Year: 1879

EVIDENCE SHOWING THAT THE PLAN WILL NOT


WORK.


From the London TeleGraph.l


AS generally presented by its English advocates
reciprocity looks rational enough We do not. they
say, want protection. We do not even insist the
necessity Of imposing higher duties for pur
poses all we desire is that the benefit OF our free
tariffs should be limited to those nations which will
engage to give equal advantages to None Of these
nations will be foolish enough to throw away such
a market as England, and hence they will promptly
agree to our conditions, and grant us easy terms
Of admission for our goods as they ask for theirs
If, however, they should not, then let equally
high tariff be imposed on their products, and
this will not only punish them, bat swell our
revenues from customs duties. The assump
ton that the threat of recprocaly high duties
will bring foreign States to terms rather than
lose us customers has warrant in experience.
Take the United States the best practical illustration
OF all. The Republic is still strongly protectionst,
burdening English manufactures with high duties,
while freely exporting her own manufactures not
merely to neutral markets, but to England also.
Even as Belgian Goals have come TO Newcastle in
defiance of probabilities and proverbs have Massa-
chusets caiicoes found their way TO Manchester.
where they stare out ot countenance the best
productions of the Blackburn and Preston looms.
Such state of things is really very aggrava-
ting, and almost adds 'insult to injury" but let
what is the remedy advocated by the friends
of reciprocity. Imposing duty on American cot
tons might do little harm, but also it would do no





the United States modify their whole tariff in our
favor in free trade Nothing less than duty
on all American products could be expected to
Them and prepared for thatY Are we pre-
pared for import duty American wheat and
Hour, when poorer classes complain of bread
being already too dear; for duty beef. mutton.
bacon, cheese. when our middle classes have mainly
these imports standing between them aud much
higher prices than those they grumble at; for
duty on raw cotton. when Lancashire complains that
her manufacturers can hardly make both ends meet
IL is?


A DELUsIoN.


Is this what reciprocity would do for us? We thus
reach by an easy stage the very kernel of the qtes
ton. The radical fault and weakness of the reci-
procity theory is that il altogether leaves out OF con-
sidcraton the most important factor In the problem.
namely, the consumer. Every article Of foreign prod
imported is clear gain to the consumer, since
IL would not to his market at all unless either
his own country did not produce it or the producer
asked too high price. IL does not matter whether
tho commodity be food, clothing, or luxury IL the
consumer buys IL cheaper from the foreigner than
from his own countrymen, in that capacity and
pie that swept aside the corn laws. despite
the pleading OF the farmers--no unimportant
industry--for reciprocity. But the consumers
class in the community. Every producer is also a
consumer, and how fares he In the discussion? Tho
result to him is simply this that the cheaper he buys
anythingno matter whether materials for his
special industry, or the cost OF his individual main
tenancc-at much the less cost is he able TO pro-
duce, and therefore much the better liz he quali-
fed TO meet his rivals In the fierce competition of
the worlds markets. Wages have been reduced, and
probably must be cut down yet lower; but, IL the
working struggles against these reductions in
consequence of the expense of living how much less
able would he have been to live had import duties
added ten or twenty per cent to the value of livery
thing he consumed? Cheaper living il one source of
the superiority which his Continental and American
rivals possess and to make bread, meat and other
neccssares dcarer would simply handicap him moro
those disadvantages OF his position which reciprocity
processes to be designed TO remedy.