ENGLAND'S ISOLATED FREE TRADE. (Nineteenth Century.)

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1486, 12 January 1882, Page 4

ENGLAND'S ISOLATED FREE TRADE. ( Nineteenth Century.)

The -most sanguine must allow there is something rotten in the state of England. We have a population of 34,000,000 of the best working race in the world, accustomed for generations to agricultural and manufacturing industries. We have ample capital, better banking facilities and credit, cheaper coal and iron, and better engiueers and mechanics and machinery than any other nation in the world; greater facilities for importing raw materials for our industries ; our climate is better adapted for labour of all kinds all the year round than any other climate in the world ; our soil, take it all through, is better suited for agricultural industries than any other soil m Em ope or America ; we have the finest breed of horses, beasts, pig 3 and sheep in the world ; and yet the agricultiual interest is on the verge of ruin, and the manufacturing interest is in a condition that alarms all who are engaged in it. Now why is this? Great Britain has lost none of her natural advantages. Her coal, her iron, her vast capital, her soil, her climate, are still the same ; her population is increasing. We are told that the French and Belgians beat us because they are more thrifty than we are ; but the French and Belgians were equally thrifty, and the English equally extravagant fifteen yeavs ago, and they did not beat us then. We are told the Americans are more enterprising, and no doubt they are, but it is the enterprise born of prosperous and increasing trade as contrasted with the depiession inseparable from a steadily decreasing one. England is the only country in the world that has adopted what is called free trade, and England is the only country in the world tluit is letrogiading in industrial prosperity. '' Isolated free trade has removed the lestiiction from foreign trade, but not fio n English trade ; it 1) is not conferi cd a singlu blessing on this country that cveiy other country has not enjoyed under absolute protection ; but it has done tin-, fur us, it has ruined our great agiiculturalinteie&t. It has year by year rcluccd our ioodproducing power. It lias thioswi one quarter (soon, alas ! most probably to become one-half) of our wlic.it nio.i out of cultivation. It has extinguished our dairy farming, our fruit and vegetables, and all minor agricultural indu-stiies. It has enabled foreigners to flood our mat - kets with cheap, and oftmi nasty, manufactured goods; it lias transteired the production of between fifty and fakty millions' worth of manufae Liv ed goods f i oi n English immufaeturei s and English operalive to foreigneis. Ithasiiiadeouriinmcn.se mimufaetunng capital imrcmunorativo It has made the employment of our operatives uncertain and spasmodic. It has very much deteriorated the quality of our manufactured goods. It has increased the balance ot trade against us, till it has reached the alarming figuio of £120,000,000. It has absolutely destroyed all confidence in the pie&ent and future of our mmufactuiing industuo-i. It has reduced the indiiah- c-> of England to this condition, that with the exception of the bankers, the biokeis, the bi ewers, the distillers, and the publicans, and the importer of foicign goods, cveiy class in the community i& either losing money or woikmg u lthout piofit. Wages have risen moi c rapidly m piopoition m piotective Franc j, JJc'gmin and Anurica, than in free-tiade Englind, and, what is of infinitely moic i nportanec, employment has *l>cui rnoio bt-ady and continuous. The position of the opc.itne under piotection in Aimiiica is bettci in every inspect than the position ot his mate under Ficc Ti.vde. Opoiatncs ft om all p.uts of the world Hock to America, the land of protection ; not one ever comes to England, the laud of Free Trade. 1. Is it probible or oven possible that England can leturn to protection ? 2. If the did m>, would the working classes be benefited by it ? The miswer to the fust question must be .sought in a careful analysis of the census. Jt appeals piobiblc that the operative classes, as a body, a ill go for " piotection to land and labor : ' it t'icy do so, the manufdctui ers, the landow nois, the tenant farmers, the laboreis, e\ery tradesman and sliopkcepci in the manufacturing and agricultural towns and \ill.iges throughout the countiy, the bicwcis, the publicans, and all tlie small industries, diiectly or indirectly dependent on the prosperity and spending power of the operative and agricultiual classes, will follow them to a man. Secondly. .Supposing England does return to protection, will the woiking classes be benefited by it? Will foreign nations buy more of our goods because we put a duty on their goods ? Certainly not ; they will continue to buy from us just what they do now, neither more nor less, what they cannot make themselves, and what they cannot buy better elsewhere. But, on the other hand, we .should buy £40,000,000 or £50,000,000 more of our own goods ; and £20,000,000 or £23,000,000 of wages that now go into the pockets of foreign operatives would go into tho pockets of British operatives. My confidence, therefore, is most absolute that when the nation realises its tine industiial position, and common sense has renwv ed the question from the arena of party polities, the demand throughout the country fiom almost every class for a return to protection will be irresistible.

The fossil remains of a pnOu<*toiio man hay« been found at Cirabdcd, near Nice. An American paper says: — Year by year the Bdtish army, onoo the most beautifully clad and brilliantly equipped in the woi ld, loses something in piotureequoness. Featheis and epaulettes aLe gone, and, except with the hussars, lace of gold or silver has all but disappeared. Several cinerary urns, sun-baked and of great antiquarian interest, have been unearthed at Hampton Wick, England. They were found at a depth of from eighteen inches to two feet. Some persons who hid examined tho fragments of the urns, which were unfortunately broken by the pickaxes of the labourers, •who accidentally discovered them, are of the opinion that the vessels were made before the Romans occupied the country. Not Extraordinary.— The following story is told of a Sooth subaltern at Gibraltar : He was one day on guard with another officer who, unfoitimately, fell clown a precipice four hundred feet, and was killed. Non-military readers should understand that in the guard reports there is a small addendum— viz., " N.B. —Nothing extraordinary since guard mounting." The meaning of which is that, in case anything particular should occur, the officer commanding the guard is bound to mention it. Our friend, - . however, said nothing about the accident which had occured to his brother officer, and, some hours after, the BrigadeMajor came to his quarters on the part of the officer commanding, with the report *in his hand, to demand an explanation. " You say, sir, in your report, ' N.B. — Nothing extraordinary since guard mounting,' when your brother officer, on duty with you. has fallen down a preci- , pice and been lulled?" "Wed, sir," replied he, "Idinna tlimk there's ony- \ thing extraordinary in it ava ; if he d "t y faun doon a precipice four hundred feet ¥'^ndnot been killed, I should hae thought extraordinary indeed, and wad l^e, put' jit down in ma report."