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Show SALISBURY' TARIFF SPEECH. There is any quantity of mental food in Lord Salisbi rt's recent speech on protection. protec-tion. Tariff reformers and tinkers in this country have been so long wont to point with pride to England as the noblest example exam-ple of practical free trade that it must shock their sensibilities to learn from the lips of the British premier himself that their teachings are fallacious and that in the light of practical experience, protection judiciously applied is the true doctrine. He points out that whereas titty years ago everybody believed tiiat free trade had conquered the world and that all other nations would follow the example ex-ample of England, foreign nations were adopting protection and excluding England from their markets. Nor can he see any hope for the future. Things appear to grow worse instead of better, so far as England is concerned. AVhile other nations are adopting adopt-ing reciprocal trade relations, none seek the favor of Great Britain because she has stripped herself of the armor and weapons by which the battle is fought. "The attitude atti-tude which we have taken," says he, "in regarding re-garding it disloyal to the glorious and sacred aoctrines ot free trade to levy duties on anybody any-body for the sake of anything we pet thereby, there-by, may be noble but it is not businesslike." This is the doctrine protectionists have been preaching- all along. Protection is based on the idea that one of the primary duti. j of the citizen is to 6ecure all advantages advan-tages needful for the growth and prosperity of the government. There is the element of aeHUb&ess in the principle of protection, but it is essential to self-preservation. So thett- is the element of generosity, or "uobi'-ity," "uobi'-ity," as Lord Salisbvrt expresses it, in free trade, but it is a nobility which milita'es against the interest of the people when carried car-ried to extremes. Here we have one of the most r markable confessions on record. The head and front of the British government admits that the policy of free trade has been tried most effectu.'l'y and found wanting. want-ing. Xot only so. but he declares England Eng-land must adopt protection if it intends in-tends to hold its own in the struggle for trade. He does not advise retaliatory duties would uot injure their own interests by trying to punish other countries but would impose a tariff upon the luxuries imported im-ported from other countries. He would not tax the food products sent by the United States, because they are essential to the masses of the people, nor would he tax raw materials which are needed for their manufactories, manu-factories, but there is an enornmus mass of imports that can be taxed without raising the prices of food and raw material. The significance of this protection speech maybe may-be inferred from the closing sentence: "I shall expect to be excommunicated for propounding pro-pounding uh iSortrnie, btU I ain bound to say I think the free-traders have gone too far." |