COBDEN'S VOICE FROM THE GRAVE IN 1906.

EVEN a small worm will turn! So would the great Cobden, if he could only rise from his grave, and be able to defend himself in 1906 against the false, misleading, and ignorant misrepresentations which have been placed upon the basis of his Free Trade Principles in 1846, not only by the late Government, the Houses, the Press, and by Mr. Chamberlain in particular, but also by the many thousands who have ventured to challenge his general views during the past two years.

For, I hold, that not one of these men have, in their various speeches or arguments, grasped the economic position of Great Britain, as then existing, under the ideas of Cobden's Free Trade principles, in comparison to the totally changed economic position of the last forty years, since these "international gambling systems" were introduced into Great Britain in 1862, and especially since they have affected cereals, in 1883.

Before I voice Cobden's views to prove this statement, I can recall the fact, that from the very first, I have brought these questions forward from the "Free Trade" point of view, and to demonstrate how the basis of his views has been turned topsyturvy, by the introduction of the "bear" operator in "fictitious" commodities.

For, when I was asked by the members of the "Royal Commission on Agricultural Depression" in 1893, to prepare a special written "statement to support my general views, with regard to my subject and the ruin to British Agriculture, caused thereby, I did so, taking it from 1846 up to 1894, and in special connection with the basis of Cobden's Free Trade principles.

As I have stated, this most important document, under seventeen heads and sub-heads, proving by detailed statistical evidence the truth of my views, was "suppressed" by this Commission, headed by Sir Robert Giffen, while many members of both Houses on many occasions have appealed to the Government in vain, for a copy to be placed in the Houses for the benefit of its members.

And to prove the value of this evidence, I may state that at the request of certain leading members of the German Parliament, I published it in book form for their benefit in 1895, and the same was distributed by Count von Arnim to every member. The result of which was, as they afterwards informed me, that, as the fresh evidence produced, supported their own evidence in every detail, it materially helped the Government and the Houses to see the necessity of passing their Bourse Reform Bill, in 1896.1

But in my own country this evidence was suppressed in 1893, just as my evidence before the "Royal Commission on Food Supplies in time of War," has been in 1905.

1 See Appendix, Note 15.

I venture to assert the opinion, that, if this evidence had been placed before the British Houses of Parliament in 1893, and the subject had been well ventilated, instead of being suppressed, the country would never in 1906 have been turned into such a state of turmoil over the question of Free Trade versus Protection, and that no general election would ever have been fought out on such grave national issues.

The man solely answerable for this latter state of affairs, is Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, who has deluded the country by his erroneous deductions, and by his proposed false remedies, and who, at the same time, has shown his entire ignorance of the basis of trade from 1862 up to 1906, in comparison to that ruling in 1846.

One could not have a more powerful example of the blind leading the blind, except it be in the case of the General Election in 1900, when Mr. Chamberlain, as a member of the Balfour Government, went to the country on the false statement, "that the South African War was over" (?)

But, in the election of 1906, the extreme gravity of the position is even more untrustworthy. For, on the one hand, we have the originators of the Protectionist policies apparently in the dark themselves as to what their future intentions are,1 and on the other hand, we have the electors, as a body, as blind as bats with regard to the exact basis of the

1 The world now knows that Balfourism = Chamberlainism in 1906.

coming national issue-the greatest of all issues since Cobden's times.1

Such a position is untenable and dangerous when it is taken into consideration that the Empire is at stake, and that the result of the election means life or death to the Empire and to the British race. It is the most powerful example to prove that the nation has gone mad, and loves shams and hates realities.

Now, to prove my statements, by a few brief facts, voicing Cobden's views from the grave in 1906.

Cobden would first point out that, although he was alive at the time when the repeal of the ancient British laws prohibiting gambling operations in agricultural products became an accomplished fact, and although the repeal of this Act took place the year or so before the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, he could never have believed, that so soon after his death in 1865, any British Government would ever have been mad enough to have allowed the re-introduction in 1866 of even far more ruinous forms of "international" gambling systems, under the names of "options, futures, and warrants."

He would further point out the remarkable fact, that, "while it was the 'Manchester school' who, in 1846, were the originators of the Free Trade policy, it was this very same school who first allowed these gambling 'capitalistic' free-trade systems to be introduced into cotton in 1876, Britain's second national industry.'

And consequently Cobden would point out, "that 1 See Appendix, Note 17, page 328.

Great Britain, situated as she has been the past twenty years, dependent for food supplies and other raw materials upon foreign nations, since these systems were introduced under them, has, by a form of indirect taxation, been the greatest of all sufferers, because she has constituted a system of protection for foreign trade and workmen."

For by these "international" systems, in years of "corners," the manufacturers, users, and consumers have been "taxed," indirectly and unnaturally, by having to pay foreigners from 30 up to 100 per cent. extra cost for all raw materials, owing to the unnatural" high prices ruling, as well as by the millions of pounds per annum they have had indirectly to pay to the "international" members of the world's exchanges, in the shape of commissions, earned by the "gambling transactions" in "fictitious" products; while, in years of " "price-depressions," due to international "bear" operations, not only the land, but also the agriculturists and the labourers have been indirectly "taxed" by the enormous and "unnatural" fall in prices, against which there has been no economic "artificial sets-off commensurate with that fall, such as has been the case in Protectionist countries.

The question of free imports, as based on his honest Free Trade principles, by which he meant it to be a free exchange between nations at the natural price of the products which are exchanged, as well as to secure all the world's commodities at their natural prices, has been entirely upset by the re-introduction of these international systems of