HOW AGRICULTURE MIGUT HAVE BEEN SAVED 21 



and practical knowledge, the opening up of the mineral 

 resouices of the country, the progressive increase of manu- 

 factures, and the enormous expansion of home and foreign 

 traile. Nor do ihey admit that the better wages, shorter hours, 

 and higher standard of comfort, which, by the way, they con- 

 tend are only enjoyed by certain sections of our workers and 

 not hj all of them, are a result of Free-trade, because the 

 working classes of all " Protected " countries have experienced 

 similar improvements in their social and economical conditions, 

 while with them all sections have shared in the benefits. 



The opening up of the railway system, the freer facilities for 

 transport, the development of the penny post, the construction 

 of telegraphs and the laying down of ocean cables, are, it is con- 

 tended, but the natural expansion of liuman enterprise owing 

 to the many civilising influences of the nineteenth century ; 

 wliile the mass of cheap literature, and the rapid growth of the 

 press, are nothing but the looked-for results of a better system 

 of education. It is pointed out here that Germany set the 

 example of universal education nearly a hundred years ago, 

 and that while other continental nations and the United States 

 followed (Germany's lead, Great Britain lagged behind for many 

 years, in spite of her Free-trade. 



A Fundamental Error in Economics 



In regard to the enormous increase in national wealth, anti- 

 Free-traders maintain that it is more individual than collective, 

 and this fact, they contend, is proved by the widespread poverty 

 of the British people and the vast unemployment which is 

 known to exist ; while the contention of the Free-traders that 

 Great Britain, as practically a self-supporting country, would 

 be incompatible with the development of British trade and 

 manufactures, is held to be a fundamental error in economics. 



Generally speaking, there is a wide cleavage between the 

 two parties, and as the rift is more likely to increase than 

 diminish because of the hopelessly irreconcilable nature of the 

 difl'erences, all that can be done meantime, and before we form 

 our own conclusions, is to continue to set before the public 

 further objections of the anti-Free-traders. 



