LANCASHIRE AND FREE-TRADE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTIITOZ....1
SIR,—It seems to me from present appearances that the next fight in the Lancashire constituencies for Free-trade will have to be a more determined struggle than at the last General Election. This greatest of all questions for our county will probably be obscured by several fleeting issues if we do not. mind. Free-trade is the life of our staple industry ; and if, as a nation, we begin to play with its principles in the direc- tion proposed by Tariff Reformers, it will be a bad thing for us, and for the County Palatine in particular. This the cotton operatives are fully aware of (thanks to their far-seeing officials), so we need not trouble ourselves very much about their views on Mr. Chamberlain's heresy. For the most part, cotton employers are sound; but blind and ignorant partisan- ship appears here and there to be loosening the bonds. It is here where the Free-trade missionary must do his work. Our shipping merchants and distributors are all right, and they are likely to exert themselves in the coming conflict. Man- chester and Salford have many small industries not directly connected with cotton, and these are, it is feared, being "got at" by fiscal-mongers during the present spell of declining trade. The outside Lancashire towns are generally safe, not being, I think, very easily gulled. The weighty words of Lord Cromer here on India, which you thought important enough to reproduce in the Spectator of last Saturday, will, I feel sure, have their due effect in the Lancashire mind. My native county will, I am confident, not slacken in the slightest way her hold of the well-tried policy which has made her so prosperous.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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