358 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



attenuated and enfeebled land industry, agriculture still employs 

 a gi-eater head of the population than the whole of our great 

 textile and mimng industries 2')ut together. Given, however, a 

 sensible, sound, practical system of land tenures, as suggested 

 in other parts of this work, which Great Britain must have 

 before she can emerge from the sea of troubles which now 

 surround her, she would then have an agricultural iioivdation 

 of anything from ten to fifteen millions of fcoiilc employed in the 

 land industry and subsisting ujwn the fruits of the earth. 



These are the masses, the working classes, the ^proletariat which 

 have suffered terribly at the hands of those who forced their 

 Free-trade scheme upon this unfortunate country. Ten millions 

 of the people have been left out in the cold so that other ten 

 millions, we will say, might have cheap food. Ten millions of 

 our fellow-countrymen have practically been deprived of the 

 means of providing themselves witli food, at any price, so that 

 the favoured ten millions might buy their food a trifle cheaper. 

 The vast agricultural population which is the greatest wealth- 

 producer of every country in the world, civilised or uncivilised, 

 and which is rightly regarded as the backbone and mainstay of 

 every nation, must be deprived of their rightful and legitimate 

 occupation and driven into the great towns to swell an already 

 overflowing population, because certain commodities must be 

 cheapened to a more favoured section of the population. This 

 great agricultural population which, added to what is called the 

 suhnerged tenth, although far exceeding in numbers those indus- 

 trial workers which somebody has called the " aristocracy of 

 labour," must, nevertheless, submit, partly because the sacrifice 

 of all agricultural interests forms part of the Free-trade policy, 

 and partly because these industrial workers, owing to their 

 trades unions and general powers of organisation, have become 

 a powerful political influence in a country wherein the interests 

 of the commonweal are invariably subordinated to the interests 

 of the party. The agricultural population, on the other hand, 

 owing to its sore distresses of the last half a century, remains 

 unorganised and therefore — unrepresented in the affairs of the 

 nation and as voiceless as a mute. 



Class Interest the bottom of Fkee-trade 



Class interest was the vera causa of the Free-trade move- 

 ment sixty odd years ago, and class interests are now fighting 

 hard to maintain the Free-trade policy. The following admission 

 is significant: — 



" It has been charged against the movement that the manu- 

 facturers wore fighting and providing funds for the League in their 



