Our foreign commerce and free trade policy

Abstract

In February, 1878,1 read a paper before this Society in defence of our national policy of free trade, which was at that time assailed with some vehemence as the cause of the then prevailing mercantile depression. Since 1878, although our commerce has to a considerable extent recovered the ground previously lost, we have undergone the pressure consequent on a series of bad harvests, culminating in the disastrous season of 1879. Our agricultural classes have had to sustain the loss arising from bad crops, without obtaining relief from the enhancement in prices which usually accompanies deficient harvests. Through a strange concurrence of circumstances, whilst we have had extremely bad crops in the United Kingdom, there have been superabundant crops in the United States, unusually low transatlantic freights, and a reduced purchasing power amongst our manufacturing classes, owing to the prolonged depression of trade, all tending to keep down prices of agricultural produce.