The Sun.
London, England, 1852-03-05 00:00:00

FREE TRADE,

Is Free Trade to be put upon its trial? Is the financial
policy punned in this country for the last Fix years to
be subjected anew to the test of opinion, as if its results
were seriously doubtful or plainly damaging? The only
persons who say so are Free-traders themselves; bur, if
there really exists anywhere a hope to recoequer what
has been lost, or a tendency to slight what has been
gained, the smallest attention to facts will dispel such
conceits for ever. Twenty-seven thousand pounds, it is
said, were subscribed in lees than as many minutes for
the purposes of the Anti-Corn-law League. The en-
thusiasm was somewhat superfluous. The whole case of
the Leaguers might have been unaswerably stated on a
single sheet or paper. So manifest and unmistakeable
has been the prosperity of the country during the period
of Free Trade, and so directly is this prosperity trace-
able to the policy in question, that to dispute the matter
is a perfect absurdity. The case of Free Trade against
Protection is the case of railroads against coaches, of
penny postage against tenpennv letters of gas against
oil, of steam against manual drudgery.lt is the case of
plenty against penury, of comfort against misery, of
progress against stagnation, of light against darkness.
It is a case which can never suffer by treachery, by in-
trigue, or by violence. It can stiffer only by apathy or
forgetfulness; only by that indifference which all bless-
ings are apt to create by possession, and which are vainly
deplored after they are lost.
What are the facts before the public eye—facts
withia the knowledge and comprehension of everybody?
In the first place, we have imported into the United
Kingdom during the period of Free Trade an average an-
nual quantity of ten millions of uarters of grain; and of
this quantity two-thirds have bcsn grain for human con-
sumption—wheat, wheatmeal, oatmeal, or Indian meal,
one-'sal; of the entire aggregate being wheat and wheat-
meal alone. Bread, therefore—good, sound, wholesome
bread, has been consumed to this extent by the popula-
tion over and above what was ever consumed in previous
times. In other words, millions of the people have be-
come breacheaters who were never bread•eaters to the
same amount before; and, as we yesterday showed,
sugar, tea, coffee, tobacco, cheese, and butter have en-
tered into general consumption under corresponding con-
ditions of abundance. Now, be it recollected that these
known and authenticated importations furnish an exact
and incontestable measure of thes_privalians_ to which
'tfie people were subjidte.d by the system of Protec-.
tion. To restore Protection would be to take from the
mouths of the poorest class of consumers ten million
quarters of grain per year—to reduce the consumption
of sugar from twenty-three pounds per head to nine
pounds, to treat other provisions in a similar meaner,
and to throw back a large portion of our population on
the want which they have escaped. These importations
under a free-trade system show not only what are the
real demands of the country, but from what supplies it
was formerly debarred. Every year that protection
existed the people had so many million quarters of grain,
so many millions pounds of sugar, so many million
pounds of tea, and so much butter, cheese, and bacon,
less than they wanted. Can anybody misunderstand
this?

During the same period of Free Trade our manu-
factures have prodigiously increased, and our ex-
port:, as we yesterday stated, have risen from
60,111,081/. in 1845, to 71,359,1841. in 1850.
If we turn to more particular tests the same result
is discoverable. The timber trade is very rea-
sonably considered as an excellent gauge of the
general well-doing of the population. Unless work
is pretty plentiful, remuneration good, and pros-
pects satisfactory, men do not build many new houses or
alter old ones. Repairs and improvements usually be-
speak something comfortable in the affairs of those con-
cerned. Now, the year 1851—being the sixth of Free
Trade—is remarkable, as we learn from the circular of
one of the leading firms in the business, " for the largest
known amount of importation supported by consumption
in an Equal degree," insomuch that the quantity of tim-
ber and deals used last year in the ordinary way of trade
actually exceeds that used in the year when the extrava-
gance of railway construction was at its greatest height.
To take up smaller facts, we find that the number of
letters posted—no bad evidence, as Mr. Rowland Hill
has shown, of general progress.—has swelled, even
during the continuous operation of cheap postage, from
5,607,378 in 1845 to 7,126,994 in 1851. There is no test,
indeed, fairly applicable to the condition of a community
which does not give the same result. The poor law returns
whether from particular unions or in the more comprehen-
sive summary of the Registrar-General—all tell one story.
Pauperism, that blemish and Laws of England's great-
ness, is manifestly on the decline, and is proved to be so
in whatever form we shape the estimate. Not ocly is
the cost of parochial support less, which might be in some
degree explained by the cheapness of provisions, but the
able-bodied poor in receipt of relief are shown to be far
less numerous,—a clear proof of the increase of
hdeaths
employ-
ment. The registers of births and marriages
same way. Births bear a larger proportion to
fort
than formerly, and marriages, even allowinggethe
-r frequent than
point_ th
in-
crease of population, ere considerably a
participate in the
districts. Agricultural shires
of old. Nor is the improvement confi.
quotas to the
11 doine and contribute their
nmed"to manufactur-
inggeneral we -
summary.
diminished year by year
Trade. Taxation has been
Such have been the consequences of Fr :a
without loss to the revenue. Our income, though
raised with far less pressure on the community,
is in advance of our expenditure. Our mum,
tu
factures and exports have largely increased.
tyrial rn. But, if Free Trade
Our population has been introduced to the enjoy-
ment of many comforts previously unknown, and gives
proofis indeed of its
tnwbeell; ail nugp
nant
its
,there is
a single fact
which ought to decide the cause. To the original dis-
pate there were
CD
two parties—the producers of co
who
,
would have circumscribed its consumption,and the
would-be consumers of bread, who sought to
For whose advantage was the changeereeted extend it.
to make rents high and farmers wealth? Was it
y that the Corn
Laws were repealed, or to bring
bread to every man's door? it the blessing of cheap
was for the sake of the
million, not of the " territorial • interest," for the sake of
the consumer, not of the producer, that this great mea-
sure was carried against the desperate resistance of the
latter. And who has
complained of it since? Who is
disappointed? The consumers?—those for whose benefit
the change was made? No! Never in modern times
have there been such
general prosperity and con-
tent. Seditious
riots have become things unknown,
and the most extraordinary revolutions ever witnessed
haver mary
in other nations left this country unshaken
and secure. The effects of Free Trade on the great body
of the people have been even more beneficial than was
anticipated; the only murmurs heard have come from
the losers of But for their sake
monopoly. it was not
that the change was made at first, and it will not be un-
made for their sake now. If the people's gain is to any
extent their loss it can only be answered that what they
have thus lost they had never any right to keep,
Can Mr. Disraeli be really thought to suppose that
the people of this country will consent to a re-enactment
of laws which would strike if one-sixth or one•fiith of
the consumers of bread, and make the rest consume it
t.t a price 50 per oent. higher ? We cannot believe him
guilty of any such delusion. His desire," perhaps,
like that of his colleague in the Upper House, may tend
that way, and we know that he has ideas, respecting
the maintenance of the " territorial interest," at even
a large national cost. But the reply to this theory
is simply that it is impracticable. Country gentle-
men may be very ornamental and vary use:ul too,'
but to preserve them by means of a bread-tax is about
as desirable as to grow palmtrees under glasses in crder
to naturalise a breed of giraffes. Lord Derby, " 17,.
depend upon it, is not likely to think less of the a
ld
wou
culty from seeing it more closely, and those who
force him at once to a public recantation
shoul
rd d r ecoi
Lo John
leo the indulgence bespoken by other'.
bstitute
Russell resigned the Government rather than su
one expression for another in the preamble of a Bill.
Lord Derby takes the Government because no one else
will; but, if his predecessor was entitled to stick at a
word, he has surely some reason to excuse himself from