FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XVII, Issue 528, 23 February 1917, Page 3

FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION.

go Hy Ldilo.), Sin,—l think ih;u you do not adequately tyaJisu the tremendous .slridos made hy the Protection movement iu the Hume Co tin try. ft is no mete nostrum, of the Auithciiffe ihess. Liberal newspapers arc renouncing the old t- roe Trade shibboleth,; leading lights uf the Cobden Club are declaring that they can no longer he bound by their pre-war p.ledges hr this manor; and it is known that the Economic Conference of Paris decided upon a muliial Protective policy against the Central Powers. And quite- light, too. You may call it “race-hauedY' but the Germans will continue to hake us Romany A year* anil what Britons have got to do is to avoid being such credulous fools as they, were iu the past. We have got to make Germany take a back seal,- commercially qs well qs politically, and to see to it that no more German ’‘dumping" is (Allowed*,■ even if we are not able to purchase some things quite so cheaply as before. (And the plain truth is that it Las been possible to purchase some things too cheaply,]. There is too much soft sentimentalism prevalent about the probable- relations between Great Britain and Germany, after the war., though goodness knows we blight to have' learned our lesson. Happily the balance of political power in the Home Country will bo held by the men who have fought against Germany;, and by, their relatives and the relatives of the fallen soldiers; and they will noti bo soft stuff—J any etc.-, S. Waimate, February 21, 1917.