336 r>rviTAiN for the reiton 



the considerations wliicli prompted such a fatal position ; how- 

 ever great the interests served by so deplorable a disobedience 

 of natural laws : the people should ne\'er have been deprived 

 of the means of self-support. That was a fatal error from 

 every point of view, and capable of neither extenuation nor 

 condonation. 



For Good or for Evil 



For good or for evil Great Britain has hecome dependent 

 upon imported wheat to the extent of more than 70 ^kt cent, of 

 her consumption, 



says " scientific " economy ; and " scientific Free - trade " 

 economists now uphold the policy which dead and gone 

 manufacturer-reformers thrust upon this country sixty odd 

 years ago. 



The first question that naturally arises out of this anomalous 

 and most unnatural position is this — " Is it possible to conceive 

 any circumstances, or any condition or set of conditions, under 

 which one or more sections of the community would be justified 

 in depriving the remaining sections of the means of self- 

 preservation ? " To such a question there can only be one 

 emphatic answer—" No." 



An Unnatural Course 



But unfortunately this is the exact position the British people 

 are in to-day. A small baud of distinctly interested manufac- 

 turer-reformers, sixty years ago, took tlie unnatural course of 

 depriving the country of its agriculture, and the people of their 

 chief means of support — of self-preservation^ — and, as a conse- 

 quence, most untoward and unnatural results have supervened. 



Now, out of this amorphous condition strange forms and 

 customs have arisen, and many and various are the remedial 

 measures which have been suggested and applied by all sorts 

 and conditions of " scientific experts," and, strangely enough, 

 instead of regarding the matter as an inevitable result of a 

 simple disobedience of a natural law, numbers of people have 

 come to regard the unique position we have foolishly assumed 

 among the nations as a perfectly normal condition which can 

 be met by the application of the ordinary usages of p)olitical 

 economy. 



This aberration of tlie national mind, after fatuously seek- 

 ing aid in all sorts of unlikely places, has now focussed itself 

 on " Employment," but in snatching at the shadow it has 



