The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1888-11-15
Free Trade in England.
rIIE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF TIE ENGLISH
WORKING PEOPLE.

THE INDUSTRIAL CONDITION OF TIE ENGLISH
WORKING PEOPLE.
Under the title Why We Lost Our Trade,
the Weekly Bulletin of London, journal of
! finance and investment, gave in recent issue
the following plain statement of the present
condition of English workn. people rs con-
nected with the free trade policy
We attempted last week to give some answer
to this serious questionable most serious which
can occupy the attention of all who in any
station of life, masters or workmen. employers
of labor or employed, have to earn their daily
bread by the sweat of their brains or their
brow, for it all comes to the same thing in the
end. The subject has seemed to us of 80 much
Importance and interest that we intend to pur-
sue it, if possible, week by week, in this way.
We shall arrange interviews with leading mar
ufacturers in different trades, ard place their
views before ON readers. We do not propose
to lay it down that free trade is, on the one
hand, the blessing its advocates maintain,
the curse TO the country as vehemontly assert
ed by its opponents. We shall leave facts. as
supplied to us by others we'll competent to
Judge, to speak for themselves. This much
however, we may say by way of preface. At
the present time there are, beyond all question,
something like 100000 able-bodied men out of
work in this country-wiih their dependents,
3,300,00o souls-to say nothing of the hundreds
OF thousands of poor men, women and girls
who have been forced and ground down Ivy
what is known as the sweating system. which.
in its incidents, is worse than any Americas, or
West Indian black slavery; and there is not the
slightest doubt about Il that all this out Of
work and working at st tirvation wages can bc
traced directly to, and, in fact, is the legitimate
and natural outcome and result of unrestricted
foreign competition. Our agriculture is already
to great extent, ruined and one British in
dustry after another is collapSing. Lord S9is-
bury, speaking on the sui lcct of return to
Protection some few months ago. said PRO
lection means nothing less than civil war"
Why, he did not conde>rend to explain, and
we fail to understand. Who would rise: The
farmer, who would be enabled to grow wheat
at living profit: The manufacturer, who
now sees his profits vanishing, because he is at
the same time shut out from foreign markets
and exposed to fierce competition in the mar
kets at home? The small (ur hig) trade man,
who forc>eeS an early prospect OF the Bank
ruptcy Court: The workingrlan. who, but for
TINS runous competition, would find it less i!n-
possible to get fair and regular wages: There
only remain the capitalists, tnc foreign invest
or>. the pensioners, the people with settled in-
coines-the rich, in fact, who, hy our unre-trict-
ed imports. get the nece>>arie> and luXllrie> of
life somewhat cheaper. What do they care
that this unnatural chraphe>> is bought at The
price of ruin and misery and hunger and
nnkedne>s to hundred, Of thousands about
them.
But what Of the nearly one million ahlt-hodi-
cd men who are striking through the land, half
maddened with starvation, ready, like hungry
wolves, for almost any deed of violence? " hat
of the tens of thousands of wrtchcd 4irI> driv-
ell to the streets for breadE Are they no rlt
ment of danger which NAV at any moment en-
cite the flames Of civil war: "Emgralc, my
good starving people" says the philanthropic
statesman. lL>, emigrate, and leave room Tor
the scum of other nations to do your work at
starvation prices. But emigration is no more IL
remedy than force. Its end is TO relieve under
pressure. ENpatriatG Il million souls to-mor-
row. and their places would he filled up III
week hv German and Russian pauper>. And
we deny that we are oNerpopnatcN. Belgium
can keep 4 hundred more to the square mile
than we can. Why cannot England do the
same: That is the question for statesmen to
answer, Matters have come to this pa>s-that
men willing to work, ana anxious to work. and
able to work, cannot get any work 10 DO in the
land of their birth. while other countries maiu-
tain in comfort and prosperity lar larger
population TO the acre. Surel; il is no mere
accident that no other country in the world
opens it, doors to unrestricted foreign Coupr-
tition but ourselves. Either WE are the one
wise nation OF the earth, and the rest are fools.
aim TO throw GpOn this great question the light
of the Judgment and experience of not mere
theorists, but of men who are lar@r employers
of Labor, and actively engaged in business
through the country.