A SYNOPSIS 377 



the verge of destitution, is as unnecessary as it is cruel and 

 disastrous ; and when the peo})lc realise that this terrible 

 suffering is nothing more nor less than a direct and unavoidable 

 result of the suicidal Free-trade policy which Self-Interests 

 have thrust upon the country, they will cast it from them as 

 sometliing that is loathsome and unclean. 



15ut is there auythhig in the denial of Free-traders that the 

 unenviable and unparalleled condition of the masses of our 

 fellow-countrymen is not atlributalde to, or a result of, Free- 

 trade? The degradation and pauperisation of a people is one 

 of the gravest charges that could be brought agaiust any 

 administration or any political party, and, if brought, it should 

 either be clearly disproved by the accused, or substantiated by 

 the accuser. 



In face of the enormous mass of evidence favoming the 

 views of that great body of the British people who hold that the 

 present deplorable conditions arc a result of the Free-trade 

 system, the mere denial of the Manchester School, and others 

 who favour Free-trade, is obviously altogether insufficient. The 

 system of economics on which the I'^nited Kingdom has been 

 working for upwards of sixty years, was designed by Cobden 

 and his manufacturer-reformers to do away with the destitution 

 and unemployment of the times in which they lived ; and while 

 it would serve no purpose to compare the poverty and un- 

 employment of the British people during the " hungry forties " 

 with that of other nations at the same period, it becomes an 

 urgent necessity, in the interests of the present generation, to 

 make it clear that the destitution and widcsirrcad ^mcnvploiiment 

 of the 'people of this country to-day finds no counterpart in Europe 

 01' in any civilised country of the world, in spite of the fact that in 

 nearly every one of these countries the economic and fiscal 

 system has been " Protection," and not " Free-trade," or — the 

 very antithesis of our own. At all events, the anti-Free-traders' 

 case is proved up to the hilt ; the omis of dixjjrovi/iy it now rests 

 with those who bolster up the present system. 



Will Tariff-reeoem alone afford Full Employment 



FOR All? 



Is a question that should never be lost sight of by the 

 people, because in its proper appreciation enormous issues are 

 involved. Tariff-reform there must be, because the accumulated 

 evidence of the last sixty years proclaims the fact ; but in 

 determining this point let us beware, "Lest we Forget." Tariff- 

 reform is one factor in national prosperity, but alone it will not 

 suffice. Every civilised nation that has shown progressive 



