36o LAND REFORM 



contest where not only their pecuniary interests, but 

 their pride as an order was at stake." ^ 



But the Cobden school of the present day seems to 

 have inherited that quality so freely attributed to the 

 old Tory party when it existed — namely, an inability 

 to learn anything from experience. They stand on 

 the platform of 1846, and do not see, or will not 

 admit, the changes which sixty years have wrought. 

 They use the same arguments as their predecessors, 

 who "identified political economy with free trade, and 

 thought that all difficulties would be solved by the 

 free use of the sacred words 'supply and demand.'"'^ 



The members of this school, so long as they can 

 see our exports not lessening in value, and especially 

 so long as they see our imports increasing, will con- 

 tinue the worship of their fetish. The fact that agri- 

 culture has been half ruined by what they falsely call 

 "free trade" is nothino- to them. Its condition as a 

 separate industry is no more important to them than 

 it was to most of the founders of their school. Even 

 those amoncj them who look with some degree of 

 favour on "retaliation" as being likely to benefit the 

 manufacturer stop short at the idea of "preferential 

 tariffs," which propose to confer some small benefit on 

 the agriculturist. 



Outside this party, however, there are signs that 

 a rapidly increasing number among the manufacturing 

 classes generally are "waking up" to the position. 

 They are no longer so certain of the hackneyed 

 doctrine: "Take care of your imports and your exports 

 will take care of themselves." The idol of " Free 

 Trade" is being examined, a process usually fatal to 



^ Morley's " Life of Cobden." 



' "English Utilitarians," Vol. Ill, Leslie Stephen. 



