DESTRUCTION OF NATIONAL INDUSTRY 27 



We may now proceed to count the cost of our too 

 ready credulity, and there is, I fear, nothing but a re- 

 cord of loss and disaster all along the line. 



The unfortunate policy that we are committed to by 

 a band of fervid but misguided zealots, has as surely 

 encompassed the destruction of the people's great source 

 of wealth — agriculture — as their prototypes, nearly 

 nineteen hundred years ago, brought about the destruc- 

 tion of Jerusalem. 



Landlords have, as we have seen, lost, at the lowest 

 estimate, £1,000,000,000 of their capital. Farmers' capi- 

 tal has shrunk by another £150,000,000, and there has 

 been far-reaching loss to all who depended upon agricul- 

 ture for their support — agricultural implement makers, 

 harness makers, carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, 

 mechanics, labourers, all of whom have had to leave the 

 rural districts for the urban, and helped to swell the 

 already overcrowded ranks of labour in our centres of 

 population. 



The State then comes in as a great loser, whose tale of Colossal 

 losses is counted by many millions annually, and the 

 ultimate result of it all is that the entire burden of our 

 folly or madness falls, as such burdens always must 

 fall, on the people, — the working classes and the tax- 

 payers. 



It is obvious that if a man loses a portion of his capi- 

 tal, his income shrinks generally in exact proportion to 

 the shrinkage of capital, or, to put it in a more concrete 

 form, it is clear that a man trading with £10,000 is sure 

 to derive a larger income from that amount of capital, 

 other things being equal, than he would from £5,000. 



