the mechanics, especially of the United States, and nearly of the whole world, were using tools made in England. The superior quality and reputation which they had acquired gave them a preference over all others. It has been said that in 1860 a large percentage of the merchandise on sale in the stores of the United States and of all the British colonies and possessions were the productions of English factories. The free trader, in boasting of the expansion of their trade, ignores all scientific discoveries and appliances in chemistry, electricity, pneumatics, hydraulics, and mechanics. What was really accomplished by scientific means is placed to the credit of free trade. It was the building of railroads which made the market for English iron, that increased this branch of commerce, and not the adoption of free trade in 1846. Her trade would have grown if she had continued her protective policy, just as it had grown and expanded for one hundred years prior to 1846. The advocates of free trade have kept constantly before the world, and pictured in most glittering terms, the increase in their exports and imports during this period. Mr. Newmarch, in 1878, recognizing the absurd lengths to which the praise of free trade was being carried, said: Before entering upon the details of this inquiry, it is perhaps necessary to say, as a preliminary remark, that in treating of this vast extension of industry and foreign trade in this country, during the last twenty or thirty years, it is not for a moment intended to affirm that the whole of these extensions, or even the larger part of them, are due to free trade alone. It is a conclusion of common observation and common sense, that the progress of population, invention, science, and resources, have all most powerfully contributed to the producing and competing power of the country.1 In the succeeding chapter it is proposed to take up the other side and show that, in the midst of the expansion of trade which was going on, the increase of imports had begun that system of undermining their domestic industries, which during the last twenty-five years has been displacing labor, diminishing profits and destroying the industrial.life of the nation. 1 Journal, XLI., Part 2, June, 1878, of the Statistical Society, Fair Trade Journal, Vol. I, p. 158. The second part of the free trade period1874-94. CHAPTER IV. FREE TRADE AND ENGLISH INDUSTRIES. That was our real idea of "free trade "-" all the trade to myself!" You find now that by "competition" other people can manage to sell something as well as you-and now we call for protection again. Wretches!-Ruskin. The Birmingham Daily Times has unearthed the following advertisement, from the Times of 1849, headed: What does free trade mean? It means: Using French boots and shoes, and leaving the English shoemaker to starve. Using French gloves, and sending the Worcester glovemakers to the workhouse. Using Geneva clocks and watches, and ruining the Clerkenwell watchmakers. Admitting Polish and American corn, and ruining our own farmers. This is free trade. There is not another nation on the face of the earth besides England, so stupid as to tolerate it. There were prophets in those days. The second part of the period under consideration begins about the year 1874 and closes with the year 1894, a term of twenty years, during which it may be said that all the dogmas and alleged doctrines of free trade have been put to a sharp test in England. During this period, the Continental countries reached such a development of their industries that they had become strong and vigorous competitors of Great Britain, not only in neutral markets but in the home market, as well. It is during this time also, that we find the only test of the actual workings of free trade in a great manufacturing country, when subject to vigorous competition. How else could the test of the efficacy of free trade be applied? It certainly is not in those industries in which a nation holds a monopoly. The United States requires no protection to cotton raising, because it can be grown in abundance and so cheaply that it is not subjected to the competition of the importation of cotton grown in other countries; but should the time ever come when American cotton manufacturers could be supplied with raw cotton from Egypt, Asia or South America, at a lower price than it could be profitably grown in the Southern States, then the question would present itself of the necessity of protection to this product. Free trade under these circumstances would determine the necessity of imposing a protective tariff, and the injurious effects of free imports could easily be ascertained. The experience of the United Kingdom under free trade during the past twenty-five years has furnished the world with an example of its actual operation, and has subjected the system to a more thorough test than has been applied to it in any other country. The advocates of protection are now able to point specifically to the effect of free imports upon the industries of the greatest commercial nation in the world. It is most interesting to trace the rise and growth of industries on the Continent of Europe, and through the official reports of the statistical department of the British Government, the steady year-by-year advance which has been made in the imports into England of those agricultural products of the United States, South America, the Continent of Europe and Asia, which have been poured in to feed the English people, undermining and supplanting the agricultural interests. We are able now to count, year by year, the increase of imports into England, of woolens, cotton goods, silks, and numerous other wares and articles, which are displacing English-made goods, reducing the profits of the manufacturers, silencing machinery, driving the capitalists and manufacturers out of the country to invest their money and remove their plants to those countries where they are shielded by the fostering care of protective tariffs. The student of economics to-day is able definitely to point out facts which during the earlier part of the free trade movement could not be obtained. That which at first rested wholly on prophecy and conjecture is at last exposed to the crucial test of actual experience. Protectionists are now invading the stronghold of free trade, and there finding the facts which completely annihilate its alleged principles and expose its fallacies. the first time in two centuries the industrial progress of England has been arrested; although while she was under protection her industries were subjected to short periods of business depressions, arising often from over-speculation and other causes which exist among those people who engage in vast undertakings, and respond to great stimulating influences in their enterprises. The panic following the Napoleonic wars was the natural consequence of the inflation. Other panics of similar character visited the country, but there has not been in the history of the world a depression of such long duration as the one which has existed in England since 1876. It has been continuous, unabating and ever present, slight fluctuations in special trades have not checked the downward tendency, which has continued year by year. During this time profits of manufactures have been reduced to the lowest possible margin, and in many instances absolutely wiped out. Plants of whole branches of industry have become of questionable value. Repairs have been neglected. Old machinery has been used in many instances where there has not been sufficient confidence in a revival of business to warrant the purchase of new. Salaries of clerks, employees and salesmen have been universally reduced. The wages of artisans, for the first time in over a century, have been scaled down. In addition to this, only partial employment, three or Sources of informa tion. four days a week, has been found, where hitherto, and especially under protection, full time was made. Industries have been destroyed, manufacturers bankrupted, and artisans either driven out of the country or reduced to pauperism. A large part of the people, nearly 5,000,000, are subjected to a condition of pauperism, or semi-pauperism. The agricultural industry of the country which for centuries afforded comfortable and profitable means of subsistence for a large portion of the population, is practically ruined. There has been no instance in the history of any country in modern times where such degradation, misery and poverty can be found. There is no country where such universal complaint of hard times is made. The important point to be considered is the fact that it is due to no exceptional or temporary business crisis, but has become the settled permanent condition lasting for nearly a quarter of a century, with no hope of improvement so long as free trade exists in England. It is to this period and to the conditions which have been brought about under free trade, that the attention of the reader is especially called. The free trade books, which have been circulated through the world, are devoted to the accounts of the growth of the foreign trade of Great Britain during the period immediately following the adoption of free trade; while they studiously avoid a disclosure of those conditions which have followed increased competing imports into England. Since 1860 the world has been kept well informed upon the external trade of the United Kingdom. A record of its exports and imports is kept by the Board of Trade, which is the statistical department of the government. This department publishes a Statistical Abstract of the exports and imports of the United Kingdom; a similar work on the trade between the United Kingdom and foreign countries, and another on the trade with her colonies and possessions. The vast foreign trade of the country has constantly been pointed to as an evidence of its flourishing condition. Without stopping to analyze or classify imports, many people have taken for granted that their increase was an indication of prosperity. The increase of such imports, especially since 1865, has overturned all the calculations of Mr. Cobden and his associates, and accomplished a result which was wholly unexpected. On the one hand, the decline of exports of domestic productions since 1874 has added further evidence of the decay of that industrial system which at the close of her protective period was so pre-eminent and powerful. While we are able to gather much information from the official records of the British government, which points to the ultimate ruin of the United Kingdom as a producing country, we are unable from lack of official information to disclose its worst features. The free trade element which has controlled the British government during the past fifty years, has witheld from the world means of investigation which are accessible in the United States. It has been the policy of the United States government, in connection with an enumeration of its population every ten years, to investigate the condition of its industries, and every phase of the industrial life of its people, while free trade England confines herself practically to an enumeration of her population, leaving the evidence of the growth or decay of her industries to the guess work of statisticians, who by estimates and unfair comparisons are able to produce almost any result desired. In 1885 the situation had become so alarming and the people had become so restless that something had to be done. Parliament appointed a commission to inquire into the causes of the decline of trade. This commission took evidence during a portion. of the years 1885 and 1886. While it was controlled by the free trade element of the country and as far as possible prevented a thorough investigation of the economic conditions and the specific effect of free trade upon the industries of the country, sufficient facts were disclosed by the evidence of manufacturers and artisans in relation to the principal branches of manufacturing and trade to show the effects of the system of free imports. The disclosures of the effect of the importations of agricultural produce were astounding. Government experts were called before the commission and presented statistical tables and information from various departments. Reports from representatives and consuls upon the condition of trade and industries in other countries, were received. Questions were submitted to the chambers of commerce, principal business men's associations and labor organizations, calling for answers upon the conditions of trade, industries. and wages, during a period of twenty years, between 1864 and 1884. While the Final Report of this commission has been published and commented upon, the evidence given before it and the facts contained in the answers referred to, have not received the attention to which their importance entitles them. It is principally from the proceedings of this commission that the writer has drawn his information upon the condition of British industries, trade and commerce. SILK INDUSTRY. So long as protection lasted, Macclesfield flourished. -Testimony before the Royal Commission. In writing his introduction to the second edition of the "Progress of the Nation," in 1846, Mr. G. R. Porter, speaking of the silk industry, said: "The progress of improvement in our silk manufacture is still impeded by a protective duty of 15 per cent laid upon foreign production, and our tariff continues to present some other deformities." The declaration that protection hinders and obstructs the expansion and growth of an industry, was one of the prime reasons given by the advocates of free trade for going the full length of repealing all protective tariffs. It was to the silk industry that Mr. Huskisson referred in the passage, quoted above, in which he urged parliament to “unbind the shackles "of protection, “permit it to take unrestrained its own course, expose it to the wholesome Royal Com the Depres mission on sion of Trade. |