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    Untitled Article

    was said as elucidating certain references to the benefit conferred by recent changes of commercial policy upon consumers ; while " sight must not be lost , " added Lord Derby , of " those large classes , which , unconnected with commerce , are yet an element of our st rength as producers , though they are also consumers . " Lord Derby therefore contemplates some compromises between producers and consumers .

    HOW TO REALIZE PROTECTION . " The problem which every Government has to solve , " said Lord Derby at the Mansion-house dinner , " is , how to reconcile apparently conflicting interests , so as to give no undue advantage to one class of our fellow-citizens over another ;" " the whole system of our constitution , " he said afterwards , " is one great compromise ; " and this

    The object is a just one ,- —at least the object intended 1 > y Lord . Derby ; for the object stated by him is not very intelligible . A real statesman will not feel a primary interest either in producers or consumers ; but in the human beings , be they either the one or the other , without distinction ; and the interests of human beings are identical in production and consumption , which are but different stages in the same process . Lord Derby , however , has overlooked the important fact , that recent commercial reforms—for reforms they are —did not deal so much with the interests of producers or consumers , as with the interests of

    exchangers . The freedom which was introduced into our tariff was not freedom of production or consumption , but of trade . Now the only direct and legitimate incentive to trade is the love of lucre : trade will do nothing for the consumer , unless the consumer will offer a profit as bonus in the transaction ; it will do anything for a profit . It will bestow boundless energies on the working of a jewelled toy , which luxury makes a " well paid employment ; " it slights and neglects agriculture , the essential business of industry , because it is not a well paid employment .

    Trade therefore little cares to serve the interests of producers any more than of consumers : it will not distribute industry according to the vital wants of the people ; it will not obtain markets for the producers of the most needful articles . It will only " supply the wants" of society in so far as those wants ' happen to meet the interests

    of trade . Bethnal-green and Paisley , largo tracts of Nottinghamshire and Lancashire , nay , of Dorsetshire and Wiltshire , want more food ; foodgrowing Dorset and Wiltshire , Somerset and Warwickshire , want more consumers ; but free trade does little to enable either side to meet the other . It might bo done , howover , with immense gain to both sides . __

    Protection , assuming that free trade suffices for the consumer , professes to benefit the producerat the expense of the consumer ; and Lord Derby assumes that tho compromise is inevitable . The assumption is a mistake : tho consumer is interested in tho largosfc production ; the producer in tho largest consumption ; and the country is interested in the substantial welfare of all , call them how you will . Protection which attempts to benefit ' tho producer by limiting production , violatos every law of material welfare and progress , and permanently subserves no interest . The object is to bring consumer and producor into sincere * relations with each other ; and that is

    quite possible . Wo have before us n curious circular , given us by a friend , and issued by a tradesman in ono of the suburbs , professing to supply dairy produce direct from Somersetshire . The document is . interfis | ing to us , because wo are aware that in f ^ fCV / SV tfta ^ yiwy county of Somersetshire , a notion has > iV "f 4 ? 5 j ^ ybpil y . epiTing up among tho farmers , M ^ : ^ S }\ MZ \ " ' ;>¦ ¦ : ¦ ¦ ¦< . ¦ < : ; LJt « : s .- ' - : ¦ :-& ?/ ^ % L » ## ii $ , ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ . . 'A ; :-.. - ¦; .. ¦ „ :, ., ¦ ¦ - i ; : < m

    that the object of Protection mi g ht in some way be attained if they could establish communications direct with customers in the towns . This notion has arisen among niea in no degree bookishly inclined , wholly innocent of any " Socialistic" ideas , and , in fact , totally remote from theory of every kind . There is , however , strong practical ground for their notion . The market is at present embarrassed , not only by competition in the ordinary sense of the word , but also Tby another species , not so generally taken into

    account . Such regulation of industry as does accrue directs its attention less to production than to exchange ; ¦ which ,- as we have repeatedly shown , is not the primary and essential branch of industry , but only a secondary and auxiliary branch . The notion , therefore , is , not of multiplying products , but of obtaining " employment ;" and great is the effort to " obtain employment " out of every article produced and conveyed to market . Numbers try to have a hand in it . Not a cabbage eomes up to market but what twenty

    people endeavour to lend a hand in sowing , picking , or carrying it . Politico-oeconomically , it maybe said that each one of those persons is trying to . 'take a share of said cabbage to his own maw . To the " consumer" the effect is virtually an enhancement of price ; and in truth competition , which incites men to snatch at a share of employment upon a limited amount of production , instead of multiplying products ,

    proportionately increases the cost of production , lhis is one element of the high prices that " rule" in England for the simplest products of the soil . * Believed of this superfluous " employment , " such articles would at once become cheaper : they would also not be clipped and adulterated by the way , if , as the farmers of Somersetshire have been thinking , consumers and producers were brought into direct relation with each other .

    Now that relation would be established ^ if the tradesman in the London suburb were to give his customers the names and addresses of his Somersetshire producers ; and to those producers ~ the names and addresses of his suburban customers . He would not need to be afraid that he would be superseded by direct dealing ; since he preoccupies the post which any such dealing would

    render necessary , and fulfils the duties , we dare to say , as ceconomically as possible . The two classes for which he v& the intermediary would then obtain the guarantee which each desires : the consumer would know that he was obtaining the genuine product of Somersetshire ; the Somersetshire farmer would know that he had a certain connexion for whom to work .

    This relation is in part established by the People ' s Mill at Leeds , with its 3500 proprietors , each of lit . sbare . Here the dealer and consumer are one : the dealer has no interest except to obtain genuine goods ; and the mill has a registered corps of customers , pledged by their own stake in it to deal with the establishment . If the organization suggested by Mr . George Pelsant Dawson , of Osgodby , in Yorkshire , were established—an organization of agricultural producers dealing collectively—and it were to deal with . ~ . . . , " % 't , 1 i f i 1 TV 1 » L in towns like that of the le

    organizations Peops Mill , the whole chain of needful relations , from the producer to the consumer , would be established—tho consumer would be obtaining certified articles ; tho producer would be working for a certain market ; and the intermediary would be working in his vocation without risk or uncertainty . Wo have already mentioned a plan by which this procoss might he adapted to the proprietary system , by moans of subscribers , who would contribute to the capital of a dealer , and receive in roturn a right of visit to his warehouses or books —exactly tho relation of tho individual

    shareholders to the People ' s Mill . For example , a brower in actual working might admit a number of his customers , as subscribers of a small fixed sum , to view his works ; in such case , tho subscribers would obtain a guarantee for the gonuino quality , just price , and general fair-dealing of the brower ; the brewor would obtain a proportionate acce 3 S to his capital , and a certain number of customers pledged to deal with him ; a mutual guarantee , abolishing reciprocally tho two grand uncertainties which are tho curso of tho dealer or

    producer , and of the consumer . This plan is no longer a mere matter of theory , but has a ^ titaUy been adopted by a new brewery company already at work in the metropolis , with every prospect of success . And the princip le , ' most easily traced in some simple avocation , is equally applicable to the naost complicated . It would , for ins tance enable any niimber of smaller capitalists engaged in the trade

    outfitting or lmendrapery to unite with each other and their customers , and thus to make stand against the destruction which otherwise awaits them at the hands of the mammoth , capitalists . It would enable capitalists , in more than one branch of the woollen trade , to escape from the competition which even a very limited number of competitors cannot mitigate , and in which the destruction of one or the other becomes a mere question of time .

    It is by encouraging such applications as this , by removing the impediments , that the principle of Concert would enable any real statesman , capable of seizing the opportunity of the day , to reconcile the interest of consumer and producer , and to effectuate that which Protection promised without ; performing ; it would enable any great statesman , desirous of benefiting the producer ,

    and especially the agricultural producer , to give relief , although Protection is justly condemned past recall . One step is made in that direction by H / Lx . Disraeli , when he indicates the probability that Government , reversing the order of its predecessors , willafford facilities for organization of thje working classes , enabling them to concert together for the promotion of their own interests . It is a step towards the true Protection .

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    THE FEAST OF EAGLES . Seated on the tribune in the midst of that vast scene built of human beings , —that scene which would defy the resources of the Grand opera even in . its palmiest days , and presents to the world for a brief hour a reality ^ such as John Martin might imagine—exalted in the midst of that picture painted with the human race for its pigments , sat Louis Napoleon , a silent and a thoughtful man ; and he reflected . Ati altar was there ; for lie gives back the first place to religion ^ --perchance lest it stab him in the back . An altar , high and shining , admirably " got up , " with rich carpeting , painty gilding , adroit la'b . and plaster . Altars , he must have thought , can be made of lath and plaster as well as marble . Carpet bag , dressing case , and altar—modern improvements have made all these conveniences of rank portable . The clergy approach the portable altar , true as the needle to the pole , as the vulture to the carrion . Eight hundred strong , headed by the Archbishop of Paris , successor to the Archbishop who lost his life in wildly trying to reconcile his countrymen . This one , after some qualms of conscience , sides with the stronger party ; a safer course . They take their stand on the upper steps of the

    altar , the eagle-bearing Colonels below j ^ _ all below is strength , and all above is grace , lhey bless the eagles of the Imperial Presidency ; as they before blessed the tricolour of the Jiepublic , —as they had blessed the tricolour ot Louis the Citizen King , ' —as they had blessed the lilied flag of the Restoration , —as they had blessed the eagles of the Empire militant ,--as they had blessed the old white banner ot the earlier Bourbons .- ^ as they had blessed the unflamme . A useful and a ductile craft ! I estates must have a blessing-machine ln . worKint , order , and Louis Napoleon saw that it was

    The eagles , as thoroughly saturated with blessing by an eight-hundred parson power as any two-beaked eagles of most legitimate Austria , are given to the Emperor , who gives them to we Colonels , representing , the army ; "nd'the toi 0 ' nels " swear to defend them to tho death ¦— a » they liad sworn to the tricolour , and to the wnito flag of Henry the Fourth , and to the Onflamme . Soldiers always will swear to defend them to tJie death—whatever " them" maybe ; and perh aps it does add something to the tenacity with whic n a soldier will elutcli hia standard ! A usetui class those colour-receiving Colonels . ' fl

    Under the thunder of the artillery , oveunj thousand human beings wore massed and marshalled in the background of that pnfi ? ^ T seventy thousand men dressed to lose their ]«» sonality in the mass ; trained to ootm ing . ; trainee ! , bent , spurred , cheeked , to exact obecu enoo ; trained to trust in that alone ; paid to * UttU

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    There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the -world is by the . very law of its creation in . eternal progress .- ^ DB . Abnom > .

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    SATURDAY , IV ^ AY 15 , 1852 .

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    * To certain ready objections by tho Old School politioal-coconomiats , let ua observe , that tho high price cannot bo duo to labour , whon that ia cheap ; nor to . ront , when lands aro competed for ; nor to " firaited field , ot' production , " while lands oro but half cultivated .

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    464 . ^^^ : ^ E 4 ^^^ .: r ; ,: ¦ ¦ . ^ ^ ^ { ^ ^

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 15, 1852, page 464, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1935/page/12/