The Economic Aspects of International Exchange. 2 1 



factures the nation was bound to protect and preserve. Take the 

 question of ships and guns. Suppose some ingenious German 

 were to go to Mr. M'Kenna and offer to supply him with ships 

 and guns at half their cost. Would the head of the British 

 Admiralty accept the offer ? Would he not rather say, " Ships 

 and guns are meant for fighting, and we ourselves must keep up 

 the manufacture of them, because the moment the fighting came 

 the supply might be stopped if we depended on you ? " The 

 same argument applied to our food supply. There might be 

 brought about such a combination of our foreign enemies as to 

 cause our food supply to be cut off. Therefore he urged that we 

 should even pay more for our food, if the circumstances warranted 

 it, in order to ensure the supply at a time when it was most 

 needed. We had also to consider the question of Imperial 

 unity. He thought at a time like this it was of importance that 

 we should make it worth while for the various parts of the 

 Empire to adhere to the Empire rather than to other countries. 

 There was another phase of the question — that was the desira- 

 bility of retaining the rural population at home. Could it be 

 disputed that free trade had cut down the population of Ireland 

 to nearly one half? It was all very well to pile up imports and 

 exports and manufactures and manufacturers' wealth, but if we 

 were losing the rural population, upon which the stability of every 

 country must be based, we were not in a healthy state. 



Mr. Henry Riddell and Mr. W. Hunter also took part 

 in the discussion, which was adjourned to a date to be arranged 

 by the Committee. 



The adjourned meeting was held on 27th April, 1909, when 

 the following gentlemen continued the discussion : — Messrs. J. 

 Mackie, J. P.; W. Armstrong, John Workman, J. P.; G. H. Fulton, 

 John Horner, J. C. M'Clung, A. W. Metcalfe, and John Malone. 



The Chairman said the two nights' discussion they had 

 enjoyed had been illuminating and interesting. It had to be 

 admitted that the education given in Germany gave that country 



