24 SEPTEMBER 1904, Page 3

The Westminster Gazette, which never fails either in wit or

ingenuity in championing the cause of Free-trade, gives in its Thursday's issue a most amazing example of how if Protection is adopted, every trade, whether flourishing or depressed, will call aloud that it must have its fair share of the cake. Just a year ago Mr. White, the chairman of the Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers, at the annual meeting of his company, referred to the prominence which the cement industry had received during the Rochester contest, and re- marked that "if the wisdom and statesmanship of the country should declare that duties on some manufac- tures should be levied, cement was an article that would cry aloud to be included." In spite, however, of this, Mr, White on Wednesday was able to state that the trading profits of his company were up by nearly 220,000. Yet if