The Indianapolis journal., 1883-11-03
THE RESULTS OF FREE TRADE.
Wretched Condition of English Working
Glasses Seen by Judge william ID. KeI
", of PhiIadelphia

warns my blood with the fire of youth. My
first duty is to acknowledge the goodness and
mercy which has again brought me the OPP
portunity to labor in the cause of my coUn-
try as l was taught to 90 by my venerable
preceptor Henry c.. Carey | have been away
from you nearly five months, most of the
time in London, where / could meet no one
but my own family. Yet all the best voices
IN England came to me daily In the morn
ing the best journals, without regard to par
ty, and in the evening, the evening papers.
We're my constant companions, and thus l
peered into every workshop on the island
and on the continent and saw the workman
at his task through British eyes, In sum
ming up, could say nothing better than
that which sixty years ago was written there,
and repeat that England now, as then, has
not that freedom (which is clothes and fire
and food for the toiling multitude"
There is no animal of SO little value there
to-day as full grown man or woman with a
heavy appetite and small purse. For
sheep or OK or other beast there is use and
need, but for man or woman the scale turns
and England will pay any land that will re-
ceive them from her Assisted emigration is
what they call this human expectation. You
lind the English pleading with every grade
of working people to leave country which
can give no sustenance to them, and this is
the condition of free-trade England to-day.
OF course, this condition is not due to free
trade alone, nor are our own blessings all
due to protection, but free trade is the con-
trolling factor in England's government
She has been preaching it for thirty years,
and urging all other countries to adopt it.
We did try it under the Democrats, who
after the tariff Of 1912 in 1916 gave us tariff
which left us in no better condition to pay
Buchanan his salary than we were to pay
Van Buren's salary in 1910.
There was no progress other than down
ward in those fifty years of free trade. In
lS41 bankrupt law was enacted to give re-
lief, but our banks would fail. as some of us
can remember and all business had to be
conducted with shinplasters, issued by bar
bers and bar-keepers. While free trade pre-
vailed We imported iron to lay to our ore
beds; imported iron to haul coal to our
works; started steel works, and ran them till
the price was put down on the other sde
and they went up. Then England was the
unquestioned workshop OF the world and
mistress OF the seas. Her march was onward,
and gold discoveries in Australia and in Cal
ifornia gave her all the advantages the world
derived from precious metals to place to the
credit to her rostrum of free trade. She has
now had forty years of it, and we have had
twenty-one years of protection. She is to-
day showing the results.
While l was in London one of the great
shipping firms announced its retirement from
the trade, and the reason was simply that
the carrying capacity of England's ships is
greater than the demand. They are praying
for war, that the government may need
some of their vessels as transports for troops.
Their capital in ships don't pay them, except
in the great lines running to and from New
York.
And there is no country in which England
enforces her commercial policy that is sue
cessful India, with her 200 000, 900 of Brit
lsh subjects is constant prey to famine:
She cannot protect her industries. England
takes from her her tribute in internal taxes,
system of raising money which in this
country have done and will do my best to
overthrow. The Indian takes fish from the
river to furnish him with food, but to pre-
serve it he must pay tax of 700 per cent.
on salt Under that system the fish rot
and engender famine and disease, and so
it is in other places England no
sooner gets a colony tnan she deprives it of
power to purchase, ard it furnishes no market
for English goods, which her merchants must
sell as we'll as produce. When the colonies
get the power in their own hands they follow
the example of the United States and put on
protective tariff which shuts England out.
[ saw life in the manufacturing districts
there that would move you to tears. Some
persons charged that my friend Robert
Porter, had misstated it. and l saw him de-
nounced as a slanderer and falsifer / tried
to see for myself, to find out whether he was
right or not and / spent ten days in visiting
towns near it. The great business of wives
and mothers and girls over fourteen years of
age, seemed TO be making nails and around
the little smithies | saw many a miserable
family working. They must carry the rods
of iron to the forges, must pay rent and fuel,
and then can scarce earn $1.25 week out of
which to pay these expenses. They are left,
after all is paid, nearly 81 week for their
wearing toll. These are the blessings of free
trade, and this the starvation which Shelley
pictured years ago.
At Radley the work is different. They
don't make nails; they make chains There
are also there women laboring in the brick
yards, who are the envy of the whole country
side. They mould and carry the heavy
bricks, make as high as six shillinss week
and have steady work l saw Manchester
and Sheffield, with similar sights surround
ing and nowhere did see place where Mr.
Porter had told even the whole truth In
Wales women earned six shillings by loading
coal and unloading it at the barges. Wesaw
them acting as stokers and pitching heavy
plates of iron, and all for the same pittance
put the question of wages to them again
and again, and found the rates for women's
work ranging from 81 to $3.25. No one
claimed that it was higher.
Now what is our condition. In 1860 we
were in control OF the party which now
asks to control US again, the party which had
impoverished the people, brought about a
condition of affairs that paralyzed capital and
sent workingmen out of the country to get
employment. Under the Republican party
we have grown as England never did. We
now make better iron and steel, better books,
even to the art work and the quality of paper
in them, than we can import The same
edition of books can be bought cheaper here
than across the sea. Ladies' habit cloth and
some kinds of gentlemen's dress goods are
cheaper in England, but for ordinary bust
ness wear, quality for quality, American
have to ask some of you to work out the
cause of the tariff. l feel that I am making
my last campaign. Would that could do
two or three years more work. for feel that
would like to devote my time more than
ever to impress my young countrymen with
the fact that the tariff can help our nations
progress, allowing mothers to devote to their
tho tin,a that in Fnuland thew spand