Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1888 — FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND. [ARTICLE]

FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND.

READ WHAT AN ENGLISH WORKMAX SAYS ABOUT IT. His Advice to his American Brothers. r To the Secretary of the Home Market Club, 56 Bedford St., -—-Boston; , - - - ■ Dear Sir: Thanks for the papers you have sent me. I was in America for about two months last summer, sent over by our Association to see for myself whether the forking classes <3f your coun-try-were better off under protection than we are under free trade, and the conclusion I came to was this, that any person who has to earn a living in America, as a producer, must first become crazy before he becomes a free trader, and the farmers must be the craziest of the whole lot, to think of such a thing. Before any of your workingmen, . either engaged in manufacturing or agriculture, talk about free trade let them send one of their number over here to see what it is doing for this country. Let him walk about for six months, looking for a job. until his coat gets ragged and his shoes get thin and he gets the thinnest of all, and every where he asks for work he will be told that the Germans and Belgians are doing the work cheaper than he could do it. Then let them send for him to come home again and hear what he says about free trade. If it is the surplus revenue that is causing the trouble, send it to some free trade country, you never knew* 1 them to have a surplus, or if you don’t like to to do that, take it out to sea and sink it or bury it or burn it, or do anything, ip faets rather than adopt free-trade. That is to say if you do not e want foreign competition to ruin your manufacturing and by so doing ruin your farmers by robbing them of their home market. Yours Truly, H. J. Pettiper, Electro-plate worker, Sec’y. Workmans’ Association for defease of British Industry. March 28, 1888. 184. Waterloo road, London, England.