Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1888-09-20
HARD TIMES IN ENGLAND.
The Wretched Condition TO Which Sho
Has Been Brought by Free Trade.

The following article is taken from a
recent number of a London, England,
journal called Fair TRADE. which copied
it from another London newspaper the
Weekly Bulletin. 1t draws fearful
picture of the miserable condition to
which English workingmen and farmers
have been reduced by unrestricted
foreign competition, commonly called
free trade
"At the present time there are, be-
yond all question, something like 9O0,-
900 able-boded men out of work in this
country-with their dependents. 8, 500.
900 souls-to say nothing of the hun
dreds Of thousands of poor men, women
and girls who have been forced and
ground down by what is known as the
sweating system, which in its incidents
is worse than any American or West
Indian black slavery; and there is not
the slightest doubt about il that all this
out of work and working at starvation
wages can be traced directly to, and, in
fact is the legitimate and natural out
come and result of unrestricted foreign
competition Our agriculture is already,
to great extern, ruined, and one
British industry after another is collaps-
Ing. Lord Salisbury, speaking on the
subject of " return to protection some
few months ago, said: Protection
means nothing less than civil war.
Why. be did not condescend to explain.
and we fail to understand. Who would
rise? The farmer. who would be enabled
to grow wheat at living protit2 The
manufacturer, who now sees his profits
vanishing, because he is at the same time
shut out from foreign markets and ex-
posed to fierce competition Ia the mar
kets at homer The small Tor bg) trades
man, who foresees an early prospect of
the Bankruptcy Court? lac working
man, who. but for this ruinous competl-
ton, would find il LEGS impossible to get
fair and regular wages? There only re-
mains the capitalists, the foreign invcs-
tors, the pensioners. the people with
settled incomcs-thc rich, in fact. who,
by our unrestricted imports, set the
necessaries and luxuries of life some
what cheaper. What do they care that
this unnatural cheapness is bought at
the price of ruin and misery and hunger
and nakedncss to hundreds of thousands
around them?
But what Of the nearly one million
ahle-boaed men who are stalking
through the land, half-maddened with
starvation, ready, like hungry wolves,
for almost any deed Of violenceg What
OF the tens OF thousands Of wretched
Girls driven 10 the streets for breadP
Are they no element of danger which
may at any moment excite the flame of
civil WARP "Emigrate, my good, starv-
ing people. says the philanthropic
room for the scum of other nations to
do your work AZ starvation prices But
emigration is no more a remedy than
force. lis end is to relieve undue pres
sure. EXpntrIate million souls TO-
morrow aud their places would be hiled
up IL week BY German and Russian
paupers. Aad we deny that we are
over.populated. Belgium can keep a
hundred moro e. the square mile than
we can. Why can not England 40 the
same3 That is the question for states
men 10 answer Matters have come to
this pass-that men willing TO work and
anxious to work and able to work can
not get work TO DO in the land OF their
birtn, while other countries maintain IN
comfort aud prosperity a far larger
population 20 the acre. Surely Il IS not
a mere accident that no other country IN
the world opens its doors 90 unrestricted
foreign competition but ourselves
Either we are the one wise nation OF the
earth. and the rest are fools or the re-
verse is the fact Future articles will
ann 10 throw upon this great question
the light az the judgment and experience
Of not mere theorists, Ggt Of men who
arc large employers Of labor aud actively
engaged to business through the country.
II n ~ Nr3ll.t,yvp y Y