FOOTNOTES:

[30] Fortnightly Review, July, 1871.

[31] The Mail, December 19th, 1883.

[CHAPTER IX.]
ISOLATION OF JUGERNATH.

Carlyle has said—“There are thirty millions of people in Great Britain, mostly fools.”

You remind me, my friend, of the Irishman who complained that he never served on a jury without finding himself associated with eleven of the most obstinate pig-headed men conceivable.

Are all other nations, except England, obstinate, and pig-headed? Is the shrewd American blind to his own interest? Are the phlegmatic Dutchman, the thrifty Belgian, the clever Frenchman, the philosophical German, simpletons and idiots, as Mr. Bright is pleased to call all those who do not implicitly accept the gospel of free trade.

Might not Carlyle’s pithy remark teach a little humility?

No country except England is free-trader. Free trade, at the present time, after a trial of thirty-eight years, is either an English, or a barbarous custom. All other civilized nations are obstinate protectionists; and the worst of it is, that they are growing more and more obstinate in their adherence to protection, as they find they are making greater relative advance in prosperity than England with its free trade. Even Mr. Gladstone himself admits that “America is passing us by in a canter.”

Is not Mr. Gladstone somewhat ashamed to admit that the country, in the government of which he has had so large a share during the present century, should be “passed in a canter” by a country so terribly handicapped by protection. Does not it suggest the idea that the country which he has governed may possibly have been misgoverned. “Passed by at a canter!!” What a damning admission of failure!

His excuse is, that America is a young country with abundant room for its surplus population; but this excuse, like the majority of his ingenious evasions, is utterly fictitious.

England, taken as a whole, with its colonies and dependencies, is two and half times as large as America.[32] She has every advantage that America possesses.[33] She had a good start, and if she had only been governed by statesmen of comprehensive grasp, she ought to have outstripped America in wealth and progress, quite as much as America has now outstripped us.

If England had but carefully protected the interests of its colonies and dependencies, studied their interests as identical with her own, she would now have been foremost in the race.

She drove America from the union with her by her selfish policy, and she is pursuing the same, or rather far more, suicidal policy now.

What is the use of the colonies? our Liberal politicians now cry. What indeed? I echo; so long as free trade neutralizes all possible benefit to be obtained from them or by them; but, properly governed, they would have enabled us to do to America that which Mr. Gladstone admits America is doing to us—“passing us by at a canter.”

Unfortunately we are lagging in the race with other protectionist countries, as the following statement will show.

Free-traders compare our wealth and commerce with what it was before the introduction of free trade, and claim the increase as the result of free trade. If the claim were just, other nations ought to have stood still, or retrograded under protection; let us see if they have done so. The only fair comparison is to take the condition of each country at a given date; assuming its relative condition at that date as 100, and then comparing it with its advance at the present time.

Relative Advance of Nations.

Commerce generally—Years 18601880
Free trade England100to180
{France””205
Germany””197
Protectionist{Holland””216
{Belgium””242
America””201

Exports—18601882
England100to177
France””158
Germany””200
Belgium””274
Holland””295
America””197
Railway Construction—18601882
England100to176
France””290
Germany””322
Belgium””318
America””343
Railway goods traffic—18601882
England100to312
France””409
Germany””654
Holland and Belgium””525
Production of Coal—18601880
England100to173
France””237
Germany””421
Belgium””170
America””467
Production of Iron—18501882
England100to377
France””498
Germany””789
Belgium””377
America””719
Production of Copper—18501880
England100to29
France””212
Germany””615
America””750
Consumption of Raw Cotton—Years 18601880
England100to123
France””158
Germany””177
America””234
General Manufactures—18601880
England100to139
America””280

Woollen Manufacture—1860 18801881
England100 to —122
America 100 to 331—
Number of holders of National Securities—18501880
England “consols”100to83
France “Rentes”100”547
Legacy probate value—18601880
England100to162
France100”193
Amount of Deposits in Savings Banks—18501882
England100to267
France””1912
Germany””1950
Belgium and Holland””405[34]

For many years England did not feel the evils of free trade. She had a good start in the race, with the commerce and markets of the world in her hands. She had been foremost in improvement of machinery, having secured her manufactures by a system of protection, and she was therefore the first to reap the profits of such improvements. It would naturally take years for other nations to overtake her, when she had so good a start; but the capital she recklessly employed in purchasing commodities which might have been produced at home, was expended in arming foreign nations for successful rivalry with us.

It was not until fifteen or twenty years ago, that this suicidal process was sufficiently advanced to tell upon our trade; but it is now pressing on us with alarming strides, and had not our industries been saved, by partial suspension of free trade, in the American and Franco-Prussian wars, we should now feel it still more severely. As it is, we have not seen the worst. Every day foreign industries are increasing in magnitude and efficiency, and consequently must increase in cheapness of production. At present they have done little more than take up a share from the markets, which were formerly our own. Soon they will invade our own country in force. In the present cotton strike in Lancashire, the employers have given us a reason for the terrible depression of trade, that cloth manufactures from Belgium can now be supplied to the print-works in Lancashire at lower rates than the Lancashire manufactured cloth can be purchased.[35]

You may say the depression of trade is not confined to England, but exists in America. I admit it, but it is very different from that which exists in England. With America it is the reaction of a too rapid increase of new manufacture stimulated by successful enterprise; in the case of England it is the steady decline of old-established industries under crushing competition, of which we have not yet felt the worst.