New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-09-17
FREE TRADE OR FREEDOHf


Balfour's pamphlet. The publication will sur
prise none but those who have blinded them
selves to facts. 1t will be called change of
ase or n reputation of Mr.. Chamberlains
plan. by none but those who have wilfully or
ignorantly misconceived Mr.. Balfour's attitude
and Mr.. Chamberlain's plan. Our London CORE
spondent pithily describes Mr. Balfour as LOOK
ing toward tariff manufactured goods
rather than toward one food. In that II is
10 be assumed the Prime Minister and the
Colonial Secretary are in accord There is no
apparent reason for thinking otherwise Mr..
Cha mberlain has never committed himself 10
the principle of food taxation for its own sake.
but only as means to an end TO be adopted as
a last resort. The ends he aims at are the
strengthening of Great Britain in commercial
competition with her rivals and the consOlida-
ton of the British Empire the basis of
community Of industrial and commercial inter
ests. If these ends can be attained without a
tax food. well and good. If not. he will not
shrink from the imposition of such tax be
lieving the end would justify the means.
The salient condition which Mr. Balfour per
ceives. and which the die-in-the-ditch propa-
gandists of the Cobdenite school conveniently
ignore, is this: The United Kingdom now im-
ports yearly about $3.50. 600 600 worth OF fully
ma nufactured goods, upon which not cent of
Guty is paid. These goods are ready for i'm
mediate sale i'm the British markets without
giving days work TO any British artisan.
They are practically all such as could readily
be made in British factories by British work
men, The bulk Of them. indeed, come into
competition in the British market with British
made goods. They undersell the British goods
and drive the latter out of the British market.
Mr.. Balfour cites the important example Of Ger
tba actr
sustained by a protective system at home. is
able TO sell in the British market at lower
price than that al which the British manufact-
urer produce it. A duty upon such goods
would not add q fartbing to the price of the
British workmans food or TO that of the Brit
ish manufac turers material But it would
relieve the burden of internal taxation. it would
give British manufacturers better market and
British workmen more employment at better
wages and IL would materially strengthen the
negotiating and competing power Of the United
Kingdom in dealing with its commercial rivals.
Mr.. Balfour speaks with the voice of pure rea-
when he says that free trade was designed
for free trade country in a world of free trad
ers. and not for free trade country I'm a world
of protectionists. No doubt Golden believed the
former condition would he established. He
told his followers they had no right to doubt
any more than to doubt the rising Of the sun.
That was one Of those great blunders Of the
early free traders to which Mr. Balfour refers.
Greater still has been the blunder of Cobden's
successors in maintaining and continuing that
initial blunder for a whole generation after it
became evident that il was blunder. Golden
designed his system for conditions which he ex-
pected would prevail. His successors have per-
sisted in that system when it has become evil
dent that those conditions will not prevail
They have stuck to the system in conditions
exactly opposite to those for which It was in
tended. The result has not been satisfactory,
and is now becoming disastrous.
Equally admirable is Mr.. Balfour's reference
TO the American system as the preferable one.
He sees that the makers of the American Con-
stitution were the founders of the true free
trade generations before Golden. THE most
"momentous, perhaps the most permanent vic
tory for free trade was won when interstate
tariffs were forbidden in the United States"
Those are his words. They exactly express Mr..
Chamberlain's idea. too. and the ideal toward
which he is endeavoring to urge the British
Empire. Under insular free trade Great Britai in
is helpless, enslaved, bound hand and foot in
the presence of her industrial and commercial
enemies. She has freedom TO buy and sell
wherever others do not undersell her. but she
has no freedom of negotiation. The most envi-
Gus and longing looks Of ner clearest headed
statesmen are cast toward America where pre-
vail at once the greatest freedom of trade and
the greatest freedom of negotiation the world
has ever seen. and the greatest freedom. we
may add. from tariff wars. 1t is of hopefuI
omen to Great Britain that at this epoch making
crisis in her career she has the services Of so
sane and logical and profound a thinker as Ar
thur Balfour. and so fearless and aggressive a
leader as Joseph Chamberlain.