188 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



over-sanguine we should certainly safely calculate on that. But 

 as a matter of fact it means nothing of the kind ; it only means, 

 in this connection, that fuller work may he found for a time 

 for those who are already engaged ; but for that vast throng of 

 tliose unfortunates who are not engaged — and these are in 

 their hundreds of thousands and their millions, as the emigra- 

 tion returns prove — there is No Work and No Hope. 



In plain, terse English, those who are responsible for the 

 present state of affairs, have, between tliem, killed the National 

 Industry, the chief source of the people's support and employ- 

 ment, and liave given them nothing in return save a lot of 

 vapid promises and an international trade policy of so Utopian 

 a nature as to result in nothing but poverty to millions of our 

 countrymen. 



And it is just here that we should do well to bear in mind 

 that most of these millions who have been driven from their 

 country by inept fiscal laws were of the body electorate, and 

 had an inalienable right to participate in, and benefit by, the 

 wise and well-considered legislation of those whom they sent 

 to Parliament to govern in the interests of the body politic. 

 Every one of these unfortunates, and every one of those who 

 are being exiled to-day, has a well-defined grievance, nay, a 

 just cause for deep-rooted, bitter animosity against any Govern- 

 ment and its followers who, solely for political motives, bolster 

 up a system which long experience has proved to be as faulty 

 as it is fatal. 



And what of tliose who stay at liome to share with their 

 wives and families in the evils which a misguided fiscal policy 

 must necessarily produce ? 



Have they no grievance against their rulers ? Can they 

 look around and say, " We are content " ? Is work so plentiful 

 with them, so stable, so remunerative as to cause them to say, 

 "We have nothing to complain of" ? Can they say that our 

 professions, trades, and industries are so exigent in their demand 

 for labour that a man is snapped up by one or the other of 

 them the moment he is out of employment ? Do we, as a people, 

 find, in short, tliat the labour supply is so scanty, the demand 

 so great, and employment of all kinds so certain and so well 

 paid as to have justified the destruction of our great land 

 industry years ago ? 



We have seen that because we alone, of all countries in the 

 whole world, have attempted to make agriculture subservient 

 to trade and manufactures, we have failed as we deserved to 

 fail. The land is the source of being, the source of wealth ; 

 from it we are taken, to it we must return ; without it we 

 cannot live. Man, in making the most of the land, in working 



