: ^^7T, : : ' F £04-3 Ts ;-NRLF . — 1,11 JRARY ■ >i i in University of California. < '. 1 FT < >i- Tr * (J ass • ' S / i A HISTORY -OF THE- <>4\ H H H TRUD H -L X \_ W H iJ_y. [^ IN ENGLAND, -BY- GEN. M. M. TRUMBULL. *" Of THE UNIVERSITY DES MOINES: IOWA STATE LEADER COMPANY, 1882. 1 ^'J)JvDIGATIur?-> 'So (Tic SftUjfi* SCo.i. ;|ofni e^ticjfit", 911. 5., iTic c foci no u I' ftieub cmb ^c[■ 1 c^v^cr o¥ I'fic CH met icon SveptiMic, I" fie- ■ew'f-icjfil'cueb av>uocatc of peace cino free t^abe cu it on cj *f)lal'ioiu\ I' fib iuorf» io topccl- fu i fij t n^ctibeo" Imj eK i a o i 3 c i p f e cmO f t i c 1 1 O, 9H. 9TC. ^r.m.lMifl 1 . ®«**wjue, Sowa, 9tla*c& 16, 1882. Diversity or History of Free Trade in England. CHAPTER I. By the Free Trade struggle in England, we mean the campaign from 1839 to 1846. Of course there were enlightened people before that time, who doubted the wisdom of the Protective system, but they were comparatively few; they were easily brushed aside by those who believed in the blessings of scarcity, and who looked upon abundance as one of the calamities of mankind. The believers in commercial freedom were told that their doctrines were very well in theory, but would never do in practice ; and with this convenient argument, they had to be content. No doubt that in the very darkest ages of political economy, when ' ' Pro- tection " nourished in direct proportion to the popular ignorance, there were men in England who saw clear over the fogs in the valley, the humanizing influence of Free Trade, shining on the heights beyond, even as Galileo and Columbus saw farther and clearer than the men around them; who thought the physical sciences were all very well in theory, but quite unavailable in practice. Indeed, more than a hundred years ago, Adam Smith had refuted the arguments on which the Protective theory was based, and which up to his time had been known by a sort of paradox as the "Commercial Sys- tem." Carried to its logical results its effect was to cripple commerce by closing ports to international trade. In the time of Henry Clay it was known in this country as ' ' The American System, " and in our own day it is called by the captivating title of ' ' Protection to Native Indus- try." Mr. Huskisson, one of the most enlightened members of Lord Liverpool's cabinet, made some advances toward Free Trade, as early as 1825, and even before that time the merchants of London had petitioned Parliament in behalf of commercial freedom. Their argument was remarkably eloquent and clear. Nevertheless, it was not until about the year 1836 that the Free Traders made any organized effort against the insular and bigoted sys- tem of Protection which had burdened the industries of England for hundreds of years. Up to that time the liberal and scientific principles of Free Trade were regarded as political abstractions, beautifully adapted to some undiscovered Utopia, which might be expected to appear about the time of the millenium. Up to that time, the efforts of the Free 2 HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. Traders were feeble and scattered over an extensive field, fortified by the Protectionists so strongly in every direction, that the reformers made but slight impression upon the works of the enemy. In 1839 the isolated forces of Free Trade became a coherent and dis- ciplined organization under the name of the Anti-Corn Law League. They massed themselves for a concentrated attack upon the corn laws, the key to the whole protective system. The corn laws were to Pro- tection what the Malakoff was to Sebastopol. When that fell, the city fell. The repeal of the corn laws meant the doom of Protection, and the triumph of Free Trade. The efforts of the League were directed to the success of a specific measure, the repeal of the duties upon corn. Under the general term "corn" is comprehended flour, wheat, oats, and breadstuffs of every kind. Just at the dawn of midsummer, 1837, the King died, and the Vic- torian era began, With the old King there went out an age of igno- rance, vice, and political superstition. "With the young Queen there came in a better, brighter, and more enlightened day. There was vice enough left, indeed, but it was no longer respectable. The Parliament died with the King, and a new Parliament was chosen. The contest was between the Whigs on the one side and the Tories on the other. The issues were like many of the issues between the Democrats and Repub- licans in our own country now, rather of the past, historical, than of the present, real. The offices, however, were at stake, and the Whigs won. They had a majority in the new Parliament of about thirty in the House of Commons. This, in a membership of six hundred and fifty-eight, was not so large as might be wished, but still, by keeping close in shore, and not venturing upon the wide ocean of statesmanship, they could gel along with it comfort a 1)1 v well, and enjoy the power, the honors, and the emoluments of office. The commercial policy of the country was not much of an issue in the election. The Tories were all Protectionists, and so were mosl of the Whigs. They di tiered only in degree, not in principle. Thirty-eight Free Traders obtained seats in the new Parliament. They ranged them selves with the Whigs, as did the Irish repealers, and the liberals of every grade. What progressive elements there were in the politics of the time, were supposed to be represented in the Whig party. The Tories, if not reactionary, were at least conservative. The trifling difference between the "two great parties" was amus- ingly shown. In 1839 the ministers came within live votes of defeat on the Jamacia hill, and at once resigned. Sir Robert Peel was sent for to form a new administration. He agreed to do so, but required that c.t- ain ladies of the Queen's household should be removed from office — in HISTORY OF TREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. O other words, should go out with the ministry. The Queen would not consent to this, whereupon Sir Kobert gave up his task, and the Whigs resumed their places. These drawing room politics were now about to be rudely shaken by the new power just born in the State; the Anti- Corn Law League. A "live issue" was about to be presented to the people, something of greater consequence than the question of what ladies should form the Queen's household. The question was whether or not the food of the people should be made scarce and dear by import duties on foreign grain, levied for the "protection" of a class; whether or not the shackles which had fettered industry for centuries, should be removed, and the commerce of England made free. The League was terribly in earnest, and its activity disquieted the ' ' two great parties. " Its agents were in every town. It circulated pamphlets literally by the million. It assumed the task of instructing a whole people in the elements of political economy. Its orators were everywhere. In every corner of the kingdom they challenged the Pro- tectionists to public discussion, and threw them painfully on the defensive. In the manufacturing districts its meetings numbered thousands and tens of thousands. These masses of people did not have political influence in proportion to their numbers, for few of them had votes. Before the League was two years old it had become a great power outside the walls of Parliament, although inside it had no strength except in the character and ability of its advocates, and the irresistible logic of its argument. The work before it was appalling. Monopoly was so strongly in- trenched in England as to seem invincible. It was supreme in both houses of Parliament. The privileged orders and the "protected" classes were, of course, all defenders of it. The middle class — the real John Bull himself — was thoroughly imbued with the idea that British patriotism required them to support the policy which made them "inde- pendent of foreign countries." Worse than all — the masses of the peo- ple — the working classes, were Protectionists, as we shall show a little further on. They were everlastingly haunted by a ghost called ' ' over- production;" they believed that scarcity was a good thing, because it created a demand for labor, and they dreaded lest they be brought into competition with the "pauper labor" of foreign countries. So insignificant was the influence of the Free Traders, that, although they supported the Whig party, and the Whigs were in power, they could not obtain respectful consideration in the House of Commons. On the 18th of February, 1839, Mr. Villiers moved that certain mem- bers of the Manchester Association should be heard at the bar, in sup- port of a Free Trade petition, but the motion was lost by more than two . ^ 4- BISTORT OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. to one; and we are informed by Mr. Morley thai both Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russel] voted with the majority. The difficulties in the way, only stimulated the industry of the League, and within two years it had become a source of alarm to the Tories, and of' perplexity to the Whigs, many of whom sympathized with it in a general sort of way. and to a limited extent. They were, however, timid and irresolute. They carried on the ( iovernnieut in a lazy, languid manner, and seemed anxious to be "lei alone." They thought they could live forever on the reform bill triumph of 1832, but the reform hill was only a beginning, not an end. The tierce discussion of that measure had stimulated the mental faculties of the people, and a craving thirsl for knowledge took possession of them. The Penny Magazine was in active circulation, lectures were popular, mechanics' institutes were multiplying, and, in the expressive language of Lord Brougham, the schoolmaster was abroad in the land. The Whi<>s were afraid to risk their small majority by the introduction of any great measure of public policy, and by reason of this very timidity, their trifling majority was gradually dwindling away. They asked per- mission to doze in comfort on the Treasury benches, but the clamor ot the League disturbed their slumbers, and the Tories were waiting and watching their own opportunity, which was close at hand. Suddenly it occurred to the Whigs that in this new active world of politics, even governments must do something for a living. They saw the tremendous moral power already in the hands of the League, and Lord John Russel thought that if he could borrow some of that, he might spiritualize the Whigparty, and save the administration. Accord- ingly, in the month of April, L841, he gave notice that on the :Ust of May he would move that the house resolve itself into a committee, to take into consideration the duties on the importation of foreign grain. This announcement startled the Tories, for it showed that the doctrines of the League had permeated the administration itself. They closed their ranks and assumed the offensive. Lord Sandon asked Lord John Russell what the ( Joverninent intended to do with the Corn Laws. lie answered that they proposed to abolish the "sliding scale," and impose a moderate fixed duty of eight shillings a quarter (a shilling a bushel) upon wheat, and a proportionate duty upon other grain. The "sliding scale' 1 was a political contrivance by which the duties upon foreign grain wire fixed according to the prices ofil in the domestic market. When the price n\' w heat in Mark lane was high, the duties on imported wheat were low, and sice versa, the intention being to keep the price ot grain always at such a height as to furnish the British farmer a fair degree of "protection" againsl the "pauper labor" and untaxed lands of foreign countries. HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. $ In this moderate proposition of Lord John Russell the Tories saw a menace against the monopolies which they had enjoyed for centuries. With the bravery of desperation they determined to come out of their intrenchments and attack. They would not wait until the 31st of May, but determined to precipitate the issue then and there. The discussion on the annual budget just then presented by the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, resolved itself into a debate on the corn and sugar duties. The debate lasted many nights, and when it ended the Tories had the best of it. On the motion that "the Speaker do now leave the chair," the Government was beaten by the decisive majority of 317 to to 281. The cheers of the Protectionists rang out peal after peal like the laughter of a chime of bells; they reverberated through the great hall of William Rufus; they burst into Palace yard, and chased each other among the gothic arches of the old abbey across the way, where Pitt and Fox lay sleeping side by side. To the amazement of the country the ministers did not resign, but on the next evening Lord John Russell coolly announced that he would take up the discussion on the proposed alteration of the corn laws on the 4th of June; but before that day sentence of dismissal was pronounced by the House of Commons against him and his government. Sir Robert Peel determined not to allow the ministers any time to recover from their great defeat. He therefore introduced his famous resolution that Her Majesty's Ministers do not possess the confidence of this house. After four nights' debate, his resolution was carried by a majority of one vote; the numbers were 312 to 311. From this blow the Whig party never recovered; it was stunned and bewildered by it; the minis- ters could not believe it real; it appeared impossible to them that within ten years of the passage of the reform bill, the Tories could once more be in the ascendancy. They therefore refused to resign, but dissolved the Parliament. They appealed from the verdict of the House of Com- mons to the tribunal of the people at the polls, and there also the judg- ment was against them. CHAPTER H. In the midst of scarcity and business depression the election of 1841 was held. Though but few Free Traders were elected, the inspiration of the whole contest came from the Anti-Corn Law League. By the moral strength of its ideas it seemed to crowd all other issues out of the way, and forced a discussion of the Free Trade question at nearly every polling place in the kingdom, where there was any contest at all. The election resulted in an overwhelming majority for the Tories. They had a majority in the House of Commons of nearly a hundred over all opposing elements combined, and on a square issue with the Free 6 HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IK ENGLAND. Traders they could command a majority of more than three hundred and fifty votes. The Protectionist victory was complete, yet this waa the Parliament that was destined, within five years, to overthrow the Pro- tective system, and establish Free Trade in England as firmly as the British Islands are anchored in the sea. When Parliament met in August, the Whigs resigned, and Sir Robert Peel came into power, with an obedient and well disciplined majority behind him, sufficient to carry every measure proposed by Ministers. In the House of Lords his majority was even greater than in the House of Commons. In the new Parliament was a new man, a calico printer from the North, a moral and mental force so great that ere long he was regarded by all Englishmen as the most important personage that had been Been in the House of Commons since Oliver Cromwell had a seat there. His name was Richard Cobden. This man had already become the electric prin- ciple of the Anti-Corn Law League, the very genius of the commercial revolution. He was a leader without selfishness or personal ambition, a leader whom all men loved to follow. He was a statesman by instinct, an organizer with the genius of Napoleon. He was an orator of such convincing powers that he converted more men to his views by simply talking to them than any other man of his time, or perhaps of any time, not only tens of thousands of Manchester operatives, but even farmer-. who had been persuaded that Free Trade would ruin them. "Without any advantages of personal grace, or any of the arts of rhetoric, then- was an earnest truthfulness about him that made a great impression. He had a boundless store of knowledge, and no matter how extravagant his assertions appeared to be, he always had the tacts at hand to verity them. He grouped his facts together with great skill, and moulded them into irresistible arguments. He fastened responsibility upon his adversaries with terrible emphasis. In playful fancy, and in the power of enforcing his points by homely illustrations drawn from every-day life, he resembled Abraham Lincoln — or rather we should say thai Lincoln resembled him. He resembled him in the abundance of his humor and the quaint sharpness of his satire. Above all things, there was a candor and a sincerity about him thai went far towards persuading men that he was right. A deep love of humanity pervaded all he wrote and all he Baid. His life was pure, his character without reproach. With the factory dust upon him, he faced the patrician monopolists on the Tory benches, with a courage as high as that of the puresl Norman of them nil. lie \\:is as effective inside the House of Commons as out of it, and it is certain that he converted Sir Etobeii Peel, the leader ol' the ProtectlOnisI parts, to a belief not only in the expediency o\' Tie Trade, but in the wisdom and the justice of it. In tact it boded ill to DIVERSITY J HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. 7 the Tories when they saw that their great chieftain permitted his face to show how he was hurt by the shafts of Cobden, and it boded further mischief to them when they noticed how he sat spell bound, listening to every word that fell from his enemy. We know now, that Peel at last came completely under the fascination of Cobden's intellect, and per- mitted that intellect to dominate his own. We have shown in the first chapter, that in 1841 Whigs and Tories were alike protectionists, differing only in degree. If further proof is needed, let it be remembered that a short time previously it was said by Lord Melbourne, the Whig Prime Minister, that the repeal of the Corn Laws was the most insane project that ever entered man's head, and the Tory Chieftain, Peel, during the debate on the want of confidence reso- lution in June, said: "Who in this House has more steadily stood for- ward in defense of the existing Corn Laws than I have done?" And to the electors of Tamworth, during the canvass of 1841, he said "that he had come to the conclusion that the existing system should not be altered, and that our aim ought to be to render ourselves independent of foreign supply," the ready jargon which protectionists have used in all countries, and in every age. In spite of all attempts to draw him out during the first session of the New Parliament, Sir Kobert Peel refused to disclose the future policy of his government. October came and still his plans were wrapped in mystery. Subsequent events convince us that he did not know them himself. Parliament adjourned until February, and he took till then to consider what was best to do. The short session of 1841 was not remark- able for anything except that Cobden spoke then for the first time in Parliament. He exposed the sufferings of the people to the gaze of the Senate, and charged against the Protective system the prostration of English industry. He gave notice to both Whigs and Tories, that the question of the Corn Laws must be met, and that a fearful responsibility should be laid on those who taxed the food of the people. There were those who sneered at this unpleasant person, but it is certain that the country gentlemen would have spent a more agreeable Christmas if he had not spoken at all. During the recess the League was hard at work. The Free Trade agitation was extended to Ireland and Scotland. Newspapers were started and vast numbers of pamphlets were distributed in every direc- tion. Heaps of information concerning every trade and occupation in the kingdom were piled up for use in the next Parliament. Meanwhile there was great anxiety throughout the country as to the intentions of the Government. Cabinet meetings were held, but not a word leaked out as to their proceedings. The two or three speeches made by Cob- 8 BISTORT <»r FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. den at tho short session had sunk deep into the mind of Peel. The proof of it is clear. During the canvass, in the summer, he had declared that "the existing system should no1 be altered;" in the winter, he had changed his mind. Why? In that interval he had heard Cobden. A trifling incident which occurred jusl before the opening of Parlia ment alarmed the monopolists, and convinced the country that the League was actually making discord in the Tory Cabinet itself. The incident was this: The Toryist Tory in all England Mas the Duke of Buckingham, and he was in the Cabinet. With the Mood of Henry Plantagenet in his veins, and the lordship of thousands of broad acres in his possession, he was a stately specimen of that haughty Norman aris- tocracy which for nearly eight hundred years had held the Saxon in a state of serfdom, and had kept his lands by right of conquest. So long as he was in the Cabinet, it "was certain that modern civilization would be excluded from its councils; that no such vulgar theme as "econom- ics" would be debated at its meetings. So long as he was in the Cab- inet monopoly mighl sleep in peace; the feudal system would stand firm, grim and defiant, as the Tower of London itself. One morning it was whispered at the Carlton Club that the Duke of Buckingham had resigned, and the whisper was correct. Then the country knew that some changes in the Corn Laws had been determined on. Inspirited by the news, the League worked harder than before. The year L842 opened gloomily. There was great distress through- out the country, and there was a deficit in the revenue of more than twelve millions of dollars. When Parliament met in February, there was very great anxiety to know what the Government meant to do. To the consternation of the monopolists, Sir Robert Peel announced that it was his intention to meet the deficit by the imposition of an income tax; that, although he should maintain the "sliding scale." the duties mi COITl and provisions would be reduced. He also said that it was the intention of the Government to revise the tariff, so as to deprive it of its prohibitory features, and to lower the duties on about seven hundred and fifty articles. This, from a Protectionist Tory Mini-try, was a great advance, and showed that small as was the number of Free Traders in the House of Commons, the ideas of the League had actually affected the policy of the ( i<>\ ernment. The natural result of compromise followed. The Government \\:i- bitterly assailed by both sides; by the Protectionists, for having yielded anything to the League, and by the Free Traders for not yielding more. Cobden was unsparing and fierce in his denunciations; immense meet- ings were held in the North, and in all the manufacturing country, at which resolutions were passed savagely condemning the ministry. At HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. some of these meetings Sir Robert Peel was burned in effigy, a barbarous insult, which deeply wounded him, and of which he rightfully com- plained. Cobden, and the other leaders of the League were not respons- ible for these excesses, any further than all popular leaders are responsible for the mad acts of their followers, who rush past them and out of their control. The debate of 1842 is a great event in the political history of England. Sir Robert Peel introduced his plans with a very ingenius and compre- hensive speech; a speech which showed that he was complete master of the subject, and familiar with all the details of England's commercial and industrial condition. He didn't believe that the Corn Laws were responsible for the distress which he admitted did exist. He found reasons for it in all the corners of the earth from China to America. He was weak enough to attribute some of it to the displacement of hand labor by steam power, to over-investment of borrowed capital, and to alarms of war; to anything in fact but the Corn Laws. Still, he pro- posed some amendment to these laws. He thought that the ''sliding scale " could be so amended that the price of wheat would not vary much from somewhere between fifty-four and fifty-eight shillings a quarter (about a dollar and seventy-five cents a bushel.) He contended that the country should rely upon home production for its food supply, and should be willing to pay an extra price for it, because of the advan- tage of being "independent of foreign countries." According to the etiquette of Parliament, the duty of answering the Prime Minister fell upon the leader of the opposition, and Lord John Russell rose to perform that duty. He had very little to say. A Pro- tectionist himself, he didn't know how much of the ministerial plan he might dare to criticise, and no doubt he felt himself that night to be entirely overmatched by Peel. He therefore stammered out a few sen- tences just to show that he was in opposition, and sat down. But there was a man there who was not afraid even of the accomplished minister; that man was Cobden. He denounced the plan of the Government as quite insufficient and unsatisfactory, because it did not reach down and remove the real causes of the people's poverty. This kind of argument, though severe, could be endured, but when the orator, out of his abund- ant knowledge, showed that the Prime Minister was in error as to his facts, and in that way toppled over the stately framework of his reason- ing, the House of Commons recognized at once, that the smoky countiy had sent a man to Parliament who was so thoroughly informed as to the agricultural, the manufacturing, and the commercial condition of Eng- land, that not even Peel, the greatest debater there, could safely make a statement on insufficient evidence, or even venture an opinion on any 10 HISTORY Or FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. doubtful testimony. Here was a man whose facts fell upon the minds of his hearers with the force of the blows delivered by the steam ham- mer in his factory. The oratory of the colleges retreated from a contest with the untutored eloquence of this new member, who actually earned his own living. Sir Robert Peel, grand, impassive, cold, lost his ancient self-command under the oratory of Cobden, and allowed his countenance to betray the emotions that stirred the very depths of his conscience and his intellect. With the exception of his affected superstitious dread of "steam power," which was unworthy of him, it was noticed that Peel, in his great speech, had been careful not to insult the intelligence of his hearers by asserting the false and flippant maxims which formed then as now the stock in trade of the Protectionist party. He scorned to use the customary^ cant that high prices of the necessaries of life made wages higher, and therefore were a benefit to the working man. He knew that his speech was going down to posterity, and he preferred that it should not be disfigured by such fallacies. As the Edinburgh Review said at the time, he left the utterance of these absurdities to his subordinates. With what inward scorn he must have heard Sir Edward Knatchbull, a member of his own Cabinet, declare, amidst uproarious ridicule, that "the duty on corn should be calculated in such a manner as to return to the landed interest full security for their property, and for the station in the country which they had hitherto held." No matter how biting the hunger of the industrious poor might be, the price of bread must be kept so high that the idle, fox hunting, horse racing aristocracy might still riot in profligate extravagance. The progress of this instructive debate proved how true it is that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread." "Peart and chipper" young statesmen on the Tory side hurled right in the face of Cobden, Pro- tectionist maxims that Peel would have been afraid to utter. One of the Prime Minister's young statesmen was the Marquis of Granby, a coining Duke, who knew as much about political economy as the wooden efligy of his ancestor, the historic "Markis O'Granby" which swung from the sign post of the hospitable tavern at hoiking, once kept by Mr. Tony Weller. The Marquis told the House of Commons thai "the experience of all Europe shows that the certain consequence iA' making food cheap is to lower wages." Sir Francis Burdett, who for forty years had been a radical reformer and a revolutionist, who had once been c mitte.l to the Tower by the House of Commons, and who had joined the Tories in his old age, declared that "to the laboring classes the price. of corn did not signify one straw." Lord Malum and Mr. Stuart Wort ley talked in the same strain, and even Mr. Gladstone HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. 11 fluently prattled about "the fallacy of cheap bread." No wonder that Mr. Cobden taunted the Tory members about their ignorance, declaring that no such ignorance could be found among any equal number of working men in the North of England. Notwithstanding all this, the winding up of the debate showed a very comfortable majority for the Tories of one hundred and twenty-three. CHAPTER in. In the month of May there was a long debate on the new tariff. This debate is a curiosity now. With that speculative wonder which moves us as we roam through the great national museums of Europe, and gaze on the mummies of old Egypt, so we wander through the mazes of this debate, and look upon the mummified theories of "Protection." It is hard to realize that only one generation ago English statesmen actually believed that by making everything scarce and dear the general pros perity was increased. It would be even laughable if this mischevious delusion had not emigrated to America and taken possession of our states- men here to the serious injury of the productive classes. The old superstition, now obsolete in England, still flourishes in the United States. Sir Robert Peel introduced his new tariff with many apologies to the Protectionists, and assurances that it wouldn't hurt them very much. Like a mother giving physic to her children, he told them that it was good for them, and that if the taste was slightly unpleasant they would be all the better for it in the end. When the portly getlemen of the ' ' land- ed interest " complained that fat cattle and lean were to be admitted at the same figures, instead of being taxed according to their weight, the bland Sir Robert told them that it was all the better for them, because said he, the English graziers can import lean cattle at a low rate of duty, and fatten them for market, and as to fat cattle they wouldn't be import- ed anyhow. They couldn't stand a sea voyage. "No fat ox," he said, "could stand a trip across the Bay of Biscay," and as for France, why none would come from there, because that country was herself import- ing cattle. He showed that none w T ould come from Belgium, Holland, Germany or the Prussian League, and then with grim flattery he told them that the English beef was so much better than any other kind that it would always bring a higher price in the market. With one side of his mouth he was telling the hungry people that he was about to cheapen beef by letting foreign cattle in, and with the other he was quieting the protectionists with a lot of blarney, and the assurance that, although he was about to open the gates, the lean cattle wouldn't come in and the fat cattle couldn't. 12 HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. When Sir Robert sal down Mr. Hume congratulated the ministers on their conversion to the principles of Free Trade. This pleasantry was resented by Mr. Gladstone, who declared that no conversion had taken place, and that their opinions remained unchanged. As a discrimination was made in the new tariff in favor of the British colonies, a great deal of alarm was manifested, lest the Americans should smuggle their bacon and other produce into England, by the way of Canada, and thus obtain the benefit of the colonial tariff; but this was quieted by Mr. Gladstone, who didn't think that the Americans would do any such thing. Certainly not. Even potatoes had been shut out of the country by high protective duties. The new tariff admitted them on payment of two pence per hundred weight from foreign countries, and one penny per hundred weight from British colonies. It w r as contended that twelve pence per hundred weight was little enough "protection" for the English potato grower, and that it was the highest patriotism to keep old England inde- pendent of foreign potatoes. Every monopoly protested against the new tariff. The miners of ( Jornwall protested against a reduction of the duties on metal ores, and the members from that county gave warning that if the dee]) mines of Cornwall were once abandoned, they would never be worked again. Some other people protested against a reduction of the duty on iron, because it was necessary that British iron should be protected against the pauper iron of Germany. Some persons owned a stone quarry on the isle of Portland. They protested against a reduction of the tariff on building stone, and declared that such reduction would be the ruin of their "industry." Even the wretched Irish peasant claimed protection for his pig, and Mr. Smith O'Brien actually moved to increase the duty on swine from live shillings a head all round to four shillings a hun- dred weight. Every ••interest" predicted ruin to the country if its particular monopoly should he disturbed. When the hill went up to the Lords it had of course to run the gauntlet of the same opposition it had met in the House of Commons. Lord Stanhope used an argument which sounds very familiar to us here in America. The reduction of duties, he said, would cause great distress among 'he industrious classes, with whom the •'foreigner" was put unfairly in competition; and the Duke of Richmond opposed it because it brought the English producer into competition with the '-pauper labor" of foreign countries. Nevertheless the hill was allowed to puss. The House of Lords being composed almost exclusively of great land- owners and monopolist-, it is not surprising that the principles of Free Trade were looked upon in that House as very low and vulgar, a- revo HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. 13 lutionary in fact, and destructive of that hoary, feudal system on which the aristocracy of England rested. The noble peers regarded pheasants and peasants as alike made for their exclusive use and pleasure, and being a very ignorant set of people, they were easily thrown into panic whenever they thought their monopolies were threatened. They regarded the Anti-Corn Law League as a monster more revolutionary and dreadful than even the steam engine, or the electric telegraph, or an untaxed newspaper. On the 19th of April, 1842, Lord Brougham moved in the House of Peers, that no tax should be levied upon corn, either for protection or for revenue. We are not surprised that this motion was lost by 89 to 6. The wonder is where the 6 came from. In August Parliament adjourned, and people had time to foot up the accounts of the session, and strike a balance of party gains and losses. There was a difference of opinion as to the amount of profit and loss, but all agreed that whatever gains had been made must be placed to the credit of the Free Traders, and that the losses were all on the side of the Protectionists. The material gain to the Free Traders made by the reduction of duties in the new tariff was trifling in comparison to the moral victory they had won in compelling the Ministry to concede the principle of Free Trade. It was noticed that in all the debate the Min- isters had been careful not to defend Protection on its merits. They apologized for it and pleaded for it. They argued that great interests had grown up around it, that society had shaped itself to it, and that it could not be suddenly and violently overthrown without carrying in its fall the ruin of the protected classes, but they did not defend it as a cor- rect principle of political economy. Armed with this concession the League renewed its assualt upon monopoly, and during the recess it was busily educating the people and creating a public opinion that should be more potent in the next session than it had ever been before. Great public meetings were held in all parts of the country, and Free Trade resolutions were adopted at all of them. On the 22d of November there was a tremendous meeting of the League at Manchester, which resolved to raise $250,000 for the work, and $20,000 of it was put into the hat there and then. This was con- sidered a great collection for one meeting, and yet before the work was ended $300,000 was contributed to the League fund at one meeting in that very same town. It was about this time that John Bright began to be recognized as a power in the State. Although not yet in Parliament, his influence out- side of it was almost as great as Cobden's inside. A massive English- man was John Bright, a handsome man, strong of body and brain, one of the few great orators of modern England; his eloquence was copious, OF THE 14 HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. pure, sparkling, strong; his invective burned like fire. He was more fluent and stately than Cobden, though no man could be more con- vincing. His voice was melodious, his magnetism great, and thousands of men crowded and jostled one another to get near him. They saw in him one of the great apostles of peace, a man whose politics were gov- erned and controlled by the most sublime religion. Second to Cobden, and to Cobden alone, was John Bright, in the great work of lifting the incubus of the protective tariff from the industries of Great Britian. He rendered great service between the close of the session of 1841 and the opening of the session of 1843. When Parliament met in 1843, Lord Howick moved that the House go into Committee to consider the distress of the country, and thereupon arose one of the most instructive debates that ever took place in Parlia- ment. Lord Howick contended that the protective tariff had crippled the agricultural, the manufacturing, and the shipping interests of the country, and argued that the Corn Laws ought to be repealed. We can hardly conceive that the present Prime Minister of England, the great leader of the Liberal party, was, that night, the Tory cham- pion, whose duty it became to answer Lord Howick. Mr. Gladstone admitted the distress of the country, and even conceded much of the argument of his adversary, but resisted the motion on the ground of expediency; it wasn't the time to repeal the Corn Laws; the measures of last session had not had a fair trial; they ought to see what other coun- tries would do to reciprocate a reduction of duties; England could not be expected to open her ports, while she had hostile foreign tariffs to contend against, and so on. Never once did he contend that the Pro- tective system was sound, either in morals or as a system of social science. His speech was an excuse for protection, not a defense of it. The Protectionist principle that the end of all true political economy is to promote scarcity, found outspoken champions in this debate. Mr. Ferrand, a Protectionist from Yorkshire, contended that the distress of the country was all owing to machinery, that if machinery could be done away with, the conveniences of life would become scarcer, and this would create a demand for labor, the people would all get employ- ment at good wages, and prosperity would be the result. He WSB not alone in this opinion, for Mr. Liddell thought that Lord Ilowiek's plan of Opening up new markets would do no good, because no matter how many new markets were opened up, such was the tremendous power of machinery in England, that they would soon be overstocked, as well as the old. Mr. Ward apologized for machinery on the curious ground that it was necessary, in order for the English to compete with the cheaper labor and more fertile soil of other countries. He thought t!*ut HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. lb the Americans had made a mistake in their high protective tariff of 1842, but contended that the English had provoked it by fixing such a high duty on American corn. The most bewildering doctrine that this remarkable debate produced came from Mr. Muntz, member from the important town of Birmingham, who contended that the present con- dition of things was unnatural, and that ' ' we must either repeal the Corn Laws, or lower the price of silver." It is comforting to know that the silver lunacy is not a new disease, peculiar to the United States. No wonder that the common people should have such crude notions on the science of political economy, when the statesmen of the country could talk as they did in this debate. Mr. Cobden replied to the Protectionists in a very vigorous, and what proved to be a very unfortunate speech. In the course of it he declared that he held the Prime Minister individually responsible for the "dis- tress of the country," and he repeated this expression with strong- emphasis. Sir Robert Peel rose in a state of nervous excitement and resented this personal attack. His private secretary, Mr. Drummond, had been assassinated a few days before, in mistake for him, and the tragedy shocked him greatly. He accused Mr. Cobden of pointing him out for assassination, and the sympathy of the House was with Peel. In vain Mr. Cobden tried to explain that a wrong interpretation had been put upon his words. The House refused to hear him. This incident was a most unhappy one, for it placed those graat men in the position of personal enemies for two years, a position which caused Mr. Cobden to be unjust to Peel, on more than one occasion. In strik- ing contrast, it must be said that the treatment of Cobden by Sir Robert Peel was all the time in the highest degree magnanimous. The sus- picion of a motive so abhorrent to his gentle nature wounded Cobden so keenly that it seemed almost impossible to forgive the man who, even in the excitement of a great debate, could impute it to him. It was the opinion of many that although the Free Traders had the best of the argument, this advantage was thrown away by Cobden's indiscreet attack upon the Prime Minister. It isn't likely that it affected any votes either one way or the other. The division showed a majority for the Minister of one hundred and fifteen. CHAPTER IV. In May 1843, Mr. Villiers brought forth his annual motion for a total repeal of the Corn Laws. This debate was, if possible, more remark- able in its display of statesmanlike ignorance than the other, but unlike the other, the ignorance was not all on the side of the Protectionists. Even Mr. Villiers himself showed a remarkable forgetfulness of hi* 16 HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IX ENGLAND. geography when he said ' ' the use of wheaten bread is denied to ten mill- ions of people, while a plague had arisen in Louisiana, because the pro- duce was left to rot upon the ground for want of a market.'' He evi- dently had a very confused idea of where Louisiana was, or what was the nature of her products. That wheat rotting on the ground should produce a plague, was a phenomenon outside all the laws of physiology and peculiar to the State of Louisiana. Once more it became the duty of Mr. Gladstone to answer the Free Traders, and he contented himself with leaving them unanswered. He did not deny either their facts or their conclusions. He admitted the distress of the people, but contended that they were better oft' than they were two hundred years ago, which was an unsubstantial sort of com- fort, but hardly satisfactory. He made the very important announce- ment that the government would not consent to any further modifications of the protective system. The measures of last year had not yet had a fair trial. In this debate the wisdom of biting off your nose to spite your face was maintained by some ignorant statesmen who knew no better, and by some intelligent statesmen like Mr. Gladstone, who did know better. It was contended that if foreign countries would not open their ports to British manufactures, England should close her ports against their wheat and bacon. That the English people were suffering for want of food made no difference. They should maintain "reciprocity," even at the price of starvation. The " reciprocity " theory did good service to the ministers in this debate. Whether or not they believed in it themselves is doubtful. perhaps some of them did. It was quite evident that a large majority of the members of the House of Commons had not yet learned that it is a good thing to buy in the cheapest market, even if you cannot sell in the dearest, and so they kept ringing the changes on "reciprocity." Mr. Christopher maintained that to adopt Free Trade without any guar- antee of "reciprocity" from foreign countries, would be useless to the manufacturers, and ruinous to the agriculturists One ardent member, Mr. Thornley, had become so zealously inter- ested in the "reciprocity" plan, that he just stepped over to America to have a talk with the President of the United States about it. It is a mortifying fact that the President filled him full of lies, and false prom- ises, and then sent him home again. Mr. Thornley told the House that if the Kngli^h would adopt Free Trade, the Ariel' leans would immedi- ately do the same; that Mr. Tyler told him so. Mr. Tyler also told him that the only obstacle to an extended trade between the two coun- tries was the English Corn Law. All that was necessary to establish "reciprocity" was for the English to begin. HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. 17 Mr. Cobden showed that the only way to raise the price of corn was by making it scarce, and that this was the object of the present law. He declared that no party had the right to make the food of the people scarce. To ordinary minds these propositions appear to be self-evident, and yet there was a great party in England that denied them, and main- tained that the food of the people ought to be made dear in order to ' protect the farmer against the cheaper labor, the richer soil, and the finer climate of other lands. Unhappily, this party controlled the House of Commons, as the division showed, for the Free Traders were beaten by the frightful majority of 381 to 12o. In the month of June the subject came up again in a discussion as to the relative merits of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Lord John Russell moved to go into Committee to take into consideration the laws relating to the importation of foreign grain. As he was at that time a Pro- tectionist himself, and differed with Peel only in preferring a fixed duty to the "sliding scale," his motion had no practical value whatever, except to keep debate alive. It gave an opportunity for a repetition of the old arguments against the Corn Laws, and Mr. Gladstone answered them again as before. The debate served the useful purpose of drawing from the Government the positive avowal that no change in the Corn Laws would be permitted. Mr. Gladstone declared that the measures of last year were a virtual contract between the government and the agricultural interest, and that it would be dishonorable to disturb it. This loving debate between the Whigs and the Tories, as to whether a fixed duty or a sliding scale was most effective in protecting the aris- tocracy, was rudely broken into by blunt old Hume, who declared that all "protection" was spoliation and injustice, and ought to be abolished. Although Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone both declared, in the course of this debate, that the law of the last session should be main- tained, there was a fidgety unrest among the monopolists, for fear that the Ministers would be again driven from their policy by the Anti-Corn Law League. Thus far we have chiefly spoken of the Free Trade struggle as it was fought in Parliament, up to the summer of 1S43. Outside, the contest was sharper still, and far more vigorous. The work of the reformers was harder too. A whole people had to be aroused, instructed, con- vinced. An irresistible public opinion must be created, without which all efforts in Parliament would be in vain. The upper classes of the English people were Protectionists from interest, the lower classes from prejudice. The middle classes, though largely Protectionists, were divided, but amongst them lay the strength of the Free-Traders. It is not surprising that the English lower classes were Protectionists. 18 HISTORY OF FREE TRADE EN ENGLAND. All their prejudices lay in that direction. The Englishman was exclu- sive, partly by nature, and partly because of geographical conditions. His island being cut off by the sea from the continent of Europe, he became a sea-girt sort of personage himself. lie was arrogant and con- ceited. He displayed a boorish, uncouth contempt toward- all foreign- ers, never allowing that any change of latitude or longitude could make a foreigner of him. Even in Paris he complacently regarded all the Frenchmen he met upon the Boulevards as "Foreigners." He a always bidding "defiance to the world." He christened his war ships "Bulldog," "Vixen," "Spitfire," " Destruction, " "Devastation," "Terrible," "Vengeance," "Conqueror," and similar pet names. His great chest would pant like a blacksmith's bellows as he roared in the ears of all mankind his unpolite refrain, "Britannia rules the waves." He thought that the people of other nations had but little to eat; that the Frenchman lived on frogs, the Italian on maccarroni, and the Ger- man on an inferior quality of cabbage. He was a natural Protectionist. The lower classes of the English people were very much like the lower classes of some other people, insanely jealous of those whom they regarded as lower yet than themselves. In America it may be the negro or the Chinaman; In England it was the frog-eating Frenchman, or the frugal Dutchman who was too mean to squander all his wages, or the barbarian Russian who lived on tallow, and whose clothes cost him noth- ing, the skin of an ox furnishing a complete outfit for a year. Any demagogue could rouse the enthusiasm of these people by denouncing Free Traders, as an unpatriotic set who were seeking to subject the noble British workman to a ruinous competition with the "pauper workman" of the continent. It was part of the stock business of Tory statesmen at every hustings in the kingdom to glorify the wisdom of that policy which was to make England "independent of foreigners," especially for meat and flour. Even enlightened statesmen like Peel and Gladstone did not disdain to use this narrow argument in the House of Commons itself. In addition to their insular prejudices, the English working class* - believed in the blessings of scarcity, and the miseries of abundance. They lived in fear of an impossible Dragon called "Over-Production." They regarded machinery as their chief enemy, because it saved labor, and filled shops and ware houses with goods. Ii was the giiin\ coal fed monster, breathing smoke and ilame, whose oll'spring was ••overpro- duction." They opposed railroads because of their Labor-saving ten- dency, and many of them could tell the exact number of men "thrown out of work'" bet ween London and Bristol i>\ the Great Western Kail- way alone. There were so many stage coachmen and guards, BO many HISTORY OF FEEE TRADE IN ENGLAND. 19 wagoners whose busy teams moved the merchandise of the country, so many inns where the stages stopped for dinner or supper or to change horses, involving the employment of so many ostlers, cooks, waiters and other people. Then look at the blacksmiths, whose business it was to shoe the stage horses and the wagon horses; look at the harness-mak- ers, whose business it was to make the harness for them. Think of the rain of the innkeepers themselves, to say nothing of the loss to the farmers and stock raisers, who would no longer have a market for coach horses or wagon horses, or for the oats to feed them. It was in vain to point out the army of workmen that the railroads would throw ' ' into work," the comforts and conveniences they would multiply to all the people; these advantages were too abstract and remote. The injuries were direct, near and palpable. In the political philosophy of these people, all destruction of property was a blessing, because to replace the property gave employment to working men. The burning down of a block of buildings was a God- send, because the houses had to be rebuilt, thereby giving employment to bricklayers and carpenters. In 1846 a remarkable hailstorm visited London. Every exposed pane of glass was broken by the hailstones. This was regarded as a merciful dispensation of Providence, because it made a scarcity of glass in London. It was merely a sum in simple ad- dition to show the value of the storm. It was very evident that the glass makers and glaziers would make a good thing out of it, and the money they earned would be spent for the necessaries and comforts of life; the tailor and the shoemaker would get some of it, and the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. It was useless to explain that this money was drawn from other employments of industry, and that to the full value of the glass destroyed it was a total loss to the community. This, too, was abstract; it was like complex fractions to scholars who were not yet out of long division. AH public improvements that lessened wear and tear, were bitterly opposed by those primitive political economists. The wooden pavement was a dangerous innovation, because if it should be generally used in a great city like London it was easy to see that the wear and tear of horse shoes and wagon wheels would be greatly lessened, and blacksmiths would be thrown "out of work." A street sweeping machine invented about this time had to be protected by the police, as a mob of scaven- gers were determined to prevent its use. It was claimed that the ma- chine could do the work of twenty men. The scavengers, of course, made their living by dirt; the more dirt, the more work for them. Here was a machine that caused an "over-production" of cleanliness, and, true to their protectionist ideas, they proceeded to destroy it. 20 HlSTORr OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. There is nothing surprising in all this; an ignorant people only reason from first appearances, to the immediate and visible result. To the unthink- ing working men of England, the first effect of a labor-saving machine was to throw somebody "out of work," the first effect of the hailstorm was to throw somebody "into work" therefore they looked upon the machine as an enemy, the storm as a friend. In like manner, the first effect of a cargo of merchandise imported from a foreign country was to make abundance, and to lessen the demand for labor in that class of goods, therefore they were in favor of promoting scarcity by a high protective tariff, that should compel those goods to stay across the sea. It was not to be expected that they would voluntarily explore the depths of political science, and thus obtain a knowledge of the true principles of social and political economy, any more than to expect them to saw wood for pleasure. Their minds soon became tired when not aided by visible object lessons, and the men who could appeal to their mutual experiences, had a great advantage over the abstract reasoner, no matter how well built his logical structure was. Often, in the coffee houses, the club rooms, and other places where working men used to meet and discuss the problems of the English political and social system, the Protectionist champion, confused and overwhelmed by the reason- ing of his Free Trade antagonist, would extricate himself by an inge- nious recourse to the "over-production" hob-goblin. "What caused the distress," he would shout, ','in the hard winter of '35?" "Over-pro- duction. " ' ' What shut down the Birmingham forges in '30 ? " " Over- production." "What sent the shoemaker of Northampton on the tramp in '38?" "Over-production," and so on to the end of the chapter. It was certain that among the audience were some of the fancied victims of over-production, and all the rest were sympathizers. It was no use to explain to them that what they called "over-production"' was noth- ing but the blessing of plenty, which, if not hindered by protective leg- islation, would soon diffuse itself throughout all the land, sharing its benefits among all the people, acting and re-acting upon every member of the community. To comprehend this required a mental effort, and that was labor. /They were i\ y t ready to think just then, and the dis- comfited Free Trader would fake his scat, leaving the victory to his ad- versary. The working men of England had literally to be educated in sounder principles, to be taught like children, from the alphabet of pol- itics upwards, until they were forced to throw aside their prejudices to make room for that knowledge which was crowding itself upon them. "If you bring the truth home to a man," said Cobden, "he must em- brace it." To bring the truth homo to the people of England became the duty of the League. We shall show how well the work was done. HISTOEY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. 21 CHAPTER V. THE STRUGGLE FOR FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. The working people of England were divided into two classes, the city operatives and the rural population. They differed from each other in dress, in manners, and in personal appearance. The city workmen was quick of movement, and of great mental activity, the farm laborer was heavy, dull and slow. Although the corn laws were made for the "protection" of agricultural industry, the tiller of the soil was over- worked and underpaid. His life was passed in abject poverty. He had no more hope than the team he drove, tie was still, in fact— though not in law — a serf; and he went with the land. Whoever bought that, bought, him. Tn 1843, the traveler in the West Riding of Yorkshire, meeting a rustic with a drove of hogs in front of him, looked for the brass collar round his neck, expecting to read upon it the old familiar legend preserved by Scott, — "Gurth, the son of Beowolf, is the born thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood. " The brass collar was not there, but the swineherd was as much a "thrall" as was his ancestor in the days of Wilfred of Ivanhoe. Less than sixty miles from London, and within hearing of the bells of Cambridge, the rough-shod clown thrashed his master's grain with a flail, as his forefathers did in the days of Alfred. He knew no more than they; and his dialect was very much like theirs. Of the politics of England, he knew about as much as of the politics of Japan. Al- though great in numbers, the agricultural laborers contributed literally nothing to that public opinion, which is so important an element in the government of England. It was different with the working people in the towns. They were restless, ambitious and discontented. They mingled much together, and they discussed social problems. They formed clubs, societies and trades- unions. They attended political meetings, and debating clubs, they read a great deal, and they could furnish more stump orators to the hundred men, than even we can furnish in America. There was always a speaker on hand and an audience. It was therefore in the towns that the principal work of the League was done. At first the League met with opposition even in the towns, and its meetings were often interrupted, and sometimes broken up. The Char- ists insisted that a radical reform of the government itself should be at- tempted before economic changes. When universal suffrage and a free ballot were obtained, then would be time enough to repeal the corn laws; and they demanded that the League should unite with them. Besides, the jealousy of foreign competition was not easily removed, and there 22 HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. was a prevalent suspicion that the League was to lower the wages of the workingmen. There was but one way to reach the minds of these people, and that way was taken by the League. It was hard work to teach them the ab- stract principles of Political Economy, or to show them the ultimate ad- vantages of Free Trade. The surest way to reach them was by the con- crete argument of a big loaf of bread for a small sum of mone3 r . A big loaf was an object lesson they could easily understand, and when thor- oughly learned, it made even abstract lessons easy. It was shown to them that the laws for the "protection of native industry," actually ex- cluded from England shiploads of cheap flour, and meal, and meat, that wanted to come in; that thereby scarcity was created by force of law, and the obvious and intended effect of the scarcity was to increase the price of bread. This argument at last took fast hold of all the people in the towns, and although they still clung to their sentimental politics, and demanded radical measures of parliamentary reform, a majority of them became disciples and adherents of the League. The Free Traders acted wisely in the very beginning of the struggle by refusing to complicate their plans by any alliance with either of "the two great parties " inside Parliament, or with the third great party, the unrepresented Charists outside. They kept in view the one great ob- ject, the repeal of the Corn Laws, and directed all their energies to that. Between 1839 and 1844, the League had distributed nine millions of tracts among the people, and had furnished a Free Trade library to every voter in the kingdom. This was Cobden's way of "bringing Hie truth home to a man." It cost a great deal of money, but the League had plenty. Cobden, Bright, and scores of orators of lesser note, were con stantly "on the stump." Every part of England was canvassed, not the manufacturing towns alone, but even the rural districts. In 1842 Cobden and Bright held meetings in many parts of Scotland, and thc\ had little trouble in convincing the people of that country thai the pro- tective S3^stem was injurious to every business and every industry there. Mr. Bright confessed that the people of Scotland were much more intel- ligent than the people of England, and with the exception of the land- lords and some of the great monopolists, they were nearly all Free Traders. By the Autumn of 1843 the Free Trade agitation had reached im- mense proportions, and the Protectionists had almost ceased to contend against it in argument. Timid people now pretended to I'eel alarmed at its dimensions. They believed in the principle, hut thought the League was carrying things too far. It was shaking society too much. The League and its leaders were coarsely assailed by the Times and the Jt - HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. 23 views, and some of the Tory papers called upon the Government to sup- press it, as a seditious and treasonable conspiracy. Its answers to all this denunciation was redoubled activity on the part of the League. Meetings were held in the agricultural districts, right among the farm- ers, and Free Trade resolutions carried. This was the most disheartening fact of all. The Tory papers bitterly denounced their own men, because they had not the courage to meet Cobden and Bright in argument, and when they did meet them, confessed themselves defeated by Free Trade fallacies that could easily be answered. London was roused at last. The great halls were found utterly insuf- ficient for the Free Trade meetings. They wouldn't hold a quarter of the multitudes that flocked to hear the Free Trade orators, so Drury Lane Theatre was engaged for the purpose. Petitions to Parliament asking for Free Trade were displayed at the street corners, and signed by tens of thousands of people. To emphasize the struggle, a vacancy in Par- liament for the City of London occurred in the fall of 1843. After a severe contest Mr. Pattison, the Free Trade candidate, was elected over the Toiy candidate, Mr. Baring, a nephew of Lord Ashburton, and a man of great wealth and personal popularity. This was an omen of furth- er disaster to the Protectionists; and although the physical force of their majority in the House of Commons still remained intact, its moral vigor was visibly crumbling under the pressure of the League. If the votes in Parliament were not a just barometer to record the pressure of the League upon the public councils, the debates, at least, furnished an accurate standard by which that pressure could be meas- ured. In the month of February, 1844, the Queen herself went down to the House of Lords, and opened Parliament. Her speech contained this paragraph: "I congratulate you on the improved condition of several branches of the trade and manufactures of the country. I trust that the increased demand for labor has relieved, in a corresponding degree, many classes of my faithful subjects from sufferings and privations, which, at former periods I have had occasion to deplore." As Sir Kobert Peel walked down to the House of Commons to meet the Parliament at the opening of the sessien of 1844, it was noticed that his eye was clear and bright, his step elastic, his bearing proud; and the haggard look which sat upon his face at the previous session was gone. His manner plainly told that he was not afraid of Bright or Cobden now. He was fortified with a weapon of defense against them, which, curiously enough, they themselves had furnished him. The country was prosperous, as he had proudly proclaimed in the speeeh from the throne. Less than two years had gone since he had yielded to 24 HISTORY OF FEEE TRADE IN ENGLAND. the League a slight experimental modification of the tariff, and the suc- cess of the experiment had been greater than even the Free Traders had dared to prophesy. The reduction of import duties had been followed by an increased revenue from imports. The modification of the corn laws, slight as it was, and a good harvest had made bread cheaper, and to the utter confounding of the protectionists, cheaper bread had been accompanied by higher wages. A small abatement of the protective system had been followed by increased manufacturing activity, capital had come forth from its hiding places, and was invested in forming, in trade, and in manufactures, labor was in demand, and the Prime Minis- ter could say, and justly too, "If Cobden declared last year that I was individually responsible for the distress of the country, he must, this year, give me the credit for its prosperity." When we speak here of prosperity, it must be understood that we use the term in a comparative sense only. There was a great amount of poverty yet in the country, and hunger and misery everywhere, but as compared with the previous year the improvement was veiy great. Strangely enough, the success of the slight advance toward Free Trade, made by Peel in the tariff of 1842, instead of being an encouragement to proceed further in the same direction, was given as a reason why he should stop. Help us to let well enough alone was now the appeal of the Minister to the House of Commons and the country. All the as- saults of Cobden were parried by Peel with the Free Trade weapon he had borrowed from the League in 184-2. By means of this, he said: "I have improved the condition of the country, let us be content." The country recognized that the "better times" were due to the labors of the League, but was not generous enough to say so. The action oi the high-toned so-called liberal newspapers was shuffling and insincere. One of them, of great respectability and immense circulation, speaking joyfully of the Queen's speech, and in congratulations to the country, said: "We express no opinion upon the effect of the speech upon the present Corn Law agitation — the League does not want inure vigorous opponents or more vigorous support than are engaged for or against it at the present crisis." As an excuse for not supporting the League, it pretended that the League was strong enough already. Without stopping to discuss any further who was entitled to the credit of it, one thing is certain, the improved condition of the country gave the Ministers a firmer grip of the government, and when Mr. Hume and Lord John Russell both cor. plained that no reference to the Corn Laws was made in the Queen's speech, Sir Robert Peel, feeling the full strength of his position, gave positive notice that no alteration would be made in the Corn Laws. Old Hume, however, nothing daunted, moved HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. 25 as an amendment to the address in answer to the royal speech, "that the provision laws should be considered and dealt with." He was over- whehned by a majority of no less than 185 votes. Early in the session, Mr. Cobden gave notice of a motion for a com- mittee to enquire into the effects of import duties on tenant farmers, and farm laborers. This was carrying the war into Africa. The majority in Parliament had been contending that those import duties were imposed for the "protection" of those very classes whose condition Mr. Cobden proposed to enquire into. They dared not grant the motion, for they well knew that if they did, Cobden would bring a hatful of facts, to demonstrate that every year the tenant farmer was sinking deeper and deeper into debt, and that the farm laborer was shivering on the very verge of starvation. Mr. Gladstone commanded the Protectionist forces that night, and he defeated Cobden by the stubborn majority of 224 to 133. The moral power of the League in Parliament, was shown in the June debate on the amended motion of Mr. Villiers for a total repeal of the Corn Laws, and the physical power of the administration was shown in the vote upon that motion. It was as folloAvs: "That it is in evidence before this House that a large proportion of her Majesty's subjects are insufficiently provided with the first necessaries of life; that nevertheless, a Corn Law is in force which restricts the supply of food, and thereby lessens its abundance ; that any such restric- tion is indefensible in principle, injurious in operation, and ought to be abolished." To this motion Mr. Ferrand offered the following amendment: "That it is in evidence before this House that a large proportion of her Majesty's subjects are insufficiently provided with the first neces- saries of life; that although a Corn Law is in force which protects the supply of food produced by British capital and native industry, and thereby increases its abundance, whilst it lessens competition in the markets of labor, nevertheless machinery has for many years lessened among the working classes, the means of purchasing the same, and that such Corn Law having for its object the protection of British capital and the encouragement of native labor ought not to be abolished." This amendment is now looked upon in England with the same curi- osity that we gaze upon the Plesiosaurus, or some other skeleton from the antedeluvian world; and we exhume it just to show what fantastic doctrines British statesmen and members of Parliament believed in less than forty years ago; and the amazing fact remains, that every bit of this crazy amendment, except the childish complaint against machinery, is sound Protectionist doctrine in the United States to-day, the obvious 26 HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. untruth that the exclusion of wheat, nails, or cloth from a country, in- creases the abundance within that country of wheat, nails, and cloth, is as vehemently asserted by the Protectionist party in America now, as it was by Mr. Ferrand in the English Parliament thirty-eight years ago. How familiar to us also is that hollow claptrap, "protection of British capital, and the encouragement of native labor." It was significant of the power of the League, that Mr. Ferrand's amendment was treated with silent derision. There was not a man even on the Tory benches who was willing to stultify himself by the advo- cacy of any such nonsense. The debate was notable for several reasons. During its progress the Whigs climbed up on the fence, and they stayed there for a year, Lord John Russell declaring, as he did so, that he could not vote to remove all protection, and he was not in favor of the existing law; he wished a compromise could be arrived at. Mr. Miles, a rather talkative Tory, called upon the Country Gentlemen to listen to no compromise, but to maintain the law as it stood. This debate revealed a more important fact, which was, that the poli- tics of the country was no longer a contest for office between the Tories on one side and the Whigs on the other, but was a life and death strug- gle between the Protectionists majority inside Parliament, and the League outside. It was significant that the Tories, instead of directing their arguments to the question before the House, spent their time in criticising the League and denouncing its methods. Mr. Milner Gibson defended the League. That there might be no misunderstanding of its objects he declared that it sought not only Free Trade in corn, but in everything. He quoted from Paley, that restraint of trade is an evil per se, and that the burden of the argument in each particular case lies on him by whom the restraint is defended. Mr. Cob- den having endorsed and strengthened the broad platform just laid down by Mr. Gibson, reminded the House that it was not the League that was on trial, but the law. Sir Robert Peel then rose to answer Cobden. He accepted the broad issue presented by Milner Gibson, and agreed that the repeal of the pro tective duties upon corn meant the withdrawal of protection from man- ufactures and from shipping, too. This, he said, would he productive of disaster to the country. Amid uproarious cheering from the "coun- try gentlemen," he declared that it was the intention of the government to adhere to the present law. There was a fatal weakness in his argu- ment, and he gave away his party and his ease together w lieu head mittcd that the motion of Mr. Yilliers was "correct in the abstract, and justified by philosophical considerations." The Tories did not worry themselves over the moral condemnation of HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. 27 "Protection" contained in these admissions; all they cared about was the promise of the Prime Minister that monopoly should not be dis- turbed, They were so exultant that when Mr. Bright rose to address the House, they listened to him with much impatience and finally coughed him down. Mr. Villiers, in closing the debate made a remark- able prediction. He told the "country gentlemen" who cheered the Prime Minister so vigorously that Sir Robert Peel had made the same sort of speech to them in 1839, and had afterwards thrown them over- board. The same thing would happen again. This prophecy was lit- erally fullfilled within two years. The motion was lost by 328 against 124, a stolid majority of 201, which disheartened even Cobden, whose high spirits had never failed him since the organization of the League. CHAPTER VI. When the vote was taken at the close of the great debate of 1844, the dawn of the summer day was shining through the windows of the House of Commons. It was greeted by the boisterous cheers of the Protec- tionist majority, stimulated not only by victory, but by wine. Those cheers smote the very heart of Cobden, and he sat there absolutely stunned by the force of the blow. Five years of incessant labor, night and day, had told heavily upon him, and mind and body needed rest together. There was another man there, however, who was smitten harder than Cobden, upon whose conscience this noisy cheering struck with a mocking sound. This was the great Minister who had led the exultant majority to victory. He, and he alone, heard in those cheers the knell of the noisy monopoly that was making them. He knew that the flushed men he commanded last night were utterly besotted and sel- fish, that the wants of the people were nothing to them, so that they could enjoy the unjust profits of "Protection." He knew that if they had constituted the "landed interest "in Canaan at the time of the dearth, they would have demanded a high protective tariff against the "pauper" corn of Egypt, and the rich alluvium of the Nile. In the argument he made for them, he knew that he was wrong. The dispu- tant who concedes that the position of his adversary is ''correct in the abstract, and justified by philosophical considerations," knows that he himself is in a false position; and if he is a conscientious man it will not take him long to reach the platform where his adversary stands. "While Cobden sat in dismay gazing at the dense majority of 204, and believing it to be solid, Peel knew that it was hollow; while Cobden was fearing that the League had failed, Peel knew that it had succeeded; that it was fast becoming irresistible, and that ere long it would conquer all opposition, that not even the British monarchy could safely stand in 28 HISTORY OF FREE TRADE TN ENGLAND. its way. We all know now what nobody knew then, that the only ar- guments that made any impression upon Peel in that debate were not those of any member of his own party, not those of Lord John Eussell or any of the Whigs, but only those of Cobden, Villiers, Bright and Gibson. In this hour of its greatest triumph, the Tory chieftain knew that the end of "Protection" was at hand. Mr. Morley in his "Life of Cobden," describes the struggle made by the Free Traders that night as a " hollo av performance." We cannot think so. We fear the despondency of Cobden has re-acted upon his biographer. The fact that the Tories wandered from the question to attack the League, is proof that they were over-matched in argument, and surely a "hollow performance" would not make the Prime Minis- ter concede that his opponents had on their side all the philosophy of the question. Milner Gibson was very strong that night. He planted him- self on the solid rock of the Creator's grand design and man's adaptation to it. He declared that to help one another, to be friends with one an- other, and to trade with one another, is the very law of human civiliza- tion; and he demanded that those who imposed restraints upon trade, should give good reasons why. How did the Tories answer him? Why, they said that they had had Protection so long that they could not do without it now; thus coolly violating a maxim of the law, that no man shall take advantage of his own wrong; in other words, they contended that a wrong that had existed for a long time, became at last a right. How did Peel answer* him? By advancing the American idea that "Protection" is a system in which all parties are interested; that it had become woven into the political organization of the country, and that it gave to all industries an equal and mutual assistance; that the agricultur- ists were interested in "Protection" to manufactures, that manufactur- ers were interested in "Protection" to agriculture, and both of them were interested in "Protection" to shipping and commerce; that all must stand or fall together, and that although the motion was only aimed at corn, yet if protection was withdrawn from that, it must be withdrawn from everything else, which would be disastrous to the country. But Mr. Cobden showed in that debate that there cannot be any such thing as, universal protection, because if every interest in a community is protected equally then nobody is protected at all. Pro- tection being a tax for the benefit of certain trades or occupation, some- body has to pay it. To form ourselves into a circle and each man take a tax from the pocket of his neighbor on the rigid, and drop it into the pocket of his neighbor on the left, does no good, because when the itarting place is reached, nobody has made anything at all. or HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. 29 Shortly after this debate Parliament adjourned and did not meet again until February, 1845. The temperament of Cobden was not of a char- acter to remain despondent long, and besides, there was no occasion for discouragement. The confession of the Prime Minister that Free Trade principles were right in the abstract, had a great effect outside the walls of Parliament. Most men thought if that were so they might possibly be right in the concrete also. During the recess there were great ac- cessions to the League. To some people who looked only on the sur- face of affairs, it seemed as if there was a lull in the Corn Law agita- tion, and that the better times had deprived the League of its strength. But the League might well claim, and did claim, that the improved con- dition of the country was due to the modification of the protective sys- tem in the tariff of 1842, and that if the country should discard "Pro- tection" altogether, the good times would be better still. Lord Beaconsfield in his "Life of Bentinck," expresses the opinion that the improved condition of the country in 1845 had rendered the League powerless to disturb the administration, and that Sir Robert Peel might have defied it, if the bad harvest had not come, and that his Government could have stood against even "the persuasive ingenuity of Cobden." But this is a superficial view of the matter, and is the opinion of the most spiteful Protectionist then in Parliament, every one of whose predictions was falsified by the event. The agitation was not so boisterous perhaps upon the surface, but it was deeper down. The crowded meetings at Covent Garden Theatre showed that the League was as formidable as ever, and a Ladies' Bazaar, held there in the spring of 1845 netted over one hundred thousand dollars to the funds of the League. But the most convincing proof of all was furnished by Sir Robert Peel himself, as soon as parliament convened. When the Queen opened Parliament in February, 1845, she said: "Increased activity pervades almost every branch of manufacture. Trade and commerce have been extended at home and abroad. Scarcely had the address been moved and seconded, when up rose the Duke of Richmond, who began to whine like a mendicant about the distress of the agricultural classes. These were the very classes that had been ' ' protected " by the onerous taxation of other classes for many years, and now they came to Parliament begging for relief, This Duke who was passing the hat round for them was the owner of tens of thousands of acres of the finest land in England and Scotland. He had a palace in the loveliest and most fertile part of England, and it took ten miles of wall to enclose his pleasure ground, the park around his mansion. To keep up the style and extravagance of a prince, he impoverished hundreds of his tenants, and then asked Parliament to relieve them, at some other people's cost. 30 HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. In the debate on the address in the House of Commons, some of the "landed gentry," there talked as the Duke of Kiehmond had talked in the House of Lords, which drew from Lord John Russell the signifi- cant remark that "protection" was the bane of agriculture rather than its support." This caused Mr. Miles to ask him why, if he thought so, he had proposed a fixed duty on corn. ' ' Had he found it convenient to alter his views, and ally himself with the League?" This was a fail- hit, for his Lordship was not yet ready to join the League. It is not certain that Lord John Russell was contemplating any Free Trade movement, but it is nearly certain that Peel suspected him and determined to anticipate him, for as soon as Parliament assembled he announced, contrary to all precedent, that he would not wait till April or May to make his financial statement, but would present it to the House the next week. This of course compelled Lord John Russell to postpone his contemplated movement, whatever it might be. The Tories mustered strong on Friday night to encourage their great leader, as he unfolded to the country his financial plans. To their amazement and dismay he opened a Free Trade budget. To be sure he had not touched the Corn Laws, but it was feared that he had passed sentence upon them, and he had only reprieved them for a time. He proposed to strike the protective duty from no less than four hundred and thirty articles then on the Tariff list, and this he had the coolness to tell his Protectionist followers, "must be a great advantage to com- merce." The suicidal duties on raw materials went oft' with one stroke of the pen; a fine example of financial wisdom, well worthy the study of American statesmen. This was not all. Every rag of the protective export duties was dis- carded, even the venerable export duty on coal, which had stood firm for centuries, and which even John Stuart Mill thought might wisely be retained. In the ignorant ages of protective philosophy, it was consi< Inc. 1 dangerous for British manufacturers to sell coal to the Germans or the French, lest they should use it in manufacturing articles that might compete in foreign markets with those of Great Britain. But the tax was abolished at last, and by a Protectionist ministery. There was great chcerino; when Sir Robert Peel sat down, hut it came not from hi- own party, but from the Free Trade crowd who occupied the benches opposite. The "country gentlemen," the "squires," who cheered themselves into apoplexy Last June, now sat silent and enraged; and there were signs of mutiny. It broke out in the early days of March. Mr. Miles in :i debate on the agricultural distress, distinctly told his chief that if the Tories had known what was coming they would have beaten him in 1M'_\ and Mr. HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. 31 Disraeli denounced the administration as an "organized hypocrisy." In this debate Sir Robert Peel made a very careful speech. He thought extreme protection wrong and defended moderate protection as ' ' neces- sary, not on principles of commercial policy, but as essential to a state of things where great interests had grown up, and whose injury would be that of the community at large." The student of American politics may wisely study this apology of Sir Robert Peel. He will hear it often in the "impending conflict" in America, between Protection and Free Trade. Sir Robert Peel him- self stigmatized his own reasoning as unsound ' ' on principles of com- mercial policy, " but "great interests had grown up" under the stimu- lus of Protection, and if the artificial prop which supported those great interests should be removed, they would fall to the ground; and the people who were living on them would receive injury. That the with- drawal of ' ' Protection ' ' would be an injury to the protected classes Avas true, but that it would he an injury to the community at large was false. The community at large being taxed for the benefit of a class, he pre- tended that a removal of the tax would be an injury, not only to those who received it, but to those who paid it. This absurdity is flippantly maintained by the American Protectionists even now. This position of Sir Robert Peel is a lesson and a warning to us. It shows that no matter under what circumstances of pretended urgency, "Protection" maybe conceded, the "protected" class is never ready to surrender it. The rack-renting Morrill tariff of 1861, which Mr. Morrill himself declared at that time could only be defended as a " War measure " by the urgency of our situation, is now, sixteen years after the war, impudent and rapacious. Mr. Morrill will not permit a hair of its head to be injured. He is willing to take it out of politics, and refer it to a "commission" of its friends. That "commission" will tell the country in the language of Peel, that its preservation has be- come "essential to a state of things where great interests have grown up, whose injury would be that of the community at large." Late in May, Lord John Russell's plan was given to the country. It consisted of nine resolutions which the Whig leader presented to Par- liament, in a speech which was easily and successfully answered by Peel. These resolutions were intended to constitute a new platform for the Whigs. Had they been proclaimed before the opening of Parlia- ment they would have been regarded as so liberal and far advanced that they might have embarrassed both the Tories and the League; but coming after Peel's budget they were of no more interest than nine old newspapers. Like some other political parties that might be mentioned, the Whigs came limping along behind their enemies. Of the nine res- olutions, this history is only concerned with two. 32 HISTORY OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. The second resolution was: ''That those laws which impose duties usually called protective, tend to impair the efficiency of labor, to re- strict the free interchange of commodities, and so impose on the people unnecessary taxation. " It took the League six long years to pound those principles into Lord John Russell. He had adopted them at last, and it must be acknowl- edged that in making his confession to the House of Commons, he man- aged to condense a vast amount of economic truth into a very few sen- tences. The wonderful fact remains that he was not yet ready to apply those principles to corn. The third resolution was: "That the present Corn Law tends to check improvements in agriculture, produces uncertainty in all farming speculations, and holds out to the owners and occupiers of land pros- pects of special advantage, which it fails to secure." And yet he was not ready to vote for a repeal of that law. He merely wanted to change the " sliding scale " for a tixed duty. He confessed however, that after all the discussion which had taken place, "he could not fairly and reasonable propose the eight shillings fixed duty of 1841." He thought that a duty of four, five or six shillings would be about right. The League had made him a Free Trader as to everything but corn, and as to that it had crowded him back from eight shillings a quarter to six, or five, or even four. Lord John Russell had the Whigs and Free Traders with him on the division, but was easily beaten by a majority of seventy-eight. In June again came on the annual motion of Mr. Villiers for a total repeal of the Corn Laws. The debate showed nothing remarkable ex- cept the towering air of superiority with which Sir Robert Peel lectured the pack behind him. With lordly patronage he told them that although he was about to lead them to victory once more, their arguments were uusound. He formally repudiated and laid aside the mistake of the Protectionists, that dear commodities make high wages, and although some of his own followers had proclaimed the doctrine in that very de- bate, he told them it was not true. The Protectionists bore this lecture with such patience as they could, but when their leader told them that he opposed the motion, not because it wasn't right, but because he de- sired to make a "gradual approach to sound principles," meaning the principles of Free Trade, they could scarce conceal their anger. To be told, not only that their arguments were bad, but that their principles were not "sound," was more than they could bear; however the