resolutely about manufacturing, not only for themselves, but for the
rest of the world; and the consequence is, that the manufacturing
monopoly enjoyed by England for nearly a century is irretrievably
broken up.

"But the manufacturing monopoly of England is the pivot of the present
social system of England. Even while that monopoly lasted, the
markets could not keep pace with the increasing productivity of
English manufacturers; the decennial crises were the consequence. And
new markets are getting scarcer every day, so much so that even the
negroes of the Congo are now to be forced into the civilisation
attendant upon Manchester calicos, Staffordshire pottery, and
Birmingham hardware. How will it be when Continental, and especially
American, goods flow in in ever-increasing quantities--when the
predominating share, still held by British manufacturers, will become
reduced from year to year? Answer, Free Trade, thou universal
panacea.

"I am not the first to point this out. Already, in 1883, at the
Southport meeting of the British Association, Mr. Inglis Palgrave, the
President of the Economic section, stated plainly that 'the days of
great trade profits in England were over, and there was a pause in the
progress of several great branches of industrial labour. _The country
might almost be said to be entering the non-progressive state_.'

"But what is to be the consequence? Capitalist production _cannot_
stop. It must go on increasing and expanding, or it must die. Even
now, the mere reduction of England's lion's share in the supply of the
world's markets means stagnation, distress, excess of capital here,
excess of unemployed workpeople there. What will it be when the
increase of yearly production is brought to a complete stop?

"Here is the vulnerable place, the heel of Achilles, for capitalistic
production. Its very basis is the necessity of constant expansion,
and this constant expansion now becomes impossible. It ends in a
deadlock. Every year England is brought nearer face to face with the
question: either the country must go to pieces, or capitalist
production must. Which is it to be?

"And the working-class? If even under the unparalleled commercial and
industrial expansion, from 1848 to 1866, they have had to undergo such
misery; if even then the great bulk of them experienced at be