WHAT ONLOOKERS THINK OF FREE-TRADE 57 



"Whatever may be the ultimate result, the stru^'^4e iucideutally 

 will have the etTect of enablin^^ some ;-;(»<)() En^iish professors of 

 the theoretical cheap loaf to earn their daily bread for a few days 

 longer. I am becoming accustomed to the spectacle of the English 

 Arbeit ici/lif/r (glad of a jo))) gladly picking up the scattered crumbs 

 of Germany's industrial prosperity, but siill it seems to me a strange 

 plight for Englishmen to be reduced to. . . . The men were working 

 willingly. They had, for once in a way, a job which English indus- 

 trial conditions failed to provide, and one could only feel glad to see 

 them still cheerfully employed. But quite lialf the crates and packing- 

 cases of German manufactured goods they were cheerfully loading 

 for transport over sea bore in stencilled black letters the familiar 

 legend, 'Made in Germany,' which indicated that they were destined 

 either for England or for English Colonies. Displaced English 

 labour reduced to getting a living by helping to displace English 

 manufactures." 



What a depth of bitter humiliation and cruel kony there is 

 for the English people in that last sentence ! Displaced English 

 labour reduced to getting a living hj helping to displace English 

 manufactures. And, alas ! it is true. Not only is it true, but 

 if Germany, or other countries which have built up a solid wall 

 of hostile tariffs against our manufactures, wanted English 

 labour by tens of thousands, they would get it ^\dth the same 

 ease with which Hamburg got her 3000. 



Let us now find out what this means, for we are face to 

 face with a strangely anomalous position. On the one hand, 

 we have the Government and Free-traders pointing to the 

 expansion of national trade as indicating national prosperity ; 

 and on the other, the Tariff-reformers pointing to congested 

 labour markets, the masses of unemployed, the precariousness 

 of employment, lost industries, and the phenomenal pauperism 

 of the country (compared with every other civilised country 

 in the world), as indicating commercial atrophy and national 

 decline. 



This sums up, approximately enough, the exact position of 

 the two great contending political parties of the State, and we 

 will now settle the matter by the sure test of practical common- 

 sense. 



In order that the writer may have an active and perfectly 

 unfettered mind on this subject, as also on other matters 

 affecting the commonweal, he has, for some years past, cut 

 himself adrift from every political party in the kingdom because 

 he realised the utter impossibility of striking a course along 

 which he, among others, might travel with advantage, so long 

 as he found himself pulled this way or that by some political 

 influence or other. 



