Fortign Competition. 135 



trade all round. But the skill and capital of the West 

 have now gone out to ally themselves with the cheap 

 labour of the East, and the numerous mills in India 

 testify to the initial steps of the vast changes that are 

 slowly but steadily advancing. But this is far from 

 being all. The Japanese, the Chinese, and the native 

 capitalists of India are rapidly learning all that Eizrope 

 can teach, and, ultimately, will carry manufacturing and 

 mining industries to the utmost limit attainable. Then 

 will be seen the greatest labour struggle the world has 

 ever beheld — the competition between the cheap dark 

 and the dear white workman. When that period arrives, 

 and it cannot be far distant, Calico may once more come 

 to us from Calicut (a town on the West Coast of India), 

 which gave its name to the cotton productions we once 

 imported from the East, and if we wish to manufacture 

 even for our own people it is plain that we should only 

 be able to do so with the at present despised agency of 

 protection. That resource alone will be left to us as far 

 as cloth manufactures are concerned. The same remark 

 will also apply to every other product which we now 

 export. For the rest we must rely upon the development 

 of our biggest industry — agriculture. What is Agricul- 

 ture ? As the Indian proverb goes, " the ploughers are 

 the linchpin of the world." Pull it out and the whole 

 machinery of life tumbles to pieces. Amidst the din of 

 hammers, the whirl of machinery, and the tall smoking 

 chimneys, we seem to have quite forgotten this fact. 

 We shall once more have occasion to remember it, and 

 perhaps sooner than we anticipate. It is of obvious 

 importance then to set our house in order betimes, and 

 prepare to furbish up our agricultural armour to the 

 utmost. We have tried to do so by calling in the aid of 

 costly artificial manures, and costly mechanism in the 

 shape of subsoil ploughs, and other earth-stirring 

 implements ; we must now call in the appliances of 

 nature in the shape of deep-rooting plants, which will at 

 once till, manure, aerate and drain our soils with the 



