86 THE MURDER OF AGRICULTURE 



would be of no use to offer him wheaten bread and jam, 

 which we consider in England to be necessaries. He 

 prefers his brown rye bread and other delicacies, at 

 which our people would turn up their noses. His meat is 

 just now dearer than it is with us, but in normal times 

 we do not consider that he is worse off relatively in this 

 respect than we are, when we make due allowance for 

 national differences of taste. 



" We are bound to state, as we have repeatedly stated 

 in our reports, that under the policy of protection 

 followed by Imperial Germany since 1878, she has made 

 progress by leaps and bounds in industrial prosperity, 

 has developed into becoming Britain's greatest com- 

 mercial rival in Europe, and that her working classes are 

 in the enjoyment of a vastly larger share in the comforts 

 of life than their parents would have dreamt of hoping 

 for in their own generation." 



Here then we have before us a Report on a matter 

 touching the most momentous question of the day : the 

 poverty and unemployment of the British people. 

 Why Is there It is a Report, the like of which we have never seen ; a 



Poverty and r t-> • 



Unemploy- Report of British workmen, appointed by British work- 

 men, to inquire into the social and economic conditions 

 of their confreres in Germany — our greatest European 

 industrial competitor. 



This Report is of especial value, because of its ex- 

 treme moderation and lack of bias of any kind, pohtical 

 or otherwise. It is a Report of a body of honest, straight- 

 forward British working men who, the moment they got 

 free of the shackles of bigotry and foolish prejudices, 

 which their insular position and the false teaching^of 



meat? 



