A BUIKF EXAMINATION OF FllEE-TKADE rUlNCll'LES 349 



save the merchants and manufacturers and those engaged in 

 producing the £1000 worth of commodities. 



If we grow our own £1000 worth of wheat, the merchants, 

 manufacturers, and those engaged in the production would still 

 be called upon to make their £1000 worth of commodities, to 

 exchange for the wheat, while a number of other persons would 

 also benefit owing to the many subsidiary industries which 

 necessarily grow out of agriculture. 



It is beyond question, then, that a given amount of agri- 

 cultural produce, whether grown in Great Britain, Argentina, 

 or the United States, would necessarily have to be paid for in 

 other commodities^ — including cloth, machinery, etc. — of like 

 value. It then becomes clear that the contention of Free-trade 

 economists that " the industries which supply them would 

 decline," is built upon a fundamental economical error, and is, 

 therefore, void of foundation. 



The remaining contention on this point that " shiphuilding 

 and subsidiarfi industries would decline if we ceased to impm't our 

 food supplies," while offering certain prima facie evidence of the 

 validity of the argument, is capable of bearing an altogether 

 different aspect when looked at more closely. 



Danger of Dealing in Abstract Principles 



The practice of dealing in abstract principles is dangerous, 

 because you cannot, in many instances, apply them to the daily 

 needs of our domestic life. You may theorise to your heart's 

 content in the complicated and widely ramifying properties of 

 economic science, and honestly believe that you have, by 

 induction and deduction, not only fixed certain principles but 

 laid down actual economic laws, only to find that the moment 

 you attempt to apply your " laws " to the individual or 

 collective requirements of your fellow-mortals, your laws 

 are not laws but only a set of economic theories of so fragile 

 a nature as to be shattered to pieces the moment they come 

 in contact with the rude touch of human life. 



This is apparently the line of reasoning largely followed by 

 most political economists, and so long as they indulge in such 

 easy generalisations in this post hoe, ergo p)ropter hoc method of 

 dcaliug with so grave and complicated a subject, the validity 

 of their judgment in all economical questions must remain 

 open to serious objecticm. 



In the particular matter under consideration, the writer of 

 " The Free-trade Movement " has left out of his calculations 

 several factors destined to play an important part in the game 



