MORE ANTI-FREE-TRADE OBJECTIONS 41 



meet," women have entered the hahour market as competitors 

 in many branches of employment wliich till quite recently 

 were exclusively reserved for men. liecognising that the 

 employment of women is a necessary part of the economic 

 system of the country, and that it is sure to increase rather 

 than decrease, it is therefore essential that the field of labour 

 should be generally enlarged so as to prevent that overcrowding 

 which rendered labour conditions so hard in the past, which 

 does so at present, and which will make them absolutely hope- 

 less in the future. 



It then becomes clear that other fields of labour must be 

 sought out, and as the land is the only industry not worked 

 " for all it is worth," the land should be re-established as the 

 chief industry. Give every industrious tiller of the soil the 

 opportunity, under equitable provisions, of acquiring proprietary 

 rights, and with reasonable assistance from the State in certain 

 directions, the land would not only be capable of giving profit- 

 able employment to the whole of our EnrjUsh workers, but would, 

 at the same time, relieve the congested labour conditions of all 

 other industries and professions, and result generally in those 

 obvious advantages wdiich equilibrium of supply and demand 

 in the labour market involves. 



It is also clear that the establishment of a balance of power 

 between employer and employed means, among other things, 

 greater independence of labour, full j^cr^naiicyit work, better 

 wages, and, generally speaking, a higher standard of comfort 

 for workers. 



Agkiculture and other Industries should co-operate 



We want co-operation between agriculture and manu- 

 factures. 



Mr. Ernest Williams, in one of his works on the subject, 

 " Our National Peril," says — 



"Agriculture is not only the greatest wealth-producer amongst 

 all the departments of industry, but the manufacturing industries 

 themselves depend upon it. . . . Agriculture and manufactures, 

 living side by side, support each other even physically as well as 

 economically, as the most elementary cliemistry will explain to 

 you ; and when they are wedded in ihe same community, wealth 

 and economic well-being are produced and conserved to an extent 

 which is not possible when they are divorced." 



The unfortunate policy that the country was committed to 

 by a band of fervid but misguided people, a generation or more 

 ago, has, it is said, as siu"ely encompassed the destruction of the 



