The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1892-06-08

@|osss anu AhootHnAhonss
Great Britain and Free Trade.
The hardest blow American free
traders have received for many years,
always excepting their defeat in the
election of 1888, is the confession OF
Lord Salisbury that free trade cripples
Great Britain. To appreciate the i'm
portance of his declaration, one must
remember how the example of Great
Britain and the supremacy Of that
nation in manufactures and commerce
have through all these years been the
main support of free trade theories.
''See how marvelously England has
prospered," theorists would say, "since
commercial freedom was attained. No
other nation can hope to compete, IN
manufactures or in trading, until it
takes the same vantage ground, eman-
cipates itself from all economic burdens,
and lnsures cheap food for its workers
and cheap materials for its manufactur-
ers."
This reasoning has had a great deal of
influence upon the minds OF those who
lean toward worship of Britain and
everything British. The cultured class,
who depend largely upon the English
textbooks and English literature for
their enlightenment, have been prone
to believe that the same policy
which. according to British accounts,
has worked admirably in Great Britain,
would also prove beneficial to any other
country, and especially to the great ma
ton of the same race in this new land
of boundless natural resources. The
reply was logical and conclusive, it is
true. Britain had first to establish its
own manufactures, by centuries of
protection more stringent and thorough
than has ever been proposed in the
United States. 1t was not until Britain
had attained such supremacy in manu-
factures that ii could defy competition,
not until free trade had come TO mean
no surrender by Great Britain, but
surrender of defenses by other coun-
tries, that was attempted by that nation.
Nor is il true, as events prove, that the
results have been beneficial. Under
meath the commercial magniticence and
the manufacturing triumph, there have
been great trial and suffering for the
white slaves of free trade.
All reasoning addressed to the Anglo
MANAGES fell upon deaf ears, but the con-
fession of the British prime minister
will not. This startles the theorists
from their delusive dreams. Britain
acknowledges that protection in other
countries is killing British trade, driv-
ing manufacturers TO other lands, de-
priviug British workingmen of employ
ment and wages. The passionately
earnest appeals of Populations from
labor organizations and commercial
bodies, to which Lord Salisbury re-
sponded through his Hastings speech,
have for years been informin, the
world that English trade was suffering.
pnlo titinn
ton, French competition, and most of
all, American competition, have been
cutting off the m lrkets upon which En-
glish manufac urers mad relied, and
every year narrowing the channels
through which British products we're
conveyed to foreign consumers. The
recent revisions Of tariff in this country
and france have powerfully intensified
a destructive influence which British
ira lie and industry have felt for years.
Now great establishments which have
been the pride of the nation, and have
contributed much to its prosperity, are
closed and silent, or are on shipboard
taking flight to America. When the
boards OF trade and the labor organiza-
tons of Great Britain demand the at
tention of the government to these
facts, Lord Salisbury publicly admits
that free trade may be noble but is not
businesslike.
A revolution of national policy does
not come quickly in a conservative and
country like Great Britain.
1t will take years for either of the great
political parties to become convinced of
the necessity of acting upon Lord Sails
bury's suggestion. Years more must
pass, perhaps, before party ready thus
to act can secure sufficient power. Dur
ing all these years British industry and
trade will be falling behind in the race,
crippled by the false theory which for
bids the nation to defend the prosperity
of its people. The United States, adj
vancing more rapidly and powerfully
than any other nation, is swiftly APP
preaching complete industrial indepen-
dence, which for this nation also means
supremacy in manufactures and in the
worlds exchanges. If free traders OBJ
stinately give the advantage to this ma
ton for few years more, it will be too
late for Great Britain ever to overtake
the child across the seas whose wise
protection has taught all the world a
lesson --NeD York Tribune.