10 THE MURDER OF AGRICULTURE 

 the question has, as is well known, been tried for the last 

 thirty years or more, and it has failed so unmistakably 

 as to result, firstly, in an actual increase in the number 

 of paupers, which the State has to keep in its work- 

 houses; secondly, in a huge surplus of unemployed, 

 which is the bugbear of each successive Government; 

 and thirdly, in a still greater mass of necessitous people 

 of all classes, who, but for the continual effort and 

 material aid of that multitude of philanthropic people 

 who give unknown millions annually, would surely starve 

 and die. 



It may be contended that although these are facts 

 plainly stated and legitimately quoted, they neverthe- 

 less need not necessarily apply to the future, because 

 the expansion of national trade is so phenomenal and so 

 abiding as to preclude the possibility of its failing us as a 

 sure means of affording employment for every worker in 

 the country; but it is obvious, from the experience of 

 the past, that such a contention would be as unreliable 

 and dangerous as it is specious and misleading. 



Our national trade has passed through periods of 

 phenomenal expansion and great prosperity time and 

 again during the last fifty years or so, but what has it 

 ever left behind save periods of reaction and depression, 

 of lack of work and widespread distress, wherein 

 Government aid on a liberal scale has been found neces- 

 sary to save people from starving, and private charities 

 have been sorely taxed to help the helpless? 

 Other Nobody despises our trades and manufactures, and 

 Wealth '^^'^ have not the slightest intention of under-estimating 

 their enormous value as highly important and essential 



