The full free-trade policy was not intro duced for many years, however: it was Mr. Gladstone in 1869 who framed the present sys tem of absolute freedom from protection, though as Palmerston's chancellor of the ex chequer in 1861 he had taken a long step to ward it. In 1841 more than 1,000 articles were on the customs list, over half of them large staples; in 1849 they were reduced to 515, and in 1855 to 414, but still 153 main articles of con sumption; while in 1861 they were reduced at a blow to 142, of which only 19 were of great importance, and in 1876 to 42, of which 10 were important. They have since been reduced to 12 altogether, in as few classes as possible — seven of drinks, three of sweets, one narcotic and one food; namely, spirits, wine and beer; tea, coffee, chicory, and cocoa; sugar, molasses, and glucose; tobacco; and dried fruits.
It may be said here that in the last 30 years of protection, the total increase of British im ports and exports was $340,00C1,000; in the first 30 of free trade it was $2,400,000,000, between seven and eight tunes as much. In 1816-40 the total increase in British shipping was 80,000 tons; from 1848 to 1858 it was 1,257,000, and thence to 1880 1,917,000 more.. The experience of Belgium was even more striking. Under Napoleon prohibitory duties were imposed, and the country became largely depopulated; with the return of the Dutch and low duties, great manufactures at once sprang up; with their expulsion in 1830 high protective duties were again imposed, and in 1851 the prime minister declared that if they were not removed all domestic industry would be ruined; the whole system was swept away in 1855, and Belgium rapidly became, size for size, the foremost in dustrial and commercial state of the world, the richest per capita, and the manufactory of Europe. Only a few per cent of its revenue is from imports, the rest being from internal duties.
The arguments for free trade cannot be stated without those against protection, being the same. They are not alone industrial, but political and social. Broadly, it is asserted that protection cannot increase the total industrial product to be divided up, and can only enable one class of the community to force the re mainder to buy one costly article instead of two cheap ones, thus lessening the volume of trade and production; that its claim, to re distribute the amount in wages is false, as but for the system the same capital would have been employed in other industries and paid as much wages, with lower prices to the consumers; that its claim to ultimately reduce prices is false, because as soon as that object has been achieved, it applies to the government on that very ground to save it from ruin by increasing the duty; that its claim to found industries is false by demonstration; and that it narrows instead of diversifying them; that it extorts high prices from home consumers by squeezing the market of which it is given a monopoly, and then sells its surplus to foreigners at a low price — which Adam Smith sets down as inevitable with a protective system; that it pro duces trusts, to prevent competition through which the public might secure its alleged bene fits; that it produces alternate "feast or famine,* inflation and panic, instead of equable business; that it makes orderly public finance impossible, by creating huge random revenues to be spent at random, in place of a calculable budget; that it corrupts politics deeply and hopelessly, by making masses of capital dependent on legisla tion for its profit, and consequently influencing that legislation for its own ends, stripping the treasury to prevent repeal of duties, inventing extravagant schemes to spend an unnecessary revenue, and buying votes in its favor by enor mous permanent burdens on the people, through pensions, etc., is mainly due to this money
power created by legislation. For the opposite side, see PROTECTION. See also ECONOMICS; TARIFF.
Bibliography.— Smith, Adam, 'The Wealth of Nations) (1776) ; Ricardo, 'Works' (Mc Culloch 1846); Prentice, 'History of the Anti Corn Law League) (2 vols., 1853) ; Mongre dien, 'History of the Free Trade Movement in England) (1881) ; Allen, 'The Tariff and its Evils) (New York 1:.%) ; Bastable, 'The The ory of International Trade) (London 1897) ; Smart, 'The Return to Protection) (ib. 1904); Fisk, 'International Commercial Policies) (New York 1907) ; Pierce, 'The Tariff and the Trusts) (ib. 1907); Robertson, 'Trade and Tariffs) (London 1908); Curtiss, 'The Indus trial Development of Nations and a History of the Tariff Policies of the United States and Great Britain) (3 vols., Binghamton, N. Y., 1912) ; Higginson, 'Tariffs at Work) (London 1913) • Matthews, 'Taxation and the Distribu tion of Wealth) (New York 1914).