New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-06-05

Not often, but occasionally the question il
asked, "What mas become of the Free Trade
League 2" 1t accomplished so little while it
was active that it leaves little void in the busy
world now that it has sunk into oblivion.
There is no anxiety in the question therefore !;
it is dictated merely by that languid curiosity
which leads idle people to ask each other
between rubbers of whist what has become of
Sergeant Bates, and the answer usually betokens
that dubious indifference which marks all
mention of ex-Yice-Presidents. But there are
people so loyal and so constant that they
never forget the objects of their early admira-
ton. There are men in the Mississippi
valley who still believe that the Hon. Hugh
White was the one great political genius whom
this country has produced. There are doubt
less many estimable persons who still read the
poems of Haynes Bailey. There are spirits of
the same faithful temper who would like to
know what has become of the Free Trade
League. To satisfy this harmless though in
comprehensive desire, we observe here and there
an occasional showing of the present paralytiC
condition of that organization, and of the causes
which led to it.
1t is not cheering picture. Those who
remember the blithe and sunny aspect of the
League a year ago, its verdure and bloom, its
general suggestion of youth and patchOuG,
will not regard unmOved the particulars of its
present forlOrnness. OF course it never did
ANYTHING worth doing. But it was always
alert and cheerful as a swarm of midges in
the sun. There was genial air of entirely
purposeless activity about it, which can only
be described in the words which so perfectly
convey the sense and spirit OF the life in
Wonderland, where the slithy eoves did eyre
and gimble in the wabe;" there was general
" mimsyness about the establishment which
justified the coinage of that remarkable word.
One biographer, and the ablest, expresses the
same thought in somewhat different language
" A wear ago the Free Trade League was rich
Il" in hope, in the earnest activity of young
"men of generous impulses and determined
wills, and in the large contributions of COM
"mercal men, This was the light under
which the matter probably presented itself to
the Leaguers themselves and to the amiable
coterie of sympathetic Free-Traders who looked
upon it seriously. The public at large regarded
the League and its work as a thoroughly
praisewOrtfY device to employ the time
of few young gentlemen of good for
tunes and active minds, not nearly so ex-
acting as business, nor 80 dangerous as
croQuet. The commercial men who con-
tributed 80 generously had ideas of their
own in respect to this employment of thor
money. They regarded Free Trade as a
profitable investment worth trying for. IL 1t
failed they would lsse little. If it succeeded
they imagined that in that way they would
be relieved Of portion of the responsibility
which, in commercial country, always rests
upon capital. They looked upon the whole
subject with very different eyes from those of
the sanguine young publicists who did tho
writing and the printing of the League. They
were dazzled by visions of perfect liberty, Of
a commerce which should pay nothing to the