20 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



Policy of anti-Free-traders 



The policy of tliis party is broad, generous, and compre- 

 hensive ; it favours no particular industry, trade or interests, 

 nor does it aim at serving any particular section of the 

 community. It advocates no class legislation, nor does it 

 profess to serve any political party. Men of every shade of 

 political thought are included in the ranks of this great anti- 

 Free-trade movement. Its sole object is to remove from 

 British trade at home and abroad the many disadvantages 

 with which the Free-trade policy has handicapped it, and 

 which disqualifies it in competition with foreign countries ; 

 to guard and conserve British interests in every possible 

 manner and, generally, to establish and maintain an economical 

 system which, while not being in any way hostile to foreign 

 States, aggressive or provocative, would essentially aim at 

 running all British industries for British peo2')le. 



This powerful anti-Free-trade party holds that the con- 

 tentions of Free-traders are in the main fallacious because 

 the Free-trade of 1909 is not the Free-trade dreamed of by 

 Cobden in 1846. " I hclieve that if you abolish the Corn Laws 

 honestly, and adopt Free-trade in its simplicity, there will not he 

 a tariff in Europe that will not he changed in less than five years 

 to follow your example," * said the founder of the Free-trade 

 movement, but as the nations have not come our way in all 

 those years, it is reasonably contended by present day re- 

 actionists that they must have had excellent reasons for their 

 uniform abstention from Cobden's new scheme of economics. 

 The present social and economical conditions which obtain in 

 every civilised country in the world, and which compare only 

 too favourably with our own, are then held to offer both 

 explanation and justification for the persistent refusal of foreign 

 nations to follow Cobden's lead in embarking in new and 

 unknown economic adventures, and out of this imbroglio 

 naturally arises the question — how long ? 



Invention and Discovery not due to Free-trade 



Meanwhile, feeling is running high, and much bitterness 

 is engendered ; albeit the question is more an economical 

 than a political one. There is not a Free-trade contention 

 that is not vehemently assailed by its adversaries. They 

 indignantly deny that Free-trade has had aught to do with 

 invention, scientific discovery, the development of technical 



* Cobden's speech in the House of Commons, January 15, 1846. 



