FREE TRADE.
A SPEECH DELIVERED BEFORE THE DEMOCRATIC CLUB, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM, JANUARY 9, 1848. BY KARL MARX.
Gentlemen,—The Repeal of the Corn Laws in England is the greatest triumph of Free Trade in the nineteenth century. In every country where manufacturers discuss Free Trade, they have in mind chiefly Free Trade in corn or raw material generally. To burden foreign corn with protective duties is infamous, it is to speculate on the hunger of the people.
Cheap food, high wages, for this alone the English Free Traders have spent millions, and their enthusiasm has already infected their Continental brethren. And, generally speaking, all those who advocate Free Trade do so in the interests of the working class.
But, strange to say, the people for whom cheap food is to be procured at all costs are very ungrateful. Cheap food is as ill reputed in England as is cheap government in France. The people see in these self-sacrificing gentlemen, in Bowring, Bright & Co., their worst enemies and the most shameless hypocrites.
Every one knows that in England the struggle between Liberals and Democrats takes the name of the struggle between Free Traders and Chartists. Let us see how the English Free Traders have proved to the people the good intentions that animate them.
This is what they said to the factory hands,—
"The duty on corn is a tax upon wages; this tax you pay to the landlords, those mediæval aristocrats; if your position is a wretched one, it is so only on account of the high price of the most indispensable articles of food."
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