The discussion yesterday week on Mr. Ritchie's motion for a
Select Committee to consider the operation of foreign tariffs on English commerce, was chiefly remarkable for the very faint heart shown by Mr. Ritchie and his friends, who were really most anxious to disavow Protection, while their whole line of argu- ment pointed either to that or no-whither ; and for the masterly speeches of Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Chamberlain, who- showed that the American tariff was first imposed, just as it is now proposed by the Free-traders that an English protective tariff shall be imposed, as an " emergency " tariff, and that it has long outlived the emergency which gave it birth, in spite of the fact that it has all but destroyed the export of American manufactures, and annihilated the United States as competitors among the manufacturers of the world. Sir Stafford Northcote succeeded in finding a few flimsy excuses for Mr. Ritchie's motion, while disavowing Protection, and he actually voted for the motion ; but the only result was that he voted in a small minority of 89,—the motion being resisted by 140 Liberals,—and that he gave all the world the impression that though he dare not support Protection, he dare not thwart his own followers, when they hanker after it. Anybody who is even puzzled by the Fair-traders should read Mr. Farrer's admirable and exhaustive book on "Free-trade versus Fair-trade," published by Cassell, a book in which the whole facts of the case are expounded with as much lucidity as terseness.
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