April 2, 1906.]
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
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its most important asset, we have been actually supplying abroad under the name of free-trade the sinews of war. If the direc effect of free-trade has been the building up of the North and West with such as Manchester And
was watered, and, before the newly enfin chised had assimilated their privileges, was weakened again, Politically the situation bears considerable likeness to that of Rome under the Antonines. In some respects the substitution of slave labour for the handgreat cities work of the free R man labourer paralleled Birmingham, the inevitable result of our the substitution of the machine in modern present policy will be, in probably a still times. One result, in the beginning at all shorter period, to events, in both cases was the raising of the of industry little better than heaps of render these hives status of free labour, but collateral influences ruins a desolate as the long departed cities were at work which tended to lower to of ancient Chaldea. These are the lessons this status to that of a proletariat. A which the result of the recent election has century later in Rome the ery before brought vividly to the frout. At the which Emperor and Senate had to crouch moment the country, in the first stages of helplessly was the ominous shout from the political intoxication, has lost the power of once independent working classes of Panem seeing things as they really are, but the et Circences. Now it is an unpleasant fact, inevitable awakening must come, and its uot to be concealed by any process of coming cannot be ong delayed. Let us ¦ apologetic sophistry, that in the recent cry of hope that it may come soon enough to avert Big Lonf," under which the last the break up of the even to-day powerful General Elections were decided, we have British nation. heard the first mutterings of a similar cry. Indeed we may even go further and suggest that in the open favouring of the recent cry of the right of the working man to state employment, favoured as it was by many of the Radical candidates at the election, we have already gone near the corresponding demand of the Roman proletariat for absolutely free bread.
the
Fiches of the crust itself; and over huge districts these are already beginning to show sigue of exhaustion, and it has become a matter of calculation how much longer they can be called upon effectively. There is unfortunately the distinction between the two, that whereas the products of soil, if we handle them with judgment, will in the course of nature, and by natural means, continually renew themselves, the subter- ranian wealth of a land once removed can never be restored. Practically the civilisai tion of the nineteenth century has been built entirely on coal, and the possession or not of coal has been the actunting factor, in national greatness. Such facts might have naturally been expected to produce economy; that they have not has been due to another but collateral series of events. The creator, as he may fairly be called, of the age was of course JAMES WATT : Finding that certain inventive minds bad been seeking to use the expansive force of steam to assist human labour, he took up the fascinating problem, little thinking that the task that he had undertaken was about to revolutionise the world; socially and politically as well as industrially. Under his hands the steam engine hitherto but a plaything became a perfect machine, which a littlo experience showed could be employed in every department where human labour But to return to the subject of national had previously been the motive agent. But economy which has been left out of sight by the new power needed food as well as the our moderu professed freetraders," be more old-fashioned labour of human hands; they. Unionist or Liberal, it is true that a that food was, however, to be found under-statesman's main concern is with the pre- ground, and was known to be extensively sent, but history has never condoned the developed in England-so extensively that man who failed to look in the face the to the statesinan of the day it appeared problems of the near future. Already the absolutely inexhaustible. JAMES WATT'S careful observer sees unmistakeable signs on steam engine would in any case have had the horizon that the question of wheat far-reaching consequences, though without supply is in the increasing population of the collateral circumstances it would hardly for Mississippi States, and the approaching generations to come, at least, have trans- exhaustion of the nitrate beds, of which we formed a world. Just thirteen years before spoke a few days ag, becoming of im- JAMES WATT, in a small Scotch provincial portance: the present indications are that town, another remarkable man, ADAM by the middle of the century it will have SMITH, was born. ADAM SMITH was not a become the pressing problem of the, day, mechanical inventor, but taking up the Of equal if not greater importance to the philosophy of human production be invented, nation is the extinction, now within think: we may say, an absolutely new science, that able limits, of our coal supply. In the days of political economy: the one inan's of Sir ROBERT PEEL, when Free Trade was thoughts were the necessary complement to a living entity, we could afford to look with the other's practical genius. Under WATT's justifiable complacence on the situation. invention it soon became manifest that The exhaustion of our conl treasures articles of daily need could be produced of according to our theu consumption was a better quality and lower price than under matter of many centuries, and none but a the old conditions. There was, however, a statesuan of the calibre of DON QUIXOTE limit to the available markets for their would have felt himself callel to legislate consumption, and ADAM SMITH showed that for his descendents in the sixtieth genera- this limit was largely due to restrictions on tiou; but the situation to-day 18 far the natural course of commerce, partly different, and already the comparative political and partly financial. The ultimate scarcity of the fuel is beginning to react on effect of WATT's inventions supplemented our industries. We have been extrava- by SMITH's teachings was the supersession gant, ju fact, to uupardonable extremes; by Free Trade of the old policy of re- and not content with wilfully was striction, with the result that British ting at home this our most important industries for more than half a century ruled the world.
national asset, we have been sending it abroad in continually increasing quantities to the very great advantage of our competi- tors, and this has not been done ignorantly, but in the face of the warnings of officially
But a change so wide reaching could not be accomplished without, in the happy phrase of DARWIN, raising up a host of correlated variations. The altered cappointed commissions. So much for the ditions of labour led to an entire inversion industrial side of the question; the political of the old relations between labour and affords a bardly more agreeable prospect. capital. Legislation for the henett Consciously or unconsciously under the politically and socially of the working false pretence of free-trade we have been classes, and for their sanitation and backing up abroad the most unblushing education, began to occupy a prominent place system of protection that the world has yet in the councils of the land; and in the seen, and under its influence we have been midst of these distractions ordinary permitting our home industries one by one economy was thrown to the winds, and the to be dried up to the roots, or transplanted political econo uy of the early freetraders bodily to our competitors' country, with the reduced to the weakling fetish of the Cob-result that our own unemployed labour is be đến club. - Weakly paudering to the mere ory of numbers as contrasted with intelli. gence, the old constituency of the country
coming a growing cause of national concern. Complacently too, without in any way recompensing the country for this loss of
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CHINESE IN BRITISH COLONIES.
(Daily Press, 27th March.) The Chinese emigrant question is likely as time goes on to assume an importance which will make it imperative that some definite action with respect to it be taken by the Colonies in conjunction with the Imperial Government. As the matter at present stands, the Imperial Government has to deal with China on the subject, while it is necessarily settled by the various Colonies to which the Chinese are desirous of emigrating. This is manifestly an illogical position; and though it might be of little consequence so long as the number. of Chinese who wished to go to our Colonies was small, it assumes a very different aspect now that such emigrat has so largely increased. It is impossible for the Imperial Government dealing with the Chinese Government to uphold the principle that the Celestial shall be absolutely excluded from any part of the British Empire without going counter to the claims which we make for reasonable. right of access to China. Such a position. is so manifestly inconsistent that no one. would seriously advocate its adoption, especially in face of the strong feel ing which has been displayed by China in respect to such a course being adopted in the United States, and the fact that that country has found it necessary to modify the ultra-exclusive policy which had been followed in deference to the protests and counteraction which it called forth. If we claim the right to come to almost all parts. of China it is impossible to exclude the. Chinese, if they think. fit, for going upon similar terms to any part of the empire. which is open to the subjects of other nations. This is so manifestly in accord auce with justice, when considered upon abstract grounds, that few people will be disposed to dispute it. But when the question is looked upon in its practical bearings and in the light of undeniable facts it assumes a very different aspect. It is beyond denial that there are social, and other differences between the Chinese and Europeans which cannot be overlooked in dealing with the matter. Chingmen's ways are not our ways, and their advent in anything like numbers to any oue of que, Colonies becomes not only at times a difficult. economical question by its effect upon thai, labour market, but it is undeniable that a some respects it raises up problems of inf ternal administration which are not always - easy to deal with. The opposition in our Colonies, it is but fair to admit, has, for the
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