Protection Under the Guise of Free-Trade as Practised by Great Britain and Ireland Compared With Protection as Practised by the United States of America (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from Protection Under the Guise of Free-Trade as Practised by Great Britain and Ireland Compared With Protection as Practised by the United States of AmericaLord salisbury, when addressing the Chamber of Com merce in Manchester on the 17th of October last, as reported by the London Morning Post, said, Everywhere we see arising around us a thick wall of protection cutting off the ave nues of commerce. This increase in protection is due not only to faulty theories. If that were the case we might hope that the Spreading of a sounder doctrine and the increase of communications would induce people and governments to give up theories of which the hollowness has been proved. The real cause of the increase of protective duties is the establish ment of those great military forces which are increasing every year in every one of the larger countries of this hemisphere, which constitute a permanent drain on' the forces of industry, a prominent danger to the interests of commerce, and which impose upon the governments which feel themselves bound to maintain these forces the necessity of finding some way that shall not too heavily gall the interests and susceptibilities of the people. After expressing his surprise that more enlightened doctrines have not hitherto had some effect on legislation, he went on to say that it was a matter of extreme surprise that the great agricultural country of the world - the United States consents to submit, for the sake of some portions of its citizens, to so heavy and specious a voluntary taxation.One must be in somewhat of a playful humor after reading these remarks, and, therefore, I beg of you to remember that it was to a Manchester audience Lord Salisbury was speaking. What could have been more appropriate than the lamentation uttered by Her Majesty's principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs? What less could he have done than to show somesympathy for his audience in their distress? Trade has been dull! Mills have been idle! Capital unproductive! They needed consolation. What he said seems strange to us, but no one can doubt his sincerity. But was he not surrounded by men thoroughly persuaded in their own minds, for at least thirty years past, that free trade was to produce universal peace yet he was proclaiming to them that during its reign standing armies had grown enormously, and that protection was a con sequence. Why did he not go a little farther and show them that free trade, an enormous navy, and not an inconsiderable army, were moving harmoniously together under the ¿ag of Great Britain And was it altogether accidental that he omit ted the very apt illustration, to strengthen his position, that the United States, under a protective system, was as nearly as pos sible without a navy or an army? Moreover, he said nothing about the colonies of England - why omit them - peopled by her own sons, educated in her own schools, but all wedded, in spite of their education, to the fatal system, as he regards it, and which, in his opinion, must work their ruin, although all these communities are agricultural, all without standing armies, all peacefully pursuing their highest happiness, in great prosperity. Yet he turns most affectionately towards the United States with an expression of extreme surprise that all her people should consent to be taxed for the benefit of a portion of them, and adds, I cannot help thinking that the time will come when the farmers of the United States will prefer cheap cotton to dear, and also cheap iron, and when that time comes the United States will enter upon a sound policy of fiscal and commercial legislation. But, he adds, with regard to the other coun tries of the world, I have no such immediate hope.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com