Henry George on Free Trade.

Thames Star, Volume XIX, Issue 5824, 29 September 1887, Page 4

Henry George on Free Trade.

At one of Mr George's meetings in New York recently that gentleman was asked: * When the united labour party . declares itself in favour of a single tax on land values, is it, therefore, pledged against • protective tariff and in. favour of free trade P" In reply, he said :—I am in favour of an absolute freo trade. If we did justice, if we did free the land, if we did assure to every man the full opportunity of employing.tis own labour, "'then all the seeming necessity for a tariff would have passed. When 1 we give true free trade "at • home, then we can invite free lr <•■?•--«-Uh all the world. For free trade c>nKd ;o its fullest extent means not merely the sweeping away of Customs duties; it means the abolition of everything that stands in the way of production. Trade, in the last Inalysii;' is'simply a means of prd« duction ; it is simply that last part which brings the goods to* the persons who are to consume them. For the same reason that we ought to sweep away our tariffs, for the same reason we ought to prevent the railroads all over the country levying tariffs on trade. For the same reason that we ought not to tax the man who brings goods, good things, into the "' country, we ought not to tax the man who produces those things in the country. The best country, or what ought to be the best country, is that country where there are the most of those things. We onght not to keep them out or prevent their production. Further than that, we ought to prevent that monopoly which holds the natural opportunities of production idle when labor is unemployed; that prevents men from using tbeir labor in the production of wealth, and induces that competition which drives men into a conflict with each other, to sell their labor to some employer. I am for free trade, but it is not for British free trade. I am for free trade. lam not for a revenue tariff. lam for the same sort of free trade that those great Frenchmen were for, who a century, ago proposed just whnt we now propose—the raising ot all public revenues by a single tax on the value of ■ land. British free trade is not free trade at all. The British have a Custom-house and.a lot of Custom house officers. If you go over there you will probably have your trunk examined—especially if they think you are an Irishman. The British free trade movement only went so far as the ruling powers thought wise. If the agitation had gone a little further it wonld have gone straight to the land question. And now, after an interval, that movement is commencing again and will go on. You cannot have full free trade until you abolish all taxes on necessity c-r on production, and raise your taxes from the value of land."