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CHAPTER XIV 



Agricultural Holdings — Production and 

 Industry 



IN the preceding chapter we have presented to us a 

 position so anomalous as to amount to a veritable 

 paradox. On the one hand we have a fiscal policy which 

 robs the people of employment, the country of its natural 

 wealth, and the Empire of its virile strength ; and on the 

 other a vast army of tax-payers and voters who actually 

 support those who uphold and administer this destruc- 

 tive policy while utterly condemning its results and de- 

 nouncing its general ineptness. 



We have among us hundreds of thousands, nay, mil- 

 lions of citizens, who are honestly desirous of doing that 

 which is best for their country, and yet assume a do- 

 nothing, apathetic attitude towards this vital question, 

 the right solution of which means simply the salvation 

 of the people of this land. 



We know that our trade, although increasing in Startling 

 volume, is only doing so in response to that general 

 world-trade expansion which is being experienced in 

 every civilised country; and we, moreover, know that 

 instead of getting our fair share of this increased trade, or 

 rather the lion's share of it, which our position as the first 

 trading and manufacturing nation in the world entitles 

 us to, our percentage of increase has actually fallen below 

 that of any of our great foreign rivals. 



