TARIFFS AND THE PRICE OF BREAD 89 

 would care to sacrifice or alter them; but on the other 

 hand, there are certain disadvantages, and we are feeling 

 their effect to-day. 



Had we possessed the same facilities for free inter- 

 communication with neighbouring States, as our friends 

 across the water possess, of keeping touch with, and 

 studying each others' methods of government, our fiscal 

 arrangements would not, or could not, have been in the 

 inept state they are to-day, for we should have benefited 

 by the experience of others and adapted our laws to the 

 requirements of the times. 



The ' ' Silver Streak ' ' cuts off free facilities for travel, 

 and perhaps four-fifths or more of the British people 

 never leave their native land. 



Now this is just one of those matters that we are 

 liable to pass by as of no particular consequence one way 

 or the other, but let us think for a moment, and we shall 

 find that it has more in it than would appear at first 

 sight. 



If the vast majority of our people never leave their 

 own country, they have no opportunity of studying the 

 conditions of life in other countries, and are, therefore, 

 at the mercy of any penny-a-hner who may chance to 

 come along. Many of these gentlemen who talk glibly 

 and write with so facile a pen on any and all subjects, 

 are hke the people, inasmuch as they have never been in 

 foreign countries, save to Boulogne, or such places, on 

 their short annual holiday. If asked to write or speak on 

 any matter, there is always a well-filled library, with 

 books of reference on every subject under the sun, to 

 fall back upon, and to men of such facile parts it is the 



