i 
 

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 SIR LYON PLAYFAIR, K.C.B., M.P., 
 
 ON 
 
 INDUSTRIAL COMPETITION 
 
 AND 
 
 COMMERCIAL FREEDOM. 
 
 Being an ADDRESS delivered at the NATIONAL LIBERAL 
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SIR LYON PLAYFAIR, K.C.B., M.P., 
 
 ON 
 
 INDUSTRIAL COMPETITION 
 
 AND 
 
 COMMERCIAL FREEDOM. 
 
 Sir Lyon Playfair, in opening the discussion at the National 
 Liberal Club, on the 24th of April, 1888, said:— 
 
 It would seem to require some apology that I should address 
 the National Liberal Club on subjects relating to Free Trade, for 
 it is like carrying coals to Newcastle. While we have been 
 asleep in regard to this important matter, the enemy has been 
 sowing tares in our fields. I am told by all metropolitan 
 members, both Liberal and Conservative, that the doctrines of 
 Fair Trade have taken deep root in their constituencies. That 
 they have done so throughout the country we must assume, by 
 the fact that out of 1,000 delegates of Conservative associa¬ 
 tions assembled at Oxford last autumn, only twelve voted 
 against a resolution which, if it meant anything, was one for 
 imposing protective duties, not only on food, but also on all 
 foreign manufactures. Since then, Lord Salisbury has put his 
 foot down, and for a time there may be no danger; but when 
 the rank and file of the Conservative party differ from their 
 leaders, we know, by past experience, that leaders are easily 
 converted. At all events, if it be trae that the heresy of Fair 
 Trade, which is only Protection disguised in a domino, is 
 rampant in London constituencies, you, as Liberal missionaries, 
 should be well instructed in the gospel of Free Trade. 
 
 If the depression of trade which has existed in this country 
 since 1874, with only a flicker of revival in special industries 
 from 1879 to 1882, be in any way due to England’s Free Trade 
 policy, as, indeed, many persons believe it is, then you cannot be 
 surprised that the working classes, and more especially the 
 
4 
 
 unemployed, should have lost faith in the principle which they 
 adopted with enthusiasm in 1846. The depression is universal 
 in all machine-using countries. It did not even originate in 
 England, though in course of time it reached this great indus¬ 
 trial country, and has remained with us ever since, as it has 
 done with every other machine-using nation. In former 
 periods of history, depressions in agriculture and manufactures 
 sometimes lasted fifty years without a break, but they differed! 
 from the present depression by chiefly affecting labour rather 
 than capital, while now labour has suffered comparatively little, 
 though capital has been struck with severity. Listen to the 
 plaints in former times. Eieliard Hakluyt, in 1584, writes:— 
 “Yea, there be many thousandes of idle persons within the 
 realme having no way to be set at worke . . . whereby all 
 the prisons of the lande are daily pestered and stuffed full of 
 
 them, where either they pitifully pyne away, or els at length 
 are miserably hanged, even XXI at a clappe out of some one 
 jayle.” And Sir William Petty, a century later (1691), speaks 
 of the general conviction among the people of England that 
 their agriculture and manufactures are going to the dogs, 
 because “ there is no trade or employment for the people; that 
 Ireland and the Plantations of America are a burthen to Eng¬ 
 land ; that Scotland is no advantage; that the French trade 
 grows too fast upon us, and they become so rich and potent 
 that it is only of their clemency that they do not devour us; 
 and, finally, that the Church and State of England are in the 
 same danger with the trade of England.” You see, then, that 
 depressions of trade are very old, though England still survives, 
 and looks much less like going to the dogs than in Sir William 
 Petty’s time. The old depressions were local, or, at the worst, 
 national. There was such little intercommunication of nations 
 
 then, that depressions did not become like a pandemic as they 
 do now. In our times they are synchronous in all machine¬ 
 using countries, whether they have a free trade or protective 
 fiscal policy, whether they have reposed in peace or been dis¬ 
 turbed by war, whether they have a gold or bi-metallic currency, 
 whether they have free or despotic governments. 
 
 Since 1873 there has been a profound transformation of com¬ 
 merce ; and this, acting on increasing powers of production, has 
 largely lowered prices, leaving small profits to the capitalist. 
 It will be most convenient to consider, in the first place, the 
 changes which have occurred in commerce. England could 
 scarcely be called a commercial nation till about one and a half 
 century ago. In the time of Queen Elizabeth this country 
 
5 
 
 'began to develop its manufacturing industries, but its ideas of 
 •commerce were exceedingly crude. Commerce consists in the 
 •exchange of commodities for the reciprocal advantage of the 
 producers in the exchanging countries. In England, at that 
 ’time, there were few to exchange, for all the world did not 
 ■appreciate our coarse woollen goods and fustians. The English 
 got their luxuries by capture instead of by exchange. Among 
 ■the commercial rovers of that time, Cavendish stands prominent 
 dor his sweet simplicity and earnest piety. He thanks God for 
 protecting him in his commercial dealings. Hear his own 
 •description:—“It hath pleased Almighty God to suffer me to 
 •circumpass the whole globe of the world. ... I navigated 
 along the coast of Chili, Peru, and New Spain, where I made 
 :great spoils. All the villages and towns that ever I landed at 
 I burned and spoiled. And had I not been discovered upon 
 the coast, I had taken a great quantity of treasure.” And so 
 'the pious Cavendish says, “The Lord be praised for all His 
 mercies! ” Better ideas of commerce gradually prevailed. It 
 is only in recent times that scientific discoveries, by a more 
 economical use of steam and the electric telegraph, have 
 narrowed space and abridged time. The sea, which formerly 
 was valued as separating nations, has now become the very life¬ 
 blood of commerce. It is the circulating blood of the world. 
 •In the circulation of blood in animals there are small bodies 
 •called corpuscles, which sail from the heart to the furthest 
 •extremities, and, having discharged their cargoes, take up new 
 •ones and return to their original port. Their functions in the 
 various organs are regulated by the nerves. Commerce is the 
 •circulating force of the world, and its ships go outward from 
 ■and backward to the heart of the nation which, with its tele¬ 
 graphic wires, transmits the nervous influence that guides the 
 =sensory and voluntary motions of commerce. The changes thus 
 produced have been so great that old merchants find their past 
 experience is of little value to their sons. The great highway 
 • of commerce to the East had been round the Cape of Good 
 Hope since the discovery of that route by Vasco da Gama in 
 1498. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, a few years 
 •before the present depression began, twisted commerce out of 
 its old form, destroying at the same time the capital invested in 
 ; sailing ships. The Suez Canal became a great spout through 
 which was poured in two directions the merchandise of the 
 two hemispheres, just as duplex telegraphy sends opposite 
 messages through one wire at the same time. The traffic on 
 Indian railways increased marvellously in consequence of this 
 
6 
 
 quick outlet, for in ten years, from 1876 to 1886, the volume of 
 traffic trebled, while the average traffic per mile doubled. The 
 substitution of a double voyage of sixty days for one of seven or 
 eight months altered the whole system of commerce, rendering 
 useless the huge warehouses for the storage of goods, and costly 
 foreign agents to obtain supplies. The producer and the con¬ 
 sumer, at the two ends of an electric wire, could make their 
 arrangements within an hour. This speedy interchange of 
 views demanded a quicker and more economical means, of 
 transit by sea and land; and scientific invention has so im¬ 
 proved these that the whole system of markets has been 
 altered. To a great extent national markets have been destroyed, 
 because the world has become the one market for all nations. 
 The increased economy of transit has necessarily lowered 
 prices. Every ton of coal now carries thirty-two times more 
 cargo than it did a few years since. In the best compound 
 locomotives two ounces of coal will move a ton of cargo one 
 mile; and half that quantity will move, in our best steamers, 
 a ton of cargo and its proportion of the ship for two miles. 
 After all, this is only about two-tenths of the potential power 
 which exists in the coal. Take an instance of the effect of this 
 on commerce. A sack of flour can be moved from Minneapolis, 
 in the United States, down to the seaboard, 1,400 miles away, 
 be sent by steamer to Liverpool, at a total cost for transport of 
 less than ninepence upon the bushel of wheat. The British 
 working man, when he buys a four pound quartern loaf made 
 of American flour, may reflect with astonishment that it has 
 been brought four or five thousand miles at a cost for transit of 
 one halfpenny. It is not in economy of fuel alone, but also in 
 the economy of labour that modern invention has produced this 
 astonishing result. When the depression began in 1873, the 
 number of hands required for 1,000 tons of shipping in thi& 
 country was forty-seven; it is now reduced to twenty-seven. 
 In other words, by labour-saving contrivances at sea and in the 
 port, the same quantity of work can be done with 70 per cent., 
 less manual labour. This explains the fact that while our 
 mercantile marine, between 1870 and 1880, increased its foreign 
 entrances and clearances by 22,000,000 tons, it decreased the 
 men employed by 3,000. 
 
 The general result of these changes in distribution has been 
 that all countries of the world have been brought into a common 
 market to compete for the margins of profit. 
 
 The agriculture of this country was the first great industry 
 to suffer by the changed conditions. It is still one of the few 
 
7 
 
 industries of a domestic character which remain in this country. 
 The farmers rather glory in this independence and want of 
 combination. At the same time they have to meet, in their 
 isolation, the competition of land cultivators in other countries, 
 who carry on their industries in enlarged combinations, and with 
 the use of machinery of the newest character, not only for the 
 growth, but also for the harvesting, handling, milling, and trans¬ 
 port of the grain and other products of the farm. Without this 
 combination and mechanical advantage, the United States could 
 not now grow 35 per cent, more food stuffs than they did 
 in 1870, allowing for their large increase of population. The 
 harvesting of this grain would require 160,000 labourers in 
 order to cut and bind the wheat, had not this labour been 
 substituted by self-binding reaping machines. The old mills 
 with grindstones could not have converted it into flour ; but, by 
 steel rollers and other improvements, more than three times the 
 quantity of flour can be got with the labour of fewer men. The 
 American millers now come into direct contact with their 
 customers, because, instead of sending over 200 lbs. of flour in 
 barrels or sacks, they pack it up in neat bags of 2£ lbs. or 5 lbs., 
 to suit small purchasers. By this means they get a larger price; 
 for while the 359 lbs. of flour got from a quarter of wheat sells 
 at 56s., the wheat itself, from 1882 to 1886, only produced 
 33s. 9d. Our farmers know these facts, but they are conserva¬ 
 tive in their ideas, and prefer to see the mills shut up rather 
 than abandon their old modes of work. It is not with the United 
 States alone that our farmers have now to compete, for new 
 markets have arisen in Canada, South America, India, Australia, 
 New Zealand, Egypt, and Russia. All kinds of food are subjected 
 to the same competition. Eresh meat, in various stages of pre¬ 
 paration, is imported from the United States, the Argentine 
 Republic, New Zealand, and Australia. This importation is 
 rendered profitable, because the live stock is dealt with by large 
 combinations of producers. The live animals are killed by 
 thousands, their carcases properly cooled, every part of the offal 
 converted into industrial commodities, while the fresh meat is 
 transported in refrigerating cars to the coast, and then put into 
 cooling chambers on board the steamers. 
 
 Mr. Tallerman has lately shown, in a useful lecture, that it 
 would be easy to apply this system in the home markets. Oxen 
 sent alive by railway and driven to the butcher’s are stated to 
 lose 24 lbs. in weight by three days’ travel. County slaughter 
 houses, conducted on a manufacturing system, provided with 
 proper cooling chambers, and with appliances for the utilisation 
 
8 
 
 of the offal, might promote a dead meat market, which would 
 lessen the need for foreign importation. Perhaps new county 
 government may lead to these appliances. Unless the competition 
 is met in this way, it is likely to increase, because the weight ot 
 meat products is less than that of grain, the same area of land 
 producing in live stock only a sixth the weight of cereal food. 
 Even at present the value of imported dead meat of various 
 kinds amounts to above thirteen and a quarter millions sterling. 
 Our farmers have recently begun to attempt combination 
 in a small way with dairy produce. It is full time that they 
 should do so, when butter and butter substitutes, which are 
 really true butters made from the ox, instead of from the cow, 
 are imported to the extent of eleven to twelve millions. Foreign 
 cheese is imported to the extent of four to five millions sterling; 
 poultry and eggs of the value of between three and four millions. 
 Condensed milk, obtained by simple evaporation, comes to us 
 from the Continent to the extent of twenty-five millions of cans. 
 It is neither the climate, nor the soil, which stands in the way 
 of our successful competition in food products. The soil gives 
 nearly double the produce of grain that it does, on the average, 
 in the United States, and the climate, though variable, is 
 admirably adapted for a combined system of pastoral and 
 agricultural industry. The age of domestic manufactures is 
 past, and English agriculture has now come under the common 
 law of production. The conditions under which its products 
 can be manufactured by combination and machinery have 
 been established, and are in themselves easy in application. 
 Creameries, butter factories, and cheese factories abroad succeed 
 because they are conducted under manufacturing organisation, 
 and not by isolated domestic producers. The farmers in the 
 United States who have entered into these combinations get 
 about double for their produce that they do on the individual 
 system of sale, and yet compete with our home producers. It 
 is true that certain qualities of products may best be obtained 
 in isolated farms. Thus, cheese in Somersetshire of the highest 
 quality may fetch 80s. per cwt., when factory cheese sells for 
 60s.; but the great bulk of the consumers content themselves with 
 the lower quality, just as machine lace suits most people, while 
 Brussels hand-made lace still preserves its position among the 
 rich. Farmers have been told by their leaders that a tax upon 
 food is now altogether outside practical politics, so they must 
 abandon the hope of relief through protective duties. There 
 need not, however, be discouragement for the future of their 
 great industry, if they would recognise the fact that they, like 
 
9 
 
 farmers abroad, must act in combination, and cease, for the bulk 
 ■of their produce, to carry on domestic production as isolated 
 individuals. 
 
 In prosperous times few inventions or improvements are made, 
 while in bad times they arise quickly. Let us hope that we 
 shall not continue to spend not much less than seventy millions 
 annually on foreign food, when, by combination and modern 
 machinery, much of this could be produced at home. 
 
 I now pass to the consideration of the economical application 
 •of machinery and of inventions upon manufacturing industries. 
 The quantity and quality of products have been greatly altered, 
 and this, coming at a time when the means of distribution be- 
 -came so extended and cheapened, produced a surplus of com¬ 
 modities beyond the immediate wants of the world, and, as a 
 surplus determines price, lowered that for every staple’com¬ 
 modity. As the margin of profit became less, a demand for 
 greater economy in production arose, so that machines were in¬ 
 vented to produce with the minimum of human labour By 
 these inventions a great amount of old forms of labour were 
 ■displaced, and higher forms came into demand. I have given 
 illustrations of this displacement of labour in an article in the 
 March number of the Contemporary Review, to which I refer 
 those who desire details on this subject. Sometimes the dis¬ 
 placement of labour is enormous, as when the cotton-cun worked 
 by one man m its most improved form, does the work of one 
 thousand manual labourers; or, when the bobbin-net machine 
 
 handTw TK Ve a SiX tI r sa “ dfoU S^ter production than 
 S' J i. T l0S ^ - are extreme ^stances of replacement of 
 mark to nut ft hat il would he probably below the 
 
 thirfJtV * dls P lace “ e l nt . an average, since 1873, from 
 tlrnty to fifty per cent, of hand labour. Every invention nro- 
 duces social change and dislocation of labour. The application 
 of the invention demands higher intelligence in labour so he 
 labourers of low intelligence g°o to the wall, and we are fam.liar 
 with them under the name of the “unemployed.” These Hock 
 to London, and find it still more difficult than in the provinces 
 •to obtain employment for their unskilled labour; so they Worn! 
 an incubus on the metropolis 7 become 
 
10 
 
 quality. The labour of quantity is little more than bruter 
 animal force, which is continually decreasing in value as a factor 
 of production. The labour of quality, or labour carried on and 
 directed by skilled intelligence, is rising in value as the second 
 factor of production. As invention advances, the steam-engine 
 in the basement of the factory pushes aside the labour of 
 quantity, or the brute animal force, while the men, women, and 
 children upstairs supply the labour of quality, which requires 
 observation and intelligence, qualities which have not yet been 
 imparted to machinery. In a few exceptional cases, a machine- 
 may become nearly automatic, like the cotton-mule, which leaves 
 little for intelligence, though a good deal for observation in< 
 catching and mending the broken threads. All machinery, in 
 fact all inventions, tend to progress from complexity to simplicity r 
 Remember Charles Lamb’s story of Hoti and roast pig. The 
 division of labour in tending a machine is apt to be condensed or 
 simplified, and therefore the workmen require a superior and 
 versatile intelligence to be able to adapt themselves to the 
 changes which constantly arise in the economy of labour. The 
 inspectors of factories, in their last report, mourn the fact that 
 children are lessening in the factories. To me this is a subject 
 of rejoicing, as it indicates an advance in the social condition of 
 the people. From the beginning of the 1874 depression, children 
 in textile factories have decreased by 34,000, but, on the other 
 hand, the adults have increased by 65,000. The labour now 
 requires more skill and intelligence than uneducated children 
 can give to it. 
 
 I need scarcely tell you that this cold-blooded discussion in 
 regard to labour of quantity and labour of quality gives little 
 sympathy to the unemployed. Science is essentially colourless 
 and impersonal. Since I began my addresses on the subject of 
 the depression, I have received many letters from unemployed 
 labourers. They tell me that their lamentable condition is due 
 to machinery, and some of them have proposed that I should 
 organise, and even become a president of, a European association 
 for the destruction of machinery ! They point out that the un¬ 
 employed armies of Europe might be used for this purpose with 
 economy and advantage to labour. Ah! gentlemen, do not 
 laugh, these labourers of quantity are in this condition because 
 they have no educated intelligence, and until they obtain it, 
 many of our people must remain low in the scale of civilisation, 
 for they do not possess that labour of quality which is essential 
 to give them entrance into the new forms of production. 
 Labour may be displaced so rapidly that the industries of a 
 
11 
 
 nation may actually perish. You recollect that the Moors were- 
 wonderfully intelligent labourers, skilled in science and art, and 
 they raised Spain to be the envy of European nations. The In¬ 
 quisition, in the time of Philip III., insisted that they should be 
 expelled as heretics from Spain, and they were banished in a 
 barbarous manner. They had been excellent cultivators of the 
 soil, and expert artificers. On the expulsion of the Moors, the 
 cultivation of rice, cotton, sugar, and the manufacture of 
 cotton, wool, and silk goods rapidly dwindled. The 16,000 
 silk-looms of Seville fell to 300. Toledo had 40,000 workmen 
 engaged in silk industries, and lost their labour. Burgos, 
 the most famous town for manufactures, continued to exist only 
 in name. The labour of quality had been displaced from Spain 
 by the ruthless expulsion of the Moriscoes, and nothing remained 
 but the labour of quantity. The result may be given in the : 
 words of Eroude:—“The Spaniard’s intellect shrivelled in his 
 brain, and the sinews shrank in their self-bandaged limbs.” 
 This was the cause of England developing into a manufacturing 
 nation, for our manufactures expanded as those of Spain con¬ 
 tracted. The cotton industry had been introduced into Spain 
 as early as the tenth century. It practically passed over to 
 England on account of the great political crime of the seventeenth 
 century. It has been the good fortune of this country to benefit 
 by the political crimes against liberty committed by other 
 nations. The expelled Elemish Protestants and the French- 
 Huguenots developed our woollen and silk industries. A feeling 
 is growing, especially in the metropolis, against the importation 
 of foreign labour, but we ought to watch this with jealousy, 
 even though a committee is now engaged with its consideration 
 in the House of Commons. In the historical cases, which I have 
 cited, foreign countries suffered because they displaced their 
 skilled, intelligent labour. Our late depressions have resulted, 
 from the very opposite cause, that unintelligent labour has been 
 displaced, while skilled labour remains in employment. There 
 are rare exceptions to this statement. Thus Bessemer’s steel 
 substituted the use of bar iron, and 39,000 skilled producers of 
 that manufacture lost their employment; but because they were 
 skilled, they quickly became absorbed into the new industry. 
 More usually when industries decline in this country, as in the 
 case of the silk trade, the reason is that the manufacturers have 
 not kept up the labour of quality in competition with foreign- 
 countries. Thus when Coventry, Macclesfield, and Spitalfields 
 were declining in silk manufactures, Basle, in Switzerland, and 
 Crefeld, in Germany, were rising, because they established com- 
 
] 2 
 
 plete systems of technical education for their artisans. When 
 we have enterprising manufacturers- like Lister of Bradford, with 
 technical schools such as they have in that town, the silk in¬ 
 dustry maintains its ground. 
 
 The effect of inventions upon the rate of wages of labourers 
 is decidedly to raise the wages of those who are able to carry on 
 the industry under the new conditions. Machine hands are 
 better paid ; manual labourers are worse paid. Mr. Lakeman’s 
 recent report on female labour in London shows this in a strik¬ 
 ing way, though it is true universally. The factory workers are 
 both better paid, better cared for, and more moral than manual 
 workers carrying on the same trade without machinery. Wages 
 depend a good deal upon the social condition and wants of a 
 community. Machine-producing countries give high wages to 
 their workmen, but the products made represent in exchange 
 much more labour than in countries which depend on manual 
 labour. Thus, one day’s wage of an English workman will buy 
 as much coffee in Java as could be produced by forty days’ 
 labour; as much tea in China as cost seventy days’ labour; as 
 much sugar in Cuba, or hemp in Manilla, as is equivalent to 
 seventeen days’ labour; and as much wool in South America as 
 -equals seven days’ labour. High wages in machine factories mean 
 a low cost of production, and low wages in hand industries 
 mean high cost of production. Take as an illustration the 
 manufacture of watches by machinery. A skilled girl can earn 
 36s. or more weekly, by putting the wheel into watch cases. 
 She can insert 1,600 daily (having to handle four pieces in each 
 operation—the wheel, two washers, and the pinion wire). The 
 whole watch consists of fifty-eight pieces, requiring 370 single 
 operations. All the workers have high wages, but the watch 
 is sold at only ten shillings. In England the wages of working 
 men are higher and their hours of work less than those of similar 
 industries on the Continent; though at the same time they produce 
 cheaper things. If we compare the wages of our skilled mechanics 
 with those of the United States which manufactures under 
 heavy protective tariffs, there is little reason to regret our position, 
 -and none at all to attribute our lower rate of wages, as compared 
 with America, to Free Trade. In these two countries the social 
 wants and condition of the people are nearly identical. If the 
 people chose to go back to the time of leather breeches and 
 coarse fustians, and were content to live in rude huts without 
 window panes, their wages would be small, but they would be 
 •earned with a much simpler trade organisation. In the United 
 •States, and in the United Kingdom, the social demands are high, 
 
13 
 
 and so are wages. The increase of average wages for mechanics 
 in the former country between 1850 and 1886 is stated to be- 
 9s. weekly; while in the United Kingdom it has been 8s. 5d. 
 As the necessaries of life are not taxed in this country, the- 
 purchasing power of the lower sum makes our increase the 
 greatest. Between this period Mr. Atkinson has shown that the- 
 common labourers can buy 66 per cent., factory operatives 78 
 per cent., and skilled mechanics 90 per cent, more of the 
 necessaries of life with a single day’s wage. The Bureau of Labour 
 gives the average weekly wage of the American mechanic at 
 43s. 4d., as compared with 29s. lOd. for the English mechanic. 
 In both countries food can be obtained for the year by 
 the same effort—viz., 113 days for the British workman, 
 and 114 days for the American. In this respect both 
 are in a better position than workers on the Continent, as it 
 requires the wages of 120 days in France, 133 in Belgium, and 
 150 in Germany to obtain food for the family. If working¬ 
 men are good at their craft, there is no doubt that high wages 
 mean cheap things and low wages mean dear things. If it were 
 not so, how could it happen that with wages 84 per cent, higher 
 in England than the average for the whole of the Continent, the 
 general cost of production in this country is at least 30 per 
 cent, less ? If this were not so, England would cease to be 
 the great trading nation of the world. The explanation of this 
 is, that the use of steam machinery in this country is 117 per 
 eent. greater than on the Continent. If we are to continue this 
 prosperity it must be by raising the amount of the labour of 
 quality, which can only be done by giving to workers a trained 
 intelligence in regard to their work. 
 
 In the observations which have preceded I desired to con¬ 
 vince you that the continued depression of fifteen years has 
 nothing whatever to do with our Free Trade policy. The real 
 cause may be summed up in a single sentence—that the world 
 has not yet accommodated itself to the wonderful changes 
 which science has produced in the modes of production and in 
 the exchanges of commerce. If you accept this conclusion, I 
 have little to say in regard to Free Trade, the principles of which 
 you understand as well as I do. England, for the last fifteen 
 years, has had her share, but- not more than her share, in the 
 depression produced by this transition of trade. Her unem¬ 
 ployed have been fewer, and her labour disturbances or strikes 
 much less frequent and acute than in the United States with 
 its policy of Protection. The reason for the difference is that 
 our Free Trade policy leads to a large export trade, which 
 
14 
 
 •carries off the surplus of manufactures; while the Protective 
 policy of the United States limits her exports to a great extent 
 to food stuffs, and prevents her manufactures meeting us m the 
 markets of the world. Notwithstanding this fact, the United 
 States is really a great manufacturing nation, with a population 
 industrious, educated, and inventive; but her fiscal policy 
 •cramps her development. She tries to compete with us in 
 foreign markets, though with small results. In China, English 
 imports amount to 28 per cent, of its total imports; those of the 
 United States to 4 per cent. To South American States we 
 ;send from 28 to 39 per cent, of their imports; while the 
 United States sends only 7 per cent. Even to Japan, though 
 : o-eo»raphically so well placed on the Pacific, the United States 
 sends 7 per cent, and England 43 per cent, of the imports. 
 The tariff wall is so high in the United States, that their own 
 •exporters get over it with difficulty; while, in spite of its height, 
 ■our merchants send into that country nine times more manu¬ 
 factured goods than she sends to us, although our ports are free. 
 The prosperity of the United States consists in her immense 
 territory, with its rapidly increasing population, which has 
 jealously preserved internal free trade throughout all her thirty- 
 eight States, though she shuts out external trade by high 
 protective duties. The absurdity of this system in America is 
 its assertion of the principle that scarcity is better than 
 abundance in its dealings with foreign States. The wealth of 
 nations as well as of individuals is described in the Proverbs :— 
 “ There is that scattereth and yet increaseth; and there is that 
 withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.” In 
 one sense I am sorry to say the people on the other side of 
 the Atlantic are coming to our view of Free Trade more rapidly 
 than is for the interest of England. Let me quote from the 
 speech of Mr. Hurd at the Free Trade Congress in Chicago:— 
 “You ask the reason that so many workmen are out of em¬ 
 ployment. Why, because our mills are idle from there being 
 no demand, and this absence of a demand results from the 
 so-called over-production, which is only another term for ‘ no 
 export markets/ caused by the absence of foreign trade, which 
 the selfishness of protected manufacturers prevent.” One more 
 quotation only, and it is from the late Secretary Manning, of the 
 Treasury at Washington. He is still more pithy:— £< While our 
 tariff incumbers with clumsy help a few thousand employers, it 
 has trodden down the millions of wage-earners.” The whole 
 truth lies in this, that the policy of the United States retains 
 the market for its own 60,000,000 of people, and loses the 
 
5 
 
 markets for the world’s population of 1,400,000,000. Some of 
 her industries, like those of cotton and wool, are already pro¬ 
 ducing a surplus which the home market cannot absorb. They 
 will soon pass to the side of Free Trade. Let us get ready for the 
 fierce competition which will follow when the scales fall from 
 the eyes of our kinsmen on the other side of the Atlantic. You 
 will readily comprehend from my argument in what manner we 
 must prepare to keep our position in the increasing struggle of 
 nations. We must give more of a trained intelligence to our 
 producers, intelligence to the rank and file, high technical educa¬ 
 tion to the officers of our industrial armies. What is technical 
 ■education? It is simply the rationale of expert empiricism. 
 We must convert, as much as we can do, labour of quantity into 
 labour of quality. We now know with tolerable certainty 
 the conditions which produce low wages, and those which 
 produce high wages. Our interest as a nation is to aim at the 
 latter. What class of labourers produce dear things ? They 
 are ignorant labourers with faint ambition, who are badly 
 housed, badly clothed and fed, who have few pleasures of the 
 mind, and who trust to the Poor Law to stand between them 
 and starvation. These are the labourers who are content to 
 work for low wages ; but the product of their labour is low and 
 its cost is high. What class of workmen produce cheap 
 things ? They are the working men of technical skill and 
 trained intelligence who seek more education for themselves 
 and children, because they know that it both dignifies and 
 fructifies their labour. They are men who by combination have 
 raised their position and shortened their hours of labour, so that 
 they may enjoy some of the pleasures as well as take their 
 share in the toil of the world. They hate the workhouse as 
 much as they hate that kingdom over which the devil is 
 supposed to reign. Their wages are high, but so is their pro¬ 
 ductiveness, and consequently they give us our cheap things. 
 They are the men who are the props of our industries. Though 
 their wages are high, they are cheap at the price. Protection 
 is not a force to raise wages. If it were they should be high on 
 the Continent of Europe. The interest of a labourer is to sell 
 his labour dear and to buy his commodities cheap. Protection 
 enhances the price of the latter; but how can this benefit the 
 labourer? Though the labourer does not gain by Protection, 
 the monopolist does, and it is he who is encouraged and over¬ 
 remunerated by high tariffs. England has abolished monopolies 
 and refused to support privileged classes by taxation. She is 
 a country small in area and limited in population, but great in 
 
productive energies. She is a world-wide trader, because her 
 manufacturers can barter on advantageous terms with other 
 nations which seek her free ports for the disposal of their com¬ 
 modities, and are forced to accept English goods in exchange. 
 The industrial prosperity of England is as much due to com* 
 mercial freedom as the social condition of her people is due to 
 their political liberties. 
 
 “ For what avail the plough or sail, 
 
 Or land, or life, if freedom fail. ” 
 
 The Liberal and Radical Printing and Publishing Company, 
 83, Farringdon Street, London, E.C.