ABSTRACT
Mr. John Slagg, who is to be one of the Liberal candidates for Manchester at the next election, introduced the renewal and extension of the commercial treaties, and the obstacles to the general adoption of Free Trade. It need hardly be said that in a Manchester meeting there was no indication of lack of faith in Free Trade. One member of the Congress was a little doubtful about the advantage of the commercial treaties, but upon the whole the department vindicated the treaties of the charge of hindering Free Trade, and spiritedly advocated the principles of Cobden. Mr. Slagg was amused at the blind way in which some people, groping for a cause of the depression of trade in this country, attacked Free Trade, while the other side of the Atlantic people there were beginning in the face of the same evil to doubt the efficacy of their protective system.
