The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1921-08-26
Britain Returns to Protection.

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Washington, Aug. 24.-After three
quarters of a century of free trade,
Great Britain has definitely, and by
Legislative decree, abandoned that
policy. On August II the British
governments Safeguarding of the
industries bill" passed the House of
Commons by the overwhelming ma
jority of 176 to 4. The bill embraces
two resolutions, one introduced last
March by Sir Robert Horne, providing
an ad valorem duty of 33 1-3 per cent
on optical glass, optical instruments,
scientific glassware, porcelain instru-
ments, magnetos, tungsten and it's
products, synthetic and organic chem
icals, the other, and the more import
ant, providing for customs duties on
any articles not mentioned in the first
resolution which the board of trade
under the act will have the power to
specify on the ground that such ar
ticles are being vended in the United
Kingdom at prices below their produc-
ton cost, or below what they can
profitably produced for in the
United Kingdom. The power to pro-
tect British industries is thus placed
in the hands of a commission, a meth
cd prohibited in this country by the
Constitution and one which though
speedy of application may be subject
to grave abuse.
This change of policy on the part
of Great Britain does not come as a
surprise to those who nave watched
the trend of events in the tight little
isle. The restoration of the protec-
tive policy, agitation for which has
been more or less fitful since 1S45,
reached its heighth during the war,
when it appeared to have majority
support among the British people.
The system of imperial preferences
adopted to apply to trade between the
Mother Country and her colonial pos
sessions soon after the close of the
war, was but a herald of the British
intention to restore the protective
policy.
The Napoleonic wars, 1%793-1815,
which enabled Great Britain to drive
every Continental rival from the sea
and gain absolute control of the for
eign m of the world, the dis
placement of hand labor by machines,
British Navigation Laws, all combined
to convince British manufacturers of
the Importance of propagandizing for
universal free trade, and the poor
harvests Of 1888 to 1910 a~ccentuated
this feeling. "The policy of protec-
ton had been practiced for the pur-
pose of building up the industries of
England and making he rthe great
est manufacturing center in the
world" says Curtiss. This had been
accomplished. The whole scheme was
entered upon for the purpose of in
ducing other countries to abandon pro-
t~ective tariffs, and open their markets
to free admission of British wares"
at is we'll worth while, said Lord
Brougham, in 1916, "to incur loss
upon the first expectation, in order,
by the glut, to stifle in the cradle
those rising manufactures in the
United States, which the war has
IoiNSu INV ShiSeSiSS, SoitioJ W ehC
natural course of things" Free trade
with Great Britain meant freedom to
enter the markets of other countries.
The year 1889 witnessed the birth
of the Anti-Corn Law League, and
the beginning of the era or Golden
ism, Golden himself being a manu-
facturer intent on finding free foreign
markets and confident of Great Brit
aims ability to undersell the world
in manufactured goods. On May 26,
1916, came the repeal of the Corn
Laws and the abandonment of the
protective policy. One object of the
free traders was 'the determination
of the tenant farmers of England"
declared Isaac Butt, @. c., in 1851.
and in 1854 the Anti-Corn Law League
declared: "After ages of prescriptive
right our farmers have to contend
for existence. That command of the
British market which they have hith-
erto secured by unjust laws, they
must now secure by superior energy
or abandon it to their rivals" The
fact that Great Britain, if blockadec
would starve in six weeks indicates
what her farmers realized from fret
/ trade.
l BEAUTY HINT
"Roonfu SJoonO. uorIcnnoo IS &C