The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-01
FREE TRADE
 IS OUTGROWN Chamberlain'S Contention
 Set Forth. ENGLAND FALLING BEHIND Says Great Britain Is Placed
 at Disadvantage. Competitors Hide Behind Tariff Walls and Employ Counties, Trusts and Cheap Labor in
 the War For Business.

London. Oct I-Mr. Chamberlain con- tributes to The Daily Telegraph this morning 8 letter which Is intended to serve as a preface to the republication in book form of series of articles which has appeared in The Daily Telegraph on the fiscal problem. The letter, however, is practically complete exposition of his proposed policy.
 After disclainning the credit ascribed to him in some quarters for the author ship of the articles fin The Daily Tele- graph, which he says constitute q con- elusive indictment of the present one sided system of free imports, Mir. Cham berlain proceeds:
 '.It is not we'll with British trade. Af- ter a long period of success the policy of unrestricted free imports has now shown evident signs of failure. Our ex- ports are stationary in amount and de- clining in character. We receive from our competitors 8 larger proportion of manufactured goods and we send them larger proportion of raw materials than we used to.
 Supreme Eo Longer.
 "our supremacy in what have always been considered our standard industries
 
 menaced One by one our markets, once profitable and expanding, are closed to us by hostile tariffs. We have lost all power of bargaining successfully for the removal or reduction of these barriers to our trade. Our colonies alone continue to increase their purchases, and even here we must abandon all hope of ex- pansion, and we are threatened with the los sof our existing trade If we are un- t-1tx atu FnP rQ&inwnHAt preference.
 Our competition. which is already so acute. Is not fair competition. It is sup ported by bounties, fostered by the oper- .ations of trusts and strengthened by the economical advantages which our oppo- nerlts enjoy in the shape of cheaper la Dor and in the absence of All those regu- lations which we have assefted to in the interest of the workius citfEses ana if' order to raise their standard of living The cause for inquiry Is overwhelming, and these articles suggest that the cause for reform will be overwhelming also.
 The supporters of our antiquated pol icy resort naturally to well worn devices which have always been at the service of every opponent of reform. Are they not written in Sydney Smiths immortai
 The Thin End.
 "T,hfs is the thin end of the wedge; It calls in question the wisdom or the Grevo- cable law It Is impossible to foresee uhe consequence of such change; U LOOKS well in theory, but 1t will never do in nyactioe: teh advocate of this change was at one time of a different opinion
 "It Is curious to find men who boast of their immaculate radicalism, using the very same arguments that Sydney Smith attributed to the most rabid Tories, ana of which he finally said, They are indi- catiye either of improbity or intellectual weakness, or of contempt for the under standing of those on whose minrs they are destined to operate
 sBut after all the Noodles Grafton. although it may consist of irrelevant plata- tudes, does not contain actual misrepre- sentaticns. The utteranees of the modern Noodle are not free from this defect. They abound in statements for which there Is no foundation, eliminating in the bold assertion that those who called at- tentlon to the dangers of our present system are prepared to restore all the evils of the anti-corn times and reduce the masses to actual starvation.
 Tt is not easy to characterize such per- versions of the truth in parliamentary language. They are founded on garbled and incomplete extracts from speeches, selected without regard to their general tenor, and they attribute motives and in tentions which exist only fin the imagina- ton of the free food controversia1ist
 "The line of argument. concisely stated, seems to be as follows:
 The Noodles Argument.
 First, it is intended to give preference to the colonies, whose chief exports are articles of food. It will, therefore, be necessary to put duty on food. This statement implies that food is free now and deliberately ignores the fact that a large part of our revenue is raised by taxes on food and drink! the bulk of which is consumed by the working classes.
 "Second, the whole amount of the new duty will be paid by the consumer. This is contrary to the doctrine of the most eminent of modern economists, who say that where an article Is imported from a foreign country and is also produced at home and in the colonies, a tax upon the foreign article alone will not raise the price approximately with the duty, but that the cost to the consumer will be mainly regulated by the supply and de- mand. This is especially the fact when the duty is small There is much expe- rienc etc confirm the theory of the econo- mies Neither in France, Germany, nor in any other protected country, have the prices risen by the amount of the protec- tive duty, while in this country the small tax of one shilling on corn did not raise the price at all. It should be noted that the danger of the future is not rise In prices owing to taxation. but failure in the supply due to natural causes. such as drought, or to artificial combinations, such as the Letter corner. This danger Is greatest when the sources of supply are few and lend themselves to monopoly. while the policy that developes new mar kets and increases the food producing areas of the world will tend to cheapness and, above all, to the stability of price.
 '"Thirdly, it is said that the duty to be imposed would be a heavy one, at least five, and possibly ten, shillings a guar. ter. There is absolutely no foundation tor this assertion in any of the statements made by the advocates of tariff reform It Is pure invention of the opponents of all change, a bogey, raised solely for the purpose of frightening timid people"