CHAPTER IV 



WHAT ANTI-FREE-TRADERS THINK OF FREE-TRADE AND 

 OF THE PHENOMENAL POVERTY AND GROWING UN- 

 EMPLOYMENT 



From the foregoing chapters it becomes clear that Fisee-teade 

 is responsible lor the dethronement of agriculture as the Queen 

 of Industries, and it is to Free-trade that our attention should 

 be chiefly directed. In it are involved enormous issues ; out of 

 it have already proceeded remarkable and unlooked-for results ; 

 and surrounding it are many vital questions upon which depend 

 the weal or the woe of the British people. 



The Fkee-trade case is, then, up for judgment ; and as this 

 particular case, like all others in this world, should be measured 

 by the infallible standard — Eesults — and judged solely upon 

 the evidence before the court, and, moreover, as the time for 

 weakness and sentiment is long past, let our judgment be free 

 of bias and scrupulously and inflexibly Just. 



It is contended that one of the fundamental errors of Free- 

 trade, and, indeed, the greatest, is in separating Great Britain 

 from the concourse of nations and treating her as a separate 

 entity requiring special economical treatment and a separate 

 existence. This regrettable departure from a natural economical 

 law, which applies with equal force to Great Britain as to other 

 countries, was no doubt due to that overweening pride with 

 which Cobden and the manufacturing-relormers of his time 

 regarded the puissance of British trade. The national trade was 

 then emerging from a period of comparative inaction, and 

 Cobden and other smart business men saw the enormous poten- 

 tialities opening up before it. The immense mineral wealth of 

 the country, lying at that time practically untapped, the develop- 

 ment of manufactures, the rapid construction of railways, the 

 application of steam to ocean craft, and the freer facilities thus 

 offered to overseas trading, together with a host of other equally 

 important considerations, all point to the fact that the times 

 were prolific of large material results, as well as pregnant with 



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