348 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



country, or growing them in foreign countries, lias a far deeper 

 siguiticauce for tbeni than most people realise. 



The first result of growing our own corn would be the 

 cessation of imported corn, but commodities of equal value 

 would still be required to pay for the corn locally produced, since 

 the economic law holds good here, as everywhere else, that 

 the world's trade is carried on by commodities in exchange for 

 commodities, and not by gold in exchange for goods. 



A Concrete Example Demonstrated 



This proposition is easily demonstrable by taking a concrete 

 example of a small farmer holding fifty acres, we will say, who 

 produces agricultural commodities to the value of £500 annually. 

 With the proceeds he buys all he requires to enable him to 

 carry on his industry — seeds, manure, agricultural implements, 

 horses, carts and harness, food, clothing, fuel, lighting, and all 

 other necessaries of life. Then he spends money on the erection 

 of new buildings or the up-keep of old ones. The residue at 

 the end of each year is profit, and whether this be £5 or £50 

 it represents the insignificant part that gold really plays in 

 the world's trade — everything else having been paid for hy 

 commodities in exchange for commodities. 



As our farmer of fifty acres, then, is forced by an inexorable 

 commercial economic law to exchange his agricultural produce 

 for other commodities, every other agriculturist in this country, 

 or elsewhere, must do likewise, for it is a law that none may 

 evade. It further follows that as British agriculturists are 

 likely to require in exchange for their agricultural produce 

 much the same kind of goods as their confreres in foreign 

 countries, who have hitherto grown our corn for us, it matters 

 not one jot to our manufacturers whether the demand for such 

 goods comes from this country or from abroad, so long as there 

 is a demand. To swpfly the demand is what mainly concerns 

 them, and so long as they are called upon to do this, the source 

 of the demand is necessarily of comparatively little moment. 



How Economists ignore Eacts 



But there is yet another aspect of this many-sided question 

 which it pleases Free-trade economists to ignore. It is this. 

 The United States sends us £1000 worth of wheat; we send 

 them £1000 worth of manufactured goods (not that we do so, 

 but we admit the principle) in exchange, and there the matter 

 ends. Nobody benefits from the transaction in this country 



