SHORT E ST WAY 
 THE FREE TRADERS, 
 A LETTER 
 
 ©iJitor of tljc ^taribarU, 
 
 DANIEL DE FOE, Jun. 
 
 Uarmautlj: 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY C. BARBER, QUAY; 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., 
 
 LONDON j 
 
 JAUROLD & SONS, AND FLETCHER, 
 
LETTER. 
 
 Mr. Editor, 
 
 The enlightened support which you have ever given to 
 the principle of protection to native agriculture, naturally 
 points you out as the person to whom of all others, and 
 through whom to his fellow sufferers, a protectionist may 
 with most propriety, address his thoughts on the ruin im¬ 
 pending over his country, through the baleful operation of 
 free trade. 
 
 It is true, that eight years ago you were seduced by 
 political considerations and influence, to support Sir Robert 
 Peel in those insidious relaxations of the tariff which are now 
 bearing their bitter fruits; notwithstanding that you had 
 yourself, over and over again, luminously shewn that for five 
 and twenty years previously, our national career had been a 
 downward one, in consequence of the Huskison relaxations in 
 our tariff and navigation laws. I was one of those who 
 sincerely lamented the course you then took in connection 
 with the ministry,—a course so damaging to the character of 
 the great Conservative party; and I resented it by dis¬ 
 continuing for a time to take in your journal. But you have 
 nobly redeemed your political character. During the last 
 three or four years you have so directly retraced your steps, 
 so boldly and continuously denounced the monstrous treachery 
 of Peel—keeping it fresh and green in the minds of the people, 
 by devoting to it a daily leading article ever since—that you 
 have conferred a deep debt of gratitude on every member of 
 the great protectionist party. Nay more:—you have tri¬ 
 umphantly refuted and exposed the free traders; while 
 
your powerful writing, playful wit, and matchless weight of 
 invective—added to your notorious character for correctness 
 as to matters of fact—shed a lustre on the intellectual and 
 moral character of our entire body. 
 
 If the utter failure of your efforts to stem the torrent of 
 free trade legislation, coupled with the treachery of so many 
 of the conservative party, may have inspired you with a 
 feeling of disgust for politics, and distrust of all public men; 
 these circumstances would form at once your reason and your 
 excuse, were you finally to withdraw yourself and your journal, 
 from what may naturally appear to you a vain and thankless 
 strife. But although you would be perfectly justified in 
 pursuing such a course, and however natural that you should 
 pursue it; still I trust that for the sake of your countiy, and 
 of those great principles which ever carry with them their 
 intrinsic truth, and corresponding obligations, you will per¬ 
 severe manfully in the assertion of them, and in assisting and 
 directing the efforts of our great party towards the recognition 
 and reestablishment of those principles in the laws of the land. 
 I say our great party, for it is a great party, however damaged 
 for a time in its organisation, by treachery unmatched for 
 baseness and magnitude in the history of mankind. Allow 
 us, then, still to rely on your indomitable spirit for support 
 and counsel;—especially when it is demonstrable, that the 
 attainment of the mighty object we have in view, is no longer 
 hopeless and remote, as it appeared a year or two ago, but 
 within easy reach of energy and union; pointing as so many 
 circumstances clearly do to a great reaction in the public 
 min d, which, properly and vigorously directed, will infallibly 
 bring us triumphant to the goal. 
 
 The means towards that end should now be the subject 
 of earnest and continuous discussion, in our united and 
 friendly counsels; and as the humblest individual may be 
 
5 
 
 affected by their results, the humblest individual is entitled to 
 a fair hearing of his views, if given in an honest spirit, and 
 brief expression. On that principle I venture humbly to offer 
 to my fellow protectionists the following considerations, in the 
 hope that they may possibly be of use to some of them, in 
 assisting them to form an opinion as to what should be our 
 present and future course of action. I trust that into what¬ 
 ever errors I may fall, as to matters of fact or argument, I 
 shall not be chargeable with wilful perversion of the truth, 
 with want of temper and impartiality, or with want of a 
 proper sense of the gravity and importance of my subject. 
 
 To proceed then. Whatever doubt as to the effects of 
 free trade on the general interests of the country, the pride 
 and self-love of its promoters may induce them to express, no 
 one of those I am now addressing, will, I apprehend, hesitate 
 for a moment in the opinion that it has been, and continues 
 to be, disastrous in the extreme. If we consider the unprece¬ 
 dented extent of the importations of all kinds of foreign 
 produce, which has been going on continuously for the last 
 eighteen months or two years; and that these importations, 
 great as they are, produce no gluts in our markets; we perceive 
 a rate of consumption by the mass of the people, of all the 
 necessaries and luxuries of . life, great beyond all former 
 experience. If we farther consider, that agricultural produce, 
 notwithstanding the enormous extent of our cotton and other 
 manufactures, is still, thank God! the great staple of this 
 country, and that the principal article of that staple is now 
 selling at 40s. a quarter,—a price all but universally admitted 
 to be far below the cost of production,—we shall at once.see 
 that our vast consumption is utterly unjustifiable, and prodigal 
 in the highest degree. For if the great staple of our national 
 industry is sacrificed at a price below the cost of production, 
 where, I would ask, can the means come from to pay for 
 
consumption so great r Were a country gentleman or farmer, 
 at present prices of corn, to double his expenditure, where 
 would he find himself at the end of the year ? Deeply in 
 debt, if not in the Gazette. Extend the argument to the 
 country as a whole, for it there equally applies, and what can 
 you conclude, but that our vast consumption is an infallible 
 sign of present debt, and prospective ruin and misery ? To 
 see a people grossly revelling in a factitious plenty and 
 gluttonous consumption, at a time, when by every rule of 
 logic and arithmetic, we should have been practising a rigid 
 abstinence, and husbandry of our resources, is another proof, 
 if another were needed, of the old truth, that God strikes 
 with madness, those nations whom he dooms to destruction. 
 
 Another remarkable fact, indicative of the gradual de¬ 
 preciation and destruction of our national property, is the 
 fall in the value of money. Money, which is itself but a 
 product of industry, is so depreciated in value, that at this 
 moment, any amount of it can be had in the London market 
 at If or 2 f cent per annum. Thus are the sources of our 
 industry in process of being dried up. 
 
 Although I name, in passing, these general considerations 
 shewing the ruinous effects of free trade, it is not my intention 
 to enter upon any detailed proof of those effects; assuming, 
 as I said before, that there is no difference of opinion on the 
 point, among those whom I have the honor to address. This, 
 moreover, is unnecessary, from the recent glorious articles in 
 Blackwood, written by Professor Alison, which no doubt 
 every true protectionist will have read. 
 
 Proceeding, therefore, with my subject, I now propose 
 to consider it under three heads, viz.— 
 
 Firstly— Ol-i; Hex. 
 
 Secondly— On: Pkincjim.es. 
 
 Thirdly —Oru Measures. 
 
Ami first, as to our men. I enter upon this topic vrith 
 pain and diffidence, because I must speak unpleasant truths 
 in reference to it. But in our present position, surrounded 
 as we are by dangers and difficulties, safety must be sought 
 in speaking truth, at whatever sacrifice of lying amenities and 
 individual feeling. 
 
 The most prominent fact under this head, is the leader¬ 
 ship of the country party in. the House of Commons by Mr. 
 D’Israeli; reluctantly conceded to him, in the supposed 
 absence of a more lit man. Now', I ask, who and what is 
 Mr. DTsraeli that he should fill such a post ? As to who he 
 is, God knows. Whether or no he had a grandfather is 
 doubtful. As to what he is: he is an eminent writer of fiction, 
 and a statesman and orator of shining talents and success. 
 But what, in the name of common sense, have these qualifica¬ 
 tions to do with the leadership of the country party ? I mean 
 what have they necessarily to da with that leadership? 
 Nothing whatever. The one great essential to the high 
 position in question, is aristocratic or gentle birth, and large 
 landed estate. The inherent dignity of these confers on their 
 possessor a prestige, which commands success, even when 
 supported by only the most humble abilities ; and without 
 which, uo personal qualities, however great or splendid, can 
 attain success. And this is just as it should be. To give up 
 the great principle, that the leadership of the landed interest 
 of England should always reside in a member of that interest, 
 would be to give up an important element in the permanence 
 and dignity of our social and political status. Moreover, a 
 leader without our pale can never see our interests from the 
 proper point of view, that is from our own point of view, ab 
 in/ni. lie wants, therefore, that transcendental intuition, if 
 1 may use the expression, of our feelings and position, 
 which as*, essential to a just appreciation of our interests. 
 
8 
 
 or at least, of our own feelings relative to our interests. 
 In short, he is not one of us, and cannot represent us. 
 
 In addition to those objections to Mr. D’Israeli’s leader¬ 
 ship, there is this, which is in my judgement insuperable; 
 viz. that it is not clear that he is really in feeling and principle, 
 a protectionist. In his novels, he has treated Landlords and 
 corn laws with a good deal of levity, and an occasional sneer. 
 Even now, his propositions are not manfully directed towards 
 the full and unconditional restoration of protection. He aims 
 at its re-establishment through indirect measures of doubtful 
 practicability, and if practicable, inadequate to our just ex¬ 
 pectations. But assuming his views to be sound, enlarged, 
 and sagacious; his integrity and zeal unquestionable; his 
 political character and talents high and commanding; all 
 these recommendations will not, as I have shewn, qualify 
 him for the leadership of the country party, unaccompanied 
 with high birth and landed estate. 
 
 To prove how deep-seated in us, is this feeling or con¬ 
 viction, I need only point to what occurred the other day at 
 the meeting of our society in Bond Street, presided over by 
 the Duke of Richmond. His Grace there read to the meeting 
 a certificate of character by Lord George Bentick in favor of 
 Mr. D’lsraeli, much as he -would have read a certificate of 
 character in the appointment of a clerk to keep our society’s 
 accounts, or a porter to stand at our door. Now when Lord 
 George Bentick was himself our leader, who would have 
 thought of reading a certificate for his character ? Not the 
 Duke certainly, nor any one else. And why ? Simply because 
 he was one of ourselves, one in interests and sympathies with 
 us: of noble blood and sufficient estate, known to all, and 
 able at once to command the confidence of all. Who, I re¬ 
 peat, required a certificate for him ? I do not doubt that 
 when his Grace read the certificate of character for Mr. 
 
D’lsraeli, he did so in perfect good faith, and in all respect 
 towards that gentleman; cordially recognizing his worth and 
 abilities, and anxious to commend his leadership to the 
 support and good will of the entire country party. But will it 
 not, on reflection, appear evident even to his Grace, that the 
 fact of his involuntarily thinking it necessary to read such a 
 certificate of character, implied a vast interval of feeling or 
 position between our new leader and his followers ? A chasm 
 between him and us, which it required all the goodly dimen¬ 
 sions of Lord George Bentinck’s “ name and memory ” to fill 
 up ? But the chasm is too great to be thus easily filled up. 
 We try, indeed, to think otherwise: when we meet, we en¬ 
 deavour to reassure each other by much speaking. We say, 
 how admirable are D’Israeli’s talents, how finely he de¬ 
 molishes Peel, with what interest he is listened to in the house: 
 he is the very man to be our leader, he is the man of the sit¬ 
 uation ! But while we are saying all this, we do not look 
 each other in the face: our eyes seek the ground, as if we had 
 a more than half consciousness that we did not believe what 
 we said, and were ashamed of our insincerity. Away then 
 with this self deception! forced upon us by the seeming 
 necessities of our position. It is unworthy of us, and is 
 eminently unfair towards Mr. D’lsraeli. Let us at once 
 repudiate his leadership, not in any hostile spirit, as attribu¬ 
 ting to him blame or reproach, but in all courtesy and honor, 
 and simply in justice to ourselves. The incompatibility 
 between him and us that unfits him to be our leader, is his 
 misfortune, not his fault: and were he only alive to that 
 incompatability, his own sense of self respect, would induce 
 him to withdraw from a position to him false and dangerous, 
 although for a time brilliant and imposing, and in which he 
 must assuredly make ultimate shipwreck. For while we can 
 respect and admire him for his great capacity and services, 
 
exercised in the general ranks of the protectionist represen¬ 
 tatives, we cannot choose hut despise and profoundly distrust, 
 
 I had almost said hate him as leader; introducing as he does, 
 in his person, voluntarily or involuntarily, a source of dis¬ 
 union into our great party, which would otherwise be free 
 from it; at a time too, when united counsels are more than 
 ever essential to its success, nay, to its very existence. The 
 only point. Mr. Editor, in the whole range of political matters 
 and men, on which I differ from you at present, is in reference 
 to this ill-starred leadership, of which you have become an 
 earnest supporter. Less than four years ago, he w'as reviled 
 in the columns of your paper, day after day, with merciless 
 force of invective; his character and talents trampled in the 
 dust. Now they are lauded to the skies. I do not, indeed, 
 desire to see the honorable gentleman again mauled as' he 
 used to be under your elephantine tread; but I do wish to 
 see him reduced to his proper place in the ranks of the pro¬ 
 tectionist party, and trust you may yet so far revert to your 
 former opinion of him, as to lend your powerful assistance in 
 writing him down from his present false position and pride 
 of place. Of course this cannot be accomplished without 
 some hurt to his feelings. But the aristocratic heads of our 
 party have it in their power to soften the blow, by allowing 
 him the entree to those more exclusive circles of their private 
 society, to which, as not being one of themselves, he has 
 hitherto had only partial and reluctant admittance. In this 
 way a new direction may be given to his ambition (viz. that 
 of shining in good society) less embarrassing and damaging 
 to our party than his political leadership. 
 
 I would now' take leave of Mr. DTsraeli, and with sin¬ 
 cere good feeling tou'ards him ; trusting that for the sake of 
 his own reputation, and of the true interests of the great 
 party whose principles he professes, he may speedily be made 
 to understand and retire to his proper place in its ranks. 
 
11 
 
 Another name that has appeared loo prominently of late 
 in the published proceedings of the landed interest, is that of 
 Mr. George Frederick Young. Mr. Young is no doubt a 
 respectable man in his own situation of life, and is evidently 
 possessed of talents and energy. But to see some of the 
 leading members of the landed interest, holding a personal 
 and epistolary familiarity with him, cannot but tend to im¬ 
 pair the dignity and credit of our order in the estimation of 
 the great body of the people. I shall by and by have occasion 
 to point out a direction in which, I coneeive, Mr. Young’s 
 services may be made available, with credit to himself, and 
 without discredit to the great agricultural body, with which 
 his name is at present so improperly and absurdly associated. 
 In the meantime I have something to say relative to 
 
 Secondly —Our Principles. 
 
 I begin this section by inquiring, whether it may not 
 throw light on what our principles are, to consider what 
 they are not. And this brings me to Political Economy, 
 the science, or so called science, on which free trade is built. 
 Now, when in the practical business of legislation and trade, 
 the application of the assumed truths of an assumed science, 
 is found to be generally and greatly disastrous, we are 
 justified in concluding one of two things; either, that the 
 failure in practice of the assumed truths proves ipso facto, 
 the falsity even in theory of the assumed science, i.e. proves 
 that it is no science at all: or, that if it is true in theory, its 
 application to our complicated and artificial social system is 
 nevertheless in practice, as ruinous as if it had been false also 
 in theory,—rotten in root and branch. Which of these con¬ 
 clusions is the more philosophical I need not stay to enquire, 
 as the fact of the ruinous effects of free trade being proved, 
 either alternative would justify us in scouting political econo¬ 
 my from serious or respectful consideration. 
 
But if in addition to this practical ground, sufficient and 
 satisfactory as it is, for the rejection of political economy, it 
 could be proved a priori, that in the very nature of things, 
 the so-called science must be false and spurious, nothing 
 would be wanting in reason or in fact, to consign it finally 
 to that limbo of detected and rejected delusions, which the 
 perverted ingenuity of man has been permitted, in the mys¬ 
 terious dispensations of providence, to invent and disseminate 
 at various periods of general wickedness in the history of the 
 world, as it were for the purpose of scourging mankind back 
 into the paths of virtue and common sense. That this con¬ 
 clusive a priori argument against the truth of political 
 economy can be readily found, I fully believe, find shall 
 endeavour to demonstrate, for it does not lie remote from the 
 surface, and within reach only of the practised scholar and 
 philosopher, but is patent to the understanding of any man 
 experienced in the ordinary reasoning and business of life. 
 Let us see then what is this potent argument. 
 
 On what chain of facts and reasoning is the " science” 
 of political economy built ? On facts which had their origin 
 and dispersion over the world, in the days of Adam Smith ? 
 No; nor a thousand, or two thousand years ago, but in a 
 period of antiquity so remote, as that the memory of man 
 extends not to it. It is true that the facts of production, 
 distribution, and exchange—in other words the facts of trade— 
 have enormously increased in their aggregate amount in re¬ 
 cent ages. But their nature remains unchanged, and no 
 fact, new in kind, has sprung into existence from the earliest 
 ages of the world, to the present. The same principles are 
 deducible from the buying and selling, whether by barter or 
 money, of the days of Abraham, as from the buying and 
 selling in the cotton market of Liverpool, or in the corn 
 market of Mark Lane. This trite truth then being remem- 
 
13 
 
 bcrcd, is it probable that facts known from the earliest ages 
 of the world, in all their varieties and relations, should hold 
 latent within them, a science that should escape the penetra¬ 
 tion of the human intellect for thousands of years, in the 
 course of which it had mastered numerous sciences, the least 
 of which far transcended in depth and importance, the punv 
 proportions of political economy, supposing it were all that 
 its professors assert? Given the data or premises of any 
 subject of human inquiry, and the ever active mind of man 
 will speedily work out their true results. It would then be 
 insulting to the human understanding to believe, that the 
 intellect which was equal to the discovery of the sublime 
 science of geometry, was unequal to the discovery of the 
 “science” that lay hid in the facts of trade and production, 
 which self interest would inevitably make the object of 
 searching investigation and reasoning in every age of the 
 world ; and that the discovery of this science was reserved 
 for the later ages, and oh! most wonderful of all—for a fifth 
 rate professor in the beggarly university of an obscure Scotch 
 town!* Surely, therefore we are more than justified in 
 assuming that if a science was fairly deducible, or even pos¬ 
 sible, from any combination, or peculiar mode of treatment 
 of the facts of trade and production, it would have been 
 discovered and mastered by the enlightened nations of an¬ 
 tiquity. Hence we are irresistably led to conclude that the 
 
14 
 
 supposed discovery or invention of such a science seventy 
 years ago, must of necessity have been (however ingenious) 
 a sheer delusion ; a heap of paradoses and sophisms, having 
 birth in the speculations of clever but superficial men, and 
 received widely, by an age superficial in all respects, and as 
 superstitiously credulous in respect to material facts and 
 theories, as fanatically sceptical in things spiritual and im¬ 
 material. 
 
 It may be that amidst a mass of writings so voluminous 
 as those of the political economists;—which I for my sins, 
 as Carlyle says, have read in barrowfuls in my time, although 
 “ (Fun ennui niortel ”—there is a certain admixture of truth,— 
 a h’ap’orth of truth to the villanous quantity of error. It is 
 a trite remark that no quackery or delusion ever met with 
 wide acceptation, but in virtue of some particle of truth 
 contained in it, without which the superincumbent mass of 
 error could take no positive existence,—no local habitation 
 and a name. But the quackery is still as much quackery, as 
 dangerous and deceitful, nay much more so, than if it had in 
 its composition no particle of truth. We are not therefore to 
 suppose that political economy, because of its thinly scattered 
 grains of truth is less false in theory, and ruinous in practice, 
 than it is proved to be by our fatal experience, and by the 
 clearest deduction of a priori reasoning. The fact, in short, 
 stated in the most moderate terms, amounts just to this, that 
 in so far as the reasonings of the Economists are true, they are 
 not new, and have been recognised and embodied in the 
 system of protection from time immemorial: and in so far as 
 they are new and peculiar to themselves, they are false in 
 principle and destructive in application. I now therefore 
 gladly take leave of political economy, and of those “numerous 
 persons, with big wigs many of them, and austere aspect, the 
 professors of the Dismal Science,” as of the greatest and most 
 elaborate humbugs of modern times. 
 
15 
 
 Turning from the system of our opponents to the con¬ 
 sideration of our own, it is to be remarked, that as we have 
 no pretensions to raise our principles to the dignity of a 
 science, so we have no great writer, or class of writers, pro¬ 
 fessing and expounding them, who could be looked up to as 
 standard authorities in the definition and interpretation of 
 them. They may be said to form an unwritten law, the 
 product of the accumulated experience and reasoning of 
 countless generations of men; and they are of a noble sim¬ 
 plicity that enables every man to state them for himself. 
 
 Their general spirit will, I conceive, be sufficiently 
 expressed in the following definitions. 
 
 First —That native capital and labour have a natural 
 and indefeisible right to protection against foreign competi¬ 
 tion; whether the latter operates under general conditions 
 equally or more favorable than the former. 
 
 Second —That native capital and labour have an equally 
 undoubted right to protection against colonial competition 
 (as in the case of the duty that formerly excluded colonial 
 corn); the conditions of production being more favorable in 
 the colonies than at home. 
 
 Third —That on the same principle, as between the three 
 countries of the United Kingdom; the native capital and 
 labour of each are entitled to protection against the competi¬ 
 tion of the other two, the conditions of production being 
 different in all three. Thus, duties protective of English 
 manufactures, excluded, pro tanlo, many products of Irish 
 industry within the memory of many persons still living. 
 
 Fourth —that as capital is only accumulated labour, they 
 may, for the purposes of legislation, be treated as synonymous 
 terms: but where there seems a distinction between them, 
 and a difference of interests, as labour is the greater and 
 nobler principle, its claims are to be held paramount. 
 
Relatively to this natural right to protection, all the 
 interests of the country, with the exception of the landed, 
 hold the same position; and the reason why I except the 
 landed interest is that it stands by itself, apart from, and 
 above all the others. This position it holds in virtue of its 
 being the basis on which all society rests. Without it 
 national existence were impossible: with it national existence 
 were possible, even in the absence of all commerce and manu¬ 
 factures, beyond the simple manual arts or trades immediately 
 dependent upon it. 
 
 Indeed, it has been shewn by yourself, Mr. Editor, on 
 reasonable grounds of probability, that if all the manufacturing 
 and commercial towns and classes were swept to destruction, 
 England would be greater morally and intelectually, and her 
 material grandeur not less than under her existing conditions. 
 This opinion has been of course objected to and sneered at, 
 by the advocates of the classes referred to; but in proof of 
 its inherent and necessary truth, I need only point to the 
 constitution of society, and the maxims of the law; to the 
 habits of thinking and modes of expression, among high and 
 low, rich and poor, in every country of Europe, democratic, 
 aristocratic, and monarchical. All recognise implicitly, instinc¬ 
 tively, and on the surest grounds of right reason, the landed 
 interest as essentially the basis of national existence, and 
 national greatness. The same state of things holds good in 
 the great republic of the new world. Now I do not assert 
 this essential truth in any invidious spirit towards the com¬ 
 mercial and manufacturing classes. Far from it. They exist, 
 good or evil, as facts, and must therefore be accepted and 
 made the best of: nor is it necessary to my arguement to deny 
 that, under proper restrictions, and in due subordination to 
 the landed interest, they may be made useful to the country. 
 But while I admit this, I do not admit it in derogation of the 
 
great primary principle, that the landed interest is the basis 
 of our social and political constitution, and holds therefore a 
 position not merely higher in degree but in hind, than any' 
 and all other interests. 
 
 It is themore necessary to assert this principle strongly and 
 fearlessly at the present day, that the manufacturingandtrading 
 classes, with the bad taste and audacity which invariably 
 characterise them, presuming on the easy good nature of the 
 landed interest, have of late years pretended to an equality of 
 natural rights with that interest; and by the supineness of 
 the latter, have contrived of late to usurp a share in legislation, 
 to which they have no good claim. It is therefore high time 
 that an end were summarily put to this unwholesome state of 
 things. The landed interest, for the sake of what is due to 
 themselves and to their posterity, must bestir themselves to 
 re-establish in all its sacred integrity, their inherent and 
 necessary supremacy over all other classes and interests. 
 Assuming, then, this natural supremacy as proved and ad¬ 
 mitted, it follows that no legislation can be just, or in 
 accordance with the spirit of our constitution, that does 
 violence to the feelings, prejudices, or pockets of the landed 
 interest. 
 
 As regards legislation affecting only the other classes, no 
 doubt the opinions of those classes would carry their just 
 weight, not of natural right, but by r the judicial courtesy of 
 the landed interest, who, although entitled to predominance 
 in both houses of the legislature, are yet too moderate and 
 right minded to shut out from consideration the opinions and 
 wishes of the other classes, in legislation touching themselves. 
 
 In return for and in connection with these natural 
 rights of the landed interest, there are of course corresponding 
 duties and obligations. They must not object to take upon 
 themselves the duties of the magisterial bench, and of 
 
legislation in both houses of parliament, to fill all the higher 
 offices of the church, army, and navy, colonies and dip¬ 
 lomatic appointments. In one word they must take upon 
 their own shoulders all the great offices "in church and state. 
 But as they undertake offices so multifarious and laborious; 
 and moreover as their high birth and bearing confer a dignity 
 on the public service, which is further reflected upon the 
 nation; the people should, in grateful return, cheerfully con¬ 
 sent to the national establishments being on a great and 
 liberal scale, and to the prices of agricultural produce being 
 sustained by legislative enactment at a height that should 
 guarantee prosperity and abundance among all grades of the 
 landed interest. 
 
 Thus, then, while all classes are entitled to protection, 
 the agricultural interest has a claim to it on higher moral, 
 social, and political grounds than any and all of the others. 
 
 I now come to the principle which I have marked 
 as No. 3. It has been said by somebody, that every family 
 has a skeleton in the house. The same may be said of every 
 nation, and England’s skeleton is Scotland and Ireland. It 
 has been the fate of England to be physically tied to these 
 beggarly countries, and to their beggarly people, who have 
 ever subsisted by sucking her blood; so that but for her 
 inherent strength of frame and constitution, she must have 
 sunk under the exhausting depletion. As regards the two 
 wretched countries themselves, one of them has impoverished 
 us, without enriching herself: the other has got rich on our 
 spoils, and insults us with a manufacturing and agricultural 
 prosperity gained solely at our cost. If it be said that Scot¬ 
 land has become rich by her own enterprise and industry, I 
 ask, why did that industry not enrich her before her union 
 with England, previously to which she was poor and miser¬ 
 able ? Clearly, all that she has gained and is gaining, we have 
 
lost and are losing. She is a dead weight upon us, and in¬ 
 creasing with the increase of her population. Not only are 
 we weakened hy the exactions of her hungry sons who come 
 south, and live upon us on our own soil, but we have to sup¬ 
 port those who remain at home. And we suffer a further 
 injury in this, that although she has grown rich, she still 
 feeds her labouring population on oatmeal, a dietary which 
 we should be ashamed to subsist our horses and cattle upon. 
 
 Under these conditions, then, it is evidently impossible 
 that any class of our producers can compete with those of 
 Scotland,—and, for much the same reasons, with those of 
 Ireland. We should therefore be sacrificing our own interests 
 and our own people, not to give them legislative protection 
 against competition so unequal and so injurious. And we 
 need hesitate the less in establishing high protective duties 
 against the produce of Scotland and Ireland, that we can do 
 so without committing any act of injustice. Those countries, 
 notwithstanding their incorporation with England, love to 
 assert a separate nationality. Now, to exclude their produce 
 from our markets would be to acknowledge their coveted 
 nationality in the most practical manner; and it would gratify 
 their national feelings or vanity. Moreover, if it be true, as 
 Scotchmen say, that they have grown rich by their own in¬ 
 dustry, and not at the expense of England, it will be no 
 injury to them to be made independent of the English market. 
 They can protect their own agriculture and manufactures 
 against the competition of England, and so continue in their 
 present course of prosperity. 
 
 As regards Ireland, the case is still more clear. Her 
 connection with England, costly as it is to the latter, is 
 manifestly without benefit to herself, as she remains poor 
 and miserable. English manufactures have destroyed or 
 greatly injured her linen trade; and English markets have 
 
drcnvri from her the agricultural produce, that should have 
 remained to feed her oivn starving sons. Let her then pro¬ 
 tect herself against English competition, and cherish her own 
 manufactures: and as her corn and cattle will be excluded 
 from English markets, they will remain for home consumption, 
 establishing happiness and prosperity among her people. 
 
 Thus it is evident that in justice to the three countries, 
 now so unhappily linked together, the capital and industry of 
 each should be protected against the competition of the 
 
 Fourth —As to the claims of Labohe. 
 
 Every protectionist will admit the right of native, to 
 protection against foreign labour. But we must not stop 
 short here. Our native labourer has other enemies than the 
 foreigner to contend with. The competition of the foreigner 
 may be formidable, but it is not in all cases insurmountable. 
 It is the competition of machinery that is insurmountable. 
 The machine is therefore the labourer’s most formidable 
 enemy, and the truth must be told that it is against the 
 machine the labourer should have the fullest and most 
 stringent legislative protection. For if we save him, on the 
 one hand, from the chance of being knocked down by 
 the foreigner, would it not be monstrously inconsistent, 
 on the other, to allow him to be infallibly felled to the 
 ground by the giant machine ? If it be said that the native 
 consumer and capitalist are entitled to the advantages of the 
 cheapness and abundance of machine-produced commodities, 
 the same argument would entitle them to the advantages of 
 foreign commodities, if produced at a lower cost than those 
 of native growth or manufacture. The inference is plain, 
 that native labour is not only entitled to protection against 
 the foreigner, but against home machinery. On this point 
 the Economists themselves are with us. They tell us that the 
 
value of any commodity depends on the quantity of labour 
 employed upon its production. Now the object of all machi¬ 
 nery is, that labour may be superseded and dispensed with ; 
 and just in proportion as this object is successful, is the value 
 of national labour and commodities depreciated. Nor do we 
 need the elaborate calculations of a Babbage to convince us 
 
 country, is effected by “ the economy of machinery in manu¬ 
 factures.” But say that the difference of power between 
 machine and human labour is only in a ratio of fifty-fold — 
 and taking that ratio as the measure of depreciation—if our 
 present annual exports are of the value of a hundred millions 
 sterling, it follows, on the principles of the Economists them¬ 
 selves, that had the commodities so exported been produced 
 by human labour, they would have been valued not at a 
 hundred, but at five thousand millions sterling. The Econo¬ 
 mists, indeed, say that such an increase in price would stop 
 the exports altogether. But suppose it did so, what then ? 
 The labourers of our own country would themselves become 
 profitable consumers, and amply compensate for the loss of 
 the foreign market. And the advantage would not stop here; 
 for the whole labour of the country once employed, all poor’s 
 rates would be unnecessary, crime would be diminished, and 
 a vast national saving effected, not merely to the amount 
 of the poor’s rates, but in the cost of gaols, police and 
 
 The admirable effects thus flowing from the full employ¬ 
 ment of native labour, would render expedient the fostering of 
 various branches of industry, not at present prosecuted, but 
 which might exist and flourish among us, if encouraged by 
 protective duties. Take the growth and manufacture of wine 
 as an instance. Formerly, wine of fair quality was made in 
 different parts of England. Place prohibitory duties on 
 
foreign wines, and you will resuscitate the home manu¬ 
 facture, thus opening a vast field and mine of wealth for the 
 industry of the country. 
 
 Of course all this involves a degree of national happiness, 
 virtue, and material comfort enjoyed by the great body of the 
 people, utterly unknown under our present vicious state of 
 society and economic theories. Such are the advantages from 
 which we are excluded by the baleful operation of machinery 
 and free trade 1 
 
 Let me here remark, in passing, that those mechanical 
 inventions which have proved so disastrous to our labouring 
 population, and of which cur manufacturers are so proud, 
 require but a limited reach of intellect and cultivation to 
 bring to perfection; and do not therefore imply any peculiar 
 ingenuity or merit in the inventor. Philosophers, in classi¬ 
 fying the arts and sciences, have placed those at the bottom 
 of the scale which are of so simple a character as to require 
 no process of generalization in the mind, and which could 
 therefore be invented and carried on without the aid of lan¬ 
 guage. Among these they have placed the mechanical arts. 
 Thus Stewart, in his Philosophy of the Human Mind, says, 
 “ We can employ the agency of air, to increase the heat of a 
 furnace; the furnace to render iron malleable; and the iron 
 to all the various purposes of the mechanical arts, all of 
 which could be conceived and done without the aid, and 
 prior to the invention of language.” The mechanical arts, 
 therefore, demand the lowest degree of human intelligence. 
 In accordance with this truth, we find that most of the in¬ 
 ventions and improvements in machinery have been the work 
 of uneducated mechanics. Even the boasted steam-engine, 
 in its present perfection, came from the hand of one Watt, a 
 low Glasgow mechanic. In its earliest stages it was but the 
 philosophical plaything of highly educated men—the Marquis 
 
of Worcester, Savary, Desaguliers and others—who, if they 
 had thought it worth the trouble, could no doubt, either of 
 them, have quickly brought it to the highest possible per¬ 
 fection. But as men of cultivated minds, they naturally 
 despised wasting their time on a matter fit only for the study 
 of a common mechanic: and moreover, as educated men, 
 they would see what the mechanic might not see, or think 
 of, that every invention that tended to supersede human 
 labour, was a snare and a curse for mankind. Hence, they 
 would avoid carrying to perfection, or publishing, the ma¬ 
 chines or principles they might think of in their private 
 speculations and experiments. It was no doubt in this way, 
 that it was left to Watt to complete his pestilent engine, des¬ 
 tined ere many years passed, to strike a heavy blow and great 
 discouragement to the happiness and comfort of the labourers 
 of all countries. 
 
 Does it not, then, show the disgusting sycophancy of 
 the present age—at least of the “ tyrant millocrats,” “ cotton 
 lords/’ “greedy sous of profit and loss,” “big capitalists, 
 llaihvay Directors, gigantic Hucksters, Kings of Scrip, 
 without lordly quality, or other virtue except cash; Able 
 Editors, Doctors of Political Economy and such like,”—does 
 it not, I say, show the disgusting sycophancy of this odious 
 rabble, that the “ base mechanical ” James Watt of whom I 
 was speaking, has been held up to public admiration, and 
 statues even been erected in his honor, as if he had been a 
 leader of armies or navies? No man, I think, honestly and 
 calmly reflecting on these things, would hesitate to say that 
 Watt would have been better employed in tippling at the 
 Glasgow public house with his brother workmen, after the 
 custom of his proverbially drunken countrymen, than in mis¬ 
 applying the spare hours and talents providence had given 
 him, on a detestable and ruinous invention. 
 
24 
 
 On reading lately The. Last of the Barons by Sir E. B. 
 Lytton, I regretted to find him—a protectionist and a gentle¬ 
 man—so far pandering to the evil spirit of the times, as to 
 compromise his own character for consistency, by describing 
 the destruction of Abel Warner’s engine as the barbarous act 
 of a barbarous age; instead of painting it in its true and 
 glowing colours, as the wise and humane impulse of a primi¬ 
 tive people, whose instinctive and manly good sense were 
 uneorrupted by the “ Dismal Science,” and utilitarianism of 
 a later age. 
 
 But to return from this long degression. I will now 
 offer a few observations upon what I conceive should be 
 
 Thirdly —Our Measures. 
 
 The suggestions I desire to make under this head natu¬ 
 rally arise from the view I have taken above of our principles. 
 We agree, I infer, that our object is the restoration of full and 
 general protection. Non' we must not shut our eyes to the 
 fact that the landed is the only interest of the country, which 
 is really in favor of general protective principles. The ship¬ 
 owners, indeed, have lately (since they have been themselves 
 attacked by free trade) affected to hold protectionist princi¬ 
 ples; but they had almost all supported the opposite ones ; 
 when corn and commerce only were threatened, so that their 
 support is of too suspicious a character to be relied upon in 
 the hour of need. We stand, therefore, alone, and alone we 
 are unable to effect the object we have in view. Where then 
 are we to look for efficient allies ? I answer to the working- 
 classes of the country, as you Mr. Editor, and the Quarterly 
 Review, have repeatedly and strongly insisted. It is true that 
 they are at present universally in favor of free trade, in grati- 
 titude, I suppose, for the cheap loaf they owe to it. But only 
 convince them of the injury machinery has done to them, and 
 of the necessity and justice of its abolition by process of 
 
law; at the same time adopting “abolition of machinery,” 
 or “ destruction of machinery,” as a protectionist election crv, 
 and you will make protectionists of them to a man. 
 
 Of course this policy must be pursued with proper 
 caution, otherwise we might raise a devil we could not lay, and 
 the cry for the destruction of machinery, ripen into a jacobin 
 cry against property and the rich. But judiciously used the 
 cry in question could not fail to rally round us, in a very few 
 months, the entire working population of the country; and 
 such a combination would at once overwhelm the manufac¬ 
 turing tyrants, and make protection once more triumphantly 
 the law of the land. Nor would the advantage stop hei'e; for 
 the same combination of the landed interest and the working 
 classes, that sufficed to restore protection, would be all 
 powerful to restore to the former, that high position in the 
 country and in the legislature, from which they have of late 
 years descended by their own supineness, and to which they 
 are entitled of natural right as I have already shewn. 
 
 I conceive, therefore, that Mr. George Frederick Young 
 took a move in the right direction, when he attempted a 
 junction with the Chartists at the Stepney Meeting; for 
 although he unfortunately failed entirely in his object, from 
 the preference the working classes at present feel for free 
 trade, it cannot be doubted, that had he struck the right 
 note, and cried “ down with machinery!” he would have met 
 with an instant and warm response. Sprung from the lower 
 classes himself, participating in their manners, accent, preju¬ 
 dices, and modes of thinking; his intuitive and acquired 
 knowledge of them would enable him to agitate the abolition- 
 of-machinery question among them with tact and skill. 
 
 It appears to me, therefore, that it would be for the 
 general interest, if the Central Protection Society were to 
 hire his services to originate and lead an energetic agitation 
 
among the working classes on the above basis. The object 
 of this agitation would be threefold: first, the abolition of 
 machinery (with one reservation which I shall presently' 
 state); secondly , the restoration of protection as against the 
 foreigner; and thirdly, the enforcement of protection as 
 against Irish, Scotch, and Colonial produce. In the last 
 named object, the co-operation of the working classes would 
 of course be easily gained, as securing to them the monopoly 
 of our own markets. 
 
 The reservation I would make, refers to the use of ma¬ 
 chinery in the processes of agriculture, which should be 
 retained for the benefit of the landed interest, in virtue of the 
 high position they hold relatively to the rest of the community, 
 and of the duties and responsibilities they incur in con¬ 
 sequence of that high position. Moreover, as the establish¬ 
 ment of an enlarged system of protection w r ould create 
 universal prosperity, and full employment for all classes of 
 labourers and workmen, a vast consumption of agricultural 
 produce would ensue, which, in order to be readily met by 
 home grown com, would require, or at any rate render ex¬ 
 pedient, the retention of all the most scientific machinery 
 
 The abolition of machinery, therefore, should only ex¬ 
 tend to its use in manufactures. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary for me to observe in passing, 
 that such an abolition would justly call for compensation to 
 the manufacturers for the capital sunk in machinery.—This 
 would be a matter of detail, to be adjusted in the carrying 
 out of the measure. 
 
 Among the measures glibly recommended by the free tra¬ 
 ders to the agricultural interest, as a remedy for the low 
 range of prices, to which they kindly propose for the future 
 to confine us, are ‘‘high farming,” “the application of more 
 
capital to the land,” and other cant phrases of the like kind, 
 of which those who use them do not in the least understand 
 their practical hearing. I will not waste words to confute 
 advice so insidious, and so ruinous if followed; as the agri¬ 
 cultural interest must at once see that without protection, 
 high farming wiE only produce an overflow of produce dis¬ 
 astrous to themselves; their interest obviously being, not to 
 create an overflowing abundance, hut only such a modified 
 plenty, if I may use the phrase, as shall yield them a re¬ 
 munerative price, without actually putting the working classes 
 on short commons. Indeed, from the general tendency of 
 the people of this country to too full, if not actually glut¬ 
 tonous feeding—a tendency probably generated by the nature 
 of our climate—a check on the abundance of food accessible 
 to the working classes, would be promotive of the public 
 health. There cannot be a doubt that cholera was introduced 
 and aggravated among us last season, by the plethora of 
 foreign corn and provisions consumed by the people. 
 
 I believe I have now nearly exhausted what I had to say, 
 as my object was not to touch upon the more ordinary 
 measures and principles of the protectionist creed, which are 
 sufficiently understood already, but to point to those which, 
 although equally true and useful, have never received their 
 just prominence and illustration in our party calculations. 
 Perhaps I should express myself more correctly of the con¬ 
 siderations I have endeavoured to set forth, if I spoke of them 
 not as separate or distinct principles, but as the legitimate 
 conclusions of the general protectionist theory, when fairly 
 argued out. I am aware that many of my brother pro¬ 
 tectionists may not as yet be disposed to follow me to those 
 conclusions. This is a vile age of expediency and facing 
 both ways, in which not one man in a thousand dares to look 
 
 his own professed principles in the face, or accept their pro- 
 
28 
 
 per results. “In Greece,” says American Emerson, “every 
 Stoic was a Stoic,but in Christendom, where is the Christian? ” 
 All our institutions, modes of thinking, usages of social life; 
 all intercourse between man and man; have become one vast 
 compromise. 
 
 The throne is a cross between the principle of legitimacy 
 and popular election: our House of Lords is adulterated 
 with the plebean blood of tradesmen, lawyers, and all manner 
 of rich parvenus: the Church is neither high church nor low 
 church, and her articles are every day signed and understood 
 in all sorts and varieties of senses. 
 
 In one word, society is rotten to the core; corrupted by 
 the obscene crew of foreigners. Irishmen, Scotchmen, infidels, 
 howling dissenters, and free traders, who of late years have 
 been suffered to pollute our soil, our principles, and our insti¬ 
 tutions. I cannot, then, flatter myself that all protectionists 
 have escaped the universal, foul contagion. 
 
 But there are indications in the political and social 
 horizon of the dawn of a happier state of things. Free trade 
 has brought on a crisis from which will spring a reaction of 
 opinion, extending to all our principles and institutions, 
 which, in the course of time, we may fairly hope, will restore 
 our beloved country to its ancient high place among the 
 nations, purified and enlightened by the fiery trial through 
 which she will have passed. 
 
 Let every protectionist then, with that glorious object' in 
 view, struggle towards its attainment by the enforcement of 
 his principles in then full and sacred integrity. Let every 
 one do this in his own sphere, however limited or humble 9 
 and many of us may yet live to see the moral and material 
 grandeur of England once more sparkling in the heavens, a 
 light and a terror to all nations. 
 
29 
 
 Before concluding, Mr. Editor, I should state to you 
 that as your paper—which I most earnestly approve and 
 admire,—is the only one I habitually read, I have become so 
 imbued with its spirit and sentiments, that in the course of 
 my remarks I may have unconsciously plagiarised from its 
 pages without specific acknowledgment, an omission for 
 which I would here make sincere apology. 
 
 I have the honor to remain, 
 
 Mr. Editor, 
 
 Your most obedient Servant, 
 
 Daniel DeFoe, Jun. 
 
 I trust I shall not be considered presumptuous, if I 
 suggest to the Central Protection Society, whether it might 
 not be conducive to the interests of our party, if this Letter 
 were published in a cheap form, and distributed gratis, or at 
 a low price, among the working classes and the farmers. If 
 this should be considered desirable, the Society has my free 
 permission to do so. 
 
 D. D. Jun.