FAIR TRADE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 6190, 10 December 1881, Page 1 (Supplement)

FAIR TRADE.

The following interesting and able let ter appeared in the columns of the London Daily Telegraph : —

Sir, —In to-day's Daily Telegraph " A Protectionist" gives us a picture of British trade, in which wo have on tins one side "ships laden with foreign pro-; duco and manufactures, markets crammed

with merchandise of many lands, warehouses filled with the results of alien

industry," and on tho other "thousands of starving British operatives gradually

filling workhouses and gaols, thousands,too, of ruined English farmers, hundreds of mills and factories closed, and scores of industiica absolutely ruined." Look on this picture and look on illvt, says the writer—this is your freo trade. I propose to confute all these assertions, to show that tho theory in support of which thoy are advanced is a fallacy, and to provo that, in this year of grace, 1881,

Kngland is marvellously flourishing, in

disputably the most prosperous trading country on tho face of the earth, and that these are the true results of unshackled commeroo.

Is it evidence of a good constitution to pass through a severe attack of illness aud come out of it unscathed ? Then I claim rfor Great Britain that she lias been subjected to one of th 9 severest ordeals that ever an industrial nation had to undergo in a time of peace, and haa emerged from it in a manner to make her the envy of nations. The manufacturing and the agricultural interests have suffered in turn Following throe years of universal inflation—lß7l-4 —there came a commercial reaction, all over the world, from well-known causes, in which England suffered acutely. Thousands of operatives were thrown out of employment, wageß and prices fell, and credit was widely shaken. For three years our trade underwent a trial such as it had not known since tho American War stopped the cotton supplies. In 1877 came a revival — a happy rebound, but this waa the fresh prelude only of fresh disasters. In the commercial criais America, Germany, France suffered as much if not more than we ; but now came the agricultural depression • — all our own. For four seasons in succession we have had harvests so bad that Sir Edward Sullivan says the farmers have lost twenty-two millions of annual revenue, and thp land has fallen in capital value 500 millions. Yet, in spite of all this, it is not true that tho country has been gotting poorer ; that industries have been extinguished. <"n the contrary the nation as a whole has been growing richer, extending its. commerce, increasing its revenue, diminishing ita pauperism , and crime, advancing in population and i in wealth, and in all the elements of , material wellbeing.

Now I am to prove this. There ia scarcely a better test of a country's prosperity than tho natural growth of its metropolis. Tho expansion of London has hardly a parallel in the world. Its population increases fully 1000 a week ; miles and milea of new streets aro added every year. But the Bame story is true of all our large towns, with scarcely an exception Even Covoniry—which tinFrench Treaty was supposed to have ruined—has in 10 years added I*4 per cent, to its population. Your correspondent make an unfortuuat: selection of cities when ho mentions, as the abodes of starving operatives or soaia of declining industries, Bristol, Bradford, and Ghsgow. Bristol has "declined" from 182^000 to 200,000 ; Bradford has swollen her numbers still moro, from 145,000 to' 180,000; while of Glasgow ii ■ may probably bo said that no city in the world has in the same period made greater progress and amassed more wealth, notwithstanding tho disastrous bank failure. The caae of Freetrade cannot be rested on a surer basis than the progress of our great manufacturing centres —industries, since 18^*5, have been multiplied, the number of inhabi tains doubled. Tako ono district alouo, that of which Manchester ia tho centre : ' Suppose a circle of 50 miles radius round Cottonopolis, and. you have in .Stockport, Bolton, Bury, Pendleton, Clitheroe, : Rochdalo, Churley, Ashton, and so on— a vast congerie of towns that have posi- : tivoly grown into one another in aome cases, and presenting a development of manufacturing industry tlie liko of which was never seen in any age or land be-' fore.

But I do not depend on population alone. The standard of living has 'been raised proportionately. "In all tho groatl trades of tho country wages have been well maintained"—so says Mr George Potter. At this very moment our cotton operatives are striving to forco wages up 10 per cent., s.o good is tho demand,for labour in the greatest textila industry. Tho purchasing povvor of money is 25. per cont. higher iv England than in America., or in any other highly-protected country. Whoever uses his. oyea can sob tha,t the vast b,*dy of the people all oyer tho kingdom aro improving isf condition. What moan tho batter hoiases, the suburb-m villas o? all considerable towns, tho con-stantly-rising expenditure in art and urt furniiure, the vastly-augmented deai&nd

for higher and expensive education, and iho almost universal and gratifying outlay in popular and high-class amusements , How is it that the sea coaat every year shows, us springing up everywhere'new Pondlifigtons Super-Mare audShiptcn-on-Soa, with aimually-increasiug crowds of visitors—not to mention tho remarkable' development of places like Brighton, Hastings, Eastbourne, Margate, Kams-o-ate, Scarborough, Llandudno, Tenby, and scores of othera that live and prosper, it may be said, almoat exclusively on the surplus revenues of the laud ? Proofs of this kind might bu indefinitely extended, but figures are moro eloquent than worda. " A Protectionist aays " starving operatives are filling our workhouses." If this bo ao, why has the number of paupers duriui thelast 10 yoars — while the population haa increased three aud a half millions—fallen from 1,079,000 to 803,000? "And they aro filling our caols "! How then comes it that criminal convictions have sunk from 34,000 iv 1840 under Protection to 15,000 under Freetrade 1 I have already admitted ihat one great industry—tbo greatest of all—has been prostrated by tho want of sun and excess of rain ; but, in spite of that enormous drawback, the people as a whole have progressed, and are progressing, at a remarkable rate.

We are becoming poorer, says the neoprotectionist. Mr Giffen, of the Board of Trade Statistical Department, fiuds that we accumulated between 1865-1875 no less than £240,000,000 a year, and, making allowance for recent reverses and bad harvests, the annual rate of incroaso of. the national wealth cannot well havo boen less than £150,000,000 to £200,000,000 a year since then. But, says " A Protectionist," these ara tho gains of capitalists, not of the people. Who, theu, aro they that have made tha deposits in tho savings banks, which have risen from £24.474,000 in 1841 to £77,721,000 in 1880, the rate of increase being greatest in later years ?

The fallacy which lurka in " A Protectionist's " letter, and vitiates all its conclusions, is that large importations mean impoverishment. The reverse is the case; imports are paid for by exports. As the French economist said truly, Acheter e'est vendre —to buy is to sell. From the moment that England threw open her harbours the export trade has grown pari passu with the imports. True, the latter largely exceed the former, because foreign nations owo us about three times our national debt—and the interest amounting to over 50 millions sterling per annum, they pay us in goods. This if what Mr Medley culls the Pons asinorum, or "Asses' bridge" of the fair traders. They forget the profits of trade, froight, insurance, and other trifles, which must be paid for by excess of imports, and fancy that gold is sent out of the country to liquidate the so-called " balance of trade." Iv virtuo, however, of open markets and of our shipa being able to take cargoes in homeward aa well as outward voyages, the benefits of international exchange are largely on the side of this country ; and in the last 18 years the excess of bullion known to have beon sent into the country over that taken out over and above the surplus of imports was no less a sum than £92,600,000. Another delusion is that foreign nations are one by one closing their markots against us, and that to meet this confessedly unfair treatment we must resort to Protection. Facts ]*oint the other way. To-day's Board of Trado returns show an increased export of £2,060,000 in the month of August, and in the eight months of this year, as compared with last year, of nearly £4,000,000, while as compared with 1879 they show the enormous increase of £28,145,000. Are these symptoms of declining industries ? " But the Americans will not buy of us." They are excluding our produce. Here again figures are against tho common idea. In 1878 they took in round numbers 14A- millions sterling in value ; in 1879, 20J" millions ;in 1880, 30£ millions. The Great Republic has absolute Freetrade within her vast territory, which is as large aa the whole of Europe, minys Russia, and, in apito of her tariff, wo are sending her manufactured goods in growing quantities.

Bo it remembered, further, that tho great burst of British commerce did not follow the introduction of railways-aud steamboats. It took place immediately on the repeal of the Corn and Navigation laws in 1840 and 1849—in other words, it was the result of Freetrade.

, Any Englishman may be proud to know i that live-eighths of all the commerce of - the seas is carried by British ships. He may entertain a just patriotic pride to * think that for nearly all the staple products of tho earth—cotton, corn, wool, coal, iron, and a long list of products'such as wines, silk, sugar, and tropical produci tions—this country is or is rapidly becoming, in virtue of Freetrade, the central market of the world—the profits of the exchange going into the national exchequer. "But there is still something bitter," we are told. " Prince Bismarck is reactionary, and the French aro hesitating—perhaps drawing back ! We must be wrong, for we alone are Treetfaders, except our own most prosperous Colony, How South Wales.". It is not the first time we have been alone. We b:iw centuries before Prince Bismarck's countrymen the valuo of representative self-government, and almost alone we fought the battle of freedom against slavery. Happily, nowadays, the good of commercial liberty ia no longer a question of theories, or dependent on the patronaye of the Jittle wisdom with which the world is governed, yclept statesmanship ; it rests on accomplished facts, »nd of these facts none is so remarkable as the expansion of the wealth and the commerce of this comparatively small country against the hostile tariffs of both hemispheres. — I am, Sir, your obedient servant, A FItKETKADEIU September Bth.