The British Jugernath: Free trade! Fair trade!! Reciprocity!!! Retaliation!!!!. Guilford L. Molesworth
I am perfectly aware that I shall be cast, by you, into the fiery furnace of criticism; I can imagine, in anticipation, the vials of your wrath poured out on my unlucky head; and I don’t expect to escape like our friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
I am not composed of those materials of which martyrs are made.
I know full well that I shall writhe horribly under the taunt of “ungrammatical twaddle,” for how can I hope to escape an occasional slip of the pen, of which even the heaven-born “Covenanted Civilian” is not always innocent.
I shall wriggle under the analysis of my “illogical reasoning,” my “exploded theories,” my “faulty statistics.”
I shall squirm under the exposure of my “ignorance of facts,” my “want of knowledge of political economy,” my “antiquated notions.”
That I shall suffer severely for my blasphemy I know right well; but I cannot help it. Strike!! but hear me.
I am weary to death of the claptrap and imposition with which your votaries applaud their idol, and attribute the evils caused by it to anything but the right cause. I am disgusted with the blind obstinacy with which you close your eyes to the light of facts; besides, I have the selfish feeling that, sooner or later, I may be jostled by admiring votaries under the wheels of your car, whilst I shall not have even the consolation of deluding myself that I am a martyr ascending to the heaven of your Jugernāthian mythology, but, on the contrary, a victim of your confounded stupidity and obstinacy, and of the incompetence or dishonesty of your leaders.
If I could only stand on the platform of any other audience and address Americans, Dutch, Belgians, Germans, or say Frenchmen, I might secure a sympathetic hearing.
The Frenchman would probably shrug his shoulders and say:—
“I quite agree with, you, mon ami! mais que voulez vous? It amuses these other English, and does not hurt us; on the contrary, we profit by it. We furnish the gilt and gingerbread, the paint and the unmusical instruments; and we are paid for them, vive Jugernāth!! only don’t ask us to be fools enough to put ourselves under its wheels.”
You, on the other hand, my friend, will naturally say:
“Bah! these Americans, Dutch, Belgians, Germans, and French are brutally stupid, and beyond the reach of argument; blind to their own interests. We alone stand on the pinnacle of intelligence in our worship of Jugernāth. Has not our High Priest, the G. O. M., swept away all your argument like chaff?”
Pardon me, my friend. The exuberant verbosity of the G. O. M., combined with his misleading and incorrect statistics, may easily silence an opponent in debate, but they cannot alter stern facts; and facts are against your idol. Your prophets prophesy falsely, and your people love to have it so.
CHAPTER III. What is Jugernath?
Well! well!! I have put off the evil day as long as possible; but sooner or later it must come out, even if you have not already guessed it.
Stoop low while I whisper in your ear the name by which this destructive fiend Jugernāth is known in England. It is:—
Free Trade!!!
Yes! it is Free trade that has utterly ruined Ireland; that is rapidly dragging England down under its wheels; that drains the lifeblood of India and England’s dependencies.
Free trade is that idol which England worships, but which brings in its train disaster, bankruptcy, pauperism, drunkenness, and crime. It is Free trade that is destroying England’s industries, and is driving her capital to protectionist countries. It is Free trade that, if not soon abandoned, will soon bring about a national bankruptcy in England.
My dear fellow! I know your stale arguments by heart. I have looked into your dishonest and fictitious statistics and discovered their imposture. I know you can make glib quotations from Adam Smith and Mill, and misapply them. It is easy for you to prate about Political Economy, and at the same time to practise Political Extravagance, of the most ruinous description; but I ask you to leave theory for a short time and look ugly facts straight in the face, divesting your mind, if you can, of all prejudice. These facts I will give you in the next chapter. But now don’t misunderstand me. I am not a rabid protectionist. I am not an advocate of Fair trade, Reciprocity, or Retaliation. I hold that Protection, if carried beyond its legitimate limits, is nearly as mischievous in its action as Free trade. And that although “Fair trade,” “Reciprocity” and “Retaliation” are cries that have been evoked by the evils that Free trade has brought upon us, yet they are wrong in practice, as an attempt at a compromise with an utterly false principle; and I am glad that the movement has collapsed.
I hold that Free trade is entirely wrong in principle and disastrous in results. Every argument of the free-trader is based on the misuse, not upon the proper use, of Protection.
Every so-called triumphant exposure of the evils caused by Protection has simply been an exposure of the evils of Protection carried beyond its legitimate limits.
The Corn Laws, to which Free trade owes its existence, were an instance of undue protection; they urgently required alteration, not repeal. Free trade advocates are unable to distinguish the difference between the use and the misuse of a principle. In their abhorrence of its misuse, they would sweep it away altogether. They are about as reasonable as the man who discovers that too much food will cause indigestion, and therefore proposes, as an infallible law of political economy, the dogma that no food whatever is to be taken. And they stigmatize as “simpletons without memory or logic,” as men “beyond the reach of argument”[1] those who decline to accept the Free trade gospel of starvation.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Mr. Bright’s letter to A. Sharp, Bradford, 1879.
CHAPTER IV. A FEW UGLY FACTS.
I have said that facts are against your idol, let me advance a few of them:—
(1.) The prophecies made by the originators of free trade have proved to be false.
(2.) England stands alone as a free-trader. Free trade, at the present time, is either an English, or a barbarous custom.
(3.) France made a partial trial of free trade, but has drawn back and refused to continue the commercial treaty.
(4.) Increased wealth—due to improvements in science, steam, and electricity, although dishonestly claimed the work of free trade—has been shared by all civilized nations.
(5.) Protectionist countries have made greater relative advance in prosperity than England.
(6.) The exceptional prosperity of the years 1871–73 was due to a partial suspension of free trade caused by the Franco-Prussian war.
(7.) The rise of wages in England—dishonestly claimed as the work of free trade—has been shared by Protectionist countries.
(8.) The statistics of decrease