362 BRITAIN FOK THE BRITON 



satisfaction that it would be impossible for steam ever to be 

 used in ocean navigation because of ilic impossibility of any 

 vessel to earry sufficient coal for its furnaces. Steam is a mighty 

 power to-day on and off the ocean, and while there may be none 

 now living who question its efficacy or deny the enormous 

 benefits it has confeiTed upon the human race, there are, un- 

 fortunately, many who question the potentialities of the land as 

 a mighty factor in human affairs, in spite of the fact that this 

 tremendous energy has been turned into a stupendous living, 

 all-impelling force in every country in the world sccvc our own. 



Free-tkaders Fail to Demonstrate their own Propositions 



Now, it seems but fair that when a man advances a proposi- 

 tion he should prove it. The writer of " The Free-trade Move- 

 ment " does not do this, and he thus leaves it to others to prove 

 that his proposition is undcmonstraUc. 



The question before us is this : " Has the writer any justifica- 

 tion for his remarkable economical conclusion, or has he, in 

 advancing this extraordinary proposition, committed an 

 elementary error in economical law ? " The full text of the 

 paragraph which contains the unaccountable passage to which 

 the whole nation — even including Free-traders themselves — is 

 justified in taking exception is this — 



" In no circumstances known at present could this country feed 

 her enormous population of 40,000,000 people at their existing 

 standard of subsistence ; to be self-sufficing as regards food, a portion 

 of the population would need to emigrate, and for the remainder, the 

 majority must betake themselves to agricultural pursuits. Is the 

 nation prepared to put back its progress and revert to that position 

 in order that it may be self-sustaining, when by means of free 

 exchange it is able easily to maintain its vast population in consider- 

 able profit." * 



It is only with the latter portion of the paragraph we need 

 deal here, as the questions involved in the first portion have 

 already been dealt with. 



If there be the slightest justification for these amazing con- 

 clusions, it follows that every one of those nations which has 

 had the temerity to assume a self-sustaining position in regard 

 to its food supplies, must necessarily have put hack its jpfogrcss 

 to an extent that its trade and manufactures should be in a 

 deplorable condition : its national credit seriously impaired, 



* " The Free-trade Movement," p. 193, 



