of being the most practical) bases for that propaganda.

Now, as against all this frothy rant, what does common-sense say? What do facts say? They simply say that agricultural land is one of the many forms of capital; that the remuneration of that capital is the lowest that is got anywhere in the economic domain; for agricultural land does not pay the landlord two per cent. They say further that, attenuated as that value is, it is at present in this country a decreasing and not an increasing value; that in all old countries agricultural values and prices are falling, and men are forsaking the land. To turn back men to the land in an old country is to attempt to turn back the tide of economic progress-to make men follow the less remunerative, where they might be following the more remunerative. By all means get men on to the land, but not in an old country where they cannot subsist against the competition of a new country like Canada. Send them out rather to Canada, where they can grow corn to cheapest and not to dearest advantage. But never trouble about the nation buying up agricultural land in this country of ours. It is a bad investment, for it is putting money into a falling security. Do not think of turning the labourer back to the soil in England, for that is to condemn him to a process of economic decline and decay. Let

him get out and away. For pity's sake never think of creating a peasant proprietorship in England.

Such I take to be the true reading of the signs of my times, and it is with the object of enforcing this my reading of them that I have striven to show the unsubstantial and rotten basis of the opposite view which is so prevalent to-day, and which is still increasing in influence. It is not true that agricultural rents are an unearned increment sent from God, as Ricardo said in effect. Neither is it true, what Ricardo also said, that as a nation progresses agricultural rents are bound to rise in antagonism to wages and profits. Just the very opposite. Wages and profits have risen, whilst agricultural rents have fallen. It is not true, therefore, that it is to a nation's interest to purchase out the landlords. And Socialism to-day in absorbing the land nationalisation cry, and in being fed by it, is absorbing an untruth, and is being fed by a lie. Such a result could never have happened if English classical Political Economy had not by means of the rotten Ricardian theory of rent furnished a specious philosophic basis for an ignorant and self-seeking agitation.

CHAPTER IV

THE PROBLEM OF FREE TRADE

SECTION I.-The Reasons for the Decline of Dutch Commerce under a Free Trade System

SECTION II.-The Reasons for the Prosperity of English Trade under a Protective System. History of the Four Great English Industries-Wool, Cotton, Iron, Shipping SECTION III.-The Reasons for the Prosperity of the Trade of the United States under a Protective System-The Tariffs and Industries of the United States-Conclusion

A FEW Preliminary words are necessary in order to carry the reader with me through the succeeding pages of this book.

There is no more important question engaging the attention of my countrymen at the present moment than that of our commercial and industrial future. On the one hand, we are face to face with a competition from Germany and America which is cutting into and whittling away our commercial supremacy at an alarming rate. Is the competition of these countries assisted, or is it checked, by our English free trade system?

On the other hand, our colonies are looking to us for a lead in the strong movement towards imperial federation. They are willing, as a first step towards that federation, to grant prefer

ential treatment to the mother country. What are we to do? Are we to accept the offer that is held out to us? If we do, then what will be of necessity our attitude in future towards the free trade system? For it would be quite impossible to accept the offer of our colonies without at the same time making some alteration in our present system. If Australia gives us a preference of 33 per cent., it would be impossible to prevent German or American goods being imported into England, being transhipped, or warehoused in England and then shipped out to the Colonies as English goods, and so earning the 33 preference as English goods. No customhouse regulations in the world, no amount of oaths and declarations, would be of the slightest avail to prevent such a subterfuge.

Unless, therefore, we are prepared to impose a 33 duty at our own ports of entry, it will be quite useless for Australia to give us such a preference. The thing must inevitably break down in actual practice.

Both these sets of influence, therefore, call upon us to consider carefully and calmly our present fiscal and commercial system. They both of them raise the question as to whether or not we are to continue our free trade system unchanged as it exists to-day.

The attitude of the ordinary Englishman

towards this momentous question is altogether extraordinary. Nine men out of ten literally dare not speak of it, dare not look it in the face. To admit that there can be any question whatever about free trade is a heresy that is bound to ostracise any man who entertains it. It would stamp him at once as unintellectual by the side of his fellows.

The case is not less remarkable with that minority which is bold enough, shall I say illadvised enough, to handle the question. The process of reasoning, or the arguments, run always on the same lines, and the conclusion is almost invariably foregone. We might be all Scotsmen for our love of chop-logic when we once begin to argue about the theory of trade.

Now, there is no harm in arguing out the question of free trade on purely theoretical grounds and by a purely theoretical method. It sharpens the wits, if it does nothing else. But beyond this I cannot see that it does any good. It yields no new light on the subject, for the arguments from theory that are advanced to-day were advanced a hundred years since. We get no nearer to a conclusion or to a resolution by its means, and by its means we never shall.

It is my intense dissatisfaction with this method of argumentation that has led me to shift the ground or the process of inquiry completely. I prefer to throw theory com