Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1903-11-26
o7U TT %nE FRUIT.
WHAT COBDENlSM HAS ZONE i:Of.
Tre BRITISH POOR.

Tt,E BRITISH POOR.
II Has Greatly Enriched T,suse wa..
Get Their Incomes rT"sn Forsias'
4aveataneats, to tie Misery aad
Degradation OF Ny-Gs sla@Aers.
It often happens that the universal be-
lief OF one age Of mankind-a Dciiei from
which no one was nor without an eX-
traordinary effort OF genius and courage.
could at that time be free--becomes fc Il
subsequent age so palpaDle an stbsurdity
that the only difficulty then is to Imagine
how such thing can ever have appeared
credible.-John Stuart Mill.
Persons who in the past could not
be free from reverence for ''the great
truths" and 'inexorable laws asserted
by the Manchester persuasion of polit-
ical economists are now, with great
unanimity, asserting that, while there
seems no doubt of the theoretical basis
of free trade, the experience of the last
twenty years casts grave doubts on its
practicability in adding to national
wealth or its advantages to any except
possibly the compara lively few who
are living on fixed incomes. The theory
of free trade is following such ideas
as the Phlogiston theory, for instance.
and In the future people Will wonder
how earnest and honest men could
have thought they We're reasoning
W hen they claimed an advantage to the
world through one country having the
only market in which raw material
could be sold, with all the machinery
by which it could be converted to use,
and hence command of the prices Of
both raw and finished materials. or
that world wealth could be increased
By placing as much cost for transporta-
tiUn as possible between producers and
consumers.
The practice of free trade, however,
has been very valuable to British man
the raw and manufactured products,
and they, as far as possible, incite that
state Of mental servitude to which Mil
referred. AS has been remarked "ev-
cry little helps" and we find the Eu-
gene Journal, published on the Pacific
SOdSt, tCllIS IlS uhllc bCoI w bClp W
publishing story that on the death Of
John Brlght's wife Golden went to him
and said:
There are thousands of houses in
England at this moment where wives,
mothers and children are dying Of
hunger. Now, when the first paroxysm
of your grief is past l would advise
you to come with me, and we will new
or rest until we have seen the corn law
repealed"
And it is added, "the offer was ac-
ccpted and the work was DONE" with
Golden got for the job.
1t is hoped by this tale to convey the
impression to those who have not TAX
en time to study the question that the
repeal of the corn laws, the great
triumph of British free trade princi-
poor. Golden, with his hackers, the
cotton lords" and his followers used
two arguments. One was an honest
hate of the landed proprietors, and the
other was n hypocritical love for the
poor. All will remember that in Cleve-
lands last campaign we were called
on to hate all rich men, except brew
crs, and commiserate the wage Garner,
and we remember that the dinner pals
went ont of use. Any free trade cam
pailcn must be one of hate and false
pretanSos, with sniyeling and menda
Iip Il in,- nf roc r1 N
they wish to ruin.
The British free traders repealed the
duty on corn" They repealed it that
the poor man might have his loaf un-
taxed. The poor man voted for an un-
taxed loaf. He voted for 1t, not know
destroy confidence in British agricul-
ture and send him to the door of the
mill, so that its cotton lord" might
have two men looking for one job At
firSt 1t I'D not work as Golden and his
employers thought. Mill, in ''PrincI-
pies of Political Economy" Book |,
chapter xiii, section 2, says:
During the twenty or thirty years
last elasped SO rapid has been the ex-
tension of improved processes of agri-
culture tA3t even the land yields q
greater produce in proportion to the la
corn had become decidedly lower, even
before the repeal of the corn laws had
SO materially lightened for the time
being the pressure of population upon
production