126 THE MURDER OF AGRICULTURE 



nation with us, instead of forcing them to seek their 



bread in a strange land. 



How to We can repopulate our country districts and give back 



Plenty to England that backbone of rural strength and vigour 



for Poverty ^^ -which the enervating, exhausting policy of the last 



half-century has robbed her. We can sprinkle over our 



fair island from Cornwall to the Pentlands, from the 



Wash to St David's Head, such a multitude of happy, 



thriving homesteads that our land will fairly hum with 



the joyous, invigorating sound of busy industries. We 



can send the people to honest work instead of to the 



workhouses, and we can give them plenty in the place of 



poverty. 



But — and there is a But here as there is in many 

 another of life's by-ways — we must go back on our 

 tracks and pick up the right path, and, above all things, 

 we must be prepared to make some sacrifices. 



If we are determined to provide work for that vast 

 array of unemployed, for that greater multitude, the 

 " submerged tenth"; if we are really determined to 

 banish poverty and slay pauperism outright; to make 

 our people prosperous, contented and happy, we must 

 give up that which, by a monstrous falsehood, is called 

 Free Trade, and substitute for it a new code of 

 sensible, practical fiscal laws, whereunder our people 

 may have the same fair chance of carrying on their 

 trades, professions and industries, to their own profit 

 and advantage, as is enjoyed by the peoples of every 

 civilised country in the world, save our own. 



This we must be prepared to do thoroughly. No 

 halting, flabby, half-hearted measures will help us here,. 



