the womb of the future. Free traders renounce all logic and facts when discussing their favorite dogma: they are, indeed, the most disingenuous of arguers. I declare, that, as constantly as I have heard the subject discussed, I never once heard a free trader have the honesty to attribute the increased trade of the world in general, and of England as part of it, to its true causes, viz., the vast increase in the circulating medium and the general application of steam, but always to what they choose to call free trade. To ignore these illimitable agencies, and to ascribe all progress to the pigmy efforts of a small school of political economists in England, is to reverse the old proverb, and to imagine the mouse bringing forth the mountain. "The increased foreign commerce of England, during the last twenty years, is attributed to her free trade policy; and we are led, by implication, to understand that she is the only nation that has advanced in commercial activity during that period; that whilst she has been advancing, the rest of the world has stood still. "Free traders point with triumph to our Board of Trade returns of exports and imports, and exclaim, triumphantly, This is our doing; but they ignore the fact- it cannot be through ignorance that the Board of Trade returns in France, Switzerland, Prussia, Belgium, and Austria, show results far more satisfactory, a proportionate increase of trade far exceeding our own. "It is not England alone that has increased her trade during the last twenty years: the whole of Europe and America, with some trifling exceptions, have increased theirs far more rapidly than we have. Take France, for instance, as being our nearest neighbor, and compare her wealth and commercial position now with what it was twenty years ago, and it will at once be granted that, however great may be the blessings of free trade, sound progress is not incompatible with the strictest protection; and the bullion in the Bank of France is now, in 1869, forty-seven millions, - twenty-seven millions higher than it was in 1844, and sixteen millions higher than in 1853: the bullion in the Bank of England is seventeen millions, two millions higher than in 1844, three millions less than in 1853! "In France, in 1868, the exports and imports balanced within twenty millions. In England, the excess of imports was over sixty millions and in 1869 it will, in all probability, reach one hundred millions. "The increased commerce of the world has been caused by the increased circulation of gold and the increased facilities of communication by land and sea: it never has been and never can be affected by paltry legislation, either in one direction or the other. Local legislation, like that which has made England a free port, may affect the trade of England, but to suppose it will materially influence the commerce of the world would be preposterous; it is only our national bumptiousness that renders the idea possible. All the nations of the world have increased their commerce, they under the strictest principle of protection, we alone under what we call free trade. To attribute our progress to free trade is just as absurd as to attribute theirs to protection. It might be more fairly said, we have all progressed in spite of both. Neither system has had more than an infinitesimal effect by the side of the great agencies that have brought about this result." Similar views, but more condensely stated, had been before expressed by Mr. Bigelow in his Tariff Question, which evidently had not been seen by Sir Edward Sullivan. It is instructive to observe how these two writers corroborate each other. After giving tables exhibiting the increase of British exports, Mr. Bigelow says: "The chief causes of this large increase of British exports are undoubtedly to be found outside of the tariff laws. That they are causes of general application, is shown by the fact, that Great Britain was not alone in this experience of prosperity. The foreign trade of France, under a tariff highly protective, increased, during the same period, in a ratio greater than that of England; and the United States, with a tariff moderately protective, had a commercial record equally advantageous, as may be seen by the following comparative statement: - "In accounting for this recent and great expansion of commerce, two causes especially suggest themselves: "First, The influence of applied sciences in augmenting the means of production; an influence which is constantly becoming more extensive and efficient. "Secondly, The greatly increased supply of gold. "This is pre-eminently an age of progress. Useful inventions in the mechanic arts, and important discoveries in science, are of almost daily occurrence. Countless improvements in existing machines, and in the methods and processes of production, are continually enlarging the ability to produce, — multiplying articles of consumption, and thus, of necessity, swelling the great currents of trade. 6 "The annual produce of gold, which, prior to 1848, was $50,000,000, has, since 1853, amounted to nearly $150,000,000. The effect of this treble supply of gold,' says Mr. Tooke, 'has been to set in motion and sustain a vast and increasing number of causes, all conducing to augment the real wealth and resources of the world, by stimulating trade, enterprise, discovery, and production.' "While these are causes of general application, which operate with more or less effect in all commercial countries, there can be no doubt that they exert a peculiar power in England. This is an advantage which she owes to her superior capital and skill, and to her well-established system of production, and her widely extended business relations. These enable her to apply, readily and efficiently, to her productive means, every new improvement, and to meet with promptness every new demand; while under the all-controlling laws of commercial attraction, her position, as manufacturer for half the globe, draws to her vaults the larger part of the gold." These views are confirmed by McCulloch, who says, in his Dictionary, edition of 1859: "It would be difficult to exaggerate the advance that has been made in commerce, and in most sorts of industry, and the improvement in the condition of society that has taken place, during the last seven years. A considerable portion of this advance is no doubt due to the discovery of the Californian and Australian gold-fields." The same causes had increased the manufactures and exports of England during the most brilliant period of her older commercial history. In the sixth and seventh years of Elizabeth, the woollen manufacture of England had so much increased, that the export of woollen goods to Antwerp alone, according to Camden, amounted to £750,000; and the whole value of the exports, in 1564, was £1,200,000,- all fabricated from English wool. The vigor of the woollen trade, the only textile manufacture then established in England, is attributed by Smith, a very high authority, in his celebrated memoirs of wool, to the abundance of gold and silver, in consequence of the recent discovery of South America. In the chapter on free trade and free ports, Sir Edward Sullivan exposes the absurdity of the first canon of free trade, that "each nation should supply to the world's market what it produces best and cheapest, and should resign to other nations those industries in which it is not so strong." He observes, that it would not be difficult to prove, that as capital and science become more general, and the natural resources of different countries are more fully developed, there will be scarcely a single article of manufacture that will not be produced as cheap by some one nation or other, as in England. And he pertinently inquires: "If this ever takes place, even partially, is England to sacrifice her existence to her theory, and abandon all, or a portion of her industries, because she cannot produce quite so cheaply as her neighbors? Is she to sink into the position of a manufacturing country absolutely without manufactures?" He proceeds to show what are the actual results to the workpeople of England, with dear food, dear clothing, dear houserent, and a double rate of wages, of unrelieved competition, with the work-people of other nations, whose superior advantages, more economical and thrifty habits, and a fostering home support, enable them to undersell the English. The distress of the English operatives, who have been pushed out of their home market by foreign competition, is shown by the increasing crime and pauperism of the country. "The pauperism and crime of the country," says Sir Edward, "are increasing so rapidly, that we must look the difficulty in the face, and try to mitigate it, or we must shut our eyes and ears, and let destruction come upon us; at the rate they are now increasing, this need not be very long. In the year 1853, fifteen years ago, the amount expended in actual relief of the poor was under five millions; in 1868 it was seven and a half millions, an increase of fifty per cent in fifteen years. Nearly the whole of this increase, and also the increase of crime, has been in the manufacturing districts." He continues : - "The manufacturing districts are depressed as they never have been before; and any one who will visit them may see by evidence that cannot lie, by smokeless chimneys, by closed shops, by crowded poorhouses and glutted jails, by crowds of squalid idlers, that the distress is real. Take the one single fact that the consumption of cotton goods in England has fallen off 35 per cent in three years! Can any fact afford stronger proof of the poverty and depression of our operative classes? Cotton constitutes the greater proportion of the clothing of the lower orders; when, therefore, the consumption of cotton falls away, it is proof positive that the working classes are taking less clothing. "Those who wish to learn the present condition of affairs must not consult the wealthy political leaders of the manufacturing districts, — men who have realized their wealth, and to a great extent have converted their workshops into farms. They are land-owners, not manufacturers, -consumers rather than producers, and they can afford to see trade leaving their districts without danger or alarm. "No: they must go amongst the workers, the managers, and active owners of manufactories, amongst men whose capital is still at stake, amongst the operatives, the small shopkeepers and householders who crowd the manufacturing districts. You do not hear so much of the present manufacturing depression at Manchester, where an immense proportion of the wealth is realized, invested in lands or in the 3 per cents, and where the fortunate owners have abandoned the struggling existence of trade for the more brilliant life of politics. It is amongst smaller men and less fortunate districts that the real suffering and distress is witnessed, amongst the small and moderate capitalists still struggling, striving, disappointed. Manchester represents the past, not the present, condition of the manufacturing industries; it is in Bolton, Wigan, Stockport, Oldham, Preston, Coventry, Nottingham, Macclesfield, not in Manchester, that the true tale of sorrow and ruin is heard. You must read the never-ending and still-increasing lists of failures and bankruptcies that decimate every trade and industry in the country. Never in the history of England has that portion of the commercial class, that depends on home consumption and home prosperity, been so depressed, despondent, and ruined! Never has home consumption been at such a low ebb in every article consumed by the working classes. It is not cotton only that is depressed; cotton is, comparatively, flourishing: it is every trade and every industry that is |