British Socialists have found out that the Free Trade doctrine with its hypothetical "consumer" for a centre is opposed to science, to experience, and to common-sense. "The present system of trade is, in my opinion, opposed entirely to reason and justice. Nearly all our practical economists of to-day put the consumer first and the producer last. This is wrong. There can be no just or sane system which does not first consider the producer and then widely and equitably regulates the distribution of the things produced."[802] They recognise that Free Trade has caused ill-balanced production, and that, through the stagnation and decay of industries, men who ought to be engaged in production have been forced into more or less unprofitable and more or less useless employments. "What this country is rotting for is the want of more and better producers of necessaries—more and better market-gardeners, fruit-growers, foresters, general farmers, wool-workers, builders, and useful makers generally. Instead of which, the present system is giving us more and more non-producers—more and more shopkeepers, middlemen, commercial travellers, advertising agents, dealers, and wasters generally. According to the last census returns, we find that whilst the agricultural class shows a terrible decline, and the industrial class has barely kept pace with the population as a whole, on the other hand the commercial, or selling class, shows an increase of over 42 per cent. inside ten years."[803]
Free Trade has been tried and has been found wanting, and a return to Protection, which is in accordance with the needs of the times and the spirit of the workers, especially of the trade unionists, is inevitable. "Capitalist Free Trade is a manifest failure. Trade unionism is, in its essence, a very sturdy form of Protection, as we can see, if not here in Great Britain, certainly in America and in Australia."[804] "Society is constantly changing its form of living: every day some supposed old truth goes into the limbo of forgotten things, and, looking around us, those who have eyes to see and ears to hear may see and hear on all hands the death-knell of the old Manchester school of political economy."[805]
The claims of Free Trade and the cheap-food cry are disregarded and treated with contempt. "Free Traders talk about the folly of Protection. But Free Trade itself is a form of Protection. It protects the strong and the cunning against the weaker and the more honest. It protects the cheap and nasty against the good."[806] The founder of modern Socialism had stated already in 1847: "What is Free Trade under the present conditions of society? Freedom of capital."[807] Free Trade undoubtedly directly protects capital and leaves labour unprotected. "Your food will cost you more! I am to bow down to the idol of cheapness. I, one of the unemployed. What is cheapness to me, who have no money at all?"[808] "Your Manchester school treat all social and industrial problems from the standpoint of mere animal subsistence."[809] Declarations such as "The Social-Democratic Federation stands for universal free trade or free exchange and for the abolition of all indirect taxation,"[810] and "The only form of Protection advocated by the Social-Democratic Federation is the protection of the proletariat against the robbery and exploitation of the master-class"[811] have not the ring of seriousness about them.
Only very rarely are utterances in favour of Free Trade to be found in Socialist writings. However, frequently the demand is made that Tariff Reform and Socialism must go hand in hand, and doubt is expressed whether the Tariff Reform agitation is carried on for the benefit of the manufacturer or for that of the workers. "Mr. Chamberlain is not a Socialist. His Government will not be a Socialist Government. His plan would protect only the rich. This fiscal fight is a fight between capitalists as to who shall make the profits. It is not a fight for the benefit of the 'nation.' That is what they tell you. The capitalist who loses his trade through foreign competition is a Tariff Reformer. He wants Protection. The capitalist who depends on cheap foreign imports for raw material is a Free Trader. He does not want his prices raised."[812] "Preferential trade is the proposal of individual capitalists who desire to make profits out of our Imperial connections."[813]
The Fabian organ looks at Free Trade and Protection merely as a business proposition. "We care nothing for abstract Cobdenite economics, and are quite willing to welcome Tariff Reform if its advocates show us that it can be used as a lever for raising the standards of life and labour. The Labour party is therefore eminently wise in seeing how far it can be used for their advantage. Protectionism of the Australian Labour party is the right kind of Protectionism—Labour-Protectionism: a very different thing from the Capital-Protectionism which is (with a few exceptions) the characteristic mark of Tariff Reformers in this country."[814]
Some revolutionary Socialists are in favour of Free Trade because they hope that it will bring on a revolution in Great Britain. Their great leader, Karl Marx, taught sixty years ago, when Free Trade was being introduced: "The Protective system is nothing but a means of establishing manufacture upon a large scale in any given country. Besides this, the Protective system helps to develop free competition within a nation. Generally speaking, the Protective system in these days is conservative, while the Free Trade system works destructively. It breaks up old nationalities and carries the antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the Free Trade system hastens the social revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone I am in favour of Free Trade."[815] Those Socialist revolutionaries who wish to increase the misery of the people, hoping that unbearable poverty, owing to increasing unemployment and consequent want, will at least madden the people and cause a revolution—they remember that the great French revolutions were also brought about by unemployment and consequent widespread misery—are the most determined champions of Free Trade.
FOOTNOTES:
[766] Macdonald, Socialism, p. 16.
[767] Lecky, History of the Eighteenth Century, quoted in Fabian Essays in Socialism, p. 81.