Guilford L. Molesworth

“ Cannot you see that cheap food is dear if the causes of its cheapness deprive the labourer of that employment which enables him to purchase it? Cannot you see that, although a healthy competition stimulates production, a crushing competition in the end causes the rise of prices by the lessening of production?
Do you not know that, in the opinion of many political economists, dear food has been considered a cause of progress and prosperity to a nation, by stimulating its inhabitants to exertion and thrift,—notably so in the case of Holland? ”

“ Here too is a great, homogeneous people, one in blood, language, religion and laws, but disposed over a boundless space. We shall see that though it is held together by strong moral ties, it has little that can be called a constitution; no system that seems capable of resisting any severe shock. But if we are disposed to doubt whether any system can be devised capable of holding together communities so distant from each other, then is the time to recollect the history of the United States of America. ”

“ The natural result of poverty is sedition. The agricultural classes having no money to spend, all classes have suffered. Just now there is a cry for fostering manufactures in Ireland, but how many manufactures can you foster in which foreign competitors cannot undersell you in the streets of Dublin? If matters go on, they may perhaps eventually end in an attempted revolution, and if not put down with the strong arm of force, there will be a separation. How long in that case would Ireland, under the rule of her own people, allow America to drain away her wealth and prosperity? ”

“ Don’t you see that if we transferred a small portion of the tax on tea, sugar, coffee, &c., giving a preference to our dependencies in the case of wheat, we should not only encourage our home, but also our colonial, industries, which are trembling in the balance between existence and nonexistence for want of some slight fostering care.
You are like Nero fiddling while Rome was burning. You are fiddling with your Free Trade, whilst England is going to ruin.
How can it be otherwise? Unlimited foreign competition must necessarily end in disaster. ”

“ The only true and statesmanlike policy of a great nation like England is to pursue the even tenor of her way, governing the empire with its dependencies as one vast country, the interests of any one portion of which should be considered inseparable from those of the whole;—protecting jealously every industry; seeking every possible means of employing the labour and developing the resources of all;—fostering every industry when it needs fostering, and releasing the fostering care as soon as such care is seen to be unnecessary ”

“ I hold that Free trade is entirely wrong in principle and disastrous in results. Every argument of the free-trader is based on the misuse, not upon the proper use, of Protection.
Every so-called triumphant exposure of the evils caused by Protection has simply been an exposure of the evils of Protection carried beyond its legitimate limits. ”

“ If you place any value on the laws of political economy, which you are so fond of quoting, my Fanatical Friend, drop your absurd arguments about landlords. Land is a commodity to be bought, sold, improved by the capital of the landlord, and if you treat it otherwise, you violate every principle of sound political economy.
Admitting that land is capital, and the landlord is the capitalist, what does Political Economy say?—
“If a man has not wealth himself, but only his labour to sell, what is most to his advantage? ”

“ The money spent on foreign produce, instead of being spent in England, is so much capital taken away from this country, helping foreigners to compete with you. You have, in fact, in Free Trade, the most ingeniously devised plan of impoverishing the country. We had a good start, and other countries have been a long time in catching us up, so that we did not feel their competition at first, but they are now passing us hand over hand. ”

“ The prosperity these tenants enjoy is due to the beneficial and regulative power of the landlord as a capitalist. The greater the wealth of the landlord, the greater is his beneficial and regulative power. There were thousands of landowners who acted up to the limits of their power in this way, until you, friend Bright, ruined them and deprived them of the power of helping their tenants.
No, doubt, there are bad landlords, as there are bad men in all classes, but the interests of the landowner and those of the tenant are inseparably bound together ”

“ The Corn Laws, to which Free trade owes its existence, were an instance of undue protection; they urgently required alteration, not repeal. Free trade advocates are unable to distinguish the difference between the use and the misuse of a principle. In their abhorrence of its misuse, they would sweep it away altogether. They are about as reasonable as the man who discovers that too much food will cause indigestion, and therefore proposes, as an infallible law of political economy, the dogma that no food whatever is to be taken. ”

“ If, in the result, they should prove to be right, are you prepared to see the bulk of the land of the country go out of cultivation rather than impose a duty on the import of foreign corn? With agriculture ruined, and its capital absolutely gone, what would become of our home trade? But the fact is, we don’t want any foreign corn at all. Our Colonists, who could be induced to trade with us on reciprocal terms, could supply us with all the corn we want, even though not one single quarter of foreign grain found a place in our markets. ”

“ You are now legislating for the people of Ireland, but has it never struck you that the immense flood of importations from America, which has been poured upon Ireland, has been the cause of much of the suffering which that country has endured? It has rendered agriculture unprofitable both in Ireland and in England, and therefore labourers have been thrown out of work, while farmers, especially the smaller ones, have been steadily impoverished. ”

“ All it wants is food, work, and employment of its labour,—development of its resources.
Take away your iniquitous policy of Free Trade,—abolish your unjust enactments, your legalised instruments of confiscation and plunder,—abandon your insane encouragement of internecine war between capital and labour,—desist from [68] your suicidal encouragement to agitation and class antagonism,—encourage capitalists,—protect industries,—employ labour,—and you will soon find Ireland prosperous, contented, and loyal.
The cry for Home Rule is a protest against your misrule. ”

“ Although the rise of wages is, in fact, to some extent, the work of protection, I am not proud of it; for trades unionism is protection of an extreme character, generally narrow in its aims, not sufficiently far-seeing, and consequently sometimes mischievous in its results.
The raising of wages within reasonable bounds is desirable; but, in a Free Trade country, it is apt to be attended with serious consequences in raising the cost of the manufactured article, when competing against the manufacture of foreign countries, where wages are lower and hours of work longer. ”

“ No country except England is free-trader. Free trade, at the present time, after a trial of thirty-eight years, is either an English, or a barbarous custom. All other civilized nations are obstinate protectionists; and the worst of it is, that they are growing more and more obstinate in their adherence to protection, as they find they are making greater relative advance in prosperity than England with its free trade. Even Mr. Gladstone himself admits that “America is passing us by in a canter.” ”

“ Is he different in this respect from the capitalist who invests money in colonial or foreign funds, who does nothing for his money, and spends it away from the country in which it is produced? Is he different in this respect from the London banker, who lends money to the manufacturer in the provinces, or abroad? He does nothing for his money, but spends it away from the locality in which it has been produced. ”

“ The vast progress of the United States, the immense strides they have made in commerce, manufactures, and wealth—strides so vast that our own progress, even at its greatest, is insignificant—will convince every intelligent American that the principle of protection to native industry is, under many circumstances, wholesome and necessary. ”

“ It is absurd, therefore, to say, that a man possessing capital in land may not act in the same way as the owner of any other form of capital. (Of course he has his moral obligations, but those are applicable to the possession of any other form of capital.) If the tenant desires capital, he must work for it, or obtain it in some legal manner. If he get it in any other way, it is theft; and any legislation that transfers the capital of the landlord to the tenant without due compensation, is legalized theft. ”

“ Free trade was an assertion on the part of labourers as consumers; the protectionist policy of America and Australia is the attempt of the same class to obtain privileges as producers. The working men in those countries are possessed by the thorough belief that, by carrying out their policy, they benefit all. Free trade considered that the interests of consumers suffered by protection; the Americans and Australians, with their eyes open, undergo these private inconveniences because they believe the mass of the community is better off thereby. ”

“ You may say the depression of trade is not confined to England, but exists in America. I admit it, but it is very different from that which exists in England. With America it is the reaction of a too rapid increase of new manufacture stimulated by successful enterprise; in the case of England it is the steady decline of old-established industries under crushing competition, of which we have not yet felt the worst. ”