FREE TRADE.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 187, 4 October 1845, Page 123

FREE TRADE.

" Blessed," says Carlyle, " is he who continueth where he is." Blessed, rather, in our opinion, is he who, as King David says, " never continueth in one stay," but runneth, rideth, saileth, travelleth, through all the countries of the earth, neither Greek nor barbarian, Briton nor Gaul, but a übiquitous man and a citizen of the world at large.

Perhaps nothing has more retarded the progress of mankind in the great highway of civilization than national lines of demarcation. How many have been the bitter feuds, how much the good time which has been wasted in fighting on this theme ; how many who might have lived peaceably together and worked for their common benefit if both on one side of the border, have tilted at each others breasts, and dealt misery and destruction around them, because they inhabited opposite sides of an imaginary line drawn across the broad, smiling face of the earth.

If individuals, imagining that they were born for themselves alone, should endeavour to exclude all others from their intercourse, how few would be their enjoyments, how scanty the field for the exercise of their faculties, how small the produce of its tillage. Nor is it otherwise with nations: never will national prosperity be attained by national exclusiveness ; never will the single twig be strong, but the bundle of faggots. The Creator of the Universe, distributing his bounties, different in kind and in degree, among different nations of the earth, has declared that intercourse and not separation is the rule of happiness ; that He wills freedom of communion and mutual dependence for the satisfaction of mutual wants. Yet with these simple truths demonstrated in every page of the book of nature, the common creed of mankind has been, and with a large portion still is, that to lessen the prosperity of their neighbour is the surest way to secure their own ; that to pull down the giant is to exalt the dwarf; and that nothing is so much to be dreaded as the wealth of those who live on the other side of the channel, beyond that range of mountains, or within that imaginary pale.

But facts are stubborn teachers, and while the Spirits of Good and Evil war for dominion, the results which follow in their train teach mankind by degrees whose mastery it is safest to acknowledge. War and Peace have long " pulled devil pulled baker," but while they were contending, Commerce in the intervals of their struggle was busy forging silver links, with which at last she has almost bound down the world to the interests of peace. Old jealousies and new vanities would long ago have hurried America, England, Russia, France, to a renewal of their hostilities, had not the loom, the vineyard, cotton, tallow, hemp, and jennyspinners beat down their upraised arms. Make it the interest of nations, or rather let them know that it is their interest to keep peace, and they will keep it ; shut their eyes to this, let them imagine that their interests are not mutual, but separate, and their hot blood will soon plunge them, as it has many a time, into continental, peninsular, and revolutionary wars.

Looking at the subject, then, in this philanthropical point of view, and not merely in the £ s. d. aspect in which some politicians have viewed it, we have watched with much interest, and shall till its object be accomplished, the progress of the great Anti-Corn-Law League of Great Britain, or, as it ought to be called, the Great Anti-Monopoly League, its object being to pull down all those barriers which obstruct the commercial intercourse of nations and prevent their exercising that mutual benevolence of which Providence, in awarding mutual wants and mutual means of satisfying them, has laid the foundation.

There are two systems of commerce, or rather there is a system of commerce and a system of anti-commerce. The one consists in regarding all the world as one great market, and all its inhabitants as one great community, resorting to that market on an equal footing. It is supposed that in such case every nation will produce those commodities which by nature it is best fitted to produce, and will carry its produce to those nations which are most in want of it. The inhabitants of the frigid zone will not attempt to produce wines or spices, bul they will work the mines of iron, of silver, or of copper, with which their hills abound ; and when they have produced these they will carry them, not to those markets which have already a sufficient supply, or where there is no demand, but to those where they believe them to be deficient and in demand. And in receiving payment they will ask not for similar articles, of which they have already enough, but for those wines and spices, of which their own country is unproductive ; or, if their customers have no wines and spices, they will take anything of them which they know to be in demand among those who do produce the wines and spices. This is commerce in its simplicity, without patronage and without its leading-strings. The other system, the anti-commercial, is different altogether. It goes upon the principle that charity begins at home and ends there ; that the world is not one great market, in which it is the interest of every stall-keeper to effect exchanges with his neighbouring stall-keeper, but a street of opposition shops, whose owners are to get rich by each one dealing with himself alone. He is to buy and sell across his own counter, to be himself his own dealer and his own customer, and to dread nothing so much as a strange face in his shop. His chief object is to be " selfcontained;" to depend upon nobody; to be his own butcher, baker, brewer, tailor, shoemaker, batter, and customer, and all this though he was never brought up to more than one of the trades, and his neighbours can exercise the rest much better than he. He never considers that it would be better for him to stick to his butchering, and to Bupply his other wants at the

shops of his neighbours, while they in their turn might exchange the produce of their handicrafts for his beef and mutton; but he shuts his door upon them lest they should drive him out of his own market. The result is that none of his neighbours, though as hungry as hawks, can buy his meat, since he has supplied himself (at double cost, it is true) with all those articles with which alone they are able to pay him, and so in a very short time they learn to butcher for themselves, and he goes sulkily into the Gazette as a " general dealer." This is the protective system, in which, in order to enjoy the satisfaction of being " selfcontained," a nation will do badly what others can do better, and will refuse to take cheap from its neighbours what it can only produce at a great cost at home, and as a necessary consequence drives them in the long run to produce dearly what they might h^ve obtained cheaply if it would have taken their cheap commodities in payment. It is the object of the AntiMonopoly League to combat this suicidal system, and by the weight of argument and force of public opinion to induce the inhabitants of Great Britain to adopt the other, contributive as it believes it to be to its health, welfare, and prosperity. The League was originally instituted in Manchester, in the year 1839, by a few individuals, whose attention had been directed by circumstances to the injurious effects of those laws which, since 1815, have prohibited the introduction of foreign corn into Great Britain till the native supply becomes so scanty as to raise it to an exorbitant price. Its aim is still directed chiefly (and with uncommon singleness of purpose) towards the repeal of those laws, though its leaders have frequently declared (and the sentiment has been acceptably received by its supporters) that their ultimate object is the complete and unfettered freedom of trade in every department and every direction. Its leaders and chief supporters have been all along, as might be supposed, merchants and manufacturers, men of peaceful and prudent habits, who were well aware from the first that it was of no use to attempt to carry out the bold and extensive measures they had in view by any other means than the influence of public opinion. They found the public mind for the most part ignorant and apathetic upon the subject, and they set themselves zealously to work to collect and disseminate those facts which might convince the public of the truth of the doctrines of which they were the apostles. They have executed and continue to execute this office with much ability and perseverance, carrying their opinions and the evidence on which they rest to the very hearths of the protectionists, and disseminating them in every quarter. Within the last year and a-half they have delivered repeated lectures in almost every county, and in many towns and villages of each; they have in the same period disseminated upwards of two millions of tracts, and have established a very ably conducted newspaper (the League), of which 20,000 copies are distributed weekly. The number of letters received at their offices in London and Manchester in the last year was 25,000, the number despatched from them about 300,000. In the metropolis they have occupied Covent Garden Theatre, where weekly meetings have been held during great part of the last two years, attended by as many persons as that large house could contain : and numerous meetings have also been held in the various metropolitan wards and parishes.

In order to carry out operations of such magnitude very considerable funds have been required, but hitherto they have been raised without difficulty. In the first year of its existence the sum of £5,000 was subscribed, and some surprise existed at the amount; but in the year ending January, 1845, no less than £83,000 was raised, of which a balance of about £27,000 still remained when the treasurer's account for the year was furnished, and which rendered any subscription at that moment unnecessary. This heavy amount of money subscribed, at a steadily increasing ratio, is indicative of the effect produced by the efforts of the Leaguers in disseminating their opinions, and is very ominous of eventual success. When Bull has invested money he will see the speculation through; when he has thrown his bundle over the brook he will jump after it. The Protection Society, which has been established in opposition to the League, has a miserable subscription list to show, though founded by the wealthy class of landowners; and it certainly affords no such evidence of zeal in the cause as its well supported adversary. Though the Leaguers have made so steady an advance in their influence of public opinion, fortune has not yet favoured them in Parliament. They have made several efforts in that quarter, but though their cause has been advocated by many of the ablest men in the House of Commons, and even their opponents, with Sir Robert Peel at their head, have admitted that their views are right in the abstract, yet they have been regularly defeated by heavy majorities. This has naturally turned their attention to the elections, hut there too defeat awaited them, and that, to their disappointment, in the manufacturing districts, the quarter where they knew that, as far as public opinion was concerned, they had an overwhelming majority. Defeat, however, has taught them the necessity of sharpening their tusks before the approach of the hunter, and they have commenced a system which bids fair to put them in possession of a majority of the representatives of all the most important counties, not boroughs observe, but counties, the hitherto strongholds of the protectionist landowners.

The system is simple as it is constitutional. It is this. The law of England, as existing from time immemorial and recently re-enacted by the Reform Bill, gives the elective franchise to every male of full age who possesses a freehold estate

worth 40$. a year. A cottage which will let at a shilling a week is worth more than that, and may be purchased for from £20 to £40. The Leaguers have proposed to the inhabitants of the large manufacturing towns, such as Manchester, Lancaster, Rochdale, Leeds, Staleybridge, and a hundred others, to buy euch freeholds, thereby qualifying themselves for the counties in which they live. The sum is within the reach of every mechanic who has a few pounds in the savings bank, and the investment pays double the interest of that useful institution. In the last three months of 1 844, without any preliminary agitation, no less a sum than £250,000 was expended by Free Traders in the purchase of qualifications for Lancashire, West York, and Cheshire. Such an event is unprecedented in political history. The Spectator has observed that this is a game at which two can play. The Leaguers, however, reply that their opponents have already expended their stake. They have worked the Chandos £50 leasehold clause to the utmost, and are neither in a position to purchase freeholds to any great extent, nor dare they confer them on the class whom they must necessarily employ for the purpose. There is no fear of any retaliation among the nonfree-trading manufacturers, as they neither display any enthusiasm in their cause, nor have they combined in any way to support their views. ' One move which the Leaguers have made during the past year may perhaps appear a departure from the simplicity of those noninterfering principles which they profess. We allude to a campaign commenced by them against the Game Laws. The principles of free trade, it will be said, preclude such a course ; it is a mere question between landlord and tenant, and they should be left to fight it out between themselves. The Leaguers admit this as a general principle, but they observe in reply that existing circumstances afford an exception. The maintainers of the Corn Law compel the population of Great Britain to live on the corn produced in that country alone. The people so restricted have (say the Leaguers) a right to insist that they shall have every grain to eat which the land can be made to grow, and that no portion of it shall be wasted on hares, pheasants, and partridges, which consume in a year fifty fold more grain than their carcases are worth as food. There is some dispute about the quantity consumed by game. Some say that three hares are equal to one sheep ; some say fifteen. Probably the truth is between the two. It is, however, clear that in what are termed the game preserving* counties, the consumption by every species must be enormous. On the estate of Ringwood, in Hampshire, which formerly belonged to Mr. Henry Baring and now to Lord Nonnanton, game swarms 80 that no Hampshire farmer can be got to take a farm upon it. The tenants come front a distance, and go to a distance as soon as their leases are up. Some fields are so ruined by the game as never to be reaped at all. One tenant sowed 12 acres of oats, took the whole crop home in one wagon, and when thrashed out the produce was three sacks, barely one-fifth of § the seed ; yet he had to pay full rent for the 12 acres, tithe commutation, rates, and taxes. On a field of 28 acres of stubble 1,200 pheasants have been seen at once : no tenant can be found to rent that field. A pheasant shot there had 800 grains of wheat in his crop, and another 506 grains of barley. Where the last was killed, from 150 to 300 pheasants have been seen in a barley field of 12 acres. The Earl of Essex, who considers his estates badly stocked, has killed 106 hares in a day. Mr. Baring, in five hours, killed 270 head of game. Prince Albert, at Stowe, in two hours killed 114 hares, 29 pheasants, and a snipe. Mr. Scarisbrick and one other gentleman have killed upwards of 900 hares in a day. The Duke of Rutland and three others bagged in four hours 336 hares, 265 pheasants, 33 partridges, and 80 rabbits, and 50 head of game were picked up dead in addition next day. It is calculated that the hares on the Duke of Rutland's and MrTScarisbrick's estates were equal in consuming power to 1,236 sheep turned out to roam among the crops all the year round. The subject was brought before Parliament early in the session of the present year by Mr. Bright, who, in a speech so temperate and candid as to elicit loud approbation from his opponents, moved for and obtained a committee .of inquiry on the subject. For our own part, we think that it is not a subject of much importance to Free Traders, except so far as its discussion may tend to open the eyes of the farmers to the hollowness of the pretences of those wljo call themselves the " farmers' friends," ' the monopofcjoving landlords. The pant of the " farmers' friend " is in fact one of the mariy fast-exploding cants of the age, and the sootier it is stripped to the naked truth the better for the victims who have been deluded by it. , Did any one ever hear of any other class of tradesmen or capitalists requiring or having "friends?" Where is the butchers' friend; the 'bakers' friend, the doctors', the lawyers*, the tailors', the shoemakers', or the laundresses' friend? These all know well enough (and the fanners will know it when protection id abolished) that they want no friend but a market full of customers with pockets full of money,' and t}6 backer but their own industry in a fair field and no favougjn , . The Hook of nature is open at all times, and he who runs may read. 'Few, however, take the trouble of studying it till forced bjr clrcumjstances affecting their own prosperity. Tne same events occur, recur, and are repeated, but pass unobserved, except by the small minority of thinkers. If they propound a theory babed on' their own observations,' but new to the w6rld at large, small is their chance of berrig'believed. Some national calamity, however, or same tonjj period of popular distress, at last cons'trairis the

mass of the community to turn its thoughts also to the observation of nature's laws, and an accumulation pf facts, to which, such observation leads, at last compels the most sceptical to bow. The advocates of a free trade in food have all along asserted that its necessary tendency must be to benefit the labouring class, by giving them fuller employment and higher . wages. Their opponents, denied this ;v they asserted that cheap food meant low wages, that the condition of the labourer would be injuriously affected by a reduction in the price of corn, and that those who advocated it had no other .object in view but to grind the poor for their own advantage. In vain did the Leaguers reply that the price of labour depended, like that of all other things, simply upon the demand for it ; that in countries like the United States, where provisions were cheapest, wages were highest, while where corn was dearest (as in Ireland) wages were almost nominal; the fears of the labouring class were excited by the assertion of their adversaries, and thousands were detached by it from the cause of free trade. The experience of the last six years in Great Britain has, however, placed beyond all doubt the truth of the Free Traders' argument. The years 1839, '40, '41, and '42 were years of bad harvests, and corn rose to nearly 80s. the quarter. Distress unprecedented ensued in every department of labour ; masses of the population were out of employment, and those who had it earned a mere starvation pittance. The harvests of 1843, '44 were abundant; corn fell to little more than half its previous price ; trade immediately revived, every class obtained full employment, and wages rose in proportion as the price of food fell.

It does no doubt appear paradoxical at first sight that a reduction jn the price of food should not cause a reduction in the price of labour; it seems so, because we are in the habit of regarding the claims of the labourer as satisfied when he has got as much to eat and to diink as he can consume, and therefore if provisions be all he wants, if they fall in price he needs less money to buy them with. This view is, however, entirely fallacious. The price of labour is not regulated merely by the labourer's necessities, but by his master's also. When two masters run after one man, wages rise; when two men run after one master, wages fall. That is a labourer's own observation on the subject: a true observation it is.

But though the price of food does not directly regulate the price of labour, it does indirectly, though in the opposite direction to that for which the protectionists contend. A low price of food indirectly (but certainly) raises the price of labour, and that in this way : when food is dear, a labouring man lays out all his wages in purchasing it ; he has nothing left for the shoemaker, the tailor, the schoolmaster, or the beershop; consequently these various trades fall into " slack employment ;" in each of them two men run after one master, down go wages through the whole community, every trade of which is dependent on some other as a customer. But when food is cheap, the labourer lays out the surplus of his wages beyond its price in purchasing various other things ; the producers of those things find full employment, their trades flourish; two masters run after one man, and the whole community prospers, masters as well as men, for while two masters run after one man, two customers run after the master where only one ran before. The fact is, that neither masters nor men have it in their power to dictate a rate of wages, unless by the exercise of brute force, as in the case of slavery on the one hand and agrarian riots on the other. Both are losing games in the long run, and both must eventually terminate in the price of labour being left to adjust itself, as the price of all other things is adjusted, by the demand which exists for it at any given period. If the Legislature should attempt to fix a minimum rate of wages, as lias been proposed by some, the only result would be that those who before employed at a lower rate would cease to employ at all, and the labourers affected by the change be reduced one degree lower in the scale of distress, from poverty down to destitution. If the law obliges an employer to give two shillings where he gave one before, he will turn off half his hands; if it obliges him to give four, he will probably turn .off all. Mr. Moses gives the poor sempstresses threepence a 6hirt. If Lord Ashley could fix the minimum wages for making a shirt at a shilling, Mr. Moses would retire from that line of business, and the poor sempstresses, instead of getting sixpence a day, would get nothing at all, while a number of poor customers, who now luxuriate in cheap shirts, would have to descend to cheap dickies, or buttoning close .their rusty upper garments, conceal their lack , of linen. But if by the abolition of protection the price of food is reduced, and the hungry breads-consumer is thereby enabled' to expend a, tyttle more of his wages in purchasing shirts, the demand for shirts increasing the demand for -sempstresses to make them will increase also, ■two Mr.. Moseses will run after one sempstress where .now two sempstresses run after one Mr. 'Moses, and their wages will rise from starvation pittance to comfort. . . The most important events which had occurred, in the House of Commons down to our latest dates, in reference to free trade, are Lord John Russell's declaration in favour of a total abolition of the Corn Laws in preference to a fixed differential duty, which he had "before advocated ; and Sir Robert Peel's new tariff, which repeals in toto the duties upon no fewer than four hundred and thirty articles of import, including cotton* This bold step in the right direction gave great satisfaction to all who had not some private interest in opposing the innovation. His .differential sugar, duties* however, were regulated on false principles, being intended aa a protection to the West Indians, but hypocritilically defended on the ground of their discou-

raging slavery; a pretence which was exposed in the most masterly manner by Mr. Macaulay, in one of the, best speeches he has made in the house. The ministerial majority of course carried Sir Robert through; but never did a political party display to less advantage than the quondam slaveholders in the, profession of a new-born tenderness towards free labour.

We have thus endeavoured to give our readers a faint outline of the progress of the great question of Free Trade, down to the date of our latest file of English papers. A few more sessions of Parliament will probably see it disposed of, whether Sir Robei t be forced by pressure from without to carry it at once, or whether he continues the more gradually progressive course which he commenced with his late tariff. In the mean time the League will continue its labours, " fighting," says one of its ablest members, " for one of the greatest and noblest causes which ever united the exertions of any body of men ; fighting for the liberation of the industry of 27 millions of its fellow-countrymen; and not for the liberation of their industry only, but, as everything that is established in Great Britain becomes the fashion for the world, it is also working out the liberation of the industry of the whole human race, from all the tyranny which monopoly in every clime and in every age has inflicted upon it. 9 '