Fortunes for Farmers 



If our farmers should gird up their loins, and 

 join the Farmers' Union by scores of thousands, 

 developing some rudiment of political sagacity, 

 and swaying elections here and there? I discussed 

 the question recently with a Lancashire cotton 

 spinner, who explained why he and his party were 

 dead for Free Trade all the time. He pointed out 

 that, although America has the keenest men and 

 best machinery in the world, yet she allows us to 

 buy her cotton, bring it across the Atlantic, make 

 it up, and then undersell her in neutral markets, 

 indeed, if it were not for her own tariff we should 

 sell her the made-up goods back again. " This 

 extraordinary thing is possible," said he, " because 

 Free Trade makes all our expenses, machinery, 

 freight charges, and labour so cheap that we can 

 simply knock their heads off in a fair field." 



Certainly, to a lay mind, this seems astonishing! 

 Further, he explained that the same holds good in 

 shipbuilding, so that we have practically the whole 

 show to ourselves. " We simply own the sea," said 

 he, " and practically all America's vaunted trade is 

 carried in ships built by us." 



For these reasons he said that, although one of 

 the most ardent Conservatives that ever breathed, 

 he could never vote for Protection, which must, in 

 his opinion, entail a rise in cost prices, a rise, how- 

 ever slight, which would be ruinous, when down 



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