92 THE MURDER OF AGRICULTURE 



significance, and we shall do well if we give it our imme- 

 diate attention and full support. 



But although this is an honest attempt of the work- 

 ing classes themselves to stir up their co-workers to a 

 sense of the many disadvantages of the economic condi- 

 tions of this country, compared with those prevaihng in 

 Germany, it may meet with as much hostility from cer- 

 tain publicists favouring the maintenance of the present 

 fiscal conditions as though it were a political move of 

 their adversaries. 



We may be told that this Gainsborough Commission 

 is a faked-up job of the protectionists; that the five 

 free traders on it were but tools of fiscal reformers, 

 and that the whole thing is but a political dodge of the 

 enemy. 



We are so party ridden in this country that every- 

 thing has to yield to party influence and become subor- 

 dinate to party interests, while any or every incident of 

 public life may be made use of to serve party purposes. 

 Party interests are built up of individual interests, and 

 in thus reducing it to its true denomination we find 

 much self-interest barring the way to reform, and many 

 difficulties standing in the way of progress. 



In coming to a determination on this momentous 

 question let us be sure that we have cast out of our 

 minds every vestige of political influence, and let us 

 beware of the false doctrine of those who, because they 

 have their own interests to serve, continue to uphold a 

 system which has, among other things, reduced the 

 people of this country to a state of poverty, misery and 

 degradation, the like of which is not to be found in any 



