advantage, or is not a large portion of it wasted in useless and
ornamental adjuncts? We have not yet reached the point attained by that
Mexican force which is traditionally stated to have contained
twenty-five thousand officers and twenty thousand men: but the number of
superior officers of both services is altogether out of proportion to
the size of the force. In order to stimulate what is called the "flow of
promotion," officers are placed on the retired list at a ridiculously
early age, and the country is deprived of, while having to pay for, the
services of those who are in the prime of life, and still capable of
doing their full duty, in order that room may be made for their juniors
to climb into their places, those juniors themselves being soon
supplanted, and the "flow of promotion" going merrily on--at our
expense. And the hollowness of the pretension that all this is for the
country's good is shown by the fact that, while a determined effort was
made by the Horse Guards to compulsorily retire Sir Edward Hamley, the
finest tactician England possesses, the Duke of Cambridge is suffered to
remain commander-in-chief long after the age at which any other officer
would have been shifted. This is only one example of how all rules,
salutary and otherwise, are put aside when courtiership demands, for
there is a distinct danger, to which the country should be awakened, of
our services being royalty-ridden.
Royalty, it is true, has not yet invaded the Civil Service, though the
scions of the reigning house are so rapidly increasing in number that
the prizes even of this department are likely, at no distant date, to be
snatched from the skilled and deserving; but this particular Government
department has plenty to be purged of, notwithstanding. Put in the
shortest fashion, the complaint the public have a right to bring against
the Civil Service is that it is over-manned and over-paid. A large
section of its members--and those located at the various offices in
Whitehall afford a glaring instance--commence work too late, leave off
too early, and even when on their stools have not enough to do. Their
number should be lessened, and their hours increased. Ten to four, with
an interval for lunch, is a working period so scandalous in its
inadequacy that even the Salisbury Ministry has condemned it, and has in
some fashion, but at the country's expense, been striving to make it
longer. No private business could possibly pay if it adopted such a
system; and what must be done is to treat the Government service upon
the same lines as a flourishing private concern. The old notion that a
State should provide a maximum of pay for a minimum of work, and that a
Government office should be a paradise for the idle and incompetent,
must be swept away. It is nothing less than a scandal that taxes should
be wrung in an ever-increasing amount from the toilers of the country to
pay for work which, under efficient management, could be better done at
a less price.
With this question of pay there is linked that of pensions. It is often
urged that men join the public service at a less rate of pay than the
same abilities could obtain in other walks of business life, not merely
because of the security of tenure, but because they know there is a
pension to follow the work. This is exceedingly to be doubted; and
although it would be unjust to deprive of pensions those who have
entered Government employment under present conditions, the question
ought very seriously to be considered whether it would not be wise for
the State to pay, as private firms do, for the services actually
rendered, and for individual thrift to be allowed to provide for illness
or old age. Or, if it be thought desirable to maintain the pension
system, the Government servants should be called upon, like the police,
to contribute out of their wages to a superannuation fund. The system of
pensions, as at present in operation, is indefensible upon sound
business principles, and taxpayers have something better to do with
their money than continue to spend it for sentimental reasons.
As to hereditary pensions, there is no need to say much. Thanks to Mr.
Bradlaugh these are in a fair way to be disposed of; but it will still
need that a keen watch be kept, to prevent the State being further
robbed by any fanciful scheme of commutation. It may be taken as settled
that no further pensions will be granted for more than one life; but
pensions for a single life, as now arranged, often prove an intolerable
burden upon the revenue. A favourite device of the Government offices is
to "reorganize" departments, with the result of placing a new set of
officials upon the pay sheet and an old set upon the pension list. Many
of the latter will be comparatively young men, capable of doing service
in other departments; and, if they are not wanted in one, they ought to
work for their pay in another. But that is not the way in which the
State does its business. They are pensioned off with such astounding
results as was seen in the case of one official, whose place was
abolished in 1842, who was pensioned at the rate of nearly L2500 a year,
and who lived until 1880; or of another, whose office was abolished in
1847, who was pensioned in L3100, and who, up to this date (for he is
believed still to be living), has drawn over L120,000 from our pockets
without having done a single day's work for the money. And not only is
the "reorganization" system a means of lightening the national pocket
without good result, but the "ill-health" device has the same effect.
Annuitants live long, as all insurance offices will tell you, and it is
proved by the fact that there are pensioners still on the list who
retired from the Government service between forty and fifty years ago
because of "ill-health."
Here, then, are some of the fashions in which the country is defrauded;
they could be multiplied, but the samples should suffice to arouse the
attention of all who bewail the continual increase of taxation. The
State is evidently regarded by a large section of the population as a
huge milch-cow, which shall provide an ever-flowing stream; and this
view will continue to be held as long as our legislators are not forced
by the constituencies to give due heed to economy. Nothing practical in
that direction can be done until the House of Commons has a thorough
control over the national expenditure. At present the control it
exercises partakes so largely of the nature of a sham that it is not
worth considering; its scrutiny must become active and persistent, and
it should be directed to the pickings secured in high places as well as
in low--to the receivers of heavy salaries as well as of light wages.
The tendency has too long been to exhibit economy in regard to the small
people and to pass over the extravagances which feed the large, and that
is a tendency which will have to be stopped.
No one desires to lessen the efficiency of the public service; but as no
one would seriously dream of saying that that quality is at this moment
its most distinguishing feature, good rather than harm would be done by
the exercise of sound economy. It is only by lopping off the
extravagances which have grown up like weeds in our Government
departments, and which are now choking much of their power for good,
that the taxes can ever be reduced. And so it is the bounden duty of the
Liberals to raise their old banner of Retrenchment once again.
XXVI.--IS FREE TRADE TO BE PERMANENT?
Before leaving the consideration of taxes, the question of Free Trade
must be dealt with. A very few years ago it would have been thought as
unnecessary to discuss the wisdom of continuing our system of Free Trade
as of lengthening the existence of the House of Commons; but we are
to-day threatened with the revival of a Protectionist agitation, and it
is necessary to be argumentatively prepared for it.
It is impossible within my limits to say all that can be said in favour
of Free Trade or all that ought to be said against Protection; but it
should be the less necessary to do the former, because the proof that it
is working evil to the country must rest with those who assert it, and
that proof they do not afford.
The main contention of the Protectionists--Fair Traders some of them
call themselves, but the old distinctive name is preferable--is that the
free importation of corn has ruined agriculture, and of other goods has
crippled manufactures. And, having assumed this to be correct, their
remedy is to place such a duty upon all imported articles which compete
with our own productions as to "protect British industry."
First for the complaint. Is it true that the system of free imports has
ruined agriculture and crippled manufactures? There is no doubt that the
farming interest has been very seriously hit by a series of inadequate
harvests and the growth of foreign competition; and there is as little
doubt that, if such a duty were placed upon imported grain as would make
its culture in England profitable under the present conditions, the
farmers would thrive, even if the poorer among us starved. No one can
deny that, if there is to be Protection at all, the agricultural
interest demands it the most, but we will see directly whether such a
tariff as would make profitable the growth of wheat is practicable. As
to the crippling of manufactures, there is something to be said which is
as true as it may be unpalatable. Without denying that the free
importation of foreign goods, coupled with the heavy duties levied by
other countries upon our exported articles, has seriously diminished the
profits of certain of our manufacturers, and has thereby injured the
persons by them employed, those who have watched the recent course of
British trade are compelled to see that other causes have been at work
to account for much of the depression.
Making haste to be rich has had more to do with that depression than the
weight of foreign competition. Manufacturers who scamp and merchants who
swindle; folks who endow churches or build chapels to compromise with
their conscience for robbing their customers and blasting the honour of
the English name--these are the men who deserve to be pilloried when we
talk of depression. We _do_ want fair trade in the sense of honest
trade, for it is the burning desire for gain, the resolve to practise
any device that leads to money-making, which is injuring the British
manufacturing industry far more than the foreigner. The sick man who
disliked a wash was at last, in desperation, recommended by his doctor
to try soap; the manufacturers who size their cottons to the rotting
point, and the merchants who have been accustomed to sell German cutlery
with a Sheffield label, should be told, when they cry out upon
depression, to try honesty. And when they whine, as they sometimes do,
that it is the demand for cheap goods that makes such a supply, they
must be reminded that the butcher who sells bad meat, or the baker who
adulterates his bread, pleads the same excuse, but it does not save
either from being branded as a cheat.
There is a further point which will account for the loss of British
trade in foreign markets, and that is the lack of adaptability to new
circumstances shown by English traders. And this is displayed all
round. Our farmers ought to know by this time that they cannot compete
by wheat-growing with the United States, Canada, or India; but they will
not comprehend that they can compete with foreign countries in the
matter of butter, eggs, cheese, fruit, and poultry. And the consequence
is that we are paying many millions yearly to France, Holland, Belgium,
and America for articles that our own farmers ought to supply; and that
the largest cheesemongers in London find it cheaper, easier, and quicker
to import all their butter from Normandy than to buy a single pound in
England. It is the same with our manufacturers. An American firm had a
large order to give for cutlery; they asked terms which the English
manufacturer rejected because they were novel; and a German at once
seized the chance, and kept the trade. In New Zealand there was wanted a
light spade for agricultural purposes; the English manufacturer would
not alter his pattern to suit his customers; and the whole order went to
the United States. In China the people wish for a cotton cloth which
will not vanish at the first shower of rain; Manchester is so accustomed
to heavily size its goods that it cannot change; and the China trade in
that commodity is going elsewhere. Before, then, we complain of foreign
competition--a complaint which is bitterly heard to-day as against
England in France, Germany, Austria, and the United States--let us be
certain that we are doing all we honestly can to cope with it.
Some there are who say that they are in favour of Free Trade in the
abstract, but that they will not support it as long as it is not
accepted by other nations. This is about as sensible as a decision to
cheat in business as long as some of our neighbours cheat would be
honest, and is exactly on a level with the old death-bed injunction of
the miserly parent--"My son, make money--honestly if you can, but make
money." And when it is stated, as it sometimes is, that Free Trade was
adopted by this country only on the understanding that it would be
universally agreed to, it is a sufficient answer that Sir Robert Peel,
in introducing his measure for the repeal of the Corn Laws,
observed:--"I fairly avow to you that in making this great reduction
upon the import of articles, the produce and manufacture of foreign
countries, I have no guarantee to give you that other countries will
immediately follow our example."
When the Protectionists, call themselves by what name they will and use
what arguments they may, ask us to change our present system, we first
then deny their assumption that England is going to the dogs, and next
we ask what they propose to put in its place. Upon a plan they find it
impossible to agree. Some would tax corn lightly, others as heavily as
would be required to make its growth certainly profitable to the farmer;
some would fix a duty only upon manufactured articles, others upon
everything which is imported that can be raised here; some would admit
goods from our colonies at a lighter rate than from foreign countries,
others would put them all on the same level. Out of this chaos of
contradictions no definite plan has yet been evolved, and none is likely
to be.
The corn question is the first difficulty, and will long remain so.
Wheat, in the autumn of 1887, was selling at 28s. a quarter; on the
average it cannot be grown to pay at less than 45s.; yet it is only a
5s. duty which is being dangled before the farmer. But if he is to lose
12s. a quarter he will be little farther removed from ruin than if he
loses 17s.; he will as much as ever resemble the traditional refreshment
contractor who lost a little upon every customer, but thought to make
his profit by the number he served; and the agricultural interest in its
wildest dreams cannot imagine that Englishmen are likely to impose a
duty raising the price of wheat 60 per cent. A rise of 10 per cent. in
the price of bread means a rise of 1 per cent. in the death-rate, and if
a duty of 17s. were imposed, that rise would be 6 per cent. What would
this mean? That where 100 persons die now, 106 would die then, and the
added number would perish from that most awful of all forms of
death--death from lack of food. And those extra six would not be drawn
from the well-to-do, from the trading classes, or from the ranks of
skilled labour, but from those who even now are struggling their hardest
for bread, and to whom the rise in price of a loaf from threepence to
fourpence three-farthings would mean starvation. For let it never be
forgotten that it is upon the poorest that a corn-tax would fall most
heavily. The peer eats no more bread--probably he eats less--than the
peasant; even when all his family and servants are reckoned, the
quantity of bread consumed is comparatively little more than in an
artisan's household; but while the peasant and the artisan would be made
to feel with every mouthful that they were being starved in order that
others might thrive, the few shillings a week that the peer would have
to pay would be but a drop spilt from a full bucket, the loss of which
no one could perceive.
Arising out of the proposal for the re-imposition of a corn-tax is a
consideration which bears upon the idea of levying a duty upon other
imports. India is rapidly becoming more and more a corn-growing country;
if it were decided to admit its wheat free, the British farmer would
continue handicapped; if it were resolved to tax it, India would
necessarily retaliate by protecting its own cotton industries: and what
would Lancashire say to that?
The fact is that, when the proposal to protect industries all round is
considered, the difficulties of securing a feasible plan are found to be
insurmountable. The simplest way, of course, would be to place a duty
upon everything that entered our ports, and to follow that American
tariff which commenced with a tax upon acorns, and was so jealous of
interference with native industries that it fixed a duty upon skeletons.
And if it be replied that the line should be drawn at manufactured
articles, the question must be asked at once how these are to be
defined. One can understand shoemakers desiring to place a duty upon
foreign-made boots, but they would object to have the price of leather
increased by a tax upon the imports of that material. The tanner and
currier would strongly favour a tax upon leather, while perfectly
willing that hides should be admitted free. But the free importation of
hides would affect the farmer, who would have as much right to
protection as either tanner or bootmaker. And so the price of boots from
the beginning would be raised to everybody, less boots would be bought,
and the whole community, as well as the particular trades concerned,
would suffer. Take the woollen industries again. Manufacturers might
like cloths to be taxed, but would be willing to see yarns admitted
free. Spinners would place a duty upon yarns, but would let wool alone.
But the farmer would again step in and demand that the price of his wool
should not be lowered by free importation. If Protection is started
there is no stopping it; no line can fairly be drawn between the
importation of raw material and manufactured articles; every trade will
want to be taken care of. And we shall be driven back to the time when,
in order to protect the farmer, all bodies had to be buried in woollen
shrouds; and, to protect the buckle maker, the use of shoestrings was by
law prohibited. More; we shall be driven back to the period when the
artisan and the labourer saw wheaten bread but once a year, when it was
barley alone they could afford to eat, and when the rent of the landlord
was the one consideration for which Parliament cared, and the welfare of
the poor the last thing of which Parliament dreamed.
One can understand why the Protectionist movement should have supporters
in high places. There are landlords who are tired of seeing their rents
continuously fall, and are as anxious as ever their fathers were to make
the community pay the difference between what the land can honestly
yield and the return its possessor desires; and there are manufacturers
who are disgusted to find that the days when colossal fortunes could be
rapidly made are departing.
It is the duty, therefore, of every Liberal to resist the least approach
to a reversal of the present fiscal policy. For it is not a mere
question of taxation; it is not even a question only of money; it is a
question of life and death to the poor. And every man who knows to what
a depth of misery Protection brought this country less than fifty years
since, and who feels for those who are hardly pressed, will strive to
the uttermost against any renewal of the system which, while enriching a
few, impoverishes the many, and, to add bitterness to its injustice,
involves death by starvation.
XXVII.--IS FOREIGN LABOUR TO BE EXCLUDED?
Another of the remedies suggested by political quacks for depression in
trade is the revival of the system of "protecting British labour" by
preventing the immigration of foreigners--a process which, by the good
sense of all Englishmen, has been abolished for centuries.
It is easy, of course, to take what at first sight may seem the
"popular" side upon this question. There would be no difficulty in
summoning a meeting of English bakers in London, and telling them that
they were being ruined because German bakers are overrunning their
trade; or gathering a small army of clerks, and informing them that but
for foreign, and particularly German, competition, the native article
would have a better chance; or assembling a serried array of
costermongers, and persuading them that, if it were not for Russian,
Polish, and German Jews, who swarm the metropolitan thoroughfares with
their handcarts, their own barrows would attract more customers. But the
whole idea of excluding foreigners because they become competitors is
not merely a confession of weakness and incapacity which Englishmen
ought never to make, but it is so contrary to the spirit of freedom
which has been cherished in this country for ages that no Liberal ought
for a moment to give it countenance.
And, to put it on the most sordid ground, where would England and
English trade have been had such a principle been acted upon by other
countries? No people in the world has so much benefited by freedom of
movement in foreign lands as ourselves. Go where one may, he will find
Englishmen to the fore--not only as traders but as workers. What they
have done in the colonies and in the United States is patent to all men,
but it is not alone in Saxon-speaking lands that they have flourished.
If one visits Italy to-day, he will find Englishmen working in the
Government dockyards; when Russia wanted railways it was Brassey and his
navvies who made them, and when she needed telegraphs it was English
linesmen who stretched the wires; while in Brazil on every hand
Englishmen are pushing to the front. And there is a lesson to be learned
from that passage in the diary of Macaulay, which records how, on a
visit to France, he met some English navvies, with the leader of whom he
entered into talk: "He told me, to my comfort, that they did very well,
being, as he said, sober men; that the wages were good, and that they
were well treated, and had no quarrels with their French
fellow-labourers."
China for a long series of ages acted upon the principle of keeping out
the foreigner, and upon various pretexts we fought her again and again
to secure our own admission. Japan was equally exclusive, and for a
longer time; but even Japan has found out the mistake of trying to live
in "a garden walled around." As far back as the date when Magna Charta
was signed, the right of foreign merchants to reside and to possess
personal effects in England was recognized; and although the blindness
and bigotry of succeeding times banished the Jews in one age and the
Flemings in another, we long ago established the right of free entry. It
is true that, in the fit of reaction provoked by the French Terror,
Alien Acts were passed conferring upon the Crown the power of banishing
foreigners, but these were superseded half a hundred years ago, and
their revival is not to be looked for.
It may be retorted that the United States Congress has taken a different
view, for, in addition to various measures adopted in recent years to
prevent the immigration of Chinamen, an Act was passed in 1885 "to
prohibit the importation and migration of foreigners and aliens, under
contract or agreement to perform labour in the United States, its
territories, and the district of Columbia." The effect of that measure,
coupled with an amending Act adopted two years later, according to
English official authority, is "to subject to heavy penalties any person
who prepays the transportation, or in any way assists the importation or
migration of any alien or foreigner into the said countries under
agreement of any kind whatsoever made previously to such importation, to
perform there labour or service of any description (with a few
exceptions). Masters of vessels knowingly conveying such aliens render
themselves liable to fine or imprisonment, and the aliens themselves are
not allowed to land, but are returned to the country whence they came."