untrammeled by English competition in this country, advanced with remarkable energy and success. This fact attracted the attention of the manufacturers and merchants in England, and Lord Brougham in his place in Parliament (1816) advised them to send their goods of every kind to the United States in large quantities and sell them even at a loss, "in order by the glut to stifle in the cradle those manufacturers which the war (that of 1812) had forced into existence, contrary to the nature of things." (Hansard's Parl. Debates, 1st series, xxxiii., p. 1009.)

The last phrase plainly meant that England ought “in the nature of things" to be the workshop of the world.

The tariff of 1846 lowered the rate on imported iron much. below that of 1842. The iron masters in England at once began to lower their prices on iron of all grades which they were sending to the United States, their agents here meanwhile keeping them informed as to the effect produced, especially noting that furnace after furnace in Pennsylvania had to put out its fires.

At length came the announcement: “That there was no longer any danger from American competition." The response immediately came, "Advance prices" (1848). In less than a year the price of English rails was increased 100 per cent. (Amer. Protectionists' Manual, p. 68.)

A Parliament commission reported in 1854 as to the losses sustained by English manufacturers in their efforts "to destroy foreign competition and to gain and keep possession of foreign markets, to overwhelm all foreign competition, to step in for the whole trade when prices revive." Afterward Lord Goderich stated in the House of Lords that England meant by means of her trade "to get the monopoly of all their (those of other nations) markets for her (own) manufacturers and to prevent them, one and all, from ever becoming manufacturing nations.

Later on, in 1882, an article in Blackwood, entitled “Finance West of the Atlantic," it is noted as a bad omen that "American ingenuity (in inventions) is proverbial," but the writer finds consolation in the fact that the phrase "Tariff Re

form," instead of " Free Trade," had been adopted in "Democratic electioneering speeches."

The London Engineer of April 8, 1892, in speaking of the falling off of English exports to the United States, editorially says: "The (McKinley) Bill was intended to foster native productions, and this it is doing to a very satisfactory extent from the American point of view. The general idea in England is that the bill will be repealed before long, or its provisions most objectionable to the British manufacturers be modified."

Lord Salisbury in his famous speech of May, 1892, admits the value to the United States of our reciprocity treaties, insists that free trade has been carried so far in Great Britain as to deprive the English of the means of securing reciprocal trade, and urges that within certain limits that feature of the McKinley Bill be adopted by the English Government.

THE COBDEN CLUB.

This association is the avowed enemy of our industries. Its president declared that it "cannot rest while the United States are unsubdued; not only England but the whole world is to be brought into obedience." The "club" is sustained by a great number of the most influential men in the kingdom, and the funds forthcoming to carry out its plans are almost. unlimited. Against all these, and their avowed coadjutors in the Union, the friends of American mechanical industries have to contend to-day.

Earl Spencer presided at a meeting of the club during the Presidential canvass of 1880, and made an opening address, in which he not very cautiously outlined the plans and designs of the club. The latter were to utterly destroy in the world any industry wherever existing that competed with English manufactures. He exclaimed: "It is to the New World that the Cobden Club is chiefly looking as the most likely sphere for its vigorous foreign policy."

The London Times intimated quite clearly that the speakers at the dinner were too sanguine, and it mildly suggested, using the word of a correspondent, that the people of "the

United States do not approach the question from the same standpoint as ourselves;" then adding: “The object of their statesmen is not to secure the largest amount of wealth (revenue) for the country generally, but to keep up by whatever means the standard of comfort among the laboring classes."-London Times, July 12, 1880, pp. 12, 13.

Could there be a higher compliment, though perhaps unconsciously given, than this to the statesmen who now for thirty years have thus protected the comfort of the wageearners about three-fourths of our population-and cherished our mechanical industries in such manner as to give them employment at living wages?

This club uses influence and money freely to gain its ends. It flatters any Americans who may toady to British opinion and who like to seem "English," elects them honorary members, and calls them "distinguished Americans."

It subsidizes the press, offers prize medals to students of certain American colleges for essays in favor of free trade, and in every possible way endeavors to so control American politics as to enable England to profit by our foolishness.

There has not been a Presidential election here for years in which this "club" has not taken part, and in its peculiar way labored for the election of the Democratic candidate.

It has been earnest and diligent in scattering far and wide its tracts against protection, and has used its American "honorary members" as agents.

It is working for its home interest. Americans should understand this situation, and see that, while it may be for English interest "to destroy absolutely America's mechanical industries," it is for our interest to cherish and protect our every industry as has always been done by the Republican party.