Free traders

“ Years ago, when the Free-Traders were in the first blush of their success, and the minds of men were still inflamed with the hot fever of speculation, the advocates of the new system were requested to state in what way they proposed to employ that mass of labour which must necessarily be displaced by the substitution of so much foreign produce instead of our own. ”

“ As to the home trade, we all know, and the manufacturers themselves know to their cost, in what a wretched position that is placed. But when the Free-traders were asked why they had adopted the Free-trade policy or why they continued it, they replied that it was because if they had not done so there would have been a revolution in this country. ”

“ What chance there is of free-trade doctrines being adopted by the present socialist and free-trade government in France, may be judged of by the following quotation from the Constitutionnel:—
“Is not, in fact, the consumer, such as the free-traders represent him to us, a strange creation? He is, as he has been wittily described, a fantastic being—a monster who has a mouth and a stomach to consume produce, but who has neither legs to move nor arms to work. We do not fear that the operative classes will suffer themselves to be seduced by those doctrines. ”

“ It is, not worth while to stand upon nice definitions as to free trade. Some think it enough to say that they are not free-traders because they are not in favor of abolishing all customs duties. Let me remind such that the free-trade countries of Europe, recognized to be such, have not abolished all customs duties. A better distinction is this: The free-trader believes in levying customs duties without any regard to the effect of those duties upon the wages of our working people, or upon the production of our own shops. This, then, is the issue. ”

“ The free traders fully admit, and deeply deplore, as we have shown on a former occasion, these unfavourable results; but they say that it is to be hoped they will not continue: that foreign nations must, in the end, come to see that they are as much interested as we are in enlightened system of free trade; and that, meantime, it is for our interest to continue the system; or even though it totally fails in producing any augmentation in our exports, it is obviously for our advantage to continue it, as it brings in the immediate benefit of purchasing articles imported at a cheaper rate. ”

“ British Free Traders do not advocate the cause which they have at heart in order to benefit the countries which send their goods to Great Britain, but because they think it advantageous to their own country to procure certain foreign products without any artificial enhancement of price. [Pg 136] [64] If they are right in coming to this conclusion, it is surely an incidental advantage of much importance that a policy of Free Trade, besides being advantageous to the United Kingdom, tends to give an additional element of stability to the British Empire and to preserve the peace of the world. ”

“ The claims of Free Trade and the cheap-food cry are disregarded and treated with contempt. "Free Traders talk about the folly of Protection. But Free Trade itself is a form of Protection. It protects the strong and the cunning against the weaker and the more honest. ”

“ A taunt very frequently levelled at modern Free Traders is that the anticipations of their predecessors in respect to the influence which Free Trade would be likely to exercise on international relations have not been realised. ”

“ The Free Traders were still seen ruling everything in the high places of the land in the name of political economy, and they were everywhere apparently accepted as authorized interpreters of the mysteries of that, to the ordinary public, somewhat occult science. They preached the freedom of exchange like a religion which contained at once all they were required to believe in economic matters, and all they were required to do. ”

“ As often as the advocates of commercial restriction have laid claim to those periods of national prosperity when their system happened to be in vogue as evidence of its success, the free-traders have as often and with equal right claimed like success under eras of free trade. ”

“ The Free-Traders first, by their final measures, drive some 300,000 of our industrious inhabitants out of the country annually, in quest of the employment which they have lost at home, and then they rest on the tonnage required to convey them away, in order to conceal the effect of Free Trade in shipping on our mercantile marine! They are welcome to the whole benefit which they can derive from the double effect of Free Trade, first on our people, and then on our shipping. ”

“ For this purpose the working classes were stirred up to class antagonism, and the Free-Traders have kept up the delusion by dishonestly claiming as the work of free trade every advantage which protectionist countries have shared in common with us. ”

“ Here is a result worked by Free Trade, in less than four years after its introduction into the colonies, sufficient to make us hold our breath, and far exceeding what the most gloomy Protectionist ever predicted as the result of Free Trade policy upon the best interests of productive industry in the empire. And the Free-Traders think that they will be vindicated in the eyes of God and man for their frightful devastation, by the reflection that, while it is going on, sugar has fallen to 5d. a pound. ”

“ It is truly ridiculous to see the free-traders stress the few specialities in each branch of industry,throwing them into the balance against the products used in everyday consumption and produced most cheaply in those countries in which manufacture is most highly developed. ”

“ General as the distress is which, under the combined operations of free trade and a fettered currency, has been brought upon the country, there is one circumstance of peculiar importance which has not hitherto, from the efforts of the free-traders to conceal it, met with the attention it deserves. ”

“ The Free Traders tell me that under their glorious system of free exchange nations naturally occupy themselves in those industries which produce the most wealth. Thus, if Great Britain, by employing a million men in growing corn, can produce 50,000,000l. ”

“ But if they left competition free to what they considered unsound knowledge—if they permitted the lowest-priced Fiction, however bad or indifferent, to circulate without their unequal competition—we believe the free-traders would beat the monopolists in point of numbers ”

“ The "small traders in country towns," that very section of the mercantile community who are notoriously suffering most from the inroads of Free Trade, are to invest their remaining capital in farming, that particular business which has received the deepest wound from Free Trade! And this is the sheet-anchor of Sir James Graham's hope; and this is a sample of Free-trade wisdom from the lips of its greatest champion! No doubt there may be small traders with little capital in the commercial world who are fools ”

“ There could not be a clearer statement of the oft-demonstrated principle that the greatest protection possible against excessive prices was to be found in safeguarding the freedom of competition, which, of course, could not exist if its chief method of underbidding was wrested from free traders. ”

“ We have been repeatedly reproached by the advocates of the new commercial system for the gloominess of our views, and the absence of that hopeful spirit which animates the efforts, and gives vivacity to the style, of the light and lively Free-Traders. ”

“ The free-traders refer with especial emphasis to what the term the symmetrical development of all the great interests of the country under this liberal tariff. Manufactures were not stimulated at the expense of the commercial interest. Both were developed in harmony, while agriculture, the indispensable basis of all, was never more flourishing. ”

“ In every country where manufacturers talk of free trade, they have in mind chiefly free trade in corn and raw materials in general. To impose protective duties on foreign corn is infamous, it is to speculate on the famine of peoples.
Cheap food, high wages, this is the sole aim for which English free-traders have spent millions, and their enthusiasm has already spread to their brethren on the Continent. Generally speaking, those who wish for free trade desire it in order to alleviate the condition of the working class. ”

“ Even far into the Northwest, where the trails are long, the Free Traders have established their chains of supplies, entering into rivalry with the Company for a barter it has always considered its right. ”

“ We are willing to accept the statement as true, and we perceive a great social revolution, accompanied with infinite present suffering, but most important ultimate results, growing from their obstinate adherence to their principles in defiance of the lessons of experience. The free-traders are with their own hands destroying the commercial classes, which had acquired an undue preponderance in the state. They must work out their own punishment before they abjure their principles. ”

“ In a way Ali was right. The four men who emerged all had their blasters or riot stun-rifles at ready, and the sights of those weapons were trained at the middles of the Free Traders. As Dane's empty hands, palm out, went up on a line with his shoulders, he estimated the opposition. Two were in the silver and black of the Patrol, two wore the forest green of the Terrapolice. But they all looked like men with whom it was better not to play games. ”

“ I-S men! So they had not lifted from Sargol.
They showed no signs of uneasiness—it was as if their rights were being infringed by the Free Traders. And Kallee, their Cargo-master, swaggered straight to the bargaining point. The chatter of Salariki voices was stilled, the Sargolians withdrew a little, letting one party of Terrans face the other, sensing drama to come. Neither Van Rycke nor Jellico spoke, it was left to Kallee to state his case. ”

“ The man whom the House of Commons had ridiculed nine years before, now proved himself a great parliamentary orator, and, as time went on, a politician perfectly capable of assuming the control of his party. Sir Robert Peel had gone over to the free-traders, and now the "Protectionists," headed by Lord George Bentinck and the opponents of the coercion bill, would combine to turn him out of office. This was accomplished after a great deal of passionate, bitter debate, and three days later the great minister announced his resignation. ”

“ Ali's hand moved. Through his growing distress Dane saw Van Rycke's jaw tighten, the fighting mask snap back on Captain Jellico's face. Whatever came now was real trouble.
Groft's eyes flickered over the party from the Queen. Though he had just pledged cup friendship with four of them, he had the malicious humor of his race. He would make no move to head off what might be coming.
"By the right of the knife and the net," he intoned, "you have the power to claim personal satisfaction. Where is your enemy?"
Kallee turned to face the Free Traders. ”

“ What is true of the farmer is equally true of the middle-man,—whether the middle-man acts as factor, jobber, salesman, or speculator, in the markets of grain. These traders are to be left to their free course; and the more they make, and the richer they are, and the more largely they deal, the better both for the farmer and consumer, between whom they form a natural and most useful link of connection,—though by the machinations of the old evil counsellor, Envy, they are hated and maligned by both parties. ”

“ To enable us to hold the position of being the merchants and brokers of the world, and the holders of its accumulated stores of wealth, we must first have provided for us a more expansive monetary system. The Free-Trader cannot, or will not, see the existence of these wants, obvious as they are, and necessary to be supplied, if his favourite policy is to be rendered a practicable one. ”

“ Must the utmost amount of products, at all hazard, be obtained, whatever the mode of industry that earn it, or the fate of those called into existence by the overgrown manufacture you encourage? Is it no matter how won, or who enjoys? Is the only question that the wealth be there? What if England, by carrying out, without pause or exception, the doctrine of free-trade, should aggravate the most alarming symptoms of her present social condition—must this law of the political economist be still, with unmitigated strictness, urged upon her? ”

“ Free trade means antagonism to this whole policy and theory at every point. The free trader regards it as all false, meretricious, and delusive. He considers it an invasion of private rights. In the best case, if all that the protectionist claims were true, he would be taking it upon himself to decide how his neighbor should spend his earnings, and—more than that—that his neighbor shall spend his earnings for the advantage of the men who make the decision. ”

“ But it is extremely difficult for trusts adapted to the requirements of a profitable tied market at home to adjust their methods of free competition in the world markets upon a profitable basis of steady trading. ”

“ The first thought of a wise business man is for his markets, and you as a great trading nation are bound to think of your markets, not only your markets of to-day but of to-morrow and the day after to-morrow.
The Free Trade theory was the birth of a time when our imports were practically all supplemental to our exports, all indispensable to us, and when, on the other hand, the whole of the world was in need of our goods, far beyond our power of supplying it. ”

“ A hard-grit free-trader would abolish this abomination and ruin half the island. And here I would remark that in England the world has seen for the first time a wealthy and commercial, a great and generous nation proclaim, and take pride in proclaiming, the most immoral doctrine. 'Free Trade,' so called, I presume, because it is practically the reverse of free or fair trade, openly abjures public spirit and the chief obligation of the citizen—to think of his neighbour as well as himself, and not to let charity end, as it often begins, at home. ”