126 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



has manufacturing industries, similarly suffers, is an indis- 

 putable fact ; but to say that Germany, or America, or any 

 industrial country in the civilised world suffers as acutely as 

 Great Britain does, is to affirm that which is simply untrue. 



These staunch advocates of a policy, under the segis of 

 which poverty has grown into a curse, and unemployment 

 assumed the form of a national menace, should perceive, for 

 example, that Germany's unemployment, commercial depres- 

 sion, and the bad time her trade is, or may be, passing through, 

 are the inevitable results of commercialism and industrialism ; 

 and the more these expand the more labour will be drawn away 

 from the land to meet the growing requirements. It naturally 

 follows, then, that the more labour you import into indus- 

 trialism, the more occupation you will have to provide for it ; 

 and if such occupation proves to be of a less stable nature than 

 that of the industry from which you draw your supplies, you7' 

 trouble in respect to unemployment ivill he in exact proportion to 

 the extent of your urban industries, these being less stable than 

 agriculture. 



Labour Difficulties increase Proportionately to 

 Industrial Expansion 



This fact is being exemplified every day in every civilised 

 country in the world that has "gone in" for manufacturing- 

 industrialism, the most recent examples being in Germany and 

 the United States, and whatever else may happen, it is certain 

 that in such countries labour difficulties and unemployment 

 will, moreover, be in almost the exact proportion to the expan- 

 sion of such industries. This is not a paradox, but the result 

 of a natural law. 



If this section of the political world could be brought to 

 look at this simple matter from a purely common-sense point 

 of view, instead of from that which serves some purpose ov.tside 

 the broad interests of the country, they would at once perceive 

 that any labour difficulties which arise in Germany, the 7nited 

 States, or any other industrial country, only serve to empha- 

 sise the necessity there is for the widest possible reco'':^rse to 

 the land as — the sole means of preventiny them. Laljour troubles, 

 it should be borne in mind, are born of urban industries rather 

 than of rural pursuits, and whilst agriculture plays little or no 

 part in them, it yet offers the sole means of their solution. 



Here are a few headline specimens taken from the daily 

 papers in the autumn of 1908, showing that we are once more 

 face to face with the perilous condition caused by widespread 



