BRITISH & FOREIGN WHEAT PRODUCTION 147 

 dearer than our own. The ^vTiter has " discovered " that, 

 despite the total absence of " free trade " in those 

 countries, each one of them can make and supply their 

 people with a 41b. loaf as cheaply as we can.. 



This is a disillusionment, and we want to know why 

 we have been deluded. 



The writer was a free trader for many years be- 

 cause he had faith in those who taught the tenets of 

 the belief. It is true that he never put his belief to any 

 severe tests, nor looked for other results than those we 

 are all so familiar with — those dire results to the body 

 politic which we are still told are but the statural outcome 

 of economic laws. 



We believed in free trade because others believed in it, 

 and this is precisely the position that hundreds of 

 thousands, nay millions of our countrymen are in to- 

 day. We believe in this, that, or the other, not because 

 we have any real, solid foundations for our belief; not 

 because we have been able to test its value by any well- 

 defined measure of success, but simply and solely be- 

 cause other people believe in it. " What's good enough 

 for most people is good enough for me," is a saying as 

 common as blackberries in autumn, and with this com- 

 forting platitude we dismiss many a knotty problem 

 which would otherwise cause us a lot of trouble to un- 

 ravel. 



But we have at length realised that this attitude, 

 although conducive at the outset to a certain amount of 

 personal ease and comfort and freedom from care, is 

 about the most wasteful one that we could possibly 

 assume ; wasteful individually and collectively. 



loa 



