NOT A PROTECTIONIST PAMPHLET.
First, I join issue with respect to the motive and nature of my book. Your correspondent says that I lean to the conclusion that “the only way to prevent the commercial downfall of our country is to revise the Free Trade policy which we deliberately adopted fifty years ago,” and, as his readers will remember, he proceeds on that assumption, and reiterates that statement throughout his articles. It is really unpardonable. Would any of those readers, who were not also readers of my book, imagine that the first chapter of that book contains a disclaimer of holding a brief in favour of any particular doctrine or remedy, Fair Trade being specially named; that not more than seven of my 174 pages are concerned with Protection; that I strenuously and at considerable length advocate other reforms, and often point to other matters as being the determining causes of the decline in a particular trade? Your correspondent knew all this perfectly well, and yet, in order to damage my book with a Free Trade public, deliberately conveyed to them the impression that “Made in Germany” was merely a Protectionist pamphlet. He omitted all reference to technical education, the superiority of German business methods, and the other reforms whose advocacy formed the bulk of the book. And this is the man who sprinkles around charges of “misrepresentation,” and of having “skilfully conveyed a false impression”! From a child I was never much impressed by outbreaks of virtuous indignation.