HC Deb 23 May 1881 vol 261 cc1101-10
MR. MAC IVER,

who had given Notice of his intention to move— That Customs Duties should be replaced upon such Foreign importations as come into unfair competition with the industries of Great Britain and Ireland, said, that he intended, after introducing the subject, to defer the Motion until Mr. Ecroyd, the new Member for Preston, elected in the place of the late Mr. Hermon, had taken his seat. His conviction was that the victory achieved by Mr. Ecroyd was due to his support of such views as those which were set forth in the Resolution, as well as to the disgust which the country felt at the policy of a Government who talked of retrenchment, and had asked for £85,000,000 to carry on the government of the country, being the largest sum ever asked for by any Government, and, while always preaching peace, had troubles on hand in every quarter of the globe excepting Australia and America. He wished to take that opportunity of adverting to the practice which the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) had resorted to of writing letters. The right hon. Gentleman had written letters that were certainly not polite letters, letters certainly that a statesman scarcely ought to have written, and letters which he (Mr. Mac Iver) much regretted, because he was not insensible to the respect which was due to a Gentleman with grey hairs who had spent a long life, however mistakenly, in the service of his country. At one time the right hon. Gentleman had spoken of the Reciprocity agitation as only fit for fools and simpletons. He believed that the right hon. Gentleman had even called those who took up this question a set of lunatics. In his own case, the right hon. Gentleman had gone so far as to call him something which made him out to be a liar. Then, again, at a meeting at Birmingham, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was good enough to describe him—at least, he thought the reference was to him—as a wretch. Such language did him no harm, and if it pleased the right hon. Gentleman to continue such language, it could only recoil upon himself. The last occasion on which the right hon. Gentleman used language which they must regret was in reference to the late Mr. Hermon, whose speech lie finally wound up by describing as "confused nonsense." Mr. Hermon rather felt those words; and it was his intention, had he lived, to have seconded the Motion which stood on the Paper for this evening. After Mr. Hermon's death he had written to Mr. Ecroyd, expressing his readiness to place the Motion in that Gentleman's hand in the event of his return for Preston; but he had received a reply stating that Mr. Ecroyd would not be able to take his seat that night in consequence of being called upon to address a meeting at Bradford at the invitation of Mr. Shepherd, President of the Chamber of Commerce, and on a requisition signed by 10,000 working men of Bradford. As he saw the junior Member for Bradford (Mr. Illingworth) in his place, he would take the opportunity of putting to him the following questions, which had been suggested by a correspondent:— If there is no distress in Bradford, how comes it that the poor rate is now 3s., whereas recently it was only 2s.? Is it correct that your own firm has one mill standing idle, and the other working only four days a week? He might remark that the speech of Lord Beaconsfield, in reply to Lord Bateman, had been most unfairly quoted in reference to views such as were held by Mr. Ecroyd and himself. Lord Beaconsfield's words were not directed against proposals such as those of his (Mr. Mac Iver's) Resolution. He (Mr. Mac Iver) was a humble follower of Mr. Ecroyd, and was prepared to give his adherence to everything that Gentleman had written on the subject of Free Trade versus Protection. He wished the House to understand that he had stood by his guns, and that he deferred that Motion in order that it might at a later day have full justice done it by Mr. Ecroyd. He might say, however, that he had letters from Birmingham, Bradford, Sheffield, Dewsbury, Wakefield, Manchester, and other towns—to name which would occupy too much time—in support of the views he entertained. This reminded him of what had once been said to him by Mr. Hardcastle, who, he regretted to say, was no longer a Member of the House. Mr. Hardcastle had said to him, after he had made a speech in the House on this subject—"First people begin by calling you a fool; next they begin to say there is something in your argument; and the third step is success." He thought he saw success before them at no very distant period. The House would remember that on many occasions he had addressed Questions to the Government with reference to our commercial relations with foreign countries; but the answers had been of a very vague nature, without any information. All that could be ascertained was that the Government were giving the matter their consideration or making representations. With regard to the surtaxe d' entrepôt and the shipping bounties, he thought he had some reason to complain of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The Under Secretary did not know anything whatever of the subject, or, if he did, he had no business to answer as he did. The French, by means of their bounty system, were rapidly acquiring a useful Navy. They offered a premium that amounted to 12 per cent per annum upon all ships constructed in France; and even if the vessel was constructed in England or elsewhere, and was of French ownership, they still gave, for the sake of getting control of the property, what was practically a handsome dividend. That was all managed, as everybody knew by the Foreign Office, and the arrangement was in direct violation of the Most Favoured Nation Clause, or else it showed that the Most Favoured Nation Clause was worthless. He should be very glad if the Under Secretary could show that he was right and he (Mr. Mac Iver) was wrong; but, unfortunately, he knew he was not wrong. The French Government could not get rid of the bounty system for at least 10 years, and he should like to know what reply the Government would get from France in answer to their representations. With regard to the surtaxe d' entrepôt, England happened to be in the geographical position that a clause which nominally affected all other nations only affected her. England was, or ought to be, the depôt for supplying France with foreign importations. That was formerly a very useful and important trade; but it had been practically put a stop to by the tax upon indirect importation. If the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs would press home the question as he ought to do, in justice to our shipowners, merchants, and brokers, and insist that importations of goods for foreign countries through England should be taxed the same as if they had been directly imported from foreign countries, there might still be a chance of his succeeding. There was a suspicious look in a good many of our Free Trade negotiations. He could not help thinking that some of the growing willingness of France to negotiate with England arose from one of three causes, or, perhaps, to a combination of them all. Firstly, they saw that there was a growing dissatisfaction among all classes of the community of England, and that it was by no means as certain as Frenchmen used to think that they would be allowed to continue to plunder us as they pleased. He thought, in the second place, that France wanted to conciliate public opinion in this country upon the Tunis Question. They must feel that there was a very wide difference between the friendly suggestions of Lord Salisbury and what they had actually done; and they could not help feeling that if a Conservative Government had been in power there would have been strong remonstrance against the unprovoked attack on a portion of the Ottoman Empire. A third reason was that, in common with the rest of the world, France could not be blind to the blunder of Her Majesty's Government, and to the probability that could not be far distant when Her Majesty's present Advisers would be out of Office. The only hope as regarded securing better commercial arrangements with France was that something like a business-like tone should be introduced into the negotiations now pending. He asked the House to remember that the exports from England to France of raw materials from 1863 to 1879 amounted in value to 60,000,000f., while the imports of raw materials during the same period from France to England did not amount to one-third of that stated value. Our exports to France of articles of luxury were a mere trifle, while our imports from France of like goods amounted to 5,274,000f.; while of manufactures generally, our exports to France, as compared with our imports from France, were as 37,000,000f. in value to 72,000,000f. He had only, in conclusion, to say that the proposal he had placed on the Paper was based upon principles advocated by Adam Smith and strongly supported by John Stuart Mill. Adam Smith, in Wealth of Nations, said— The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation how far it is proper to continue the free importation of certain foreign goods is when some foreign nation restrains by high duties or prohibitions the importation of some of our manufactures in their country. Revenge in this case naturally dictates retaliation, and that we should impose the like duties and prohibitions upon the importation of some or all of their manufactures into ours. There may be good policy in retaliations of this kind when there is a probability that they will procure the repeal of the high duties or prohibitions complained of. The recovery of a great foreign market will generally more than compensate the transitory inconvenience of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods. And the following remarks were made by John Stuart Mill in his Principles of Political Economy:— A country cannot be expected to renounce the power of taxing foreigners unless foreigners will in return practice towards itself the same forbearance. The only mode in which a country can save itself from being a loser by the revenue duties imposed by other countries on its commodities is to impose corresponding revenue duties on theirs, only it must take care that those duties be not so high as to exceed all that remains of the advantage of the trade, and put an end to importation altogether, causing an article to be produced at home or imported from another and dearer market. The authors of these opinions were not Protectionists—the Protectionist theory of the old times had passed away, but not more completely than the theories of Free Trade. He thought the time had arrived when the country should reconsider its fiscal system in the light of present circumstances. The time had come when we should decide as businesslike men to adapt ourselves to our present position, by practising Free Trade as far as it was possible, and Protection as far as it was necessary.

MR. STAGG

said, the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Mac Iver) had not made to him his meaning particularly clear, and he thought others were in the same condition of mind with himself as to what the hon. Gentleman really meant. The hon. Member referred, in the course of his speech, to the triumph of his opinions as illustrated by the return of Mr. Ecroyd for Preston. He had the advantage lately of reading the arguments of Mr. Ecroyd, and he must say that they convoyed to him no more concise impression of what was intended by the present movement in regard to Protection or Reciprocity than the arguments of the hon. Gentleman who had spoken to-night. He believed Mr. Ecroyd wished to impose duties upon the food supply of the people of this country; and if that was the idea which the hon. Gentleman wished to place upon his banner to-night, and which he very wrongly attributed to the Tory Party as being adopted generally by them, he would find very little support in the country; and none whatever from thinking Members in the House. The hon. Gentleman said a great deal as to the French Treaty. He told them several times that this country was being persistently robbed by France; but he (Mr. Slagg) wished to ask whether it was robbery to buy a thing from France at a cheaper price than we could make it for ourselves? It seemed to him that was not robbery, but a distinct advantage. Because the French were too short-sighted in regard to political economy to buy from us on the cheapest possible terms, it did not seem to him at all to mend matters that we should refuse to buy from them as cheaply as we possibly could do. The hon. Gentleman had further said a great deal on the subject of the bargaining process that had taken place in our negotiations with France, and particularly with regard to the Treaty of 1860, and he seemed to think there was something very wrong in that proceeding. He (Mr. Slagg) was not one of those who advocated the bargaining process in relation to commercial negotiations. He thought it was very much to be deplored, and it was only on the ground of the absolute necessity of presenting some concession to France by way of duties in order to induce her to make similar concessions to us that Mr. Cobden entertained the idea. Mr. Cobden did not look upon it, he was perfectly sure, in the light of making a concession to the disadvantage of England, for it was his intention not only to concede those duties to France, but simultaneously to concede them to all the world. At the close of the last Session the Prime Minister introduced into his Budget scheme a further concession on the Wine Duties in order to facilitate negotiations with the French in reference to further concession on their part. He was not sorry that that proposal fell through, because the fact that we had now nothing to offer France which she considered valuable as a concession really placed the subject on the true and pure basis of trade between the two countries. The bargaining process, he was happy to find, had now gone by altogether, so that the Treaty could never be reproached in the future with being accompanied by some process which was thought, in a measure at least, antagonistic to pure Free Trade principle. The hon. Gentleman again had said that we should be prepared to impose duties in our present negotiations with France. He (Mr. Slagg) entirely disagreed with that proposition. He thought it could not be shown that such a process would be of the slightest advantage. On the other hand, if it were possible to lower duties in the forthcoming negotiations, he should be very glad to do so, and the only retaliation which we could possibly make in the present situation was not in the direction of increasing duties further, but in the direction of lowering them. For instance, he thought it would be possible for us to make concessions in regard to the Wine Duties of Spain and Portugal, and thus to place those countries on a much more favourable footing than they occupy at the present moment. Such a step as that might possibly stimulate France to a better frame of mind in regard to her treatment of us. But the fact was really this—that the French did not any longer value a reduction of their Wine Duties. Having suffered from three or four bad harvests, they did not now produce as much wine as they could consume in their own country. He thought they had given up the idea altogether of providing this country with a lower class of light clarets, and we could dismiss altogether the notion that the French valued such concessions. The argument of the hon. Member was not new with regard to suffering industries and robbing the population of this country. It was heard whenever any particular industry was in a condition of temporary depression; and economists, such as the hon. Member for Birkenhead, seemed to have no other resource in their mind for the amelioration of a suffering industry than to rush to some form of taxation. Who paid the duties that were to be imposed? The hon. Gentleman did not go into that question. If he could assure him that the exporter paid the duties on their arrival on this side, he (Mr. Slagg) would go with him heartily; for he could not imagine a more delightful thing than to force the foreign exporter to pay the taxes in one's own country; but if such a thing were possible it would have been found out long ago. Not only England, but every other country, would have been in the game. They knew, however, as a matter of fact, that the consumer pays every farthing of the tax. He often noticed that the professors of Protection or Reciprocity stopped short at one very important point. They did not state upon what they were going to impose their duties. His task would have been very much easier to-night if the hon. Gentleman had told him precisely the method in which he intended to apply those duties; but the hon. Gentleman left that entirely to the imagination of his hearers, and certainly Reciprocitarian imaginations were very active indeed in the absence of facts and arguments. Would the hon. Gentleman impose a tax upon cotton? He, as a Lancashire Representative, would strongly resent any idea of that sort. He knew perfectly well it would handicap them in every market in the world, and they would then have to compete in third markets with their neighbours, the French, who were now nearly abreast of them in that industry. Would the hon. Gentleman put a tax upon iron? The loom-makers, so far as his own district was concerned, would certainly not stand that. They had a keen competition already with other countries. They supplied machinery for the whole of the world, and it would be out of the question to impose a tax upon this material. It seemed almost a waste of time to ask if his hon. Friend would impose a duty upon corn? They knew the agricultural industry of this country was suffering very seriously indeed from foreign competition; but in what respect would a protective duty help it? Could it be shown that it would have the slightest effect in lessening the burdens on agriculture? What was becoming more and more apparent every day was that agriculture required freedom of land, free sale, and easy transfer. There was a peculiar danger, a peculiar impropriety, in pushing those retrograde notions forward at present. They were on the eve of negotiating a Treaty with the French, and if they allowed them to think it was the opinion of a large number of English economists that it was a good thing for us to impose duties on articles we import, we had no excuse to ask them to remit duties. To make such a proposition at the present time, he thought, would work serious mischief. Again, as to robbery, he did not assume that the trade was done between one country and another without profit. Merchants did not go on importing for a series of years without making something out of it. What had been the result of their commercial relations with France? In 1859 their exports to that country were £4,000,000 and their imports £16,000,000. They had increased since then, and their total trade with France was now over £53,000,000. Surely that was a very great advantage to everyone who had dealt in the articles concerned. But there was another point on which he might dwell for a moment, and it consisted in the very great importance of trade in the political relations of the two countries. In the old days of Lord Palmerston everyone would remember that their political relations with France were of the most suspicious character. He was sure that he was not wrong in attributing to the Treaty, in a very great measure, the friendly and sensible tone which had since sprung up, and anything which threatened to destroy that Treaty was to him (Mr. Slagg) a great political as well as a commercial mistake. In relation to what they were about to do with France, he agreed with the hon. Gentleman when he said that they should allow no Treaty to be made which was worse than the Treaty now existing. The present Treaty had largely increased their commercial intercourse and developed good relations between the two countries. To that extent it was a success, and he maintained it would be wrong for this country to put its name to a Treaty which should be in the slightest degree worse than the present Treaty. They were led to suppose last year, in the correspondence between M. Léon Say and Lord Granville, that the new Treaty would be based on an amelioration of the existing Treaty; and he thought that all commercial bodies would support him in saying that they should decline, in the interests of Free Trade, to negotiate unless they actually secured some improvement on the old tariff. The hon. Member said that Mr. Ecroyd would soon be among them, and that he would give them his views. He hoped he would. He should like to have a discussion on the whole question of Free Trade. It seemed very sad to have to make the statement; but there were evidences, which could not be ignored, that these retrograde doctrines were taking hold in some quarters of the community. He believed they came entirely from those interests which had suffered a temporary depression from foreign competition. When competition assailed them through exports from foreign countries a most wholesome stimulus was really applied to their industries. Improvements were introduced, economies were practised in every direction; and, as a thorough Free Trader, he welcomed imports of all descriptions as being a benefit to the consumer, and also as being an excellent stimulus to the manufacturer. When it was found that by no process of ingenuity or economy could he compete with the foreigner it was time for him to declare that the industry in question was no longer fitted for the country, and betake himself to some other more profitable and congenial occupation of his capital.