168 BOOT MATTERS IN SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS. 



that 60 millions would not be profitably employed and well 

 supported if it were not for her policy of favouring the 

 creation of her own wants as far as possible by the energies of 

 local labourers. 



It must be granted, however, that the policy which ia 

 advantageous to a rich food and raw-producing country, such 

 as America, would be annihilation to a country such as 

 England, where the population by far exceeds her natural 

 sources of supply as regards food and other essential raw 

 products. 



A country so circumstanced must maintain a Free Trade 

 policy or perish. With countries thinly populated, possessing 

 illimitable sources of natural wealth, including soil, climate, 

 and all conditions favourable for the production of food and 

 raw products in excess of local wants, it must inevitably follow 

 that the tendencies and influences arising from the desire to 

 extend the local field of employment must be in the direction 

 of Protection, or restrictions upon foreign trade. It is the 

 conditions of the various countries which determine means to 

 ends. In one country the means is Protection, in the other 

 Free Trade ; but the end in both cases is the same, viz., the 

 best available mode of supplying the greatest amount of satisfac- 

 tions to each individual (including local employment to the 

 rising generatioji) with the least expenditure of individual 

 effort. 



If Mr. Henry M. Hoyt, who has so ably defended the 

 American policy of Protection, had premised that he was 

 referring solely to countries rich in all natural sources — far 

 surpassing the demands of all possible local requirements — 

 we might agree with his ideal as regards the policy to be 

 pursued, t;i3.: — "The nearer we come to organising and con- 

 ducting our competing industries, as if we were the only 

 nation on the planet, the more we shall make, and the more 

 we shall divide among the makers. Let us, at least, enter 

 upon all the industries authorised by the nature of our things. 

 Thus we shall reach the greatest annual product of the 

 industry of the society." 



When, however, any country's population fails or is unable 

 to cultivate 2'*^ acres per head within her own borders the 

 policy suggested by Mr. Hoyt must of necessity be abandoned 

 in favour of Free Trade. This necessity — involving the 

 population difficulty — is, however, an evil, and not an advan- 

 tage to the masses. 



Eent Monopoly. 



Emotional and inexact writers, carried away by some 

 foregone conclusion, or by the fascinating exaggerations of a 

 certain literary style, are constantly blundering when they 



