214 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



to decide the question as to whether it would be better all 

 round, and generally more economical, to cultivate one's garden 

 patch or leave it lying waste. Surely such men would be aljle 

 to prove by all the laws of science, and notably by the science 

 of economics, wliich is by no means an " exact " science, that 

 to grow your own spring onions and your new potatoes, or to 

 produce early cabbages and new peas, when you can buy 

 foreign importations cheaper from the costermongers' barrows, 

 would be to fly in the face of all the laws of political economy. 



Your cottager may be utterly confounded by the man of 

 science who reduces everything in life to a^ h, and x, and 

 expounds every question by algebraic jargon, or by what is 

 called the laws of economics, which are as mutable as sand, 

 but he goes on cultivating his garden plot all the same, despite 

 the pessimism of the learned scientist. 



Leave Nature alone to work out her own problems and we 

 shall find that, if we are capable of understanding her ways, 

 she never errs, and the application of li&r laws, therefore, to 

 man's needs are invariably the best and most economic, because 

 in obeying the laws of Nature we are but conforming to the 

 laws of natural science, which know neither change nor brook 

 interference. 



It is as natural for a man to cultivate the soil as it is for 

 the duck to take to water ; and if we interfere with the opera- 

 tion of natural laws we shall as surely suffer in the long run 

 as does the man who derides and sets at naught the laws which 

 protect society from depredation and outrage. 



The problem which the British people have to solve is of 

 the simplest possible nature, and, provided they set about it 

 in a direct, matter-of-fact manner, they will experience no 

 difficulty in its solution. The question is simply — 'wluther or 

 'no they shall cuUicate their garden ^mtch ? 



Tlie best way to answer the question is — by cultivating it. 

 This is the direct common-sense way, and tlie only practical 

 way. 



Economic Science a Dam — Plow to Eemove it 



When a mountain slide takes place and dams up the river 

 at the bottom of the valley we do not invoke tlie aid of your 

 learned professors of this 'ology or the other, nor do we ask 

 your political economist to determine by the " laws," so called, 

 of economic science whether it would be better to leave the 

 dam as it is ; on the contrary, we know that the landslip has 

 interfered with the natural tiow of the river, and we take our 

 picks and shovels and set the river free. 



