AN AUSTRALIAN FREE-TRADE VIEW. [To THE EDITOR. OF THE "SPECTATOR. "]
Sin,—Perhaps some of your readers may be interested in seeing the view expressed in the following letter received a few days ago from an Australian Free-trader.—I am, Sir, &c.,
HAROLD Cox, Secretary of the Cobden Club.
6 Raymond Buildings, Gray's Inn, W.C.
" Thank you very much for the Mosely Commission Report and Report of the Trade-Union Congress, which have just come to hand. Since I asked for them you have had the Chamberlain splash, which I hope (and believe) you will be able to survive. Doubtless you will come out of the contest benefited by the exercise, but the evil effects will be felt more here. The Free- trade cause in Australia was making good headway, but Pro- tectionists, magnifying the significance of the preferential trade suggestions, are howling furiously that England is reverting to Protection. This may retard our progress. The position in Australia is shortly this. Free-traders will give English manu- factured goods free entrance. Protectionists will coquet with the preferential trade proposals for the purpose of dishing the Free- traders by the introduction of a compromise policy. Then when the General Elections are over in December (or March) they will break off all negotiations with England, and go straight for a policy that will exclude English goods. Let England make no mistake. There is more importation from England than from any other country, and the local manufacturers fear her more in consequence. Imperial unity has more to expect from the Free-traders than from such people as these, who subordinate everything to their own hand."
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