PREVENTION OF NATIONAL WASTE 127 

 but a vigorous, whole-hearted poHcy, that, while helping Reciprocity 



not 



our own people and safeguarding our own interests, will Hostility 

 not prove necessarily hostile to our neighbours. Recipro- 

 city is what we want, not hostility. There is not a vestige 

 of reciprocity in our international trade to-day, not 

 even the shadow of fair Free Trade, not a trace of 

 just dealing. We are met at every turn, in every foreign 

 port, in every civilised country in the whole world with 

 a veritable host of hostile tariffs, and free trade is dead 

 — slain by our own egregious folly in clinging so fatu- 

 ously to the threadbare delusion of worn-out beliefs. 



Here are some of the food imports into the United 

 Kingdom for the year 1906, as given in The Statesman's 

 Year Book for 1907: 



Imports. Value. 



Wheat, Grain and Flour £67,879,948 



Butter and Margarine 26,200,007 



Cheese 7,607,641 



Eggs 7,098,137 



Meat, Bacon, Poultry, etc. .... 41,169,522 



Animals for food 9,889,127 



Fruits and Hops 11,225,968 



Here we have a group of figures, compiled from 

 returns furnished by Government, of so formidable a 

 nature as to be absolutely startling ; and yet, save a few 

 students of the subject, there is not one Englishman in 

 ten thousand who is aware of the state of affairs herein 

 disclosed, nor is he aware that in them is involved the 

 existence of England as a great world power. 



Practically the whole of this enormous mass of food- 

 stuffs, which costs the colossal sum of £171,000,000 



