FREE TRADE AND FAIR PLAY.
THE Economist last week rushed to the rescue of Mr. Cobden ; seeking- to effect a diversion in his favour, by attacking us for supposing that he can be "astray." Our assailant writes at a length that we need not imitate, inasmuch as the main facts upon which we are at issue do not constitute the lengthy portions of his .prelection, but stand as mere assertions, or are omitted in his account, whether by design or inadvertence we know not. He uses an art of journalism with which we are able to dispense, be- cause we do not desire to "advocate" anything, in the sense of arguing on one side : the device is to put forth unquestioned truths as stalking-horses for things which are not true. For instance, we heartily agree in the statement that the West Indies did not originate complaints against the old protective duty on sugar; and we also know that some of the West Indians, erro- neously we think, call for a more effectual suppression of the slave-trade by armed force. When we denied Lord George Ben- tinck's identity with the West Indies, we did not assert any such identity on our own part : to establish one distinction is not to deny another. If our contemporary were disposed to make a candid use of his knowledge, he would also recognize the fact that "the West India Association" is not the West Indies, and has no authoritative connexion with those colonies.
Of the facts which are true our contemporary makes a use not accordant with truth. To what purpose does he recall the fact that the West Indies tolerated the protective duty of 63s. on i sugar, unless it be to induce a belief that they were n some way active antagonists of free trade ; and that we, accused of " advo- cating" their interests, are also opposed to free trade? "For years past," says the Economist, "we have protested as much against the protection which this country enjoyed in the Colonies, as against that which the Colonies enjoyed in the exclusive com- mand of the home market. Mr. Cobden and all other real Free- traders have done the same." The spirit of unfairness, the suppressio yeti, which we find in the rest of the article, charac- terizes this passage : "all other real Free-traders" have not "done the same" ; on the contrary, the great oracle of the Free-traders, Mr. Deacon Hume, expressly declared that the West Indies were excluded from the category of free trade, by their having been subjected to legislation for the indulgence of the Abolition senti- ment; and we have followed Mr. Hume. The West Indies did not begin any movement against the protective duty on theoreti- cal grounds, because, being on the whole prosperous till the Eman- cipation fere, they were content to remain as they were. But when the Home Government undertook to upturn the system which had been maintained for British purposes, and was up- turned for a caprice of British sentiment, it behoved our statesmen at least to secure justice on all sides, and not, in the zeal of neophytes, to take revenge on the West Indians for having shared the abandoned opinion. The use made of the argument respecting the West Indian de- mand for more effectual suppression of the slave-trade is equally exceptionable : it is used as if the West Indies adhered to the slave-trade-suppression policy of the Government ; which is not the fact. The claim has more resemblance to a reductio ad ab- surdum. The West Indies said, "You restrict our supply of la- bour; therefore make good your profession of stopping the supply of slave-labour for our rivals." We believe it would be better policy to aid in exhibiting the impossibility of suppressing the supplies of slave-labour ; but the claim was not the less just ac- cording to its terms. The Economist hazards the assertion that all the grievances of the West Indies have been redressed- " Emigration has been permitted freely from India for more than three years on the terms demanded by the West Indians. The free-will of the Coolies, and the means of the West Indians, have been nearly the only limit to the supply of this labour. With the coast of Africa increased facilities have been afforded by the Government; so that now no restriction can be said to remain upon the importa- tion of freemen into the Colonies. It is true that the Government still refuses to permit the West Indians to purchase slaves in Africa for the purpose of compul- sory emigration. Beyond this there is now no practical hinderance to the supply of labour. The differential duties on the imports into the West Indies have been repealed. The rum-duties have been equalized with those charged on British spirits, except a few pence per gallon still in dispute on special grounds, the principle of equality being fully admitted. The restrictions on the use of West Indian produce in our breweries and distilleries have been, with slight exceptions, repealed; and these only wait for secure arrangements being made to prevent frauds in the excise to be also removed. In short—except the Navigation-laws--. the West India grievances of 1843 are obliterated, as far as the Legislature had control over them. And if the Colonists will aid the Free-traders, the present session of Parliament will not pass away without this last grievance being also removed."
This conveys a totally false representation of the actual state of the case. The course of equal-handed justice sketched in the extract has not been pursued. Our pretence of abolishing the slave-trade is notoriously fallacious—the thing is not done. Our pretence of permitting a supply of free labour to the West Indies is equally unreal—it is not done : though permission is formally recorded on paper, the people are not transmitted : the permission is clogged with conditions that reduce it to a form; and before it was given, even had it been real, "the means of the West Indians" had been wasted by us. We have forced our own colonies, without labour, with crippled means and blasted hopes, into competition with foreigners who possess abundant supplies of compulsory labour and the fresh stimulus of an extensive demand in a new market. That is not "free trade ": it is indeed a course so anomalous that it has no name at all ; and we are sur- prised that any advocate of "real" free trade can risk the odium for his cause of identifying it with a policy so dishonest and absurd.
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