VIEWS OF THE ENGLISH PRESS. British papers, notably the Morning Post, are discussing the new phase of national affairs and the requirements of the hour. The Post said, March 27, 1919:

Mr. Bonar Law stated the chief economic lessons of the war with his usual precision when he said. that "in a world where war is possible no nation can safely depend upon other nations for those things which are essential for the life of that nation." No one can deny this great truth which was at one time, and must again be, the ruling principle of our national policy. The free traders forgot all considerations of security, and thought only of cheapness. Thereby they brought us also so near ruin that we cannot yet say that we have escaped it. But if this is so, why the delay in leaving the City of Destruction? Is it because, as Mr. Bonar Law says, "we will need a little education still?" The country does not appear to need education. And if the free traders did not take the lesson of the war-and of the polls-it is probably because they are not in a position to learn . . . It is nothing to them that our manufacturers who saved the country in war are in danger of being destroyed by peace. . . . We require tariffs for the protection of our industries against any industrial system which threatens their existence, no matter what makes that industrial system strong. . . . If from these or any other causes, our industries are threatened, they ought to be protected; for the security and existence of a nation lies in its industries. . . . The free traders, under the terrors of war, renounced their free trade, as atheists sometimes renounce their atheism on the bed of sickness.

The British National Review of

January, 1919 has an article by Ian D. Colin in which he discusses the position of Premier Hughes of Australia in favor of preferential tariffs for the British Empire as a matter of protection. Mr. Colin indorses Mr. Hughes' position and says:

Our lives depend upon our industries and our solvency upon our production. . . . He (Hughes) desires above all to see the British Empire not the economic annex of another nation, but a strong, independent and self-sufficient economic unit.

British manufacturers and Boards of Trade have decided upon a policy of protection of what they call "key industries" by a system of import licenses. In short, the economic policy of Great Britain has changed from free trade to protection.

AN HISTORICAL CONTRAST. Great Britain began to discard protection soon after the Napoleonic wars, just about the time the United States increased her protection walls by raising, in fact almost doubling, her import duties. Great Britain sacrificed everything for the markets of the world, and found herself, in 1917, facing invasion, starvation, and death.

Americans, it is proposed by Mr. Wilson and his school of economic philosophers, to tear down the structure of protection reared at such a cost, and to plunge into the sea of internationalism and fight for world markets just as England did from 1824 to 1914. Foreign commerce, foreign trade under a so-called "Covenant of a League of Nations," is to take the place of domestic trade, home markets and independence. In the familiar language of the free trader each nation is to contribute what it can most easily and most naturally to the world's storehouse of goods and products, and a beneficent "executive Council," composed mostly of foreigners, is to distribute the raw materials and the finished products as seems best in their exalted opinion.

Protectionists who protest against this program are told they are "reactionists" and "old fossils"; that they are amateur economists. Protectionists who protest against the idea that foreign trade is nothing but barter and that the United States will not be able to sell products unless she buys an equal or greater amount of foreign products, no matter whether they come in competition with home-made products or not, are denounced as ignorant of the new rules of trade as revealed by war and a changed universe! Let us see what some of the standard political economists say on this subject:

Robert Ellis Thompson of the University of Pennsylvania says in his "Elements of Political Economy," page 217:

A nation that is declining in in

dustrial coherence and independence, grows faster in foreign than in domestic commerce. . . That

people are sinking to a lower grade of social organization. . . . The amount of a nation's foreign commerce is, therefore, the worst possible test of its general prosperity.

Professor George Gunton in his "Principles of Social Economics" (1891) says, on page 327:

Instead of constantly encouraging foreign trade it should ever be a cardinal principle in statesmanship to develop domestic trade and home manufactures.

On page 328 of the same work, Professor Gunton says:

One of the popular notions regarding foreign trade is that the prosperity of a nation is indicated by the amount of its exports; that it is rich by what it sells. This is a great mistake. Nothing indicates the prosperity and well-being of a people but what it consumes.

Thus the extent of domestic consumption-the home market-is the real measure of social states.

George B. Curtiss in his exhaustive work on "The Industrial Development of Nations" says on page 7, Volume I:

The people of no nation in the history of the world has ever prospered under a policy which sacrificed its home industries to build up and develop the resources and give employment to the labor of foreign states.

The truth is that home markets are worth more to any country than foreign markets, and it is folly to promote the latter at the expense of the former. England did that very thing. for more than half a century and came very near defeat and collapse,. when the real test came.

citizen anywhere, may claim the protection of his country's flag. He may stand before kaiser, king or potentate secure in all his rights; stand in the court of justice and see attorney, judge and jury and all the officers of that court spend time without measure and effort without limit to see justice done, to one of the least of these our brethren, and reflect that behind that court and the enforcement of its decision is the whole power of the commonwealth. Let one American family be unjustly imprisoned in a foreign land or by despotic power, and see the fleet in all its majesty sail forth, knowing that behind that fleet stand one hundred million people of America to see that justice is done.

Nor does our land of the free bar from her shore any worthy man in all the world. To everyone that is oppressed she calls, "let him come," and be he a son of one of the families of the Mayflower, or a son of England, Scotland, Ireland, Poland, Russia or France, if in America he makes his home, and to America he pledges his loyalty and, if need be, his life, then America says, "come, come to the land of equality and liberty." Yes! But to far more than that, to the land like no other, to the land of equal opportunity. From no one of her sons does America withhold the best she has to give and we without thought of obligation accept it as ours by right.

It is not alone because of bountiful resources or freedom of opportunity that America stands grandly before the world. It is because no selfish desire, no greed to seize by

force, no plan to deprive another of equal rights has ever entered our national ambition. Our country, with domain from ocean to ocean, from land of perpetual snow to the tropics and islands of the gulf, does not seek one foot of ground nor the life of one human subject by conquest. No possession however prized has ever been coveted by America against a people's will. Hawaii, "the Pearl of the Pacific," desired by the longing eyes of all nations, knocked humbly at door and humbly waited to be admitted. Cuba, bleeding and oppressed, was gloriously freed, and while the old world stood in amazement, without money and without price was given, restored and prosperous, to her own people.

America pouring out her wealth that the Philippines might be enlightened and able to stand before the world, awaits the day when she too may say to these children of the people, "take these beautiful islands, they are yours." "Why then," you ask, "these armies and these fleets?" Is America entitled to nothing? Does she ask for nothing? Yes! America asks the greatest gift within the power of the nations, the opportunity to make men free and to make that freedom eternally secure. For that America has stood and for that America will stand with all the mighty forces at her command.

I do not maintain that America has always "risen as one man at the call of battle." It is not true that a "million men sprang to arms as one" when Belgium was crushed bleeding in the dust. Great and

confident and strong, America waited. Nor am I proud of those years of "benevolent neutrality." Benevolent? Yes! Neutral? No! America was never neutral! What was right in 1917 was right in 1914 and what was wrong in 1917 was wrong in 1914. We waited the call of a Washington, of a Lincoln. of a red-blooded, one hundred per cent American, like Theodore Roosevelt, and then, thank God, we went in. Went in to protect the principles of American citizenship; not against government, but for that government that derives its just power from the consent of the governed, and because to that principle we had pledged to each other "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

We hear it said that "America went to war for an ideal." I said that myself and a soldier, a friend of mine replied, "like hell we did, we went to lick the Kaiser;" and I claim that we were both right. Men may say the same thing in different ways, but if they understand perfectly each other's meaning there would be no ground for argument. Certainly we went to to lick the Kaiser. What he stood for was opposed to everything we stood for. Autocracy says, "government is my will"; while the first ringing words of our Constitution are "we the People of the United States." What regard has autocracy for "the consent of the governed?" What regard had the Kaiser and his breed for "the will of the people?" Listen to the braggart at the height of his power, when he said, "my will

is this and I will crush all who oppose it. The duty of the people is to obey my commands." America has been built by men who fled from that hated doctrine and the righteous wrath of America arose to defend the foundation of her citizenship. No living man, however exalted, was great enough to have "kept us out of war." From the day when the frontier of Belgium was violated and the first babe of that noble nation was crucified there was no American worthy of that name who was "too proud to fight."

Beware of arousing the patient man. Beware the long suffering nation when once aroused. They said that "we wouldn't and that we couldn't fight." That we couldn't train an army. Who cares now what they said?

The Hun rolled down to Paris like a mighty flood. The French could almost feel in their faces the breath of the approaching beast. They were not afraid, those superb men and those splendid women of France. They never knew the meaning of fear, and calmly, resolutely, they faced the worst. Prostrated and bleeding, unconquered and unconquerable, they fought, and dared and sacrificed for well-nigh four years. They had buried a million of their dead. And yet, they vowed to fight on and on, to the bitter end. But, where could they look for help? And then, suddenly out of the gloom, flashed the lightning of a new, sharp and mighty sword. One that had never been drawn except in freedom's name; one that