BUY BRITISH GOODS [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sni,—If those interested in the correspondence under the above heading will ask themselves how we pay for the goods we buy, they will find, whether they are Free Traders or Pro- tectionists, that the reply leads to 'some very interesting conclusions. Economists say that goods pay for goods, which is true as a bare statement of fact. The real question, however, is whether both sides to such transactions are equally free to settle the price at which they will make the respective (although unconscious) exchanges.
When goods that more than one country can offer are concerned, it will be found that since 1873, when Germany adopted a gold currency system and other nations gradually followed her example, the gold point factor has operated increasingly to prevent this country from obtaining much more than the lowest price—measured by gold—at which the goods can be obtained elsewhere.
Ours is the only considerable market for many classes of goods, and all the world is free to sell to us in that market. Sales here create credits for our money—gold. The nation through its individual traders is now therefore in the position of having either to sell at the lowest world gold price, or having to pay in gold instead of in goods. It is no satisfac- tion to say that we shall already have given goods to obtain
the gold, because to replenish our supplies of gold we shall be compelled as time goes on to give more and more goods.
The problem is therefore how we can ensure that we only have to give goods at our price to pay for what we buy. If we could say that currency notes were the final legal tender payment for all sales made to us from overseas, as they are in our home trade, our purpose would be achieved. Why can we not do so ?
It is true that individual trades would not be protected, but the trade of the country as a whole would gradually
develop along the lines of what it was most fitted to produce- Cobden's ideal. Under such a system we could retain com- plete Free Trade. At the same time Empire trade would be stimulated, because its component parts can take payment in our goods more readily than some other countries—the.
United States for instance—can.7---I am, Sir, &e.,
MARK E. F. MAJOR,
Tuck?' Cottage, Duppas Hill Terrace, Croydon,
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