[103] “With a more certain market for wheat, it would, in many districts” (of Australia), “be profitable to bore for or to store water and open railways or make rivers navigable, and thus enormously increase the area of profitable wheat production.” (Duke of Manchester, Nineteenth Century, 1881.)
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
I know a maiden fair to see. Take care!
Trust her not, she is fooling thee. Beware!!
Fair Trade! Reciprocity! Retaliation! Such are the cries that have been raised by those who have felt the evils of Free Trade, without fully realising the mischievous principle involved in it.
England, with its dependencies, if properly governed, might be independent of foreign nations for its trade, commerce, markets and productions.
“Retaliation” is an action at once undignified, inexpedient and unjust.
Are we to injure ourselves by the imposition of protective tariffs, which are mischievous when unnecessary, and to attempt to injure our neighbour, because he declines to imitate our folly in ruining ourselves for an economic “ignis fatuus?”
The only true and statesmanlike policy of a great nation like England is to pursue the even tenor of her way, governing the empire with its dependencies as one vast country, the interests of any one portion of which should be considered inseparable from those of the whole;—protecting jealously every industry; seeking every possible means of employing the labour and developing the resources of all;—fostering every industry when it needs fostering, and releasing the fostering care as soon as such care is seen to be unnecessary; protecting only to the extent that may be needed to prevent the decay of an existing industry, or to enable a new industry to spring up; the primary aim being to utilise the labour and produce of the whole, and to ensure a market for the produce in our own great United Empire.