62 THE MURDER OF AGRICULTURE 



to the real interests of the people as such political 

 cries and catchwords usually are. 



" I find that trade expansion, despite the wonderful 

 things claimed for it, means prosperity to a compara- 

 tively small number of manufacturers and commercial 

 men, but the same dead level of non-prosperity for the 

 masses: the same sordid, narrow, mean, half-fed strug- 

 gling existence for millions of workers ; and my faith in 

 the universal benefits that are said to come out of great 

 trade expansion is dead; killed by the falseness of its 

 own doctrine. 



" I find that the great party warcry of the cheap 

 LOAF is as false as it is destructive, because, despite its 

 attractiveness, it has done no more for the people than 

 has any other political catchword. I look around me on 

 all sides and instead of finding thriving, prosperous condi- 

 tions and a fair average standard of material comfort 

 The Cheap among the masses, I find, on the contrary, there is ex- 

 Q^ cessive poverty and a general average of wretchedness, 

 denoting a precariousness of life which has no parallel 

 in any other country. This cheap loaf cry, which 

 was set up as the watchword of a scheme which was 

 going to bring about national prosperity, has 

 robbed the people of the means of earning the where- 

 withal to buy the so-called cheap loaf, and the cry is 

 nothing but a mockery and a delusion. What is the use of 

 promising a man cheap bread if you deprive him of the 

 means of earning money to buy it with? If the promise 

 were worth anything would hundreds of thousands of 

 our workers be on the brink of starvation to-day? 

 Would work be so difficult to get and hard to retain? 



