Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1884-12-13
Mr.. Bright on Free Trade.

Mr.. Bright on Free Trade.
The following letter has been addressed
by Mr.. John Bright to Mr.. Adam Wilde, of
the Hackney Liberal Association
1872, PICCADILLY, W., Nov. 18th.
Dear Sir,-I observe that your Tory cam
didate and his friends are seeking support
as fair traders. They complain that we are
allowed by our Government and our tariff
to buy freely all products Of foreign coun
tries, but that owing to some foreign tariffs
we cannot sell our own products as freely
as we wish to do. We can fix the duties in
our own tariff and on our imports, but we
cannot fix the duties in tariffs of for
eign countries and on their imports.
All this is true enough and plaiu
enough, but what is not plain and not true
is the strange belief held by fair traders that,
being injured by not being able to sell so
freely as we wish to do, owing TO duties III
foreign tariffs, we should remedy the evil By
giving up the power to buy freely by put
| ting duties on our own tariff. To sell freely
| would be as great an advantage as to buy
| freely is great advantage, but neither to
sell freely nor to buy t.e-y, as fair traders
recommend, would, in my view, enormously
rcrease the injury to our trade arising from
foreign tariffs, which now obstruct our for
eign trade. Let your workmen reflect or
the change in the condition which free trade
has made within the last forty years, since
the reform of our tariffs. The corn law
was intended to keep wheat at the price Of
eighty shilliDgs the quarter it is now under
forty shillings the quarter. The price Of
tea is now less than the duty which was
paid upon it In former days. Sugar is moi
| hn, hirI of re
monopoly Of East and West India sugar ex
listed. AS 10 wages in Lancashire and York
shire, weekly incomes of thousands of work
double that paid before the time
when free trade was established. The
wages of domestic servants in The country
from which come are in most cases doubled
since that time. A working brick-setler
told me lately that his wages are now Is.
Cd. per day formerly he worked at the
rate of IS. per day. Some weeks ago
asked an eminent upholsterer in a great
town in Scotland what had heen the
change in wages in his trade. He said that
80 or 40 years ago he paid cabinet maker
| 12s. per week; he now pays him 285 per
week. If you inquire az TO the wages Of
farm Ia borers, you will fiud them doubled.
or nearly so, i'll some counties, and generally
over the whole country advanced moe
than so per cent. the one.halt, while the
price of goods and the hours of labor have
diminished. II may be said that milk and
butter and meat are dear, which is true, but
these are dear because our people, by thou
| sands of families, eat meat who formerly
rarely tasted it, aud because our imports OF
these articles are not sufficient to keep
prices at n more moderate rate. Fair
traders tell you that trade in some branches
is depressed, which is true, though the
statements are greatly exaggerated. We
have bad great depression in agriculture
caused mainly by several seasons of bad
harvests, and some of our trades have suf.
fered much from too rapid extension III
prosperous quarters. l have known de
preston in trade to be much greater than il
is now, aud the suffriings Of traders and
workmen during our tiue of protection,
previous to 1912, when the reform of our
tariff began, were beyond comparison
greater than they are now in foreign coun-
tries where high tariffs exist, say in Russia or
France, and in the United States the dis
turbance and depression of manufacturing
| industries is far greater at this moment than
with US. The tariffs make itimpossible for
them to have large foreign trade. We
| have wide field for our exports which they
cannot enter We have an open market for
| the most part in South America, China, ia
pan, and with population of over 200 mil
lions in our Indian Empire, and with our
colonies, with the expectation of Canadu,
and the province Of Victoria, Australia
| The field for our manufacturing industry is
far wider than that for any other manufac.
turing baton in the world, and I cannot
doubt we shall gradually rise from the ex.
listing depression and reap even greater gain
from our policy of free trade in the future
than we have reaped in the past. In 1916
when the cruel corn law was repealed we
did not convert cur landowners and far
mers weonly vanquished them. Even now
there remains among them longing for pro-
lection. They cling still to their ancient
beresy, and, believing in the ignorance and
forgetfulness of our working men, they raise
the old cry at every Parliamentary election.
If have any Influence with you or with
my electors, let Inc assure them that for
centuries past there has been no change Of
our national policy which has conferred,
aud will confer, so great good on our in
dustrious people as that policy of free trade
which the two greatest ministers Of our
time-Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone
have fixed, l cannot doubt, forever in statute
book Of this country The recent contest
in the United States has overthrown the
party of protection and monopoly. 1t may
prove great blessing to the English nation
and the American continent. When Eng
land and America shall have embraced the
policy Of free industry, the whole fabric of
monopoly, the world over, will totter to its
fall.-I am, &c., JOHN BRIGHT.
THE METHODIST GOVERNMENTAL the
Methodist Centenary conference in Balt-
more yesterday resolution was offered by
Rev. G. X. Marshall, of Mississippi, pro-