PREFERENTIAL TRADE : CARLYLE'S "HOROSCOPE."
(To THE EDITOR OW THE "SPECTATOR.") Sin,—The passages given below appear in Carlyle's "Past and Present," Book IV., "Horoscope," chap. 3. What inference do you draw from (1) the literal references to trade with the Colonies which I have italicised; and (2) from the spirit of Carlyle's prediction ?—
" Why should there not be an 'Emigration Service,' and
Secretary, with adjuncts, with funds, forces, idle Navy-ships, and ever-increasing apparatus ; in fine an effective system of Emigra- tion; so that, at length, before our twenty years of respite ended, every honest willing Workman who found England too strait, and the 'Organisation of Labour' not yet sufficiently advanced, might find likewise a bridge built to carry him into new Western Lands, there to ' organise ' with more elbow-room some labour for himself? There to be a real blessing, raising new corn for us, purchasing new webs and hatchets from us; leaving us at least in peace ;—instead of staying here to be a Physical-Force Chartist, unblessed and no blessing ! Is it not scandalous to consider that a Prime Minister could raise within the year, as I have seen it done, a Hundred and Twenty Millions Sterling to shoot the French, and we are stopt short for want of the hundredth part of that to keep the English living ? The bodies of the English living, and the souls of the English living :—these two 'Services,' an Educa- tion Service and an Emigration Service, these with others will actually have to be organised ! A free bridge for Emigrants : why, we should then. be on a par with America itself, the most favoured of all lands that have no government; and we should have, besides so many traditions and mementos of priceless things which America has cast away. We could proceed deliberately to 'organise Labour,' not doomed to perish unless we effected it within a year and a day ;every willing Worker that proved superfluous, finding a bridge ready for him. This verily will have to be done; the Time is big with this. Our little Isle is grown too narrow for us; but the world is wide enough yet for another Six Thousand Years. England's sure markets will be among new Colonies of Englishmen in all quarters of the Globe. ,ik4 men trade with all men, when mutually convenient; and are even bound to do it by the Maker of men. Our friends of China, who guiltily refused to trade, in these circumstances,— bad we not to argue with them, in cannon-shot at last, and con- vince them that they ought to trade ! 'Hostile Tariffs' will arise, to shut us out; and then again will fall, to let us in: but the Sons of England, speakers of the English language were it nothing more, will in all times have the ineradicable predisposition to trade with England. Tifycale was the Pan-Ionian, rendezvous of all the Tribes of Ion, for old Greece : why should not London long continue the All-Saxon-home, rendezvous of all the • Children of the Harz- Rock,' arriving, in select samples, from the Antipodes and else- where, by steam and otherwise, to the 'season' here !—What a Future; wide as the world, if we have the heart and heroism for it,—which, by Heaven's blessing, we shall."
[Carlyle, it seems to us, was not looking to any form of
• Deducting ships included in ]899 for first thne.
"tied-house" Imperialism, but to the fact, abundantly proved already, that the Colonies under a system of Free-trade here, even though of Protection in the new Britains beyond sea, are among the best customers of the Mother-country. He wished, as do all Unionist and Imperialist Free-traders like our- selves, to maintain and develop the Empire, and he saw that the way to do it was to encourage Free-trade. The spirit of Carlyle's prediction is, in our view, that of an Imperial Free- trader. We are grateful to our correspondent for his most useful quotation.—En. Spectator.1
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