The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-11-06

rided free trade in England would
have called forth practical ostracism
but FOR some time past there has been
"a steady tendency towards protection.
Quite recently at a meeting of the
Associated Chambers of Commerce of
Great Britain held at Nottingham O.
resolution advocating protective
policy following its adoption by the
local association. A Nottingham pa
per comments on this and the gist of
its ideas are given below.
The British people, says the critic,
have lost much of their old admiration
FOR free trade. They see that it works
out adyantageously for foreign rivals,
and as the other nations of the world
steadily increase their protective du-
ties. so that there is now not a single
foreign market into which British
goods can enter freely, feeling of
irritation and annoyance is almost i'm
evitaule. IL is a question whether if it
We're possible to start afresh with the
present experience as guide, it would
be possible to induce the people of
Great Britain to adopt free trade in
any form. But no one can ever make
quite a fresh start. Every person has
TO bear the consequences of his past
actions, and nations in this respect-are
i'm the same position as individuals.
Since the principle of free trade was
deliberately adopted by Great Britain
after many years of anxious discus
sion, a condition of things has grown
up which would make it almost inn
possible to return to protection even if
the nation desired it, which at present
it does not. Every person who adj
yocates a departure from the princi-
pie of free trade is met at the very
threshold of his argument by the fact
that it is impossible to tax manufac-
tured articles without at the same time
taxing food, and it is not likely that
any person now living is likely to see
a time when this will be possible.
Whether the British like it or not,
they will have to go on fighting hos
tile tariffs with free imports. The
struggle is not quite an equal one, and
if the British people are to be success
full in it, they will have to display
very high degree of intelligence en-
terprise, and industry But the past
history Of the country shows plainly
that hostile tariffs can be fought sue
cesfully and, so far as can be seen,
there is no reason why tins should not
continue to be the case.
This resume shows the sort of vacil-
lating policy taken by paper in city
where the merchants have decided that
free trade is failure. SO strong a
hold has the policy of free trade upon
the British nation as a mass, that it
may seem almost a hopeless task to
attempt to overthrow it. But we know,
who live under the rule of the United
States that protection is our safest
policy. We may know that under pro-
tective commercial laws there may be
wrongs done, but we also do know that
under our protective laws our CONNER
cial prosperity has flourished We al
so see that under her free trade sys-
TEN Great Britain's commercial supre-
macy is seriously threatened For a
Britain a worlds command, but pro-
lection seems to have beaten the free
trade promise.
The original gospel of free trade was
laid down by Adam Smith in his
wealth of nations" which probably
not one man in ten thousand reads now
but which was carefully thumbed
over by many tens of thousands in the
beginning of last century The most
noted of the practical and political
advocates of free trade was Richard
Golden who went through the whole
of the heated portion of the free trade
campaign, being active for it in his
early youth commencing with the bat
tie of the Corn laws, till his death in
1865, when the free trade principle had
been firmly established in Great Brit
ain. William Ewart Gladstone was
throughout his life a consistent ex-
ponent of free trade, and naturally all
his followers were also.
But since 1880 the protectionists of
Great Britain have been able to come
forward and begin to make a good
showing. For fifty years, that was
from 1880, they had been fairly over
Whelmed. But after fifty years it be-
gan to dawn upon the commercial
classes that theories and principles
which they imagined were immutable,
did not work out as happily for them
as they should. If the whole world !
had accepted the gospel of free trade |
the theories and principles would have
appeared to be immutable But the !
whole world did nothing of the kind, |
but surrounded itself with protective |
tariffs. The later consequences of the |
free trade policy have not been salts
factory, hence the agitation for pro-
tectiVe duties and even Lord Sails |
bury as far back as 1892 advocated |
duties upon foreign luXuries, which |
of course was the thin end of the !
wedge.