Mr. Haldane, speaking at Edinburgh on Monday night, gave an
admirable summary of Germany's position under Protection, which we commend to any of our readers who may be perplexed by the analogy from Germany drawn by Protectionist speakers. He pointed out that Germany had never known Free-trade in practice, and that, nevertheless, there was a strong party growing up who put Free-trade in the forefront of their election programme. The matter had never been judged in Germany on economic grounds, but had always been made a political question. To-day industrial Germany was in a miserable position. Four hundred Trusts dominated trade; and the other day 10 per cent. of the engineers were thrown out of work by the action of the Trusts. Periods of depression occurred in the great industries such as were unknown in Britain. The price of food had gone up to an extent which even the most apologetic of German writers could not defend. To imitate Germany would be to put back the clock in British development; and he was confi- dent that, if the case of Germany was only looked into, few would desire to imitate her. We would add that the recent German Imperial Estimates and the overgrown state of German indirect taxation give effective confirmation to Mr. Haldane's argument.
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