The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-07-26 00:00:00

FREE-TRADE POLICY

THE assertions as-.to the success of Free.trade have
•been so pertinaciously reiterated by our modern
political economists, that the public, unaccustomed
to weigh causes and effects, have been too ready to
accept the conclusions without taking- the trouble
to think for themselves. They know that the Corn-
laws were repealed in; IS-16 ; that this measure was
followed by reductions in the sugar duties, which
admitted the produce of foreign slave labour on
nearly equal terms with that of the free labour of
our own colonies; that, the shipping interest was
afterwards exposed to foreign competition; and that
these measures were all parts of the Freenti-ade
system. They now experience the benefit of.im-
proved prices, and active demand for the products
of industry, with unceasing trade in imports and,
exports, and having the positive assurance of the
advocates of the Manchester school that the present
state of af'airs is the promised result of the new
commercial system, the unthinking portion of the
public adopt the theory without troubling them-
selves with any further inquiry. The subject, how-
ever, is of too great importance -to be allowed to
pass without further investigation, or it may be
found, when too late to apply an erneient remedy,
that we have been persisting in a hazardous system,
and giving it credit for a success which is solely
owing to exceptional causes. It would be well to
bear in mind upon what grounds the success of
Free-trade was confidently predicted by.those who
were its warmest advocates, and whose perseverance,
whether right or wrong, was rewarded withzuccess.
They complained that ,the closing of our ports by
prohibitory duties to the produce of the corn-
growing countries of the 'north of Europe not:only
deprived our artisans of the supply of cheap food,
which was essential, but deprived manufacturers -of
a market for their goods to clothe the peasants of
Prussia, Denmark, and Germany. With un,
restricted importation we should exchange our
cotton goods for the cheap corn of northern
Europe, so that the increased employment of the
operatives would convert Lancashire into a paradise
of remunerated industry more than sufficient to
compensate for any loss to the agricultural districts.
Wages would be high while bread would be low,
so that every man would have enough and to fpare.
They even went further, and Free-trade orators
drew the pleasant picture of Manchester being
virtually laid alongside the valley of the Mississippi
—on one side all engaged in making calico, and on
the other all occupied in growing wheat to feed
them. England was to be the workshop for the
world, a huge factory, which should produce suffi-
cient calico to clothe all the population, and agricul-
ture might be neglected, for with cheap bread the fac-
tories would find employment for all. It would be
hard upon political prophets to refer them to all
their predictions, as it is cruel to read a defendant's
love letters in a court of law; but it is a duty to
ourselves to consider how far any of these predic-
tions have been realised. It is true that our exports
have considerably increased, but the demand has
arisen from our neglected Colonies, which were
denounced in Parliament as incumbrances to he
shaken off. Northern Europe, instead of exchanging
corn for calico, has every year taken leas of our