EMPIRE 93 



which those countries are wilhng to accept. If the 

 United Kingdom could rid herself of this devastating 

 competition her labour might enjoy much higher wages. 



The principle exists by the application of which the 

 wages of the manufacturing workmen of Great Britain 

 could be brought to the most that science affords. 



If it is arranged that the Dominions supply all the 

 food and raw material imports of the United Kingdom, 

 then it must follow that in exchange the Dominions 

 must receive all the manufactures by which the United 

 Kingdom now pays for those imports. 



Such an exchange, however, would not assist the 

 British workman unless the Dominions allowed him to 

 earn the same rate of wages as that which they pay to 

 their own workmen. And this result can be brought about 

 only if the Dominions agree to place restrictions upon the 

 import into their territories of foreign manufactures. 



It is in short only by raising a protecting fence to 

 embrace in one area the United Kingdom, Canada, 

 Australia and New Zealand that the work-people of 

 the British Islands could be benefited by the plan of 

 exchanging principally with the Dominions. Under 

 the aegis of a common protection the workmen of the 

 United Kingdom would no longer be forced to cut 

 their wages to the equivalent of those of their com- 

 petitors. Freed from the competition of less fortunate 

 nations their wages would be settled by the rates 

 obtaining in the Dominions. For as the United 

 Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand would 

 then be in the condition of a single country supplying 

 its own food and raw materials and performing its own 

 manufactures, the rate of wages throughout the entitj' 

 would be determined by two circumstances only : the 

 first, the extent of land at the disposal of the population, 

 and the second, the degree of their scientific attainments. 



Now the extent of land of such a combination of 

 countries is very much more than their populations 



