Page:England under free trade.djvu/26

 recalling to mind what everybody knows, that France was during those four years repaying what she had borrowed abroad; and that at the end of 1875 she had probably repaid the bulk of it, and had recovered from the terrible losses she had incurred. What are her trade figures since then?

and I see by a paragraph in the Times of the 16th September that her excess imports for the first eight months of 1881 amount to 1,097 millions of francs, or 43 millions sterling, so that Protectionist France, according to our Fair Trade friends, must be going down-hill rapidly along with Free-Trading England, for she has been rapidly and unprecedentedly increasing her excess of imports! And now I ask Fair Traders how they reconcile these trade figures of France with their theories?

The trade figures of Germany tell the same story. While she was receiving the French indemnity she was a large importer on balance. When this operation was completed, this excess of imports began to diminish. If we take 1869 and 1880, I find in "Mulhall" that while in 1869 that excess was 12 millions, in 1880 it was only 6 millions. This is anything but a reassuring commercial sign for her. Indeed, when we couple this fact with others which crop up, such as, for instance, the falling off of savings' bank deposits in Saxony, the increase of emigration, the increased cost of living, the decreasing earnings per head of her population, we cannot be surprised when we hear that protests against her fiscal system have been made by an overwhelming majority of her Chambers of Commerce, and that in the late elections a majority has been returned pledged to oppose the Protectionist policy of Prince Bismarck. The fact is, that the vaunted system of Protection has utterly broken down in Germany, and that, as she is the poorest of our rivals, and consequently, the