58 WAGES AND EMPIRE 



in a position to pay more, and not being able to manu- 

 facture for themselves, except at inordinate expense, it 

 would pay them to buy from England at an enhanced 

 cost. If we were relieved from such competition the 

 wages of the United Kingdom would rise to the equi- 

 valent, and sometimes to more than the equivalent, of 

 the wages of communities owning abundance of land. 

 As it is, the United Kingdom largely attempts to create 

 markets of this kind for her own, into which however 

 she cannot prevent competitors from entering and 

 keeping down prices and wages. Thus she develops 

 the Argentine, Australia, and Canada, and formerly 

 developed the United States, sending to these lands the 

 equipment necessary to modern agriculture, and while 

 opening up the territory provides a market for its 

 produce through exchanging her aids to agriculture and 

 manufactures for food and raw materials. These are 

 all countries of an abundance of land and a well-paid 

 peasantry, and could reward manufacturing services 

 much better than they recompense the British artisan. 

 But they will not pay him any more as long as they 

 can obtain the manufactures of the European continent 

 so cheaply. 



In the home markets too the wages of British manu- 

 facturing workmen are decided by what the workmen of 

 the continent of Europe are willing to accept. Foreign 

 goods sell here as freely as ours, and the British master- 

 manufacturer who has to pay the same for his raw 

 materials cannot pay more for his labour than the 

 continental nations do. 



This view that British depend upon continental 

 European wages will be combated, as it is a common 

 opinion that our workmen are better remunerated than 

 all the others, and certainly better than those of the 

 mainland of Europe. To uphold our argument, there- 

 fore, we refer to Table No. XI, setting out the pay 



