The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-01-25 00:00:00

gin STOURI3RIDG-E OBSERVE-It.

Lambert, the eommander of the Java, who tell in the aotion,
the real force of the two ships ought to be made known to
Englishmen of the present day. Any one wish!, g to learn
the full particulars of this action, of which no Englishman
need be ashamed, will find them in 'James's Natal History,'
written by a lawyer."

THE RIGHT HON. W. E. FORSTER ON
RECIPROCITY AND PROTECTION.

On Monday evening the Bradford Chamber of Commerce
held their 48th anniversary meeting in their Rooms at the
Exchange Mr. Henry Mitchell, President, in the chair.
Among those present were the Right Hon. W. E. Forster,
M.P. Mr. Riley, M.P , the Mayor of Bradford (Mr. Holden),
Mr. Jacob Behrens, end Mr. Alderman Law. The rooms
were crowded by members and their friends who had re-
calved invitations. After the routine business of the meet-
ing had been terminated, Mr. W. E. Forster (who was
loudly cheered on rising), addressed the meeting at come
length. We give the feilewing exl.raot Iroin his speech

' . . . . I do not deny that the want of progns ot free,
trade in other countries is disheartening. The strength,
of Protection in the United States is especially this-
heartening, more so from the fact that our colonies to
some extent have imitated their example. Yet there
is hope. New South Wales is almost a free-trade
colony. I do not deny the retrogression on the Conti-
nent. The greatest man on the Continent, Prince
Bismarck, appestat to have declared himself in favour
of Protection. I very much lament the tact, but I
cannot he certain that it is owing to any econo-
mical theory. I strongly suspect it is not. (Cheers.)
Political motives have had much to do with
Prince Bismarck's action, and his other motives have
had much to do with it. These great Continental
Governments have been spending such enorrnt us sums
on their armies that they have been brought into
financial difficulties. Even Germany feels that diffi-
cnlty, and it is much easier to impose a Customs
tax, however heavy it may be, than to levy direct
taxes where a large sum is to be raised. I also
suspect that in consequence of the particular ar-
rangements of the Government, Prince Bismarck
has got a greater control over the Customs than
over any direct taxation. However, I don't deny
that when we look abroad we who believe in the
principle of free trade have a right to regret that others
have not been so convinced of its truth, or havt not
acted on the conviction to the extent we could have
wished. I don't think for a moment that they had got
on better for the want of free trade than we have with
it. (Cheers.) Take exports only. I can make the com-
parison with any other country only from 1860. Take
1860, and compare our exports with the French ex-
ports. The exports from the United Kingdom in
1860 were more than £164,000,000, while in 1877 they
were more than £2F)2,000,000. That is an increase in
our exports of 53 per cent. The French exports
were £126 000,000 in 1860, and in 1877 they were
£175,000,000, an increase of 138 per cent, against our
53 per cent. Take also the increase in regard
to population. The English population had in-
creased from 29,000,000 ta rather under 34,000,000
hut our exports had increased a good deal more
from £6 to £7 10s. per head. Looking at the very
large imports from America, at least 90 per osnt. of
them are raw material; and are we not all very glad
to get corn, cotton, and tobacco from America? We
could prevent it to our own great misery and harm by
not taking their corn or by putting an import duty on.
their cotton. But the enormous increase of their im-
ports is the natural effect of the extent of their great
country and the iudustry with which they have culti-
vated it. (Hear, hear.) We know a few years ago prices
were very high, and we were perfectly aware those prices
could not laat, and if they did it would be a great injury
to trade, for the low price of the raw, material is a
great advantage to trade. I am perfectly aware
there is protection abroad; that protection does us
harm like bad trade here, and most gladly would
I look to every possible help that could better trade.
But there is no hope, by giving up the principles of
free trade, by returning to protection or reciprocity in
any form, of forcing them to take more of our goods.
(Cheers.) My firm belief is there is not the slightest
chance of that. I entirely agree with the President
that the queetion ought, to be discussed;. but I believe
it would be found there is no hope of getting back our
trade in this way. .The -attempt to; get it -would
injure our trade, and that even if we were quite con-
vineed we ought to make the attedipt, the cauntry
generally would not consent to it, and if it were mate
there is no chance of getting it. I believe that the
attempt to get it would do us harm ; that getting it
would do us still more harm; anti that we have
not the slightest chance of getting it. (" Why
not ? ") I will shortly endeavour to show you.
(Cheers.) There are two kinds of reciprocity. If we
were in a position at this moment of being able to
make a Cobden treaty, the Government would be
taking a most blameworthy part if they did not
attempt to affect it; but the fact is we have ceased to
rob our consumers and we cannot do it. The second
kind of reciprocity is this. You levy a heavy duty
upon a country manufacturer, and we will levy the
same duty on the same manufacturer till you take
that duty off. That is the simplest form of reciprocity.
Take the iron trade. I hear a great outcry against
iron manufactures coming into England. The export
of iron manufactures last year was above £2O 000,000, 4
and we import about £2,500,000, of which £1.500,000
are wrought iron or steel, and about £1,000,000 in
bars. - No doubt some of that—about £200,000—
came from the States, and it is very unfair
that they should levy a tremendous duty on our
iron manufactures while we levy none on theirs.
It is unfair to us and unfair to their own people; hut
what is the chance of stopping that import of .£200,f 00
or frightening them to letting in our iron at a lower
duty by Baying we will subject theirlrou to the same
duty they levy on ours? In the first place, it it were
any important amount, we should find the iron con-
sumer in this country complaining. We should want
Iron for our .machinery, farmers for their implements, •
and we know that the effect of a protection duty, in so
far as it takes effect, raises the price of the article
throughout the country; consequently, not merely
would this American iron sell for more but we should
have to pay more for all we used. I or a time iron-
masters would get the benefit, but consumers
of iron used in England would begin to grumble.
I will tell you an incidental fact worth observing.
Of the £1,500,000 of manufactured iron close on
£200,000 comes from countries where there is a
heavy duty, £450,000 comes from Holland, and
25- 0,000 from Belgium, two countries which come most
nearly to free trade. But do you suppose that a threat
of laying the same duty on his iron would have any
effect on the Pennsylvania iron-master? He would
only say, "In England they have given up free trade;
they are going to look after their manufactures; but I
am not such a fool as to give up our enormous home
market in order to untax the Parliamentary £200,000.
would rather give up the English market altogether
Ito long as I can keep the American market." (Hear,
hear.) The first doctrine of reciprocity, which is
putting on a small duty on the identical article, would
fail; it would come to nothing. But what is meant is
this—We will put a duty on something you do care for
,—on one of your many exports, and then we will see
What you will do. It will be very well if you could
Put -a duty on what they care for, hut:will not ,the
English people , also care for it?' ' Cotton we are
shut out from. Corn is the tremendous export from
the State& Are we ,to go back to the Corn Laws?
(" Yes, our colonies.") Are we to rely on our colonies
for corn? I am speaking perfectly within the mark
when I say that 90 per cent. of our import of wheat
comes from foreign count ries- and not from our colonies.
The President has referred to luxuries, but it is diffi-
cult to draw a line as to luxuries. You would find it
difficult to get at luxuries which would have any
effect in alarming America at all, You might have
some effect in the article of tobacco. But tobacco,
after all, is a very trifling interest in the States. It
is a luxury I don't indulge in, but it is almost the
only luxury of the working classes, and you would
raise a very loud complaint if you attempted to
tax it in order to benefit us or any one else. Take
again the meat trade with America. It is a growing
trade. If I had to make a speech for protection, I
should go back to Norfolk and make it there, Nothing
could be more true than that the stoppage of that trade
would raise the price of meat for the whole community.
The fact he that this country is by its circumstances
pledged to a policy of free trade. (Cheers.) We are a
large producing people, and we can only sell our exports
by producing them cheaply, and we can only produce
them cheaply by levying no duty on the import of the
raw material. That is my reason for believing that if
we fight for reciprocity it would do us more harm than
old-fashioned protection.. It is protection under a
fresh form, but exactly from the same motive. To
have any effect the threat must be of considerable
amount: it must be one to do the foreigner a great
deal of harm; but my bell, fig, no threat of the kind
would have any effect on him. He would say your
belief in protection is given way ; we shall see who is
the strongest, Obstinacy on both sides would be raised;
and if we tried to force him to take off the duties on
our goods by laying on duties on his, if we succeeded it
would do us harm, and I also believe we should not
frighten hiai into giving way. Any sort of appearance
of putting on these duties is, I believe, doing our
traoe considerable harm. It is destroying almost the
only chance of the progress of free trade. The progress of
free trade depends on the civilizeo nations get.erally be-
coming convinced of its truth, the great truth, that no
Legislature ought to give artificial aid to manufactures
cr any separate interests at the expense of the com-
munity (cheers)—to put it in the fewest words, should
not try to au the pockets of manufacturers or
producers at the expense of the consumers.
(Cheers. Depend upon it, I know something of the
men who are fighting tlie cause of free trade in
Europe and America. They have not given up
hope; but I believe they would give up hope if
we gave up the sound principle of free trade.
(Cheers.) We could not strike a more fatal
blow than by setting up this doctrine of reci-
procity. We could not give greater discouragement
to the advecates of free trade and greater enc..urage-
meut to protectionists. I, for one, never could have
anything to do with it, You may depend upou it,
the large body of consumers are tic) powerful, and-the
agriculturists espectially know they cannot get bark.
protection they have been obligeti.t(?give up, and they,
will-nottallow it now to- be renewed
.fer .tlie benefit of ,
the manufacturer& It is no party lweatiou -vibe!" •
ever Government may be in office. The ;present
an well as the. last would be quite as firm; . . .
.• . I find there are maoy other things which are
said to overweight us in market besides protection.
Let us take a neutral course, And let us talk about
having a neutral market—say France. It is said that
the French artisan makes a longer day's work. (Hear.)
The charge is not so much that our men do not give
a fair day's work for a fair day's wage, but the chaue
is that -.bey do not give a fair day's work. Just let
me say a word about these frequent statements that
are made that we suffer by our short hours of labour.
Hear.) That means, of course, that we get less out
of our plant and machinery. . . . lam an old ten hours
man, I was one of a small body of ruanitiac:urers who
from the firstsuppjrted a Ten Hours Bill, I should have
voted in favour of the Nine Hours Bill also if I was
convinced in my own mind it was the right thing to
give, and I am not coovinced yet that there have been
any arguments which show that it ought not to have
given; but I do think, after what the president of this
Chamber has said about the doctrines of free trade,
that the matter ought to be carefully argued and con-
sidered. (Hear, hear.) The suggestion which I want
to make is this—and though there are not many
working men here, yet they will probably hear of
what is being said, and I hope they will consider
that what I am now about to say cornets from a
man who is ,a real friend to their interests, one who
hrot alvsayo ;htglis on tbeir c.thist, mattatr—sthai.
it would'biaa well that the matter should be thoeriughl,
investigated and discussed. would suggest that each
of the trade unions and principal industries of the
country should appoint one of their best men, and tAat
the employers engaged in the same industry should
else appoint a man in whom they had confidence,

such men to form a commission to discuss the matter
and ascertain whether, in consequence of longer hours
being worked in France aed other places, there is not
a real loss (hear) ; if so, to what extent the loss really
exists; and if there be a lose, whether there may not be
conveneating social advantages which more than make
up for it. Because we must remember that the mere
proof of a money loss is not sufficient (hear), for they
may be working to an extent which may wear out
energy and health (hear), and in the. long run, if that
be the ease, they must suffer pecuniarily as well as
socially. . (Heart) Some Nuount of interference has
ariiin-ownig 'to he necessity for greater care to
'prevent aecidents In coal mines, and in other cases
•troin'a desire to glve more e iucation, so that the
,-hours worked here-could'not be compared with coun-
tries on the Continent in which there was not the same
I amount of interference. (Hear, hear.) lam only saying
I.that there is sufficient said and sufficient known to the
employers and to the working classes to maike it de-
sirable that the matter should be thorough' lookod
into, If it should turn out that our trad. can
only be kept by working longer hours, my b eAs
that workpeople would at once giNe way and ta e to
them. I am not at all sure that it would be proved
so; my expectation is that it would not; but I feel
sure that if it were proved that English workmen
would take to them, because he would say, "What
is the use of going abroad to work these long hours.
I may as well work long hours at home as go
abroad. Besides, the capitalist may go abroad as well."
(Loud applause.) But that is not a matter in which re-
ciprocity would help us, nor can reciprocity help us in
what after all, is one of our greatest mistortunes. It
cannot make our working people more sober. (Hear,
hear.) It cannot make them drink less, and drink has
a great deal to do with the bad trade. ("Hear, hear,"
and applause.) It cannot either make them save more;
though I grant you they have saved a good deal. I
am now addressing a body ol employers; therefore I
do not think it would be right in me to say, after hear-
ing these charges of comparative—l will not say lazi-
ness, but that there is not so much energy in work as
compared with former days, that that charge can be
made against the working classes alone. (Hear.) lam
not now speaking exclusively of the bad people, for I be-
lieve we are better than our neighbours, though I amnot
now holding myself up as an example—l know myself
too well for that. (Laughter.) But I think we shall
all of us admit that if any Jeshurun has "waxed fat
and kicked" it has been the well-to-do Jeshurun quite
as much as the poor one. (Loud applause.) There
has also been as great a loss of good economical habits
among the employing class as has been the loss of
industry among workpeople. The good old-fashioned
~notions of hard work and careful living have been
quite as much transgressed by one class as by
another. (Rear, hear.) You may be able to point
to one or two working men who have drunk cham-
ps/be. T need not point out the extravagances in which
some employers indwge. But reciprocity will not
help us in that. (Hear.) There is another ground
upon which it is stated that we are losing, and I
begeve it has a great deal to do with the loss of trade.
I believe the French are creeping upon us because
they work so hard. It is the greatest mistake you
can make to judge the French people by a few of the
froth and scum of Paris, for generally speaking, they
are as economical and as hardworking a people &sever
lived, and to compete with them you will have to
imitate their habits of economy and hard work.
(Hem)...

In a leader commenting upon Mr. Forster's speech,
the Daily Telegraph remarks : _ _ _ _

. . "The radical fault and weakness of the Reciprocity
theory is that it altogether leaves out of consideration the
most important factor in the problem, namely, the con-
sumer. Every article of foreign produce imported is a clear
gain to the consumer, since it would not come to his market
at all unless either - his- own country did not produce it
or the producer asked too high, a price. It does
not 'matter whether the commodity be food, clothing
or luxury : if the consumer buts it chestier from the
foreigner than from his own countrymen, in that capa-
city and to that extent he;gains. This was the principle
that swept aside the Corn Laws, despite the pleading of the
farmers—no unimportant industry—for Reciprocity. But
the consumers do not constitute a special or isolated
class in thh community. Every producer is also a con-
sumer, and how fares he in the di,cussion ? The result to
him is simply this, that toe cheaper he buys anything—no
matter whether raw materials for his special industry,
or the cost of his individual maintenanoe—at so much the
less cost he is able to produce, and therefore so much the
better is he qualified to meet his rivals in the tierce competi-
tion of the world's markets. Wages have been reduced, and
probably must be cut down yet lower; but, if the working
man struggles against these reductions in consequence at
the expense of living, how much less able would he have been
to live had import duties added ten or twenty per cent, to
the value of everything he consumed! Cheaper living is
one source of the superiority which his Continental and
American rivals possess, and, to make bread, meat, and
other necessaries dearer would simply hanidoap bin more
than ever in the competition, and therefore prolong those
di advantages of his position which Reciprocity professes to
be designed to remedy.
"Mr. Forster had thus no difficulty in showing that, if this
vaunted means of relief to our industrial ills could conter
no benefit on the manufacturer, it would clo little for the
working MD. Let the point be looked at how we will,
the introduction of Reciprocity as a principle of State
action would simply lead to a war of tariffs, by which
each nation would jealously shut out as much of the
products of all its neighbours as it c mild, and content
itself with consuming its OWB. Of all countries in the
world Great Britain is the least fitted to take part in Such a
Chinese policy, for she is by the nature of things dependent
upon other countries for the very means of existence.
Reciprocity, applied to Russia and the rotted States, means
permanently dearer bread, more pauperism, leis wealth, and,
consequently, less constant and leis lucrative employment.
The nation would not be. enriched by these means; it
would only be impoverished, for its wage.fand would
gradually diminish without a single market being gained'
To Impose countervailing duties* on• foreign, manu-
factures would excite the hostility of the agricultural
interest, which would ask why it alone should be sacrificed
to foreign Competition • while to lay additional duties on all
foreign commodities alike, including the necessaries of life,
would provoke the hostility of every household in the
kingdom. What is really practicable is' first of
all, by 'friendly negotiation with other States, on
the 'basis cf existing Treaties, to prevent any needlessly
vexatious interference with our trade and indus-
tries ; and, next, by cheaper production, to offer what
every consumer is always glad to get, manufactures of good
quality and more moderate in price than others can supply.
That English makers are undersold in the United States
may be the fault of hostile tariffs; that they are underbidden
in their own home market by Americans is &scandal only to
be explained, as an eminent Manchester man puts it, by the.
'lower wages, longer hours, anti closer application 'to work
of other countries The cure for this is in our °en hands,
and employers are gradually and with infinite pains striving
after it. The cure for the other is in the nature of things
slow, but it s certain, being in fact simply equivaltnt to the
spread of intellizence. Neither the French nor the American
artisan will long submit to be taxed for the benefit of home
capitalists when he has once mastered the elementary fact
that taxation shutre out from his use better and cheaper
goods than theirs. Pending the arrival of this necessary
enlightenment, the English artisan will, we may be quite sure,
not beau ill-advised as to fall into thcsnare which ignorance
and 'selfishn'esi have bttweell the laid for his
feilaw-
labourer abroad." • • r
• -