14 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



trade, nor could the vast industries of the nation — cotton, wool, 

 iron, coal, machinery, leather, and the rest of them — have been 

 developed under a system which compelled the country to 

 produce its own food and excluded the agricultural products 

 which are now purchased by means of these industries. 



Free-trade, it is contended, " was therefore a necessity prior 

 to the full and profitable expansion of those industries which 

 have enriched Great Britain during the last fifty years." 



Then it is claimed that, as the history of the period covering 

 the thirty years from the close of the Peninsular war to 1845 

 was a record of distress and privation, with starving labourers, 

 ruined farmers, riots, and general misery, the thirty years 

 followincr the abolition of the Corn Laws and the establishment 

 of the Free-trade system was, on the other hand, an era of 

 progressive prosperity wherein the advance of the people in 

 comfort and national well-being had been continuous and 

 marvellous. It is also held that this progressive prosperity 

 could by no possible means have been experienced had Great 

 Britain continued to grow her own food supplies, because the 

 chief part of her labour and capital would, in that case, have 

 been devoted to agriculture, and as this industry had failed, 

 prior to the repeal of the Corn Laws, to yield a fair standard 

 of comfort to those engaged in it, it was extremely improbable 

 that its continuance as a great national industry, subsequent to 

 the introduction of Free-trade, could possibly have ensured to 

 them a greater measure of prosperity. 



The Only Way 



The only possible way was to become a great manufacturing 

 nation ; the freest scope was to be given to the rapid develop- 

 ment of the manufacturing and mineral resources of the 

 country ; to trade ; mechanical application to every conceivable 

 form of industry ; and no limit of whatsoever nature was to be 

 placed upon the efforts of Great Britain to secure for herself 

 the greatest possible wealth by such means, as also by inter- 

 national trading ; and to this end the inauguration and the 

 establishment on a stable basis of a general system of wide- 

 spread Commercial-Industrialism was to be set up at all costs. 

 International communication through the medium of a vast 

 mercantile marine, the rapid construction of railways and tele- 

 graphs, the development of the postal system and every means 

 to that end were to be undertaken, so that the way might be 

 made clear for British maimfacturers. Jiritish gold was to be 

 poured out lavishly in furtherance of these objects, and, as a 

 matter of fact, British capital of such colossal proportions found 



