We have dealt elsewhere with Lord Rosebery's admirablo description of
the dangers and difficulties to which the Empire would be exposed by any attempt to establish a preferential system; but before we leave his speech we must note his grave warning against destroying the splendid fabric of British commerce. " We are the carriers and the clearing-house of the world. We are the financial centre of the world, a position dependent upon the utmost liberty of commerce. Take care how you tamper with this position. Take care how you lay hands on the majestic but sensitive structure of British credit and British commerce, which has been reared upon the secure rock of Free-trade." Excellent, too, was the point he made in regard to the price of labour. Sir Robert Peel in 1849 in a speech took two typical instances of a labourer in Dorsetahire and an artisan in Paisley. The labourer in the country was taken as earning 8s. a week, the artisan in Paisley at 10s. or 12s. a week. "Yon may say that in those days—even in those days—the diminish- ing wages had a greater purchasing power. We know as a matter of absolute certainty what is the purchasing power from the Report of the Board of Trade issued a month ago ; and the purchasing power of 100s. now is as great as 140s. before the establishment of Free-trade." As it was in the old epoch of Protection so it would be in the new.
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