264 BrJTAlX FOE THE BRITON 



industry, Agi;icultui!E, and. every industry and interest allied 

 to, or arising out of it, must be sacrificed, so that notbiug may 

 be permitted to interfere with the Industkial Sui'IIEMACY of 

 our mamifactiircrs. In other words, every other interest in 

 the country, all other sections of workers, and that vast body 

 of Ihitish citizens who far outnumber those who are enuasred in 

 manufactures, must be sacrificed so that the only remaining 

 section — the comparatively small band of manufacturers and 

 their industrial loorkcrs — may have cheap food. 



Land Eeform will save AGiacuLTUiiE 



The writer of " Land Eeform," on the other hand, takes a 

 broad, liberal view of the position. He recognises that Cheap 

 Pood is not the only thing in this world, nor does it in itself 

 constitute the sumriucm honum of human life. Everybody 

 admits that cheap food should be one of the chief concerns 

 of every Government, and that every reasonable care should 

 be exercised in securing it ; but if in securing a bhd. loaf 

 instead of a b^d. one, enormous national sacrifices have to be 

 made in other directions, such a policy obviously becomes both 

 foolish and cruel. 



" One might say that the two arch-evils of English economy are 

 ' cheapness ' and so-called ' charity.' The keen rivalry in trade 

 caused by the competitive system makes clieapness the chief aim of 

 the trader. Heuce the adulteration of food, the lowering of the 

 quality of products, and other hurtful results. It is worth con- 

 sidering whether or not these mischiefs arise from putting the 

 supposed interests of the consumer before the interests of the 

 producer and of the nation as a whole. It is tme that after 

 the abolition of the duty on imported silks a woman could buy silk 

 dresses at a much lower price than before, but by the cheapening 

 process many thousands of silk-workers were thrown out of employ- 

 ment. To take a more humble example, by free import of matches 

 six boxes of these articles can be ])ought for a penny. The so-called 

 ' free-trader ' may regard this as a triumph of his policy, and the 

 liouse-wife as a gain in domestic economy, but this cheapness is 

 S3cured at a cost of human suffering and want, such as the following 

 case, by no means a rare one, reveals : ' One of the women, Sarah 

 Ann Young, aged seventy, of Shoreditch, died, and at the inquest 

 yesterday her daughter, who was a widow with three little children, 

 said she and her mother had worked together at home at match-box 

 making. They earned Is. "^'^il. for seven gross of match-boxes. For 

 some work they were paid 2\d. a gross and for other 2d. a gross, and 

 had to find their own paste. The 2Wst-mortein examination showed 

 there was not a particle of fat about the body. Death was due to 



