NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12748, 21 March 1910, Page 2

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Bismarck and Free Trado. In 1879 Bismarck introduced his protective policy in Parliament in a speech in which het made this remarkable statement: — "I see that those countries which possess protection are prospering, and that those countries which possess free trade are decaying. ' Mighty England, that powerful athlete, stepped out into the open market -after she had strengthened her sinews, and said, 'Who will fight me? I am prepared to meet everybody.' But England herself is slowly returning to protection, and in some years she will take it up, in order to save for herself at least the Home market. We have opened wide the doors of our State to the imports of foreign countries, and we have become the dumping-ground for over-produc-tion of all those countries. Germany being swamped by the surplus production of foreign nations, prices have been depressed, and the development of all our industries and our entire economic position have suffered in consequence. If tlie danger of protection were as great as we are told ly enthusiastic freetraders, France would have been impoverished long ago, for she has had protection since the days of Colbert, and she would have been ruined long ago." United Kingdom's Imports. According to thei Jourral of the Board of Agriculture, the total value of the principal articles of food "m---ported into the United Kingdom in 1909 was £191,522,000, us against £183,955,000 in 1908, £188,353,000 in 1907, £181,604,000 in 1906, and ;>n average of £177,047,000 in the three Years 1903-05. These figures represent the value (cost, insurance, and freight) as declared to the Customs officers at. the port of arrival, of the grain and flour, meat and animals ! or food, butter, cheese, eggs,' condensed milk, fruit and vegetables, hops, lard and margarine, which may be grouped together as agricultural food products in tho sense that they compete moro or less directly with the Home supply. The increase in value during 1909 has been due partly to the substantial rise in tho price of wheat and wheat flour, and partly to the somewhat larger supplies of grain and grain products which have been imported, the total value o<" the items' included under thet general heading of grain and flour amaunting to no less than £83,123,000, as compared with £72,733,000 in 1908. On the other hand, the value of meat (of all kinds) was less than for sevoral years past, viz., £47,624,000, a figure which may be compared with the total for; 1908 of £49,488,000, and with the still higher total of just • over £52.000,000 in 1906.