32 CHAPTER II. FREE TRADE AND THE EQUABLE PROGRESS OF LABOUR. "... Being, in fact, consistent in nothing excepting in his obstinate determination to follow the opinion he had once formed, in every situation of things and through all variety of risks."-Sir WALTER SCOTT (character of Charles the Bold). COBDEN'S FREE TRADE REDUCED TO A SYSTEM OF FREE IMPORTS INTO § 3. The results of unequal competition.-Now it is a matter of the first importance to recognise the course which our whole trade has taken, and is taking, under the supposed benign influence of a system of free imports. For it is to this that the full operation of free trade, as now practised, amounts. We are not blessed with that universal free trade which Cobden their own. It may also be remarked that the surroundings of their various industries varied greatly, and that out of the disturbance induced by a change in their mutual commercial policy, the predominant manufacturers of the one nation would secure a certain market in the other, while the latter would in exchange supply the former with an equivalent of corn. There would be a displacement of labour; but while the manufacturing country would monopolise the markets of their rivals, the latter, it was intended, should only be permitted to export just enough corn as would ensure "cheapness and abundance" to their foreign brother labourers. This was again and again maintained that by a free importation of corn, not a single acre of land would be thrown out of cultivation.1 But in spite of the opinion that both parties would be gainers by the change, and in spite of the apparent simplicity of the new policy, the neighbours of the freetraders came to the conclusion that the importance of home manufactures was very great; and therefore, instead of following in the paths of their "generous rivals, who were quite willing to take in return for their own goods the "natural" productions of a growing community, they not only maintained the existing duties, but in most instances increased them 1 “We have no reason to fear foreign competition (in corn) if restrictions are removed."—Cobden, p. 142. "I have never been one who believed that the repeal of the Corn Law would throw an acre of land out of cultivation."-P. 52. Cobden's attitude towards those who concluded differently to him: "These philosophers, so profoundly ignorant of what is immediately around them, but who meet us at every turn with prophecies of what is going to happen in the future, will tell us, forsooth, that free trade will throw their land out of cultivation, and deprive their labourers of employment.”—P. 63. But it will be offered in reply, that no matter the inequality, our free-trade merchants had the balance of advantages, in so far as they could produce at a cheaper rate. But to understand the gradually changing relations which take place between rival industries, you must closely watch their respective developments. It will then be seen that the protected industries have everything to assist them; their surrounding circumstances are favourable; they have a greater demand than they can at present supply: while the free-trade industries are in the meanwhile becoming trammelled by reason of the fact that "that artificial demand" which was made for them by legislation, and which was expected to become a "constant" demand, is gradually being removed from their grasp. But this is not the only obstacle which the free-trade merchant has to encounter. How far he has been re sponsible for the extensive growth of manufactures in other countries in his "eager endeavour" to destroy them, we need not here inquire. But there can scarce be a doubt that by affording his rivals such indirect assistance (and it has rapidly accumulated and assumed a serious magnitude), he has eventually, within a much shorter time, become the source of those trade difficulties with which at present he has to deal. And one of those difficulties is this: that the foreign manufacturer whose goods have improved and are improving now undersells him in his own market, after having in the first place wrested some external markets from him.1 1 1 (a) Sugar-refining industry; (b) iron and steel industries—rails, knives, razors (imported in the "rough" from the Continent and finished in Sheffield); (c) the carrying trade; (d) the silk trade; (e) the agricultural industry-wheat, butter, eggs, cheese, hops, &c. |