IN CONCLUSION. 285 



is difficult to get its claims to be even examined. 

 A cry is raised of " Dear food ! " and one political 

 party becomes virtuously indignant, and the 

 other party pathetically timid. Yet I do hon- 

 estly believe that if there could be created in 

 the mind of some man (or body of men), whose 

 word would be taken, a completely open atti- 

 tude on this question, and he was set to work to 

 investigate not only the theory, but the practice 

 of tariffs, he would come to the conclusion, not 

 only that Free Trade in food products was not 

 necessarily a means of making food cheaper, but 

 that the best surety of cheap food is in en- 

 couraging and safeguarding, by tariff and other 

 methods, the local production of as great a pro- 

 portion as possible of a nation's food. If it 

 seemed to me possible to revive British agri- 

 culture on Free Trade lines, I would have gladly 

 ignored all tariff questions in this criticism. 

 But it does not seem possible, no more than 

 it has seemed possible for nations with splen- 

 didly flourishing agricultural industries to dis- 

 pense with their tariffs and expose their farmers 

 to the chance of some " dumping " attack from 

 abroad. In advocating agricultural protection, 



