The Duke of Rutland shows some shrewdness when be writes
to yesterday's Times that the Protectionists are very far indeed from wishing to force Protection on the people of Great Britain against the popular will, since what they hope to do is to get the mass of the people to adopt Protection and force it upon British statesmen. The former enterprise would be simply hopeless. The latter, as the Duke of Rutland sees only too well, is not by any means hopeless. The word "Protection " is so ingratiating a word, and suggests so much that democracies are very credulous in supposing that Governments can give them, that nothing seems to us much less unlikely than that, as time goes on, the popular fallacy of Protection may be taken up by the popular party in England, and forced upon the acceptance of statesmen. But if the Duke of Rutland wishes to gain this end, we would give him this advice,—Let him turn Radical, and preach Protection as a Radical creed, as the creed of a politician who is determined to get higher wages for the artisans, and higher prices for the farmers and shopkeepers, by the help of the Government, than they could ever get by their own exertions. That is his best chance of success.
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