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Show B fl COBDEN AND CHAMBERLAIN. fl The fight between tho dead Cobden and the B live Chamberlain Jn Epgland Is most interesting. V The London Times -with all its power in cham-B cham-B plonlng the policy pf the latter; the old Free B Traders are Invoking tUe shade of the former as a B patron saint to cjiqeard whoso principles would B bo sacrilege. It was Cpbden who, fifty-six years -B ago, secured the repeal of the Corn laws and made B Great Britain a free trade country The princl-B princl-B pie worked admirably for thirty years England B by nature was most admirably situated for trade. B Tho islands that make he United Kingdom are al-B al-B most surrounded by splendid harbors. Then her B mines of tin, iron and coal are convenient to her B ports. Then when Cobden proclaimed his shibbo-B shibbo-B leth, England had, through almost inhibitory B tariffs for one hundred years, been able to draw B to her half the rqady money of the world, &nd B she after the Invention of the steam engine, had B perfected her machinery and covered the seas B with her ships. Toward the trade of the world B she stood like a fully mailed and armed gladiator B anl proclaimed that In a contest for life the only . fair way was for outsiders to enter the arena B with such weapons as they might be able to secure B and fight him for the championship. English B farmers had a homo market for all they could H- supply. So all classes were prosperous. Then Eng-B' Eng-B' laml began the peaceful spoliation of the world. Hi She took the raw products of the world and K traded them back mixed with a little British H brain and charged so much for the brain mixture that it was giving a bale of hides for a few pairs j of shoos, a bolt of cloth for a bale of wool, a roll j of carpet for a bale of cottQUi and tho result was that all her colonies were drained of money and made desperately poor, all southern Europe, all ppanlsh America was treated the same-way, and-phe and-phe two or three times the United States listened H her siren song and opened her ports to her, wrought to us a depletion of money and stagnation F traue every time. The most notable instance pvas probably in 1857, California, had then yielded oro than ?300,000,QQQ Jn gold, but suddenly there as a collapse in business and It was discovered that every warehouse in tvft? -vas bursting with British goods and thereSK, ;57,000,000 i$ specie left in the Republic. Afc'V ' tyf But the stream of treasure which 'Hs flow' from the west to the east in 1849 an! -'.?;. has ever since rolled on in steadily incrb'nig volume had Its effect at last. It caused railroads to be spread in a net-work all oyer the upper Mississippi Mis-sissippi and Missouri valleys, and there came a ' time when American bread and meat could be laid down in British ports cheaper than the tillers till-ers on the high-priced land of Great Britain could produce them. Then came tho demonetization of silver and with it the succeeding Inevitable fall In prices and the sufferings of the farmers and the land owners of England reached so acute a stage that they petitioned for help. But the answer they received was "The greatest good for the greatest . number. England lives by her manufactures and trade and wo can do nothing to raise the cost of raw material needed in our mills." But then came trouble in other forms. The tariff in our country, continued steadily after 18G1 . had performed its perfect work on some lines. It had made possible the building .tip of great manufactures, man-ufactures, they had become rivals for trade, hence had paid premiums to their most expert artisans , and had, regardless of expense, adopted every new labor saving device, until In many lines Eng- land could not compete with them and they sold their goods in the very cities of England Then Germany used the indemnity received from France to build up manufactures and to subsidize ships; further, she used, and uses still, the graduates from her technical schools, her schools of design and even from her universities, to help in her manufactories to prepare better and more attractive goods; sent them out in her subsidized ships and Great Britain found she had a new and terrible rival in all her foreign trade centers There were other troubles still for England. Her manufacturers, if they saw what was going . on in Germany and the United States, with true British stubbornness and obliviousness to manifest mani-fest facts, closed their eyes, never believing that any country could" be a serious rival to Great Britain, until her best trade was undermined. Then came her engineers' strike which paralyzed many of her manufactories for three years. But the great shock came to her Government and her ruling rul-ing classes when the Boer war was precipitated and she called upon her yeomanry for soldiers. Then she found that the men called from her rural population had becomo so poor that their schools had been abandoned and the degeneration had begun which follows when there Is nothing left on which ambition can find an Incentive for further fur-ther struggle, and hope dies in the hearts of a people. The students from their higher schools were not much better, for they were from the families of the rich and they had, even In youth, broken their constitutions by dissipation, and Lords Roberts Rob-erts and Kitchener found themselves In command of material little better, for offensive warfare, than Wellington found the Spaniards made of , H When he went to help them turn .back from their ' B soil the marshals of Napoleon, - save that the , B . Spaniards In danger would turn and run. while B the Britons, impotent to help themselves, would B stay and die. The foregoing is, we believe, a true and fair B statement. Now as to Mr. Chamberlain.'s policy: flB It can in one direction be a great help, but at i , B best It will be simply a palliative, not a cure. A B sufficient tariff on such food products as England B can produce, enough to give English farmers a ' B fair price for their products would restore English B farming to its old vigor and be an Immense help I B In the very spot where help is first needed. B ' But no tariff can help her manufacturers. Cecil Rhodes saw where the trouble was when he made B provision in his will to educate a large contln- gent' of "German and American students at Oxford, , M It was nbt his love for Germany and the United ' M States,,sit was to arouse the ambition, now half ''J M dormant, of- the young men of his own country H and to spur them on to excel against sharp com- , M nation, Mr. Balfour sees the need, so does Mr. n! H Chamberlain himself. The cry all along the line M is that the British schools, from kindergarten y i B to university, must be modernized and electrified M by new drtd earnest work. Then In her factories t 'M obsolete machinery must be discarded, experts M from abroad must bo sent for to modernize them M and rewards must bo offered for expeditions and M exact work Among her artisans there must be M impressed the fact that as a manufacturing na- B tion Great Britain has fallen shamefully behind and the old invincible spirit must be aroused as it was at Waterloo when the Iron Duke with white face but heroic bearing cried: "Up; Guards, and o at them!" J With this done, with new school masters, with B the learned professors kindled to real action, B with new machinery and with experts to train the B artisans and with her manufacturers keeping. watch to procure any effective labor-saving de- ' B vices that may be invented, ana specially reward- B Ing merit In every line; then with tariff enough B on food to make English farming profitable; in B ten years a marked advance would be apparent, In fl twenty years, even if England's old prestige could fl not be restored, she would stand the peer of all fl her present rivals, for tho stock Is the old invlnc- H ible stock; the same that has made England a H world power for a thousand years; tho same that fl enables nine hundred of tho race to control and H administer her laws to two hundred millions of fl souls In the far East fl England Is now half-faljiting under the re- fl action which comes when a people, exulting ia C the pride of a thousand years of triumphs, are brought face to face with the fact that they are losing ground In the world's estimation; that other nations are excelling them in brain competition com-petition and quite equalling them in all the fields In which they so long thought themselves unrivalled. un-rivalled. England was self-conaclous enough bo-fore bo-fore Waterloo. Her people never read aright the truth of that tremendous event. They led the allies al-lies that on that day overwhelmed the Great Emperor. Em-peror. They could not under that battle canopy Bftf J, 2 II j note tlie tracings of the hand of Destiny or mark B r the falling of a star. Rather they but reasoned H ; !"vS i ! ' na" as Napoleon had in turn swept Jtaly, Aus- HH E j J f trio, Germany, Russia al Europe with His m l i " 2 j j j eagles and was overthrqwn when he faced the men B 'ki I of the United Kingdom, why itfVas only natural m 'i ; ij t conclude' that "we are 'the people." H ' I What If a few of the divisions 'that the snows S ' ' j ! II j I Russia hushed in their last sleep had in their B l A Ijl .splendor and power, been at Waterloo on that B V il N fatGful tlay? HB , "! y But no matter, England claimed the triumph jB 1 1 1 j i and Europe was too much exhausted to dispute H ! ! I I wIth her So to0' EurPe was bankrupt and H ' f I 4 1 j U England was rich in money and ships and ma-H ma-H , ' i 1 S v chinery to put her products into commercial forms H .111 and for fifty years she dominated the world. She H jji ' , j j j ' j had much besides to be proud of. She had sub- H 'ii ' I j i ' dued herself to a reign of law, her courts com- fl J ! II polled justice to be done between man and man . H. if I 'J I jj and her people were free. More, she had created H ' Jj I I! j j a literature of her own, high and true and strong H' t ' , i,i J j jj and beautiful; the years of upheaval in Europe H i ' 1 I j j had excited and brought out all the power of H' (1 j J I j I j British minds; a galaxy of great spirits filled her H j' ill capital and gave direction to the thoughts of H ! j " j j ! men. No wonder she was proud. No wonder, per- B ' j j i haps, that she took and hugged to her soul the be- B J yl j ' lief that she was In every way -Invincible. The B j 1 j awakening from this dream of superiority has ! I 1 1 been a great shock to her and no wonder lier I j statesmen are crying out In alarm and anxiety I II and are searching for some panacea that will t ' cure her weakness and her sorrow. J Mi I A tariff will not save her. A moderate tariff . ' S ': I ' to protect her agriculturalists will help, but the H J iffijli cure must come from a re-awakening of the old Hi iij 'i j if valor of the race and a determination to recover, B I ' i I m at whatever cost, the ground lhat has been lost. Hv , 8 1 ,i IR A readjustment of her schools and the adoption B.' , f "of 'the methods that have madt the United States B j I B ' and Germany competitors so formidable will do B i j I B the work and nothing else can. |