In England the event of the week has been the
outbreak of a Protection fever in the very birthplace and home of Free Trade, —Manchester. It is denied, indeed, that the movement is Pro- tectionist, as it professes at present only to contemplate a policy of " reciprocity" in making concessions to foreign countries ; but reciprocity is, to full-blown protection, only what scarlatina is to scarlet fever, or chicken-pox to small-pox. Besides, as we have no protective duties at present, reciprocity would imply, we suppose, putting them on, in order to have something to take off again, if any other country of sufficient importance would come to terms. We must qualify ourselves by putting on a strait waistcoat before we can be competent to pursue the disinterested policy of assuring France that if she will break away her strait waistcoat, we will break away ours ; and if we added that we hoped she would be quick, since we had, in fact, donned that inelastic and ascetic dress solely to give her a fresh motive to get rid of hers, the effect would, no doubt, be electric. The Reciprocity Association was started on Tuesday by a meeting of about fifty gentlemen in the Clarence Hotel, Spring Gardens, Manchester, the central doctrine of these philosophers being apparently that free trade all round is an excellent thing ; but that if any foreign nation will not take our goods free of duty ; we shall improve our situation by declining to take theirs free of duty. That is, we shall be wise to spend more on producing an 'article than we could buy it for, even though the same capital, if spent on producing something else in which we have more advan- tage, would produce enough to obtain the article in question, and leave us something over besides ! Dr. Royle, and Mr. Bleackley, and Mr. Chapman, and the rest of these wiseacres, should go back to school, before they convene another meeting.
