134 THE MURDER OF AGRICULTURE 



do men support Free Trade. Not because it brings 

 general prosperity to the Nation and employment for 

 our poverty-stricken millions do these free traders 

 support a system which has proved a veritable scourge 

 to the body politic. Not because it broadly and truly 

 serves the interests of the people in a wide, liberal 

 generous sense do they uphold it, but because it serves 

 their interests. 



The individual interests of the time-serving politician 

 are ser\^ed through his party and by his being returned 

 to Parliament. 



It suits certain merchants because Free Trade serves 

 their particular line of business; and it suits the coal- 

 owners because it enables them, with huge profits to 

 themselves, to supply our already keen commercial 

 rivals — who may, in the near future, possibly become 

 our mortal foes — with those sources of energy and 

 strength which we find it more difficult to resist year 

 by year. 



Whichever way we look at this matter, we are con- 

 fronted with the same forbidding array of unpalatable 

 facts that selfishness is the keystone and corner 

 stone of Free Trade, and that it can only be defended on 

 the narrow, sordid, unpatriotic principles of self-interest. 



A few individual interests then are served, a few vast 

 individual fortunes are built up, and the great interests 

 of the people and the widespread national wealth which 

 is theirs by right — the real wealth of the country — is 

 dissipated and utterly sacrificed to a cruel creed which 

 puts individual gain before national needs. 



