The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1892-01-15
MANKATo FREE PRESS.
FRIDAY, JANUARY Is, 1892.
FURTHER FACTS AS TO ENG
LANDS TARIFF POLICY.

bFlUlSD realm TO SNOW from DTlGlSu
authority that free trade in England
has proved ruinous to British agrl-
culture and the labor interests: that
in some of the best agricultural dis
trictS in Britain the agricultural
Iaborers were petitioning the premier
for redress and relief from condition
of depression so greyious that the
labOring mans wages only equalled
the cost of supporting criminal in
DOrsetShire prison.
The English press have neither
criticised or denied the statements of
the great Premier but one cOrreSpon-
dent wrote to the Earl referring to
his declarations at Birmingham ask
ing him if the speech was to be ac-
copied as proof Of his desire to return
TO protection. He answers: ''That
while he maintained in his Birming-
ham speech that the abolition of the
protective duties on grain had been
the cause of much land being unculti-
waited, he had held out no hope Of re-
turn to protection
Thus far, for the third time in the
last three months, putting himself on
record, and this time in writing to cor
respondents his declarations that free
trade had been disastrous to the agri
cultural and labor interests of the
British Kingdom is justified in all his
statements with reference to the in
furious effects Of free trade upon agri
culture and labor in Britain. 1t is be-
yOnd all question that England's
prime minister knows better what
free trade has done for British agri-
culture and labor than Grover Cleve-
land, Roger G. Mills and all their fol-
lowers in America, and his, the Pre-
lniers, language is so plain that the
Wayfaring man, though fool cannot
but understand.
If the farmers and laborers of the
, country willpay a little attention to
the statistics OF the financial condi-
tion of their class in this country and
in England the difference would
somewhat astOniSh them, taking for
instance the savings banks in Massa-
chuSets strongly protective state,
the depOsitOrs in savings banks aver
age two to each family, in free trade
England only one in thirty families,
and the 1,S44, 600 of New York alone
have to their credit in savings insti-
buttons 1876, 623, 600 which is more than
the entire laboring population of Eng
land, and since the repeal of England's
corn laws the American laborer has
gained an average of IA times as much
as the British laborer. England's
savings banks now hold on deposit
but 30 cts. per capita of population,
while those Of the United States
amount to $50 per inhabiJant. While
to this should be added to the labor
ers gains the unknown millions they
have sent to relieve the necessities of
friends in the old countries or bring
them to this better land.
Farmers and laboring men who turn
TO the debates in parliament during
the discussion Of the repeal of the corn
laws, the last act of the English gov
eminent in the direction Of free trade
may learn people. to their surprise,
that the relief of the farmer or the
benefit of the laborer was not the pur-
pose of parliament. it was the enrich
ment Of manufacturers. 1t was plain
~ declared that in order to give CAPT
tai fair remuneration the wages of
labor must not be increased, and no
workman in America has ever heard
OF the advocates of free trade in En-
gland advocating higher wages, short
er hours, or opposing child labor in
the old country. The great object in
view by John Bright, Richard Golden,
Sir Robert Peel apd Lord Brougham,
when compelled BY dire necessity to
repeal the corn laws to prevent star
yation was that by admitting cereal
food free Of duty the wages of labor
could be kept SO low that these manu-
facturers could undersell manufacture
ers in this and other countries, they
could thus cripple our manufacturers
and fix their own prices on both what
we purchase and what we sold, make
England the great manufacturing
center OF the world, but they soon
found that to do this they must break
down the old bulwark of American
prosperity. protection Of our own peo-
pie and our own industries, that was
Cobden's mission to the United States
and that was the purpose for which
the Golden free trade league in. the
u. S. was organized and has since
been maintained, in the interest OF
England's manufacturers and made
the chief corner stone of the Demo.
cratic political faith and future hope
but before adopting it as your politi
cal creed American laborers should
read the following conversation Of
Bishops and Archbishops of the church
held in 1888 in st. Paul Cathedral
London, where the Archbishop OF