[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR.1
Sra,—In your• enthusiasm for Free-trade I think you overlook the fact that the only man who derives an unmixed benefit from low prices is the unproductive member of the community —the ground landlord, the moneylender, or whatever he may be—whose position entitles him to take toll from the working and producing classes. For him low prices are all so much gain, enabling him, as they do, to exact the bigger toll from Labour. With the workers, however, the case is different. What they profit on the one hand they lose, and more than lose, on the other by the equally low prices paid for the articles of their production, or in other words, by the larger proportion of the fruits of their toil which falls to the share of the drones. Other things being equal, it is a matter of indifference whether prices are high or low ; but so long as the working or producing part of the community have to sup- port a number who are consumers and nothing else, those other things are not equal. Why on earth our Radical M.P.'s and Labour Members should oppose Protection in the form of import duties and uphold it in the form of Trade- Unionism beats me altogether. If cheap commodities benefit the working classes, then abolish Trade-Unions and every- thing else that tends to increase prices, encourage the import of products from Continental prisons, and, in short, go the
whole hog or none.—I am, Sir, &c., S. F.
[Every producer is also a consumer. Smith is a collier. If, owing to preferential duties, he pays more for his bread, his milk, his cheese, and his meat, his loss is quite as great as that of the so-called drones,—who are often in reality not drones at all, but some of the most hard-working members of the community.—ED. Spectator.]
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