A BRIEF EXAMINATION OF FREE-TRADE PRINCIRLES 357 



many directions ; now that reactionary measures are talked of 

 in the Clul)S, in railway carriages, and the saloons of ocean 

 liners ; in drawing-room and kitchen, by the rich man in his 

 sumptuous home and l)y the poor man in his cottage — the fact 

 of wJicther we are or are not to grow our own wlicat and produce 

 our own butter, cheese, poultry, eggs, and the hundred and one 

 other items of food required daily for the sustenance of our 

 own people, is becoming one of the burning questions of the 

 day. 



The British people are truly in the "exceptional" position 

 claimed for them by Free-trade economists, and they are in a 

 false position, a position which invites external attack and 

 breeds internal pauperism, unemployment, well-grounded dis- 

 content, disloyalty and degradation, all of which, and much 

 more combined, will surely result in the disintegration of the 

 empire. The people are deprived of the means of producing 

 their own food and the means of universal employment in the 

 wholesome, life-giving, and wealth-producing industry of agricul- 

 ture because, forsooth, in their mania for securing cheap food 

 for what they euphoniously call the masses, those who have 

 some purpose to serve have insanely sacrificed every other 

 interest. They have, moreover, wilfully ignored all those varied 

 complicated considerations which ramify through the lives and 

 domestic economy of a great people as the tendons, fibres, and 

 nerves ramify through the human body. 



Who foi;m " The Masses " ? 



If, for example, those uncompromising economists, Free- 

 traders, political prestidigitators, the Manchester School, and the 

 rest of that coterie of possibly well-meaning but misguided 

 enthusiasts, who have thrust what is, by misnomer, called a 

 "Free " trade policy upon the British people, had for a moment 

 considered that what it has pleased them to call the masses, the 

 working -classes, the in'oldariat, and the rest of the catch-penny 

 phrases they arc so fond of trotting out at election times, must, 

 or should, in this, as in every country in the world, ncccssarili/ 

 consist chiefly of the agricultural classes — they miglit possibly 

 have been induced to pause before finishing their work. 



Agricultueal roi-uiATiox Largest in all Countjues 



It lias been shown in otlier chapters that tlie agricultural 

 population of practically all civilised States is necessarily larger 

 than any other section, while even in this country, with a sorely 



