PART I 

 THE POLICY OF THE PLOUGH 



I 



A NEW POINT OF VIEW 



The war has changed everything. This is an axiom 

 wherever conversation is directed to the great in- 

 dustrial and commercial reconstruction which is to 

 come after the war. The opinions of men are fluid ; 

 all look on the world with new eyes. No longer do 

 Free Traders and Tariff Reformers, for example, 

 debate on the old battle ground. In the abstract 

 their views are unchanged ; but in practice most 

 Free Traders see, and hasten to acknowledge, that in 

 the old days they argued too much as though economics 

 were a matter of pure mathematics. 



Cheapness was one of their avowed objects, and of 

 course they still believe, with deep conviction, that 

 Free Trade is the direct road to cheapness. But 

 cheapness, as they have come to perceive, is a relative 

 term in a predatory and violent world. For what shall 

 it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and 

 lose his own soul ? The soul of England is now to be 

 kept or bartered. It is madness from any standpoint 

 to lose jour country, your independence, or your 



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