Austria with their aural troubles ; Lord de Ramsey, Mr Nuwhou.se, and others go to Fagenstnecher, at Wiesbaden, for their eyes while Mrs Arthur Paget, who had , all the London surgical talent at her disposti l , has gone to Professor JToffa in despair. Our doctors must lookto their laurels or soon it will become an linexorable fashion among our nobility nnd moneyed eflnsses to be doctored abroad.—A Lookcv-On in OnJooKer,