MR. GLADSTONE ON PROTECTION.

Evening Post, Volume XXII, Issue 150, 28 December 1881, Page 3

MR. GLADSTONE ON PROTECTION.

In the course of one of his great speeches at Leeds Mr. Gladstone thus delivered himself on Protection :-r" An article appeared recently in the Nineteenth Centnry, written, and I have no doubt in all good faith, by Mr. Protection himßelf. (Laughter ) The antidote was, however, contained in an article which followed it. but I must be fair to it. The article I speak of was written by Mr. Ecroyd, tha member for Preston, who writes under the name of "Fair Trade.' The name of Protection, as I said, is left out, and Mr. Eoroyd, in the simplicity of his heart, utters a serious complaint and expresses a grave apprehension. He says he is very much afraid that fair trade will be mistaken for protection by those whose object is to confess the is&ue. He wants a good lump of duty to be put upon foreign mamnfacture, and a duty of 5s a quarter upon corn. All this he says he wants, sot as protection, but in the name of fair trade — (hear, hear, and laughter) — only he is greatly afraid -that the Liberals will represent him as wanting it under the head of protection. Mr. Ecroyd thinks that we should tax foreign manufactures in order •that foreigners should untax our manufacturer." That is his first proposition. Well, now, gentlemen, that appears to be a very considerable exaggeration. There is a great Christian precept that if a man strikes you on one cheek you should turn him the other. (Great laughter.) But tho precept of Mr. Eoroyd and others is this — that if somebody smites you on one ohaek you should smite yourself on the other. (Great laughter and cheering.) That appears to me to be a needless exaggeration ; but let that pass, and let „ns 'see whether the thing is practicable. We are to smite ourselves and others, but we are to smite ourselves in order to produce something for Bomebody elee, and we are to force him to do it by hitting him. Well, it is, I think, a , good old English maxim that if you are to ■trike you ought to strike hard; and can you Btnke the foreigner hard by retaliatory tariffs? (Cheers.) What manufactures do youimport from "abroad ? In all What mannf aotures do you export P Nearer, (cheers) - over If you are to make the foreigner feel, you must make him feel by striking him in his largest interests ; but the interest whioh he has in sending manufactures to you is' one of his smallest interests, and you are invited to;inflict wounds upon yourself on a field measured by while he has got exactly the same power of inflicting wounds upon you on a field measured by more than .£200,000,000. (Cheers ) Well the i oase that we should feel most is the case of America. The Americans hit us very hard in their dmties, and there is a great reduction, no doubt, in our exports to America. But still, how do they stand? America sends to us less than X 3.000.000 of manu-, factored goods ; we send to America, what between our own manufactured goods and the foreign produce whioh we have got for our manufactured goods, between £30,000,000 and .£40,000,000 of manufactured goods, notwithstanding ; and now the advioe of these fair traders is, that we are to endeavonr, by hitting America through this £3,000,000 whioh she Bonds to us, to make her cease from hitting us through the 30 odd millions we Bend her. (Cheers ) It is impossible that absurdity can further go. (Cheers.)"