20 G BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



The fact is, the considerations invoh^ed in the question are 

 well-nitih inexhaustible, and the more it is studied the more 

 this fact becomes apparent. 



The following brief examples show liow this question of 

 whether we should grow our own wheat or import it ramifies 

 through society and affects the body politic, and how impossible, 

 nay, indeed, how suicidal it would be to determine so compli- 

 cated a problem by the arbitrary and narrow "laws" of 

 economics. 



Political economy is unquestionably an interesting study, 

 and to its students and professors it no doubt offers many 

 fascinating problems ; but you can no more apply all its 

 principles to the domestic economy of our individual lives 

 than you can make water run uphill. 



The simple fact is that no science has embraced, nor ever 

 can, all those thousand and one commonplace individual 

 requirements of human life which are continually cropping 

 up to prove how utterly impossible it is to apply scientific 

 principles to the domestic uses of the people. In this respect 

 much science must remain inoperative, and, therefore, theo- 

 retical, fallacious, and useless. 



Let us put the matter to an individual test. We have, we 

 will suppose, an agricultural family of three — father, mother, 

 and grown-up son. Work is not to be had, and it is with them 

 a question of the workhouse or emigration. 



The latter is out of the question for certain reasons, and 

 there is nothing but the workhouse. 



We will now reduce the case, just for convenience, to a 

 mere matter of money, in order to see how this single example 

 affects the public exchequer. 



Our present Poor Law system is inelastic and uncompro- 

 mising ; if paupers go to the workhouse it costs the State tax- 

 payers so much per head to keep them there, and there the 

 matter ends. 



Let us, however, presuppose a less arbitrary system of State 

 aid, whereunder an honest man could be helped on in life, 

 instead of being crushed out of existence by the foolishly mild 

 yet degrading system which obtains to-day. 



With an agricultural system somewhat on similar lines to 

 those obtaiiung in some of the Continental States, our Govern- 

 ment would be in a position to let the man acquire, say, four 

 acres of land on easy terms, at three per cent, interest on 

 capital value of land, as also on an advance for tillage and 

 working expenses. 



This would be the relative position so far as the State is 

 concerned. 



