com

is unfortunate that we have no

reliable statistics of the latter; but if we take the proportion of the production of coals and pig-iron, after deducting the export, and of the goods conveyed from place to place at home, to what is exported to our colonies and foreign countries, we find our home trade exceeds our colonial and foreign ten times. Our colonial trade is more than one-third of our foreign; if we leave it out of the account, the foreign is seen to be less than one-fifteenth of our home trade! and it is for this insignificant and rapidly decaying part of our trade, we, under the cowardly fear of what other nations might do if we employed retaliation, persist in maintaining a system which attracts to our shores the over-production of the world, to the ruin of our industries and national improverishment, on the principle, ap. parently, that no industry should be allowed to live in England if another nation can undersell it.

The evidence we have adduced to show the repeal of the Corn Laws had nothing whatever to do with our commercial prosperity between 1850 and 1870 is, we submit, overwhelming. As that repeal was but an instalment of the present system, let us see how the further removal of duties affected our ex

port trade; for, let the Cobden school say what it will, it is to the increase in our export, next to that of good home trade, we must look for industrial success and the wellbeing of the masses.

1850-59 1860-69 1870-74

£2,118,029

4,444, 170 5,420,000

If

On

There being no import of this class after 1874 subject to customs duty, the system may therefore be said to have only in that year attained its full completion. the £530,000 taken off when the Corn Laws were repealed produced the marvelous results so falsely ascribed to that measure, vastly greater beneficial results should have flowed from the removal of duties, amounting to 12 milions sterling, especially after 1874, when we took farewell of the "last rag" of the system which had brought an easy 12 millions into our exchequer. referring to "the abstracts," we find the following startling results as regards our export trade :1841-50, increase, 40 per cent. 1851-60, 82 1861-70, 1871-80, neither increase nor decrease. 1881-85, decrease, 9 per cent. While some allowance must here be made for lower values, making the volume of trade appear less than these figures indicate, they but little affect the main result; for by Mr. Mulhall's method (History of Prices,' p. 10), we find the trade volume to have

been

66

66

59

66

1841-50, increase, 40 per cent. 78 1851-60, 1861-70, 66 1871-80, 66 1881-85, decrease,

66

34/2 52

66

1/2

66

:

The Cobden Club tells us "figures can be made to prove anything," but that comes with a bad grace from those who have in the

past made such a free use of them when they could be twisted into suiting their purposes. If honest

ly used, however, and made to cover sufficiently long periods, figures prove nothing but the truth. We leave them to explain the startling fact, that since 1874 the results should be so strangely in conflict with all their pet theories and prophecies. As it is only since that year that under the changed conditions of conducting the commerce of the world the free-trade system, so I called, has been on something like equal terms pitted against the much-abused protective system of the Continent, and as it is only by results they can be judged, and not by the dicta of the Cobden school, it is of the first importance we should carefully compare the results of the two systems. For this purpose, we shall take two protectionist countries, generally regarded by us in this connection as the greatest sinners-Germany and the United States. In 1874 and 1884, their exports of home produce compare with ours as follows, in millions of pounds :

2

tons, and the United States from 2,401,000 to 4,200,000 tons, while we have only increased from 6,400,000 to 8,100,000 tons. The Board of Trade Journal points out that between 1861 and 1885 Germany has increased her output of pig-iron seven times, her production of sugar six times, her consumption of jute thirty-two times, and saltpetre nearly seven times. During this period her population increased, notwithstanding the immense immigration, 24 per cent. Between 1880-83 the total production of corn increased from 281,296,559 cwts. to 320,939,000 cwts., wheat from 46,151,721 cwts. to 50,251,837 cwts., the sugar-beet industry from 93 millions of cwts. to 172 millions of cwts., and wine from 11 million gallons to 35 million gallons. The increase between 1860 and 1882 in savings-banks deposits amounted to 370 per cent per head, while during the same years they only increased in the United Kingdom 61 per cent.3 In national wealth Mr. Mulhall shows the United States now stand first among the nations of the world. Between 1865 and 1885 they have reduced their debt from 550 millions to 275 millions, and their internal taxation from 40 millions to 20 millions. The consumption of cotton has increased, since 1875, 68 per cent, while in this country it has only increased 22 per cent. In the States the production of corn increased, between 1881 and 1884, 45 per cent.

We hear it constantly asserted that the depression in trade is just

as great in other countries. But not only has there been a great revival in the States, shown by the increase in railway traffics; but if we refer to the report to our Government of Mr. Strachey, her Majesty's chargé d'affaires at Dresden, on the effect of the raising of the German tariff in 1879, and again in 1885, we find these words: "Nothing indicates that the burden of protection laid on the population is oppressive, that national impoverishment is in process, or that saving and accumulation have been arrested. On the contrary, the imperial and local revenue receipts, the estimates of property liable to income-tax, and similar State and municipal returns, are symptomatic of fair public prosperity." In another part of the report, he says: "If it be asked what signs there are in Germany of that incipient free-trade reaction which some of our politicians contrive to discern on the continent of Europe-especially in the countries most wedded to protection -there can be no hesitation in replying that there are none. The political constellations of the empire, the highest personal influences, the most powerful industrial and commercial forces-all are on the side of the existing system. The belief is widely diffused that the tariff reform of 1879 saved Germany from a great ruin, and that that empire is now on the road to industrial greatness, perhaps to the successsion of that hegemony which Great Britain, it is thought, now with difficulty holds in her hands. Protection is in the national air, and it will not be dissipated by foreign arguments." The fact that only 46,818 emigrants left Germany for

the United States during the first seven months of 1886, against 72,685 in the same months of 1885, goes far to confirm Mr. Strachey's report of German prosperity. During the same period 7300 more emigrants left England and Scotland than in 1885.

are

With such facts and figures before us, it appears to be almost a waste of time to attempt an answer to the theories of politicians who, to their eternal disgrace, have, for political purposes, so cruelly misled the people of this country. But as some of these appear still, notwithstanding that they found to be in conflict with the teachings of experience, to be regarded as infallible, we shall proceed to show how fallacious and misleading they are. The contention, no longer, we believe, held by political conomists, that "there never was a duty that was paid by the consumer," is perhaps the most misleading, and, from its appeal to self-interest, the most dangerous of all. It is, in fact, the kernel of the whole free-trade question; for if it can be shown that the consumer does not always pay the duty, by as much as he does not do so, the foreign producer, and not he, is relieved of a duty repealed, and to that extent free imports become a tax on the British public.

not

It must be carefully kept in view that there are two distinct classes of imports: 1. Those which do not come into competition with British products; 2. Those which directly do so. At the threshold we are confronted with this curious anomaly-that free-trading England, at the present day, levies from import duties more than any other nation in Europe. The

It may be conceded that, as a rule, the consumer pays the greater portion of the duties on these imports; but if we bear in mind that supply and demand between them alone fix price, and therefore, unless a duty imposed curtail the supply, it cannot affect market value, it is quite conceivable that when a duty is raised, and an attempt in consequence made to enhance prices, consumption is at once checked, and the importer, rather than lose his market, contents himself with a smaller profit, without materially reducing the quantity he had previously sent. Let us suppose that the duty on tea is raised from 45 to 55 per cent. The Chinese and Indian merchants, finding their margin of profit reduced 10 per cent, offer less to the tea-planters for the next crop; as they cannot hold, but must realise to meet the next season's outlay, they have no alternative but to accept the best price they can get. Unless, therefore, the additional duty sweeps away all their profit, they will produce as much as they did before,

tures to the value of 10 millions.

As regards the second class of imports, the case is widely different, more particularly in recent years, when production has so greatly exceeded consumption, for foreigners only send us their surplus stocks, and must sell for what they can get. It has been calculated that the incidence of a duty falls in the relative proportion of the consumption to the quantity imported. Thus, if the consumption of wheat is 24 millions of quarters, and we import 15 millions, the consumer's portion of a duty of 10s. a quarter is found to be by the following formula: as

as great in other countries. But not only has there been a great revival in the States, shown by the increase in railway traffics; but if we refer to the report to our Government of Mr. Strachey, her Majesty's chargé d'affaires at Dresden, on the effect of the raising of the German tariff in 1879, and again in 1885, we find these words: 66 Nothing indicates that the burden of protection laid on the population is oppressive, that national impoverishment is in process, or that saving and accumulation have been arrested. On the contrary, the imperial and local revenue receipts, the estimates of property liable to income-tax, and similar State and municipal returns, are symptomatic of fair public prosperity." In another part of the report, he says: "If it be asked what signs there are in Germany of that incipient free-trade reaction which some of our politicians contrive to discern on the continent of Europe-especially in the countries most wedded to protection -there can be no hesitation in replying that there are none. The political constellations of the empire, the highest personal influences, the most powerful industrial and commercial forces-all are on the side of the existing system. The belief is widely diffused that the tariff reform of 1879 saved Germany from a great ruin, and that that empire is now on the road to industrial greatness, perhaps to the successsion of that hegemony which Great Britain, it is thought, now with difficulty holds in her hands. Protection is in the national air, and it will not be dissipated by foreign arguments." The fact that only 46,818 emigrants left Germany for

the United States during the first seven months of 1886, against 72,685 in the same months of 1885, goes far to confirm Mr. Strachey's report of German prosperity. During the same period 7300 more emigrants left England and Scotland than in 1885.

are

With such facts and figures before us, it appears to be almost a waste of time to attempt an answer to the theories of politicians who, to their eternal disgrace, have, for political purposes, so cruelly misled the people of this country. But as some of these appear still, notwithstanding that they found to be in conflict with the teachings of experience, to be regarded as infallible, we shall proceed to show how fallacious and misleading they are. The contention, no longer, we believe, held by political conomists, that "there never was a duty that was paid by the consumer," is perhaps the most misleading, and, from its appeal to self-interest, the most dangerous of all. It is, in fact, the kernel of the whole free-trade question; for if it can be shown that the consumer does not always pay the duty, by as much as he does not do so, the foreign producer, and not he, is relieved of a duty repealed, and to that extent free imports become a tax on the British public.

not

It must be carefully kept in view that there are two distinct classes of imports: 1. Those which do not come into competition with British products; 2. Those which directly do so. At the threshold we are confronted with this curious anomaly-that free-trading England, at the present day, levies from import duties more than any other nation in Europe. The