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,RD BATEMAN'S PLEA 
 
 FOR 
 
 ITED PROTECTIok 
 
 OR FOR 
 
 PECIPROCITY 
 
 FREE TRADE. 
 
 PRICE SIXPENCE 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013680917 
 
LORD BATEMAN'S PLEA 
 
 FOR 
 
 LIMITED PROTECTION 
 
 OR FOR 
 
 RECIPROCITY m FREE TRADE, 
 
 A Letter reprinted from "The Times " of Nov. 12th, 1877,. 
 
 WITH 
 
 A PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 '■Mm" 
 
 LONDON: 
 WILLIAM RIDGWAT, 169, PICCADILLY, W. 
 
 1877. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following letter is not ]the result of any 
 sudden impulse, induced by the pressure of tlie 
 present growing Commercial Crisis,, but is based 
 on an earnest and long considered conviction of the 
 truth of, the reasoning here attempted to be 
 enunciated. 
 
 The absence of statistics may be remarked. 
 Seldom read, more often confusing, never infallible, 
 these are usually the outcome of a contracted 
 vision, and the stalp stock-in-trade and never- 
 failing resource of anonymous scribblers,, and of 
 heaven-born political economists; They will 
 suggest themselves without difficulty to each 
 manufacturing and exporting interest. 
 
 Let this one fact suffice. A simple inspection 
 of the Board of Trade returns will show the 
 alarming deficit in our Exports as compared with 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 our Imports from foreign countries paying no duty 
 whatever, and which latter unfortunately exceed 
 the former at the rate of upwards of a hundred 
 millions in value per annum ! 
 
 If the great ship-building interest, all but lost 
 to the Thames and now transferred to the Clyde ; 
 if the great Midland^iron and coal trades and of 
 the once prosperous and busy North and West ; if 
 the great railway companies, which depend for 
 their prosperity in a large measure on the carrying 
 trade of these industries; if the paper makers of 
 Devonshire, the miners of Cornwall, the glass 
 manufacturers, the sugar refiners, the sUk and 
 stocking weavers, the great agricultural interest, 
 and last, but not least, the cotton and woollen 
 manufacturers of Lancashire and Yorkshire, are 
 satisfied with the operation of the present and past 
 free trade policy, ■without reciprocity, and are 
 prepared still to face the free and unrestricted 
 imports of the world at their present enormous 
 disadvantage, this letter will have been written in 
 vain! 
 
 But, in the full belief that the exact contrary is 
 the case, and in their interest, and in the interest 
 of those operatives, and of the whole body of the 
 
PEEFACE. , V 
 
 English working classes, more or less dependent 
 upon them for subsistence, the writer has ventured 
 upon the publication of this letter, which is now 
 offered to the calm consideration of the commercial 
 public, with the conviction that he is expressing 
 herein the sentiments of a vast proportion of the 
 community, who, having hitherto accepted the free 
 trade policy as irrevocable, are now awaking to the 
 conviction that one sided free trade without reci- 
 procity is entirely abortive, and therefore ruinous 
 and disastrous to the best interests of Great 
 J3ritain. 
 
 The question rests in the hands of the consti- 
 tuencies, with whom lies the power, if they have 
 the will, to supply the answer. 
 
 B AXEMAN, 
 
 •Siiobdon Court, Leominster, 
 Herefordshire, 
 
 November 2^, 1877. 
 
TO THE EDITOR OF "thE TIMES," 
 
 Sir, 
 
 At this moment of widespread commercial 
 depression the question of the expediency of a 
 return to a system of limited protection as opposed 
 to that of free trade is undoubtedly once again 
 forcing itself upon the consideration of many 
 thoughtful minds. 
 
 Notwithstanding the appeals, from the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer downwards, which cou' 
 tinue to be made on its behalf by the advocates 
 and apologists of the free trade policy it is 
 evident from their recently-expressed opinions 
 that a certain uncomfortable feeling of doubt ex- 
 ists as to its success, and the excuses put forward 
 for the general non-acceptance of the free trade 
 doctrine raise an unmistakable distrust in the 
 soundness of their views, and lead us to inquire 
 whether a policy which requires so much excilse 
 to be made for it, is after all the one best fitted to 
 our peculiar interests, or one in which this country 
 should still continue to persist. 
 
 I have used the words "limited protection" 
 advisedly in order at the outset to guard against 
 
8 
 
 any supposition tliat either myself or those who 
 think with me consider it would be either politic 
 or possible in the impending war of tariffs, or in 
 any revision of our Custom duties, to attempt to 
 impose any restrictions on what I will call vital ne- 
 cessaries, or on the recognized food of the population. 
 In any scheme of commercial policy due considera- 
 tion should always be given to the capabilities of 
 production of the country on the one hand; and to 
 its absolute necessities on the other. 
 
 In the case of Great Britain, owing to our area 
 being so much restricted and to the continual in- 
 crease in our population,, an increase out of all 
 proportion to the size and acreage of the kingdom 
 as compared with the relative proportion of popu- 
 lation to the area and extent of foreign countries, 
 it has become virtually imperative upon us to 
 obtain from all nations of the earth the requisite 
 food supply. 
 
 Thus far it is willingly conceded that the exer- 
 cise of free trade, though still incomplete, has con- 
 ferred on the masses an exceptional and a lasting 
 benefit. I turn aside for a brief instant to pay 
 this tribute to the memory of the late Mr. Cobden 
 and Sir George Cornewall Lewis, and to the fore- 
 sight of Mr. Bright and Mr. Charles Villiers. 
 
 But unfortunately we have to deal with many 
 more interests than those exclusively connected 
 with the food supply of the people. We have to deal 
 with our own natural and sufficient products, with 
 
our various home manufactures, and with our own 
 skilled (and daily more expensive) general labour 
 question. These latter, quite as important to the 
 well-being of the community, require to be as 
 jealously guarded and protected, exercising as 
 they undoubtedly do, an equally preponderating 
 influence on the prosperity or otherwise of all 
 classes in the kingdom. It behoves us, therefore, 
 while securing for them the best available market, 
 to be at the same time cautious how we allow 
 them to deteriorate, or permit rival countries 
 unduly to compete with our native industries to 
 our own loss and detriment. 
 
 Sir, we cannot shut oUr eyes to the universal 
 collapse of trade and its accompanying distress, be 
 it the mineral, the shipping, the carrying, the agri- 
 cultural, or the general manufacturing trade. 
 Throughout the country the cry of depression and 
 distress and ruin is the same. We have to compete 
 on unequal terms with other foreign countries, 
 who are robbing us of our profits, paying nothing 
 to our exchequer, and underselhng us at the same 
 time. When the capitalist finds that his trade is 
 leaving him, and that his profits are reduced to a 
 minimum, it follows that the workmen depending 
 upon him must sufiier in like proportion, and, as a 
 consequence, the rate of wages must come down, 
 or employment must cease — strikes, lock-outs, and 
 painful and undeserved distress are the inevitable 
 results. Granted that the theory of free and 
 
10 
 
 unrestricted commerce with all quarters of the 
 universe is as bold as it is magnificent, granted 
 that the idea, by whomsoever originated (and advo- 
 cated by no one more consistently than by our 
 good and wise Prince Consort) is both grand and 
 glorious id its conception, granted that to give 
 effect to it has been the aim as it has been the 
 long-accepted policy of successive Governments, 
 'it cannot be denied that the sting of "want of 
 reciprocity" has, from the first, checkmated our 
 philanthropic efforts, and obliged us now to confess, 
 after 30 years of trial, that in practice our free 
 trade is at best but one-sided ; and that while we 
 are opening our ports to the commerce and manu- 
 factures of the world, free and unrestricted, other 
 countries, without conferring upon us any reci- 
 procal benefit, are taking advantage, without scruple, 
 of our magnanimous, but disastrous (because one- 
 sided), liberality. 
 
 It is of no use to blink the question. Facts will 
 speak for themselves. In defiance of all arguments 
 and all persuasion, not to say entreaty, on the 
 subject, these awkward facts still remain. Our 
 overtures to other countries are disregarded; our 
 commercial treaties are not renewed; our own 
 trade is in a sinking, a,nd unprofitable condition ; 
 our exports show a lamentable, alarming, and 
 increasing deficit; our Exchequer is affected; and, 
 worse than all, not a single country in Europe, 
 beginning with France and Germany and ending 
 
11 
 
 with Spain and Switzerland (to say nothing of the 
 United States of America or our own Australian 
 colonies) can be cajoled by the most specious 
 temptation into following our example of free 
 importations, or of opening their ports to the 
 commerce of Great Britain and of the world, unre- 
 stricted by safeguards in the shape of duties framed 
 to protect their own native industries. 
 
 Now, sir, in view of these undeniable facts, and 
 of the quasi-adiimtted failure of the policy which 
 has been so long a time in operation, and which 
 was in fact initiated and I may say necessitated by 
 the exigencies of an exceptional period of famine 
 and distress, which even the most ardent Protec- 
 tionists of the time were quite unable to gainsay or 
 withstand, but which happily now no longer exist, 
 I ask whether that grave moment of reflection and 
 self-examination has not now arrived when it be- 
 hoves all classes who feel themselves sensibly 
 affected, to pause and seriously review the present 
 position; and if a false step has been made, as 
 many think, to have the courage and the energy to 
 retrace it without delay. This is neither more nor 
 less than what a prudent man in private, or a 
 prudent trader in commercial life would find it his 
 imperative interest to do. How much more im- 
 perative, therefore, is it when Irnperial and patriotic 
 interests are so heavily involved ! 
 
 We have tried free trade, and it has been found 
 wanting. We have done our best to impress other 
 
12 
 
 countries with the reasonableness of our policy, 
 and in return they scoff at our blindness, and turn 
 a deaf ear to our remonstrances. In the meantime 
 partial ruin and wholesale depression and distress 
 are staring us in the face. Our local burdens are 
 increasing, our exports diminishing. Our working 
 classes, unsettled, are waging open war in the 
 cause of labour against capital; discontented, be- 
 cause unable to find the real cause of their discon- 
 tent; clamouring for their participation in profits, 
 which can hardly be said to exist, and yet unable 
 to account for the hesitation and inability of their 
 employers to accede to what they consider are only 
 their just demands. 
 
 Why should we persist in such an Utopian 
 crusade? Why have we cut adrift from our old 
 anchorage to launch our good ship upon a 
 treacherous torrent, which is hurling us helplessly 
 to imminent shipwreck? In Heaven's name, if 
 we are on the wrong tack, let us arrest our 
 downward course. Don't let us, for the sake 
 of a Quixotic theory, blind our eyes to the fact 
 that our trade is ruinously slipping from us, and 
 that we are sacrificing our best and dearest inte- 
 rests to an unacceptable idea. 
 
 There are indications that the tide of public 
 opinion is undergoing a gradual and, therefore, a 
 more convincing change. I hail it with satisfac- 
 tion. After all, the argument that comes home to 
 every one's pocket is the most cogent, and is worth 
 
13 
 
 all the theories and all the lectures of all the 
 political economists in the world. 
 
 I appeal to the common sense and to the patriot- 
 ism of my countrymen, and if they are convinced 
 how great has been the fallacy of our free trade 
 policy without reciprocity, it is for them to say, as 
 I believe sincerely they will say, whether a return 
 to a policy of limited protection, so far from being 
 impossible or undesirable, is not the true and sim- 
 ple solution of our present difficulties, and will 
 tend, in a more simple and natural way than any 
 other, to retrieve our losses, increase our revenue, 
 lighten our burdens, bring peace, contentment, and 
 employment to our working classes, and teach 
 them and us to bless the day which restored the 
 old policy and the old watchword of " Protection 
 to native British industry." With the object of 
 bringing these views before the public, and of in- 
 viting their discussion and consideration, I have 
 ventured to address you. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 SlE, 
 
 Your obedient humble Servant, 
 BATEMAN. 
 
 Shobdon Court, Leominster, 
 Herefordshire. 
 
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