13 JANUARY 1906, Page 14

THE CLERGY AND PROTECTION.

[TO THE EDITOR OF TUE "Sr ROTATOR."] Sin, Mr. Newman is too severe on those who differ from him (Spectator, January 6th). It is hardly fair of him to ,pose as if he and the advoCates of free imports were the only friends of the working man, and to imply, which his letter does, that their opponents are seeking their own interests. There are clergy, and laity too, who know as much as he of the labouring classes, and who, on the poor man's behalf, not on their own, advocate a preferential and

retaliatory tariff. It looks to me as if we had to choose • between a cheap loaf with no wages to buy it with, and

a scarcely dearer loaf with work and wages sufficient for the loaf and a great deal more. Utrum horum mavis accipe, as the old Latin grammar said. What is the good of cheap bread if one has no money ? I know which of these two conditions I would prefer to live under. But I am not a political economist, only a simple country parson, and I have no pet theory to maintain, and am willing to be set right. If I consulted my own particular interest in housekeeping, I should vote for the Liberals. As a friend of the unemployed working man, I shall—pace Mr. Newman

—vote against them.—I am, Sir, &c., W. M.

[Then our correspondent will be doing the very thing he desires not to do. It is Free-trade . which gives more employment and more wages, not Protection. Every ton of imports sent into this. country is an order to employ British labour in providing the objects with which to pay for those imports. To keep out imports is to forbid exchange,

and so to forbid the making of things exchangeable. Protec- tion will not give poor men more money to buy bread, but will take away from those that have little, even that which they have.—En. Spectator.]