BRITAIN'S UNEMPLOYED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8056, 24 February 1906, Page 2

BRITAIN'S UNEMPLOYED.

[To Till', ElllTOll.' Sin,—The cable news relating lo the above which you published this morning must cause the so-called " Free Traders" to pause and think Tt must have been a bitter pill to Mr Lloyd George to have to announce in the House of Commons that there were over one hmmlrcd and twenty-six thousand men out of work in Britain. And all this has happened under the glorious system of Frco Trade I By the last 'Frisco mail I received a letter from a friend who is badly bitten by the microbe of Free Trade (if a microbe does bite), and he had to cut the lettc short because he was going to n big Liberal election meeting lo " holler for Free Trade I" And yel in his own town they arc not doing a quarter of the business with one foreign country that they wore eight years ago when I was engaged in business (here. Tariffs have gone up and up in that country until they are almost prohibitive. But this same friend talks of " free trade " when America and Germany shut out his goods from their country and pour their own goods into his! A very funny sort of freedom. The result is seen iu your cable news. What is wanted, Sir, is real Free Trade—a fair exchange, of goods, and any system—call it Retaliation, or what you will—that will eventually bring about this fair exchange is lo be welcomed. So long as people have to work to obtain a living, work must be found, and no amount of cant—though the Liberals at Home seem able to talk this by the yard—about Cnbdcii and the glories of Free Trade is going to solve the dilliculty.—[ am, etc., W.G. New Plymouth, Feb. 23.