the importance to this country of the | hear the deputations of various trades;

sirable unless it were very favourable. | Trade principles. There was a meaning Gentlemen throughout the country who made that remark did not, he thought, follow all its consequences. In the commercial position that this country was in, half a loaf was better than no bread; and nothing would be more unfortunate to the commerce of this country than to be thrown back upon the general Tariff of the French Commission.

article were largely exporting it to England, and under-selling us, not only in foreign markets, but in our own English markets. He did not think we should attempt either to beg of, to cajole, or to threaten the French Government. If the French had not learned the value of Free Trade principles, even in a modified form, he was afraid no Treaty would teach them. We must ask not only for a reduction, but a very substantial reduction, of the present Tariff duties; and if we failed to obtain that, the Government had only one course to pursue-namely, to throw up the Treaty altogether, leaving the French to learn by bitter experience the value of what they would thus lose. He should be very sorry indeed to see a large portion of our trade swept away; but rather than make a sham Treaty, imposing duties which were wholly unnecessary in the present situation, he would abandon the Treaty system altogether. He would let principle take the place of expediency; and leave the French to find out, as they assuredly would, not only the value of our trade to them, but the enormous and far greater value of their trade in exports to us.

dence of the Duty, but calculated to pro- | that the French manufacturers of that duce Custom House difficulties of a very onerous description. He thought a great deal too much had been said by the French as to the question of frauds. He would not admit that the frauds which had taken place justified in the slightest degree a resort to the barbarous system of classification. It would be perfectly easy, by arrangements at the different centres of export, to prevent any possibility of fraud under the ad valorem system. He was very sorry indeed to find, after 20 years' experience of the benefits of a modified application of Free Trade principles, the French in their present attitude. It was to be deplored that a country which had made such marked progress in many other respects was not only stationary, but to some extent even back-sliding, on economical matters. Those gentleman who had been sent over to this country as French Commissioners, and who were supposed, in theory at least, to be charged with the mission of extending the commercial relations between the two countries, were themselves the framers of this barbarous and protective Tariff. What could they hope from gentlemen who had exercised all their ingenuity to cancel the possibility of exports from this country? What could they hope from them, as negotiators of a new Treaty, to extend our commerce? He agreed that if it were possible to delay the negotiations till the new French Chamber was elected, they would have a much better chance of obtaining a good Treaty; and it seemed eventually that the Treaty would have to be submitted and approved by the new Chamber. His standpoint was that no protection was needed by the French, for the time had really arrived when we should have perfectly free exports from this country to France. He was convinced that in regard to all the industries in which France stood in a position of rivalry with this country, the French manufacturers were nearly abreast of us; and when it was proposed to put a large increase of duty, on fine yarns, for instance, he had to point out that the French were already quite our equals in that industry, French yarns of best quality being at this moment sold in the Nottingham market in competition with English produce. Then, with regard to the protective duty on plate glass, he noted

MR. ECROYD said, ho wished to express the very strong feeling which he entertained in regard to the important question now under negotiation between IIer Majesty's Government and the Government of France. He had always highly valued the influence of Commercial Treaties in promoting good feeling between nations; and whatever might be the result of the present negotiations, they must look back with extreme satisfaction upon the results of the friendly intercourse between this country and France, which had followed the Treaty negotiated by Mr. Cobden. But Commercial Treaties could only conduce to mutual good feeling between nations when they resulted in a disposition to continue to progress in the way of increasing the interchange of productions; and if at the end of 20 years' experience the state of things in France was such that there was not a disposition to value an increased interchange of productions with England, then one of the great objects of Commercial Treaties had in that case failed, and he should be indisposed to attach much value to the negotiation of a new Treaty under such

change. He believed that unless a very efficient remedy could be found for this condition of things, it would in the long run produce a large amount of discontent, which might lead our industrial population to demand distinctly protective measures-measures, perhaps, of a highly and rashly injurious character. He therefore entertained a strong hope that the result of the negotiations between the Governments of England and France would be to give a ray of encouragement to our manufacturing population, and to inspire a hope that Free Trade might yet grow on its present lines, and that the French would, in some form or other, consent to give us a Treaty which would manifestly be a progressive step towards increasing trade with England.

circumstances. But progress in friendly would not take back our goods in exrelations and towards the enlargement of the area of Free Trade were great things in the granting of Commercial Treaties; and he was not without hope that they might yet, by the exertions of Her Majesty's Government, be attained in the present instance. But it must be remembered that if such Treaties were only accepted by France, or any other nation, as encouraging their Protectionist course of action by freeing them for a term of years from retaliatory duties, they were distinctly doing harm, and retarding the progress of Free Trade in the world. He therefore hoped that, rather than negotiate a Treaty with that country which might have the effect either of narrowing the trade of the exports of English manufactures to France, or of manifesting to the world the fact that the Commercial Treaty negotiated MR. ILLINGWORTH said, the ques20 years ago had failed to produce a tion was whether we were to abandon disposition to go further, the Govern- a Treaty in order to bring foreign Goment would withdraw from the negotia-vernments into better commercial relations, and leave manufacturers to transact tions with our own. As the Representatheir business with France as best they might without a new Treaty. In the meantime, he had the best reasons for believing that very large numbers of those engaged in the chief centres of our manufacturing industries were looking with great alarm upon the continual contraction of the markets for their manufactures; and the contraction was at present of a two-fold character, arising from our recent course of commercial policy. In the first place, the area of our foreign trade was being constantly contracted, not only by the increased pressure of Tariffs, which imposed heavier burdens on our goods, but also by the results of those Tariffs in producing that which in many cases they were intended to produce-the establishment of an increasing capacity to manufacture in those Protectionist countries. In consequence, our home trade was being greatly restricted by the successful and increasing competition of foreign countries, and notably by the United States in respect to agriculture. Vast sums of money, which in former times were paid by the industrial masses of this country to the agricultural populations of Great Britain and Ireland, and which came back again through the shopkeepers and tradesmen in the form of increased home trade, were now increasingly paid to foreign nations, who

Mr. Ecroyd

tive of a large industrial community, he supported the views which had been put before the House by the hon. Member for Manchester and the hon. and learned Member for Dewsbury. He did not think it would be to the interests of Free Trade either in France or in England that England should accept a Treaty with France which was at all retrograde in its character. It was, no doubt, true, as the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had urged, that manufacturers must not fix their attention on a few articles, but must look at the general range of the Treaty; and, speaking generally, he believed that the simplest course for the Government would be to say to France that if the terms on which the Treaty was to be negotiated were not substantially as good as the present conditions they would prefer that no Treaty should be entered into. The difficulty with regard to these high foreign Tariffs was not that the people on the Continent or of America were enamoured of the principles of Protection. It was their financial necessities which obliged their Governments to get money in the most objectionable and unscientific fashion they could indulge in. ["No, no!"] He would ask hon. Members who seemed to dissent how it was that of late years those foreign Tariffs had been so much raised? At

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necessity of importing a very large share of the food of the people. We required annually one-third or one-half of the food of the country from foreign sources. That was not the case in America, nor was it the case in France or Germany, except on the occurrence of bad harvests. He was afraid it would be assumed that as he belonged to the commercial classes he had not a very strong sympathy with the agricultural interests of this country. On the contrary, he was most anxious that the land of this country should grow more of the food of the population. That was the firt and only weapon by which they could fight foreign countries, and make progress towards universal Free Trade; and he hoped that this Parliment would not separate without giving relief to the agricultural interest in the following direction. He wished to see such a change in the system of land-owning and land-holding in this country as would give the farmer some chance in competition with America. Reference had been made to the decline in the worsted manufactures in this country, and it had been urged that they must look to retaliation as a means of recovering the lost position. But it should be understood that the cause of the decline was that there had been such a change in fashion as had not been known for half a century; and he should be sorry, therefore, if the working classes were led to look to remedies which would be altogether ineffectual and misleading. They could not enter upon a policy of Protection without adopting it all round, and he admitted that the agricultural interest could present the strongest case for it. What they had to do was to set an example of peace and fair dealing in the world, and then urge that policy upon their neighbours. In conclusion, he hoped the Government would not unduly concern itself at the possibility of the miscarriage of the negotiations, for good would probably come out of the abandonment of the Treaty.

one time they had a comparatively mo- | country that normally was under the derate Tariff with the United States. It was in a great and disastrous war that America found herself under the necessity of obtaining money to carry on that war. And it was obvious that there was no way of raising the taxes which could so easily delude the people and be so easily adopted as by a system of increasing Customs rates. That was true also of Germany and France. It was no doubt the war system all over the world which caused nations to fly to high Tariffs. France and Germany had a much heavier Debt now than before the Franco-German War, and the Protectionists of those countries had taken advantage of it, and played upon the ignorance of the people and brought pressure on the Governments in order that the Duties might be raised whereby it was supposed their own special and sectional interests were benefited. He confessed he despaired of reaching Free Frade through a system of Treaties; and, further, that he was afraid our working classes must be told that it was impossible for them to escape from their share of practical sympathy with the sufferings of other nations. He believed that Providence designed it that distress in one part of the world was not to be escaped by other parts, so long as the war system was kept up. He still believed that Free Trade principles would progress. But when the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Slagg) and others urged that it was to be regretted that France had not made more progress in enlightenment of views on the Free Trade system, they must not forget the circumstances under which the original Treaty was carried. It was, on the part of France, more the mind of an individual than the mind of the people that was embodied in the Treaty. The late Emperor of the French was looking to dynastic as well as to commercial reasons, and therefore he was easily induced to enter into friendly relations with this country. It was not to be wondered at that we found the French in their present mood. It could not be forgotten that there were bad harvests in France as well as in this country, and that France had been importing food while the farmers at the present moment were suffering from competition with America and low prices. The difference between France and England was that we were the only

MR. CHAPLIN said, that although representing the agricultural interest, he had the strongest sympathy with those to whom this Motion related, and he would therefore give it his support. The hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Illingworth) said that the remedy for agricultural distress must be found in greater production, and he stated that