hed. I do not mean to say that this is in the least due to
free trade, but it is quite obvious that free trade did not stop
fighting. The prosperity of England has, of course, been undeniably
great, and it has been especially great among the vast industrial and
manufacturing interests which supported the free trade policy.
Possibly they have thriven better under this system than they would
have done under the old one, but this must remain mere speculation,
and as we know that some protected countries have prospered as much if
not more than England, the prosperity argument has little weight.
There are, however, other fields where we need not rely on conjecture.
Has free trade been an unquestionable benefit not merely to the
industrial but to all classes in England? It certainly has not put an
end to strikes, for strikes have never been more frequent anywhere
than they have been in Great Britain of late years. It does not seem
to have perceptibly diminished poverty, if we may judge from such
recent books as "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London," and "Through
Darkest England." The state of Ireland has not been indicative of a
healing and life-giving prosperity. In a word the great problems of
labor, of poverty, and of over-population seem as severe in free trade
England as in protective countries. Free trade again does not seem to
have prevented the rise of trusts and syndicates, nor to have stopped
the accumulation of vast wealth in a few hands. In other words, there
is no evidence that free trade has had any effect on the most serious
questions of the day, which touch the welfare of the great masses of
the people. All that can be said is that the manufacturing and
industrial interests of Great Britain seem to have thriven under it.
For a system which arrogates to itself absolute truth, this is a
meagre showing.

Free trade has not demonstrated its infallibility in the single
country where it has been tried. The question, therefore, for the
people of the United States is, whether under their conditions it is
well to make the change which England made nearly fifty years ago, and
to adopt a system of which the success has been doubtful in its chosen
field. In order to decide the question intelligently we must put aside
all vague confusions about an exact science which will work the same
results everywhere because it operates under an immutable law. Even if
free trade had been a brilliant and conclusive success in England, of