enough. It might fully compensate for such decrease ; indeed,
this would appear to be the case for the following reasons : —



Growing our own Corn unaffegts Carrying Trade

It is held by economists that the world's carrying trade is
not affected by the increase or decrease in the irajjorts or
exports of any particular country, but only l)y an increase or
decrease in the aij^ircgalc trade of the world. This is an
economical dictum that practically amounts to a law. The
fact of growing our own wheat instead of importing it does not
diminish the world's trade by a single ton, it simply shifts the
venue from one country to another, in so far as this p;irticular
item of merchandise is concerned ; and as our country — which
would assume the new rule of wheat growing — is infinitely
richer than many of those that have hitherto maintained it, it
is evident that its purchasing power would be urcater.

The greater the purchasing power of a people, the greater
is the demand for commodities ; and the gi-eater the demand for
manufactured goods, the more must raw material be imported.
This also is an economical dictum practically amounting to
a law.

Although, then, there seems to be a certain amount of jJrimcl
facie evidence that growing our own corn would result in a
falling off of imports to that extent only, it does not seem to be
capable of substantiation when the pros and cons of the case are
circumstantially examined.

Summing up the case, it seems as though there is at first
sight a certain amount of evidence that might support the
abstract theory that growing our own corn would result in a
falling off of imports to the extent and value of the corn less
imported ; but, like many " abstract " propositions, it is utterly
incapable of demonstration the moment it is tested by the
practical common-sense experience demanded in " concrete "
examples. Indeed, few, if any, of these pretty economical
theories are capable of substantiation, when the pros and cons
of the case are circumstantially examined ; and those who care
to put practically the whole of the Free-trade contentions, as
expounded in " The Free-trade Movement," to similar tests, ^v'ill
soon learn upon what an unsubstantial basis the entire Free-
trade structure has been founded.

2 A



354 BRITAIN FOP. THE BRITON

We might now briefly consider the next point, namely —

Fallacy 4. " Our dependence u])on other countries has a counter-
jMvt ; if wc take food from them, they take from us maoitt-
facturcd goods ; they seek our pvduds as ca(jcrly as we seek
their grain."

This remarkable contention has been answered in the
immediately preceding pages ; but as it stands in the original
text of " The Free-trade Movement," as a separate proposition,
and as it, moreover, forms one of the main contentions of
Free-trade economists, it may well be entitled to separate
attention.

Now, unless there be some indefinable economic subtlety
deeply underlying this significant affirmation, of so fine-spun a
nature as to remain undiscernible by the ordinary intellect, it
is singularly remarkable for its naivete.

That such foreign nations as supply us with food must take
our goods in exchange, is perfectly true, and that in this they
are simply obeying a universal economic law, or commercial
custom, from which it appears that no nation or individual in
this world may escape, is equally true ; but to affirm, or to lead
unreflecting people to suppose there can possibly be any other
way, or method, or form of payment, or that our products
would not be as eagerly sought after by our own people — if we
ceased to depend upon other countries for food, and grew it
ourselves — is either to display a most elementary knowledge of
economics, or to wilfully mislead the people. Abandoning
sophistry, the plain statement of the case is as follows : —



British Products in Demand irrespective of Source of

Food Supply

Suppose Germany, for example, provided us with the whole
of our food-stufis, Germany could only take from us in exchange
an equal value — or as much as it suited her to take — of other
goods. Substitute the United States for Germany and precisely
the same thing would happen. Change the source of supply
to our own colonies and call upon Australia and Canada to pro-
vide our food for us, and still no change in the mode of payment
would be experienced. Shift yet once more the venue from
Canada to Ireland — supposing for the moment that the Emerald
Isle could supply us — and it would still be found that Ireland
would take in exchange for her wheat and other foods a corre-
sponding amount of other commodities.

Now make your final change and grow all your wheat and



A BRIEF EXAMINATION OP FREE-TIIAUE PPJNTIPLES 355

other foods in tlie United Kingdom, and still there would be no
departure from the universal law that (joods must be paid for in
fjoods. Tlic United Kingdom would have to pay for her home-
grown agricultural produce in precisely tlie same manner as
she now pays Argentina, liussia, and the United States for the
corn and other foods they supply us with — namely — in other
commodities.

Whatever may be the amount of agricultural produce grown
on British soil, it must be paid for chiefly in British manu-
factures, goods, or other commodities demanding the employment
of British labour. In spite, then, of all the fme-spun subtleties
of economic "science" and the mendaciousnessof tlie Manchester
School, who fancy they would lose by destroying existing con-
ditions, British merchants must continue to import from foreign
countries that vast amount of raw material which must come
to us annually, to enable British manufacturers to supply goods
in exchange for British grown wheat and other agricultural
produce. It is, moreover, plain that there would be no diminu-
tion in value or in volume of these annual imports, because,
since produce must be paid for by produce, goods, commodities,
or whatever term we prefer to use, it matters not to British
merchants and manufacturers whether Britain grows her own
corn or whether she imports it.

British-grown Wheat paid for in British Manufactures

Since, then, the fact stands out with remarkable clearness,
that under every conceivable economic condition that can be
applied to this question, British manufactures and British
merchants and traders must necessarily produce goods of British
make and give them in exchange for agricultural produce of
like value, whether grown in this country or hivportcd from
cd)road, the question which naturally suggests itself to the
mind of every British subject, who remains untainted by the
views of party politics and unfettered by the restrictions of a
narrow economical creed is — "Why was so shallow a pretext,
containing, as it does, an elementary economical error, ever
put forward ? " Those responsible for the proposition can best
demonstrate it.

The point now under consideration is this —

Fallacy 5. " Other countries arc, for the most part, self-support-
ing as regards food ; in this respect the case of Great Britain
is exceptional."

To dispossess a country of its natural means of self-support
and then to charge it with being in an exceptional position in



35 G BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON

respect to its food supplies, is to deprive a man of his eye-sight
and then to reproach him for not being able to see.



Cynical Indifference to Facts

This line of reasoning is so deliberately cold, selfish, cruel,
and professedly cynical, as to positively offend and disgust that
enormous section of the British community which has hitherto
posed as spectators of what they regarded as an interesting
comedy l)etween Free-traders and their oi>ponents, but which
they now perceive is a vast National Drama full of pathos and
deep tragedy. They are, moreover, tired to death of the Jesuitical
juggleries and the eternal Machiavelianisms of " scientific
economists," political economists, and others of the same cult,
and would prefer to see the entire ([uestion of wliether we can,
or cannot, grow our own corn, and whether we should, or should
not, grow it, reduced to its last and proper denomination —
Grow it, and then let the common-sense of the British people
determine the results. " Too much talk and too little work "
is, perhaps, the greatest enemy of the British people to-day, and
it is certain that so long as they permit their better judgment
to be beguiled by those who tell them that Great Britain is, as
regards her food supplies, in an Exceptional position, so long
will the fallacy be maintained to their own undoing and the
destruction of National interests.

Whether we grow our own food supplies or get foreigners to
grow them for us, is a vital question that affects the interests of
the British people as no other question can affect them ; and yet
Free-trade economists treat it as a matter of course, and either
with light-hearted levity, or a supreme disregard of every
interest outside the narrow circle of their own selfish con-
siderations.

Great Britain is not in a position to provide her people
with ample supplies of home-grown agricultural produce, and
Free-trade economists not only put her in that position, but
keep her in a condition of helpless dependence upon foreign
countries for her daily bread.



Producing our own Food a Burning Question

This is a question which has not found favour with the
British public till quite recently, but now that the pauper yoke
is becoming intolerable and the unemployed question pressing ;
now that militant Socialism is battering at the doors of the
commonwealth, and demanding from Society drastic changes in



A BRIEF EXAMINATION OF FREE-TRADE PRINCIRLES 357

many directions ; now that reactionary measures are talked of
in the Clul)S, in railway carriages, and the saloons of ocean
liners ; in drawing-room and kitchen, by the rich man in his
sumptuous home and l)y the poor man in his cottage — the fact
of wJicther we are or are not to grow our own wlicat and produce
our own butter, cheese, poultry, eggs, and the hundred and one
other items of food required daily for the sustenance of our
own people, is becoming one of the burning questions of the
day.

The British people are truly in the "exceptional" position
claimed for them by Free-trade economists, and they are in a
false position, a position which invites external attack and
breeds internal pauperism, unemployment, well-grounded dis-
content, disloyalty and degradation, all of which, and much
more combined, will surely result in the disintegration of the
empire. The people are deprived of the means of producing
their own food and the means of universal employment in the
wholesome, life-giving, and wealth-producing industry of agricul-
ture because, forsooth, in their mania for securing cheap food
for what they euphoniously call the masses, those who have
some purpose to serve have insanely sacrificed every other
interest. They have, moreover, wilfully ignored all those varied
complicated considerations which ramify through the lives and
domestic economy of a great people as the tendons, fibres, and
nerves ramify through the human body.



Who foi;m " The Masses " ?

If, for example, those uncompromising economists, Free-
traders, political prestidigitators, the Manchester School, and the
rest of that coterie of possibly well-meaning but misguided
enthusiasts, who have thrust what is, by misnomer, called a
"Free " trade policy upon the British people, had for a moment
considered that what it has pleased them to call the masses, the
working -classes, the in'oldariat, and the rest of the catch-penny
phrases they arc so fond of trotting out at election times, must,
or should, in this, as in every country in the world, ncccssarili/
consist chiefly of the agricultural classes — they miglit possibly
have been induced to pause before finishing their work.



Agricultueal roi-uiATiox Largest in all Countjues

It lias been shown in otlier chapters that tlie agricultural
population of practically all civilised States is necessarily larger
than any other section, while even in this country, with a sorely



358 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON

attenuated and enfeebled land industry, agriculture still employs
a gi-eater head of the population than the whole of our great
textile and mimng industries 2')ut together. Given, however, a
sensible, sound, practical system of land tenures, as suggested
in other parts of this work, which Great Britain must have
before she can emerge from the sea of troubles which now
surround her, she would then have an agricultural iioivdation
of anything from ten to fifteen millions of fcoiilc employed in the
land industry and subsisting ujwn the fruits of the earth.

These are the masses, the working classes, the ^proletariat which
have suffered terribly at the hands of those who forced their
Free-trade scheme upon this unfortunate country. Ten millions
of the people have been left out in the cold so that other ten
millions, we will say, might have cheap food. Ten millions of
our fellow-countrymen have practically been deprived of the
means of providing themselves witli food, at any price, so that
the favoured ten millions might buy their food a trifle cheaper.
The vast agricultural population which is the greatest wealth-
producer of every country in the world, civilised or uncivilised,
and which is rightly regarded as the backbone and mainstay of
every nation, must be deprived of their rightful and legitimate
occupation and driven into the great towns to swell an already
overflowing population, because certain commodities must be
cheapened to a more favoured section of the population. This
great agricultural population which, added to what is called the
suhnerged tenth, although far exceeding in numbers those indus-
trial workers which somebody has called the " aristocracy of
labour," must, nevertheless, submit, partly because the sacrifice
of all agricultural interests forms part of the Free-trade policy,
and partly because these industrial workers, owing to their
trades unions and general powers of organisation, have become
a powerful political influence in a country wherein the interests
of the commonweal are invariably subordinated to the interests
of the party. The agricultural population, on the other hand,
owing to its sore distresses of the last half a century, remains
unorganised and therefore — unrepresented in the affairs of the
nation and as voiceless as a mute.

Class Interest the bottom of Fkee-trade

Class interest was the vera causa of the Free-trade move-
ment sixty odd years ago, and class interests are now fighting
hard to maintain the Free-trade policy. The following admission
is significant: —

" It has been charged against the movement that the manu-
facturers wore fighting and providing funds for the League in their



A BUIEF EXAMINATION OF FREE-TRADE PRINCIPLES 359

own interests. This was true in a certain sense, for their trade was
languishinjf ; but they also pleaded the cause of their workmen, who
were starving owing to want of employment, because foreign markets
were practically closed by the tax on the commodity with which
foreigners were willing to buy their goods. Further, it was a cause
in which all purchasers of food were interested, for the benefits accru-
ing from activity in trade and an abundant sujtply of food cannot be
restricted to any one class or industry ; they concern the nation as a
whole. In a speech afterwards made in Manchester, Cobden
admitted fully this class-interest in the movement. He said, '1 am
afraid that most of us entered upon the struggle with the belief that
we had some distinct class-interest in the (juestion.' As Mr. Morley
remarks, however, ' The class-interest widened into a consciousness
of a commanding national interest. The class-interest of the manu-
facturers and merchants happened to fall in with the good of the rest
of the community.' " *

The contentiou here that "food cannot he restricted to any
one class or industry ; they concern the nation as a whole, ^' is pre-
cisely what we are contending for. To serve " Class interests,"
and therefore to benefit " one class or industry " at the expense
of another class, is exactly what was done by Cobden and his
followers, and as this is vouched for by Cobden himself in the
passage quoted above, there can be no doubt that to promote
the manufacturing interests of the nation at the cost of agricul-
tural interests was, and is, the guiding principle of Free-trade
policy.

Morley' s " Life of Cobden " does what it can to minimise
the unfavourable effect that so damaging an admission is bound
to have on the public mind ; but, however much his biographer
or apologists may attempt to gloss the matter over, the fact that
class interest was not the least powerful of the influences which
prompted Cobden to undertake his great Free-trade campaign
is clear beyond doubt. " The class interest of the manufacturers
and merchants happened to fall in willi the good of tlie rest of
the community," says Cobden's biographer ; but whether this be
true of the times in which Cobden fought and gained his Free-
trade battle, or not, it is certain that nobody to-day will be
found to agree with so specious a line of reasoning save the
Manchester school, in which Cobden himself was so able a
teacher, and those who, for various motives, are personally in-
terested in maintaining a policy which, born of class interests,
can only be maintained to serve sordid ends instead of the broad
generous interests of national needs.

* " The Free-trade Movement," pp. C8, 69,



360 BRITAIN FOli TUE BKITON



Fatal Eesults of Class Interests

If Colxlen'.s policy for the last fifty years and more had
fallen in " with the good of the rest of the comrminity'' should we
l)e required to collect annually from over-burdened ratepayers
the stupendous sum of £35,000,000 in Toor Eates, and spend
half of it in providing relief for the more aggressive forms of
pauperism in our over-crowded pauper establishments ?

Had Cobden's policy not dispossessed nearly one-half of the
entire population of the country from their legitimate and
natural means of subsistence, would there be to-day an
enormous and ever-growing host of unemployed marching up
and down the country in search of work and standing as a
reproach to his own scheme and a menace to the commonwealth ?

Had the " good of the rest of the community " been truly
served by the destruction of the people's greatest industry,
would there be that deep-seated resentment on the part of the
people to practically all existiug things and institutions, which
has found expression in the form of Socialism, and which
threatens to uproot society itself and give to the world a new
order of things because of the many grievances of a long-suffer-
ing people ? Universal land culture, among other things, is one
of the prominent features in the revolutionary programme of
the Socialists, and is it likely that these red-hot reformers
would have marked this vast question down for immediate
reform had they not been alive to the supreme importance
which agriculture plays in the lives of the people ?

Had the interests of the masses been served as Cobden's
biographer would have ns believe, would there be cause for all
the sullen discontent, the political and social unrest, and that
seething sedition, which sears and corrodes the people's minds
as the lightning blasts and destroys the sturdy oak ?

These, and a score of other questions of a kindred nature,
might well be asked in connection with this single part of a
many-sided question, but it would serve no purpose to prolong
the investigation. It is enough to say that, although by grave
mischance, the people of Great Britain are in the unique and
unenviable condition of not being in a position to grow their
own food supplies, they are only in that " cxceptioncd " position
because of the folly and selfishness of Cobden and his followers,
who sixty years ago thrust upon the British people a trade
policy which time has proved to be as unsuited to the best
interests of this country as tlie winter snow would be to the
golden time of harvest.



A BRIEF EXAMINATION OF FREE-TllADE rillNCU'LES 361

Fallacy 6. " For good or for evil Great Brilcdii has become
dejieadad upon imjiortcd lohcat to the extent of more than
70 2^0' ^'Oit. of her eo7isumj)t ion. . . . In the nation prepcLred
to pjiit hack its 2yi'ogrcHs and revert to that position in order
that it may he self-sustaining ? "

is the question that is gravely asked in the sixth and last item
in the group of fallacies we are considering in this chajiter.



A MoNSTiious Fallacy

The statement, in other words, amounts to this. To produce
our own food would he to imt hack the nation's progress.

Tliis is tantamount to saying that to cherish the body is to
retard its development — to water the plant is to stop its growth,
a proposition that is neither demonstrable by any known
" scientific " formula, nor determinable by any common-sense
method of reasoning known to the human race to-day. Then
it may be truly said that to advance a proposition is not to
demonstrate it, and to ask a riddle is not to expound it.

The uttci-cr of this remarkable dictum was no doubt honest
in his convictions, and sincere in his ])eliefs, or he would not
have given them to a cold, calculating, and unbelieving world,
but to be sincere in our beliefs is not always the best proof
of their verity.

It is said that Torquemada was most devout, most sincere in
his beliefs, and convinced of the righteousness of his cause
when he provided his royal master and " Most Catholic King "
with those constant autos da fe which were as sweet -smelling
incense to the nostrils of that most Christian monarch ; but the
hapless victims who fed those terrible fires knew better. Later
judgments not only confirmed this, but pronounced these con-
victions and devout beliefs to be mere pretexts to enable Torque-
mada to remove from his path all those who were bold enough
to disagree with the bloody tyranny of the Inijuisition.



How THE POWEK OF StEAM WAS DERIDED YeAKS AgO

A later and more practical illustration of how dangerous it
is to trust in one's beliefs is found in the pessimism of those
who, in the years that are gone, derided the possibility of aj>ply-
ing steam to sea-going vessels.

In those days, when the steam-engine was in the experi-
mental stage, an Englishman, well known in the scientific
circles of the day, wrote a pamphlet proving entirely to his own



362 BRITAIN FOK THE BRITON

satisfaction that it would be impossible for steam ever to be
used in ocean navigation because of ilic impossibility of any
vessel to earry sufficient coal for its furnaces. Steam is a mighty
power to-day on and off the ocean, and while there may be none
now living who question its efficacy or deny the enormous
benefits it has confeiTed upon the human race, there are, un-
fortunately, many who question the potentialities of the land as
a mighty factor in human affairs, in spite of the fact that this
tremendous energy has been turned into a stupendous living,
all-impelling force in every country in the world sccvc our own.



Free-tkaders Fail to Demonstrate their own Propositions

Now, it seems but fair that when a man advances a proposi-
tion he should prove it. The writer of " The Free-trade Move-
ment " does not do this, and he thus leaves it to others to prove
that his proposition is undcmonstraUc.

The question before us is this : " Has the writer any justifica-
tion for his remarkable economical conclusion, or has he, in
advancing this extraordinary proposition, committed an
elementary error in economical law ? " The full text of the
paragraph which contains the unaccountable passage to which
the whole nation — even including Free-traders themselves — is
justified in taking exception is this —

" In no circumstances known at present could this country feed
her enormous population of 40,000,000 people at their existing
standard of subsistence ; to be self-sufficing as regards food, a portion
of the population would need to emigrate, and for the remainder, the
majority must betake themselves to agricultural pursuits. Is the
nation prepared to put back its progress and revert to that position
in order that it may be self-sustaining, when by means of free
exchange it is able easily to maintain its vast population in consider-
able profit." *

It is only with the latter portion of the paragraph we need
deal here, as the questions involved in the first portion have