[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."]
Snic,—Many years ago, at a Consular Court in the East, I was foreman of a jury in a trial for murder. The Crown prosecutor had concluded his case, and the jury felt that the evidence was not sufficiently strong to justify conviction ; but then arose counsel for the defence, and in less than twenty minutes his client's guilt was established beyond question, and we gave a unanimous verdict of guilty.
Am I to have a similar experience in the present controversy P Am I—until 1888 a convinced Free-trader, since then a hesitating and wobbling one—to be pushed over the fence, and to be finally convinced of the failure of Free-trade by the arguments of Free-traders and their methods of meeting honest inquiry? It seems as if it were inevitable. On June 20th the Times published a letter from Sir George Bartley, an avowed Free-trader, pointing out very impartially some of the most obvious difficulties which beset any inexperienced inquirer who approaches the subject from the Free-trade point of view. Those difficulties are by no means unanswerable, but the expression of them was useful because it afforded an opportunity for Free-traders to state their case, to solve the doubts of one of their erring brethren. Yet the Spectator and the Westminster Gazette—the only two papers of any weight that defend Free-trade—did not think it necessary even to allude to the letter. But a few days later Mr. Fuller, who at all events recognised Sir George Bartley's letter as "the most valuable contribution to the general inquiry into the case for or against preferential tariffs,' essayed to answer it ; and promptly the Spectator and the Westminster Gazette publish a great part of this letter, and then, without the smallest examina- tion, without the verification of a single figure, swallow it whole, sing their paean of triumph, and adopt poor Mr. Fuller's ten points as the Decalogue of Free-trade. Nothing is more us- generous than to be severe on an honest endeavour to do one's best, and one would gladly have left Mr. Fuller alone if it had not been for the ill-judged advocacy of his friends; but for the sake of Free-trade itself, which really does merit defence, which must not be treated as a lost cause, and, I go further, which must eventually triumph when we have ascer- tained in what it really consists, it becomea necessary to say that if its defenders adopt the well-meaning but dangerous and reckless advocacy of people like Mr. Fuller—who has in nearly every item committed errors of omission or commission amounting to sums varying from eight to flve thousand millions sterling—then the cause, if not lost, will be so dangerously imperilled that reaction may land us in the fatal mercantilism of the early part of last century. Let me beg the Spectator to treat the subject as one meriting serious discussion ; to engage some trained political economist who shall defend the present fiscal system, who shall explain how it is that with a larger Customs revenue than that of any other European country we still are Free-traders ; how it is that other countries with smaller Customs revenue but a higher tariff are able to show a much larger proportionate increase in foreign trade, in growth of income, of shipping, of savings-bank deposits, and a much larger decrease in pauperism. This is a service which no one can do with more weight than the Spectator.
[We entirely dissent from our correspondent's unsup- ported strictures on Mr. Fuller's letter, but we cannot repeat our articles and our comments on other letters, and so must refer "Open Mind" to them. We note his invitation to us to engage a trained economist, but we cannot say that we are encouraged by the results achieved by another newspaper, the Times, in adopting that course. Any- thing less illuminating than the articles supplied to that journal by the writer who styles himself "Economist" we cannot imagine. Into such "blank misgivings of a creature moving about in the worlds not realised" we do not desire to enter. We are content with the knowledge that two and two make four, that though you may make a few, individuals rich by Acts of Parliament which prevent people buying freely what others desire to sell freely, you cannot perform that feat for a whole nation, and that it is an eternal law that he who will not buy neither shall he sell. These things can be learnt without a trained economist. For the rest, and here we think we shall have the support of our ablest trained economists, we venture to assert that the policy of Free-trade is no mystery which the mere layman must not dare to defend.—En. Spectator.]
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