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equivalent amount of foreign energy and capital is diverted into the abandoned channels; and, by the displacement of labour, a corresponding measure of native energy is available for legitimate channels of home production. The creation and maintenance of artificial markets. is thus seen to be an almost unmitigated evil. Of the friction caused by displacement of labour, a word presently.

"That commodities, if properly selected, cannot be produced in excess of demand, until all the wants of all human beings have been provided for, is," says Mr. Cripps," self-evident." And we agree with him. But he proceeds to stagger us again. "The only possible way of arriving at such a result is not by neglecting, but by studying the capabilities of different markets." Had he said-by studying the relative proportions of human wants, and our natural capacity for supplying them, we should have no quarrel with his statement. But we still suspect him to be speaking of artificial markets. Wants and markets do not seem to stand in the relation of cause and effect. The want is a trifle theoretic, the market practical.

We will pass on, however, to the main stumbling-block that bars the way to a condition of Free Trade, according to this writer. It is contained in Mr. Mill's doctrine of the necessary transfer of labour. Mr. Cripps takes special pains to insist upon what no political economist worthy the name would for a moment deny; and that is, that the doctrine of the necessary transfer of labour is without meaning to the skilled boiler-maker and the iron-ship builder, nor is it much more intelligible to the capitalist, whose capital has been invested in the direction of a market which is beginning to narrow for us. To say this, is merely to make a practical application of the larger doctrine, that necessity is without meaning to the nation, class, or individual that regards its own peculiar interest alone. It is, perhaps, natural this should be so, as interest is now understood; time will show the expediency of subordinating national, class, and individual interests to the general welfare. And that Mr. Cripps is really open to this truth will at once be seen, if we but answer him in his own words: "The skill is of value so long as it can be profitably employed, but no longer." And we may add, that when it has ceased to be of value it cannot, in the natural course of things, expect to command value. That misery must result from the displacement of labour is, however much to be regretted, still inevitable. But it has been under-estimated, it is temporary, and confined at most to one or two generations of certain classes chiefly; whereas the re-adjustment is beneficial equally and permanently to the nation and the class. Moreover, the misery is partially compensated, even in the present, if not to the class then to the nation, by the diversion, as has been said, of foreign energy to that particular branch of trade, and the consequent diminution of competitive resistance in

other directions.

For the sum of productive energy is fixed at any given period. It cannot be too often repeated that until the moving equilibrium, of which mention has been made, is approximately attained, we cannot afford to sacrifice the interest of the nation to that of isolated classes or individuals. The law is rigorous but absolute. Nor, in a larger sense, can we afford, even as a matter of self-interest, to sacrifice the welfare of society to that of the nation; for the Nemesis comes close behind, and is by no means visionary.

Mr. Cripps thinks otherwise, nor can we hope, within the short space at command, to induce him to reconcile the interests of humanity with those of the nation or the class. He says: "The question is whether the conditions under which a trade is carried on are profitable to England." "It is a doubtful benefit to be distanced in the competitive struggle, and to see imports superseding home manufactures, and a monopoly gradually established in favour of a foreign country." We must be forgiven if we see in this but a large exemplification of the school-boy attitude under adverse circumstances in the game. It may be briefly indicated that to be distanced in certain directions where we have been accustomed to success is taken as synonymous with being distanced in the whole competitive struggle; that the fact of imports superseding home manufactures is synonymous with loss, despite the truth that the consumption of home products is advantageous only so long as those products are cheaper than imported goods; that the establishment of a monopoly in favour of a foreign country is by implication detrimental, in spite of our being the gainers, where such a monopoly conduces to production of a cheaper article. In a word, these statements are pervaded by the very ancient fallacy that money is capital; that to send money out of the country is to diminish capital; and that the capital sunk in wages and destroyed in the consumption of food by the producers, is not an item to be reckoned in the bill of costs.

I should have wished to criticize the suggestions of Mr. Cripps throughout their entire range, but I fear to trespass on your space. I will devote what little margin may be left me to a few general remarks.

The imposition of tariffs, whether offensive or defensive, is from first to last an attempt to artificially check or stimulate trade, which, but for the local congestions caused thereby, must tend to produce a state of moving equilibrium between production and distribution, which last term is synonymous with the satisfaction of needs. So long as these periodic local congestions are maintained, the poor of every nation are the largest sufferers; for upon them falls the home tariff with enormously disproportionate force, and upon them reacts the foreign tariff which clogs the distribution of home products in the needy quarters at the cheapest rates, and thus sets a limit to the home production and consequent receipt of wages.

Nor are defensive tariffs less objectionable than those which are avowedly offensive. For indirect evil is thereby exchanged for direct evil, since, by Mr. Cripps' hypothesis, that country has been allowed to suffer most by the very tax with which it would defend itself. Lastly, the imposition of tariffs is a prime source of that constant displacement of labour which Mr. Cripps so much deplores. The tariff fails in time to maintain the artificial market it has temporarily created; the natural resources and characteristic dexterities of each country forge slowly to the front and effect displacement of labour in the precise measure in which those natural resources and characteristic dexterities have been disregarded. It is a mere relegation of one portion of the evil to the morrow, followed by the usual reaction of the complement of the evil to-day. It is an absolute fact, despite all appearances to the contrary, and amid all practical complications of the theoretic principle, that a generalization is true or not true, scientific or not scientific universally; and true and scientific now as it will be in a thousand years from now. I am, Gentlemen,

Yours faithfully,

CHARLES CATTY.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

All communications to be addressed to the Editors of THE NATIONAL REVIEW, care of Messrs. W. H. Allen & Co., 13 Waterloo Place, London. S.W.

Correspondents are requested to write their name and address on their Manuscripts. Postage-stamps must be sent at the same time if they wish their MS. to be returned in case of rejection.

THE

NATIONAL REVIEW.

No. 60.-FEBRUARY, 1888.

CONSERVATISM AND FEMALE SUFFRAGE.

CONSERVATIVE conventions at Oxford and elsewhere have been declaring in favour of the extension of the suffrage to women. The political motive, if I may judge by what falls from members of the party in conversation, was the belief that women being Conservative by nature, and often under clerical influence, would vote on the Conservative side. This is another stroke of that fatal policy of intrigue and legerdemain which took the place of British statesmanship in shaping the course of the party after 1846, and which brought the party and the country with it through dishonour to the brink of ruin. In 1867, against all their principles, and in the face of the recent declarations of their leaders, the Conservatives allowed themselves to be "educated," that is cajoled and betrayed into voting for household suffrage. They were told that the lower class of artizans, when admitted to the suffrage, would vote against the higher class who formed the Trade Unions and were Radicals. This shallow Machiavellism prevailed, and the flood-gates of democracy were opened by Conservative hands, without a reform of the House of Lords, which Lord Derby, in his recklessness and blindness, persistently opposed, or any statesman-like revision of the Constitution for the purpose of rendering its upper works more capable of bearing the increased strain. It is very likely that a large body of the artizans did at first, under the influence of some such antagonism as was anticipated, give Conservative, or, to use a less rational, and therefore a more appropriate term, Tory votes. But the time was sure to come when, in place of the Tory jesuitically playing the demagogue, the genuine demagogue would enter on the scene, and the political tendencies natural to the poorer class of artizans would appear. Individual ambition and the wretched desire of "dishing the Whigs" were satisfied by the immediate victory, but disaster was prepared for the party and the country.

VOL. X.

46

A prompt and decisive return to the paths of principle and British statesmanship is now the only hope for the Conservatives, and for the integrity of the nation, which, since Radicalism under Mr. Gladstone has become anti-national as well as revolutionary, is practically committed to their hands. Let us hear no more of devices such as Tory Democracy, which are sure to go the way of everything jesuitical or fantastic. The only sound combination is that of all men who are true to the integrity of the nation and opposed to Socialistic revolution. If the Conservative party will act as the core of such a combination, laying aside all narrow exclusiveness, casting off place-hunting selfishness, and welcoming patriotic aid from every quarter, it may yet be the means of saving the nation from dismemberment, and at the same time preserve, so far as the economical changes which have come upon us will permit, the general structure of English society. It may do this, at least, if the English gentleman will bravely face the situation, political and social; if he will prepare himself by political training to encounter demagogism in the electoral field; and if, above all, instead of abandoning his social posts, flying from his ancestral mansion, and betaking himself to a reduced sybaritism in a watering-place or on the Continent, he will bid farewell to sybaritism altogether, accept his diminished rents, continue to live in his country, adopt a simpler and perhaps a happier mode of life, be his own bailiff, and by renewing his local connections regain the local influence which, by absenteeism and pleasure-seeking, has been almost lost. It is in this direction, I say, that hope really lies, and not in Tory Democratic intrigue and further bedevillings of the franchise.

It is exceedingly doubtful whether, when the Conservatives had once more broken their principles by revolutionizing the relations between the sexes and sacrificing the family for the sake of carrying an election, the election would after all be carried. The Radical women, of whom there are not a few in these revolutionary times, would all vote; the Irishwomen would all vote under the dictation of their priests; the discontented and restless women generally would vote; the contented and Conservative women would be apt to remain at home. Of the women who would take an active part in politics nine out of ten most likely would be Radical; probably, the majority of these would be Radical and something more.

The false direction given to Conservative tactics during the last forty years by scheming ambition is one of the influences which, in questions like the present, perverts Conservative minds. Another is the political fatalism, which seems to have come over the respon sible, and what ought to be the governing classes. Whatever may be the source of this mental malady, the feebleness and indolence

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