COBDENISM. 67 



so that a landlord buying bread and other con- 

 siimablo goods pays lesa for tlie same just as does 

 the rest of the community. This is a curious 

 sort of argument, and it is strane-e that the 

 author of it should rest content with it ; for what 

 has become of the labourers whom the landlords 

 used to employ, and what has become of the 

 local tradesmen v/hom they used to be the chief 

 supporters ^,f in the way of trade? Their em- 

 ployment has been taken av.ay; and it is no 

 comfort to a man to know that the articles he 

 v/ishes to consume are half the price they used 

 to be if he has not the money necessary where- 

 with to purchase them. It would be, in his case, 

 at any rate, better for the articles to remain at a 

 rather higher price if, by work, he also has 

 the money wherewith to buy them. 



"^Ye said above that our author does not quote 

 the report of the Eoyal Commission on Agri- 

 culture, issued in 1897; but he does, later on, 

 although he ought to have done so at the point 

 above referred to, where he could have done it in 

 a direction which would have told very much 

 against the argument lie was seeking to establish. 

 However, in quoting that report (as we say) 

 " later on,'' he says that farmers had for the 

 previous twenty years received on an average 

 only 60 per cent, of the sum vrhich was in past 

 days considered an ordinary rate of average pro- 

 fit, and the reason for this he rightly puts down 

 to foreign competition. We are told to console 

 ourselves, as British farming is only " undergoing 



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