Political Economy and the Land 



destruction to the vines by phylloxera. 



" During no period of the nineteenth century 

 did the English national wealth show so great an 

 annual increase as the French between 1865-69." 



In considering the question of fiscal policy it 

 is important to remember that it is only a 

 branch of the reigning school of political 

 economy, and this problem should be treated 

 as a whole, because then the fiscal question will 

 be kept in its proper relation to the rest of the 

 problem. If the fiscal question be divorced from 

 the other component factors of the right policy 

 towards land, there are two great dangers to 

 apprehend ; first that land will be again neg- 

 lected, even in fiscal reform ; second, that 

 from not giving due heed to the other necessary 

 factors (education, transport, organisation of 

 the industry) the agriculturists may look to a 

 tariff to work a miracle for agriculture, and 

 lose sight of the fact that they must actively 

 organise their own industry, and only regard 

 the tariff as one of the chief means to that end. 



Unfortunately, in practical politics there is 

 little doubt that the question of Free Trade 

 versus Tariff will receive all attention, and the 

 larger question of Political Economy and land, 

 embracing as it does the important considera- 

 tion of the attitude of the nation towards the 

 producer and consumer, will be neglected. 



In the days of the Roman Empire the pro- 

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