A BRIEF EXAMINATION OF FREE-TRADE PRINCIPLES 335 



Nor is it likely there will bo found in all the broad pages 

 of the world's economical history a more humiliating, a more 

 fateful, and, withal, a more uniiccr.>imrij dictum tluin is contained 

 in the statement at the head of this chapter. 



GiiEAT Britain Punished by Witless Man 



To say that Great Britain cannot grow her own food 

 supplies — as practically all other civilised countries do — because 

 of certain exceptional economic conditions which especially 

 attach themselves to her, but which have no application to 

 other States, is to declare the fact that the people of this 

 country have been singled out for condign punishment, not by 

 the Master of Destiny, but by the wit of man. 



Here is an admission of national weakness and failure ; of a 

 people's utter helplessness and their complete dependence upon 

 the foreigner for the very bread they eat : the foreigner who, 

 although he may write himself friend to-day, may to-morrow 

 declare himself a foe. This mighty nation of ours, this vast 

 empire upon wMch the sun never sets, this great people who, 

 by the help of I'rovidence and theii' own strong right arms, 

 have carved out for themselves and their children an inheritance 

 the like of which the world has never yet beheld, are, never- 

 theless, reduced to the position of a paralysed cripple. 



There is hardly a more pathetic sight in this world than to 

 see a strong muscular man, endowed by his j\Iaker with a 

 splendid frame and ample virile energy, suddenly smitten from 

 his high estate and reduced to the monotony of the sick-couch 

 or the weary perambulations of the bath-chair. To such a 

 nature the administrations of his female friends and nurses, 

 although necessary to his enfeebled and helpless condition, are 

 but the offering u}) of daily testimony to his crushed manhood 

 — and full well he knows it. 



The First Law of Nature 



To deprive a people of the means of feeding themselves is 

 to take from them those means of self-preservation which is 

 axiomatically called — ■" The first law of Nature." To reduce a 

 people to a state of utter dependence upon outside aid for their 

 daily bread, is to put them in the most unenviable and, indeed, 

 the most perilous position which it is possible for the wit of 

 man to devise. 



To devise such a position, either for an individual, or a 

 people, is obviously the very tiling that should not have heen 

 done ; and this should be added, that whatever may have been 



