to sell it to us, has to compete with every other nation wishing to do the same thing. It is therefore impossible for us to get the commodities we want cheaper than we do through this universal competition.
No other nation enjoys the advantages which flow from this state of things. We find constantly that commodities are cheaper here than in the countries which produce them. The poor among us are thus enabled to fight the battle of life on the most favourable terms possible. Our labourers are thus fed, housed, and clothed, as cheaply as possible. They are thus enabled to produce cheaply, more cheaply than any other workers; so cheaply that they have become the dread of every Protectionist nation:—so cheaply that ad valorem duties of 50 to 200 per cent. on their productions are inadequate to keep them out of Protectionist markets; so cheaply, that we almost monopolise, as a matter of cheapness, every neutral market; so cheaply that we have managed to obtain nearly five-eighths of the world's ocean carrying trade, and are daily driving out of employment such of the remaining vessels as belong to Protectionist nations.
Our one-sided Free Trade has done all this for us, at all events. And no Protectionist nation can divest us of what we have thus got. And of the advantages we enjoy we cannot be deprived except in one way—by other nations becoming also Free Traders.
It must be clear, that so far as our one side goes, it is a very good side, and cannot be improved. Ought we not to be extremely careful how we touch it? I am going to ask presently why we should touch it? The Neo-Protectionist would probably say, "because we want to get the other side also."
Are we quite sure this other side will be as good as that we have? I doubt it.
The complaint is that by hostile tariffs, our productions are excluded from the principal markets of the world. This is true, and on cosmopolitan grounds, and in the interests of humanity, this state of things is to be regretted. But we are not now considering the interests of humanity, we are trying to see how we can advance the particular interests of Great Britain.
