George Webb Medley

“ The fact is, that it is only in commodities that one nation can discharge the bulk of its debts to another nation, and that if the world owes us money, and makes us its carrier and its general merchant, we must take payment in commodities. And thus you see, at a stroke we get rid of that bugbear to some people, the thing commonly called the Balance of Trade, and which, as commonly understood, is a fallacious and misleading expression.
There is one country which at the present moment stands in marked contrast to us as regards the balance of her imports and exports. I mean the United States. ”

“ As you are all aware, Great Britain stands alone among the nations as a free-trading country. It is natural to inquire how this is the case, how it is that people, acute, thoughtful, and intelligent, as, for instance, the French, the Germans, and the Americans, cling to the doctrines of Protection, while we alone adhere to those of Free Trade? ”

“ For some time past incessant attacks have been made on our Free Trade policy. At first these attacks were made doubtingly, hesitatingly; but lately, speakers and writers have become emboldened, the banner of "Protection to Native Industry" has once more been unfurled, and the air resounds with cries for "Reciprocity or Retaliation." This is an astonishing phenomenon to those who understand and appreciate what Free Trade has done, and is doing, for this country. The most striking feature about the agitation is, to their minds, its extraordinary inopportuneness ”

“ It is commerce which is rapidly rendering war obsolete, by strengthening and multiplying the personal interests which are in opposition to it. And it may be said without exaggeration that the great extent and rapid increase of international trade, in being the principal guarantee of the peace of the world, is the great permanent security for the uninterrupted progress of the ideas, the institutions, and the character of the human race. ”

“ Until the immense and increasing excess of imports over exports, is considerably diminished, there can be no return of general prosperity. We may for a time draw upon our capital and our accumulated wealth, but for how long? If we cannot get as much for our goods as we are compelled to pay for foreign food, the deluge must be at hand. ”

“ The time they have chosen for galvanising the mummy of Protection is about the worst they could have selected. It is as if some man, undertaking to prove the extinction of the sun, were to choose as the best time for making his assertions and giving his proofs, not the midnight hour—when darkness reigns and seems to lend confirmation to his statements—but the dawn, just when the orb of day begins to brighten creation, and every moment brings with it an accession of light and heat, and serves to prove him either a cunning knave or the victim of a craze. ”

“ During all these years, England alone among the nations has maintained a system of free ports, the only changes in her fiscal policy being in the direction of greater freedom, while other nations, such as the United States, France, and Germany, have raised round themselves the barriers of prohibitory tariffs. With one exception, every conceivable economical condition that could constitute a test of the principles and practice of Free Trade has occurred, the one condition untried being universal Free Trade. ”

“ Let us call to mind why it is that Universal Free Trade is so beneficial. It is because a vital and energetic principle which political economists call "Co-operation of Labour" is brought into most efficient play. Free Trade in a natural manner causes each nation to produce those commodities which are most suitable to its soil, and to the circumstances and the genius of the inhabitants of the particular region; and to exchange the commodities thus produced for the products of other nations, who, in like manner, have their own peculiar advantages and industries. ”

“ Year by year we have more and more of the world's obligations in our strong box.
The fallacy under which our Neo-Protectionists labour lies in the terms "buying of the foreigner," "selling to the foreigner."
They fancy that our imports are what we "buy" and our exports what we "sell;" and, that as there is an excess of the former there is a balance of trade against us, which, somehow or other, out of our wealth, we have to liquidate, and that this process impoverishes the country. ”

“ I am happy to say that as regards Free Trade, these efforts have met with but little success, and that as time rolls on there is every reason to expect they will meet with still less. As, day by day, we get over one by one our commercial troubles, and, little by little, find ourselves emerging from a long protracted depression, it will be harder and harder for the advocates of Fair Trade, alias Protection, to delude the people into taxing their right hands a shilling, for the slender chance of getting back sixpence with their left. ”

“ Then let me ask, what would our Neo-Protectionists say if the products of our industry were annually exported to the extent of 411 millions, and we received back from the foreigner only 286 millions worth in exchange?
Look at the question in yet another light. How can it be otherwise than that our imports should exceed in value our exports? If a merchant export £100 worth of goods, and in exchange for them imports goods worth only £100, he must make a dead loss under the heads of freight, insurance, interest, and profits. ”

“ I do not for one moment deny that some of our interests have suffered. With those sufferings I warmly sympathise, but while I acknowledge them, and condole respecting them, I cannot be driven from the position I take up that the nation, as a whole, is prosperous, the mathematical proof of this being found in the fact that year by year, on the whole, we get in on balance commodities, bullion, and securities. ”

“ By buying silks and wines of France, we give her so much purchasing power in the world's markets, a power which, as her trade returns show—she is a large importer upon balance—she fully exercises. Well, if she spends the money she receives from you in those products of foreign countries which she requires, as we know she does, she thereby, in turn, confers on those countries a corresponding purchasing power, and they, in their turn, lay out the money so received among other nations, and, as we are the principal manufacturers, we get the principal share in the business. ”

“ There is not a single year, for the last twenty years, in which our imports have not exceeded our exports by at least 50 millions, the amount of the excess in the aggregate being something like 1,500 millions. And yet, at the end of this period, which comprises more than half the Free Trade epoch, and during which the country is said to have been getting rapidly impoverished, he makes out that we have in our strong box 2,000 millions of the world's obligations! ”

“ So far as I can make out, no one whose opinion is of any scientific value denies that if Free Trade were universal, it would be of infinite advantage to the human race. There are some among us, however, who maintain that partial Free Trade—such as that under which we now live—is prejudicial to the country which opens its ports to foreign productions, and beneficial to the country which, on the other hand, shuts out, as far as it can, by prohibitory duties, the commodities of other nations. ”

“ Our one-sided Free Trade has done all this for us, at all events. And no Protectionist nation can divest us of what we have thus got. And of the advantages we enjoy we cannot be deprived except in one way—by other nations becoming also Free Traders. ”

“ I want to know, in the third place, why our shipbuilders, who last year built 90 iron, and 160 wooden ships for the foreigner, are not to receive the price of those ships, and if so, how they are to be paid? I want to know, in the fourth place, why our merchants and bankers, who advance the capital by which our 700 millions of foreign commerce is put in motion, are not to receive the interest on their capital, and if so, how they are to be paid? ”

“ While, on the one hand, the Free Trader contemplates with satisfaction the position which his country has attained by her commercial policy, and appeals with confidence to the facts which abound on every side, and which, to his mind, verify to the fullest the theories he has embraced; on the other we find a school of neo-protectionists lamenting what seems to them to be the decadence of their country, and appealing also to facts which appear to them to bear out their views. ”

“ Now, having thus disposed of the Fair Trader's argument for taxing foreign manufactures, let me say a few words respecting his assertion that our excess of imports is to be considered the measure of our national loss. We now, on the average, import more than we export considerably over 100 millions' worth of commodities annually. We Free Traders say that instead of its being a loss to us, it is a profit to us, and that if we did not get in this excess of value we should be doing a very bad business indeed. ”

“ Why should the bare fact of our importing 411 millions of commodities in exchange for 286 millions be held, ipso facto, to involve a loss?
To get in more than one gives out seems, primâ facie, to ordinary minds, the only way of making a profit! It cannot be pretended that Great Britain stood indebted at the end of 1880 for the excess of imports. ”

“ If the foreigner taxes our manufactures, we are to tax his; if he admits our goods free, we are to admit his goods free. He contends that if we are compelled, in the first case, to keep out foreign goods, our workmen will step into the place thus left vacant, and supply our home market with these or similar goods. But, there are goods with which we cannot be supplied at home owing to disabilities of soil and climate, to say nothing of race, but which it is of actual necessity, or prime convenience, for us to obtain. ”

“ It is the interest of the community that the keenest competition should reign, so that energy, enterprise, and invention shall have full play, and shall work for the benefit of ourselves and the rest of mankind. ”

“ No one can get anything like a correct notion of what is going on between nation and nation until he has taken such matters as the following into account:—He must not only look at the bare figures of imports and exports, he must know the rules by which they are computed; and the rules differ in different countries. He must find out whether country A is lending capital to or buying the securities of country B, or whether the contrary is taking place; or whether A is paying off debt, or paying interest on loans and other securities to B ”

“ It never seems to strike them that if Protection be once started, it must be extended to all commodities, and embrace all interests. It never seems to strike them that to protect one interest to the exclusion of the rest, is to commit a gross injustice. It never seems to occur to them that the interests, or supposed interests, of a class may be incompatible with, or opposed to, the interests of the community ”

“ I would rather proceed to inquire how it is our own people cannot supply us with certain things which now come to us from abroad; for instance, French silks and French woollens. The simple fact is, of course, that from a variety of causes our manufacturers and workmen either cannot, or will not, supply us with these things. Whatever be the cause, I am not here tonight to point out the remedy, but, whatever that may ultimately turn out to be, no Free Trader will allow that it is to be found in taxing the foreign product. ”