218 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



regulation of wages ; and then by their common 

 sense into seeing that if you enforce a shilling 

 an hour wage rate on your local producer, you 

 cannot allow him to be driven out of business 

 by the products of a foreign competitor paying 

 sixpence an hour. And they joined in with a 

 policy of pursuing by tariff legislation the general 

 benefit of the community, and especially the 

 benefit of farming and industrial classes. They 

 became advocates of what is known as the " New 

 Protection." 



A tariff can be used with efficacy for a wide 

 variety of purposes. It may be used to force 

 a quick growth of local manufacturers, leaving 

 the employer, worker, and consumer to share 

 the benefit on the principle of ' he takes who 

 has the power." That is the Protection of the 

 United States. It has led to an enormous 

 material prosperity ; and it has also led to 

 Trusts, to savage labour discontent, and to the 

 looting of the consumer. The country as a 

 whole has enormously benefited, but the benefit 

 has not been very evenly distributed, and this 

 inequality of distribution has led to serious, and, 

 on the whole, just, discontent. Again, a tariff 



