The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-02-14

9 PURE

ocfauc party IN power. u
| 1 am not caricaturing Mr.. Reed. 1t is not
my desire to put anything into his mouth
that he did not say. These great facts of
material development. are not only by inn
plication traced to the craftsmanship of the
Republican party, but they are directly at
tributed to it, For he says
So utterly undisputed and so distinctly visible
to every human being in this audience has bsen
our growth aud progress that this hasty out
line is all that Is needed to remind you of one
great facr, that whatever the future industrial
system of this country may be, the past system
is a splendid monument to that series Of success
full statesmen who found the country bankrupt
and distracted. and left it first on the list of
| nations.
Is it possible to deal seriously with such
humoris keen as any mans, yet he is pro-
badly impervious to the comic grotesqueness
of this reasoning, which was delivered with
unusual solemnity, and in a ley suit donned
for the occasion.
Protectionists do not agree as to the effect
of free trade upon England. They tell you
in one breath that it is both good and bad
" I'll L WOulo NO " AOA w
go back to protection, but that she abolished
protection because she had no longer any
need of it. Such uproarious journals as the
New York Press tell us that England, having
developed by protection her manufacturing
industries to the highest ~attainable point,
must ave cheap grain for her workmen but
the next issue is quite likely to contain an
,r1-or-;nr ,aooyn,% of cofa,o Eno1ish Tory
who suggests a re-imposition OF England's
protective taxes, corn laws and all; and Mr..
Robert P. Porter, editor of the Press, has
himself declared that his father. who was a
gentleman farmer, which in England means
a gentleman who does not farm. was ruined
by free trade, which, if not probable, is
fairly possible. 1t is something that thirty
million people got cheaper bread. The loss
of their immense incomes for a few gentle
men farmers need not excite any very deep
regret in view of the Cheaper loaf" for
every man, rich and poor, in Great Britain.
Mr.. Reed falls into the same error of logic;
he, too, shows that free trade was better for
England, defending, directly and by inn
plication, highlands free trade policy: he,
nevertheless, warns the American farmer to
beware of free trade, because wages of hing
lish agricultural labor have risen only u
cents per week, against S2.4S in favor Of the
English artisan. So it is impossible to de-
termine whether Mr.. Reed considers free
trade good OF bad for England. As a mat
ter of fact, the exigencies of the argument
alone determine it; only it is too bad that
these exigencies should constantly call for
two or more interpretations of the facts in
the same speech.
There are a few historical inaccuracies
such as "English manufacturers demanding
free trade" which, if true, would prove too
much; that the English workmen were
pressing them for 'stheir regular increase in
wages" SO that they were not being satisfied
at that time with almost anything; and that
| Mr.. Golden was only a free trader in corn.
Let me quote-
What Golden was fighting against was an
| odious law to enhance the price Of bread, not
for the benefit of the farmer. but of the aristo-
| cratic owner of land.
If the land owner had really been the
farmer and not at all aristocratic, it is hard to
| see how this would have made the effect OF
| the corn laws any different. But Golden
was fighting for more than this. He was
| fighting for commercial freedom. 1t was
because the part Of the British tariff that
weighed most heavily upon the people was
| the duty upon wheat and corn that it was
| signalled out for attack, just as the wool
tariff, being the weakest part of our own
tariff, is the point of attack selected by the
Democratic party.
Repeal Of the corn laws meant an increase in
| real wages. Repeal of the tariff on Iaanufac-
lures meant nothing.
Alas! must protectionists then give up the
theory that tree trade ruined the English
silk industry; must those pitiful pictures of
the distress in the mining and manufactur-
ing districts of the Black Country be no
longer attributed to free tradea Must the
poor creatures who are starving in London
be exhibited no longer as the offspring of a
revenue tariff? Was Golden, too, not the
wretch the Republican party has been paint
ing him for this quarter of a century, but
only, as Mr.. Reed asserts, 'sthe enemy
of an odious laww Was he really a
rood man, who would, as Mr.. Reed implies,
nave been a protectionist had he not seen
that Great Britain's manufactures could
exist without it?-who, in short, was against
| a tariff on corn because it was odious, and
| against a tariff on manufactured goods be-
| cause-oh, sagacious Cobden!-it meant
nothings This it was that informed your
eloquence-oh, inspired linen draper!-not
the principle of commercial freedom which
YOU had learned from Adam Smith, but the
abolition of a law which meant nothing
And vet the repeal of these laws which
smeant nothing, " was openly desired, ac-
cording to Mr.. Reed, by these manufacturers
in the House of Parliament. So, instead of
meaning nothing" the repeal of duties
upon manufactured goods mean something,
else the manufacturers would not lave de-
sired it--indeed they would have opposed it.
Indeed. Mr.. Reed had, in his speech, de-
clared that the repeal meant something be-
fore stating it meant nothing in these
words:
Her (England's) manufactures had grown out
Ut proportion. and could no longer subsist on
English patronage alone.
Sc the repeal did mean soinething-and
just what that something was is proven by
| Great Britain's more rapid increase in
| manufactures since 1916, under free trade,
than in any period prior to that time under
| protection, thus fulfilling the prophecies of
| Golden and Bright as to the results certain
| to flow from a more liberal commercial
n. - ..1s~~ H. frr.,, H. ~t....1.4~~-