CHAPTER VI 



MORE ANTI-FREE-TKADE OBJECTIONS — LOSS OF AGRI- 

 CULTURAL WEALTH — SHRINKAGE IN TAXABLE AREA 

 HEAVIER BURDENS ON TAX-PAYERS 



Anti-Fkee-tradees further maintain that the Free-trade system 

 is such a record of losses all along the line that it is difficult to 

 plumb the profundity of their depth. For example, they point 

 to the enormous capital loss which agriculture has sustained 

 duriug tlie last thirty or forty years as affording another 

 instance of the destructive nature of the Free-trade policy. 

 They point out that in this busy workaday existence of ours 

 there is a kind of ceaseless barter going on, and each one of us 

 should be careful in ascertaining, beforehand, that we shall get 

 fair value in exchange for that wliich we give up. But in spite 

 of this we often neglect these little points on which so much 

 depends, and then we suffer in mind, body, or estate. The 

 same precaution should be taken by nations as by individuals. 



Did we count the Cost ? 



When we were offered a change in our fiscal system over 

 half a century ago — a change which was to do such great and 

 wonderful things for us as a people, and among others, convert 

 Great Britain into a land flowing with plenty of everything and 

 lots to spare — did we count the cost ? Did we sit in judgment 

 on the case and calmly sift the evidence for and against, and 

 then proceed to pass a well-considered decree ; or did we too 

 readily believe what we were told by one party to the suit, and 

 then pass a hasty, ill-considered, ex-parte jmlgment ? These are 

 questions we might reasonably put to ourselves. 



That we took the last-mentioned course is unfortunately 

 too well shown by the many evils which have grown out of our 

 actions ; evils which, at this late period, are so widespread 

 among the people as to demand our best and immediate con- 

 sideration and decisive action. 



In the latter part of the first half of the nineteenth century 



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