The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-08-16 00:00:00

MR. BRIGHT ON FREE TRADE AND

COMMERCIAL DISTRESS.

Mr. William Russell, a working man in Glasgow, who
describes himself as having been an enthusiastic member of
the Anti- Corn Law League, recently wrote to Mr. Bright
asking his opinion as to the existing widespread dspression
in trade. In his reply Mr. Bright says :

"You say that in our agitation, now nearly forty
years ago, we urged that a necessary consequence of
Corn-law repeal would be that 'war would cease,
and that there would be no more commercial and
agricultural depression.' We never said this, We
said that free trade greatly tends to promote peace
between nations, and that commercial depression caused
by the Corn Law on the occasion of every bad harvest
would be prevented. Before 1848, and during the thirty
years of Corn Law, there were five or six Parliamentary
Committees on agricultural distress; during more than
thirty years of free imports of corn, until this session,
there had been no such Committee appointed or asked
for; and now all sensible men know that the Commis-
sion to be appointed is a mere delusion held out to
cajole the farmers. War has not ceased. We made
the Russian war in 1854, and since then the arma-
ments of Europe have much more than doubled. Free
trade—imports of corn—cannot make Englishmen or
Scotchmen sensible or moral. But with regard to
France, every man must know that our relations
with France have been much more friendly since Mr.
Cobden's treaty came into force; and that now we
are on most friendly terms with the nation with whom
in past times we have most frequently contended
on the battlefield. As to Germany and its
tariff, its military expenditure demands more
taxes; and by offering higher duties to her manu-
facturers higher taxes are made less unwelcome to
many of her people. lam not aware of any move-
ment towards protection in Italy, Belgium, or France.
In France tbe cause of free trade is far more powerful
now than at any former period. America has had her
tremendous civil war; but for that and her enormous
debt, protection would have been dead and buried
long ago; and nobody surely expected or said that the
repeal of our Corn Law could make or prevent a civil
war on the great question of slavery in the 'United
States? Why don't you and your friends war
why American commercial distress has been
much deeper and more prolonged than our
own? Yet America has all the good which pro-
tection can give her. We are suffering from many
bad harvests at home; from famines and poverty in
India and China • from depression in North and South
America; from lie suffering in Germany; from war
in the East of Europe, and from the extravagance and
inflation of the years preceding the present bad times.
And, after all, our people as a whole suffer infinitely
less than in the three years from 1839 to 1842; and our
farm labourers, who were to be specially ruined, are
receiving nearly double the wages, and of that which
wages can buy, than they received in the three years
to which I have referred. If you use your faculties as
well now as you did in the days of the free-trade
contest you will not doubt the wisdom of our present
policy.'

UNVEILING A STATUE TO
M. SCHNEIDER.
The Paris Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, writing
on Monday night, gives the following account of the unveil-
ing of a statue to M. Schneider :

Yesterday was unveiled, at Creusot, a statue to M.
Schneider, the founder of the gigantic ironworks now
well known all over the world. It may interest
your readers to acquire some details of this establish-
ment, which can almost bear comparison with Wool-
wich Arsenal for extent and reputation. The ground
covered by the various sheds, furnaces, engine rooms,
and workshops fills a space of about 2,700 acres, and
the length of rails laid down for the convenience
of the factory is nearly 200 miles. Twenty•seven
locomotive engines and 1,500 wagons are employed
upon them. The number of workmen is upwards of
15,500, who, together with their families and the camp
followers—if the various tradesmen who have settled
near Creusot may be so termed—form a population of
26,000 souls. Among the other striking figure
of the establishment is the number of steam
engines, there being 280 of them. There are
thirteen furnaces and fifty-eight steam hammers.
A specimen of the latter formed one of the pro-
minent features in the garden laid out between
the late Exhibition and the Seine. This monster
hammer weighs over eighty tons. The factory was
founded in 1790, and its growth has been prodigious.
Although a Deputy, and known in history as Pre-
sident of the Chamber of Deputies in Napoleon lll.'s
reign, M. Schneider often used to remark that he was
not a political man but simply a forgemaster. The
organisation of the schools, workmen's houses, and
interests of all employed is as worthy of exami-
°nation as the iron and steel works themselves.
The whole establishment brings to mind Pere
Madeleine's magnificent factory in "Lee Miserablee."
The fete was inagurated by the playing of numerous
bands, the musicians all being workmen. The streets
were decorated with flags and triumphal arches. At
eight o'clock bread was distributed to the poor,
and an hour afterwards a new hospital was opened.
An express train brought down many visitors,
among whom were MM. de Lesseps and Pouyer
Quertier. M. Henri Schneider, the son of the
late proprietor, received his guests at the station,
and a high mass was subsequently attended by all the
notabilities present. In the course of the sermon the
domestic virtues of M. Schneider were extolled by
Mgr. Perraud ; but the great event of the day took
place at tbfee o'clock. The statue was unveiled in the
presence of all the workmen and inhabitants of the
locality, M. Ferdinand de Lesseps making a speech,
which was frequently interrupted by loud applause.
Several other speeches followed, after which the
gathering broke up. The workmen brought the day
to a close by illuminations arid fireworks, whilst
M. Henri Schneider entertained 540 of his guests at a
sumptuous banquet. The statue is the work of the
well-known sculptor M. Chapu.

Marshal and Madame Canrobert visited Windsor
Castle en Ilaturdsgr 104