The Haslingden Gazette. — 1908-06-27 (Haslingden, Lancashire, England)

THE NERD OF DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRIES.  Pudscy makes the seventh seat won by Union ist Tariff Reforiners from the Government since the General Election, while the Liberals have not succeeded in wresting a single mat from their opponents. Moreover, the Unionist and Tariff Reform vote has already increased by 20,000 in the b3-elections, while the Government and Cobdenite vote hes decreased by 34,500. It is becoming clearer day by day that the policy of the Government is repudiated by the nation, and that the majority in the House of Commons no longer represents the majority of the people. Why is this? The statement made by Mr. Oddy on the declaration of the poll at Pudsey supplies the answer :—" I think this election has been won," he said, on two things, and two things only. One is that AC have in power a Government which is not dealing fairly and legitimately with the varied interests of the country; and the other is that we want to try whether we cannot make the country more prosperous and decrease the mass of unemployment by means of fiscal reform." An interesting end vitally important aspect of the fiscal question is suggested by the juxtaposition of these two question respecting the varied interests of the country and fiscal reform. They are indeed inseparable. It is essential to the progress and the wen-being of a civilised nation that its industries be many and varied in character. Not everyone is fitted to be a cotton spinner, an engineer, a carpenter, or an agriculturist. There is a diversity of gifts as well as of attainments and opportunities, and there must therefore be many and varied forms of employment. It is a waste of the national resources to send a power-loom weaver to plant trees on a Scottish moor, or to set a lace maker to build a sea wall. Each of these men, under a properly organised system, woitld find plenty of work to do in his own trade. It is evident that the most profitable way in which to utilise the brain and muscle of the nation is to give every man the opportunity of finding and doing the work which suits hitn best.- All the working powers of body and mind possessed by the nation are called forth by diversified industries. Invention is stimulated, production is increased, and the higher wages which follow lead to greater civilisation and an advanced standard of living. Them facts are v.-ell understood in every civilised country outside the United Kingdom. The United States, Germany, and every other protected foreign nation. has framed its fiscal policy with a deliberate object of securing  diversified industrial interests. All the evidence shows that they have been abundantly successful in achieving this object. Tariff Reform has no more essential function to fulfil in this country than that of securing the sarne result. It is worth while, therefore, to enquire whether our present Free Trade system encourages diversified industries, or whether, on the contrary, its tendency is to limit and reduce the sphere of our industrial activities. It must, we think, be admitted by all that our 6tem of free imports must and does prim hardly upon many of our industries. The goods of other countries, made under conditions of longer hours and lower wages than are current in this country, are permitted to eaten our market on terms of competition manifestly unfair to the productions of our Own industry. It is clear that, in the absence of a duty to equalise the cost of production, the British manufacturer must either work upon a very narrow  margin of profit or else that up his works. Free Traders regard such a condition of things with equanimity. They say in effect: t'Let us purchase from foreign countries everything that can be more cheaply made abroad, and sell to them in exchange those articles which wet can produce better than they can." It is a suicidal policy. The result of it is that foreign protected nations, such as Germany, export to us manufactured goods, and import from us chiefly foodstuffs,ta, materials, and partly finished goods for industrial purpmes. The tendency of "Free Trade,- then, is to restrict those of our manufactures in which our best-paid labour is employed, and to change tho character of ace exports from fully finished manufactures to g-ods upon which little labour has been expended. The consequence is that many branches of trade which once flourished in this country are now languishing, and thousands of workers have heon thrown out of entployment. Free Traders seem to cherish the cornfortabfe theory that, as imports must be said for by f2Xports, it does not much matter what form thew exports take. But they forget that the vette of an export is no criterion of the amount of labear t-spet,i'd it, ait! it  "air no.in •hould Le to expert those gooth mhieh Lave eni iloyetl the 1520,i iabcor in their nianufseiiiro,  . . l‘hieh have, thus given the most enwioymel British wcrkmen. Under Free Trade it Ii  ulate the charac,er 

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