388 BiiiTAi:sr for the briton 



chicken-pox and measles appear in the corporal body, but to 

 regard them as an inevitable result of a most unnatural action ; 

 the dam impedes the current of the great agricultural industry, 

 and all that is required to stop the overflow, and the mischief 

 arising therefrom, is to mt through the harrier. 



Instead of adopting this eminently sensible and practical 

 course, those who have been responsible for the affairs of the 

 commonweal have adopted the eminently unjjractical course of 

 dealing with effects rather than with causes ; they have failed 

 to perceive that the many evils which have dogged the foot- 

 steps of the people for many a year are but the result of the 

 violation of a natural law which will automatically cease as 

 soon as the violation ceases — hut not hefore. 



The third and perhaps the gravest of the many blunders 

 committed in the past and at the present day in connection 

 with this country's agricultural industry is in supposing that, 

 under any conditions which are likely to environ our mundane 

 affairs, this or any country, being one of a community of 

 civilised States, which are forced to adopt a common line of 

 agricultural economy in the interests of the commonwealth, could 

 possibly maintain itself in that state of general progressive 

 prosperity which — other things being equal— every industrious 

 and thrifty country has every reasonable right to expect, if its 

 chief source of wealth production — agriculture — is destroyed. 



This is the exact position of the United Kingdom to-day ; 

 her agriculture has been destroyed, and she finds she cannot 

 maintain herself in a state of general prosperity. Enormous 

 wealth is admitted, but it belongs to the few and not to the 

 many ; there is far too much precariousness of living ; too much 

 anxiety for the morrow ; too much real destitution among the 

 masses ; too many evidences of failure on all sides to warrant 

 the assumption that all is well with the people. 



In this respect the United Kingdom stands alone. Other 

 nations have not destroyed their agriculture and, as a con- 

 sequence, they are not suffering as this country is. 



Here the question naturally arises, " Why are we in this 

 position and why do we not get out of it ? " 



We are in this position because the Manchester School of 

 reformers of the last century, in dreaming of a world-wide 

 mighty Commercialism for Great Britain, set up certain economic 

 conditions which carried with them the germs of economic 

 destruction. Trades, manufactures, and a vast commercial- 

 industrialism that would sweep the markets of the world and 

 bring untold wealth to our shores were to be our portion, and 

 it is admitted that, up to a certain point, the preachers of this 

 doctrine justified their creed. Commercialism has exploited the 



