Widnes Examiner. — 1903-08-01 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

THE ELESTION IN ST. JOHN'S WARD.  MR. THORNTON SECURES A LARGE  MAJORITY.  Few municipal • elections in Warrington have aroused such intense local interest as that which was decided in St. John's Ward on Thursday. Neither political party entered the fray and the main question before the electoi's was that of municipal trading. Curiously enough both candidates professed themselves to be non-traders,but Mr. Thornton had the advantage of being the nominee of the Non-trading; Committee with which he has been connected since its inauguration. Mr. Magian, on the other hand, has never been connected with the committee, but he claimed to have been a Non-trader and to have fought the Corporation before the committee came into existence. Mr. Maginn expressed his views of the trading question as follows : Was it fair that any man—no matter who he might ba—who would undertake to:do the work honestly, straightforwardly and to the best of his ability,' should be debarred from his share of the trade of the town? (Applause.) He did not say that there should be one bit of favouritism shown to him. But they did not mean to say that When a man was a town councillor he was to debar himself from the ordinary trade he was entitled to? (Applause.) He was quite entitled to an equal share of the trade if his tender was lower than that of anyone else.  But I do not at all agree with Mr. Chamberlain that it will be necessary to increase the cost of living to such u point• as to increase wages, and I am very sure that they will not be increased by the higher cost of living, as wages, like everything else, are governed, and rise and fall, by the supply and demand. That wages would rise, is certain, as Protection will always give more employment. By a careful and proper readjustment of taxation, I see no reason why the workers' cost of living should be increased. Mr. Chamberlain's great Birmingham speech was the most courageous, but, at the same time, the most unwise, that he ever made, causing general and unnecessary alarm throughout the country. He would have been more %cautious about raising the food question if he had, as I did, some twenty years ago, in the Craven district, fought the big and little loaf stuck on two poles, with a drum and fife band, going from place to place vote-catching. On that occasion I was well beaten, and so would he probably be, if the General Election were to take place now. But the working classes are far, far away more educated than they were, and far more capable of grasping the situation. One thing is certain, that if they were so foolish as to miss the present opportunity of securing, by preferential trade, what our loyal colonies offer us, they would be committing nothing less than national suicide." These two sets of quotations, from Lord Masham's recent article in " The Dispatch" will, I hope, be carefully studied by all who are examining for themselves the statistical foundations upon which Free-Traders, and Protectionists base their opposite arguments Those who are taking an interest in this series of letters will—perhaps—have noticed that, as far as possible, I am trying to avoid the ruts in which Protection and Free-trade discussions usually tend to run; and, although it is difficult to say anything that is really new, upon a subject that has been debated for over a century past, still, there is an opportunity for selecting the lesser-known or lesser-studied "points," and presenting them with—as it were—marginal up-to-date notes, and this is all I am attempting. Next week, I am planning to embody an outline or sketch, of Mr. Andrew Carnegie's views, written in 1898, upon "The Manchester Free-Trade School, and. To-day." He goes back to the times and theories of Villiers, Cobden, Bright, and their colleagues, and gives us a picture of what Free-trade was expected to do; what it actually did do; and where it fails to meet Britain's twentiethcentury needs. With being written so long prior tothe Majority for Mr. Thornton ... 312 subject of Protection and Free-trade becoming a burn: the hreesßuiattrntio Officer Council (Aldermanmwhereer t t Sutton) voting raccli ing question, Mr. Carnegie's opinions are all the more taken place. • valuable and impartial. As to what Cecil Rhodes, one