must result in cheap labour."[784] Cheapness may fill those with joy
who have money in their pocket and who do not care how cheap goods are
produced. But incidentally the policy of Free Trade and of _laisser
faire_, the policy of cheapness which benefits the consumer and takes
no notice of the producer, encourages and causes sweating and untold
misery to the workers. "Do you ever consider the lives of the people
who make these marvellously cheap things? And do you ever think what
kind of homes they have; in what kind of districts the homes are
situated; and what becomes of those people when they are too ill, or
too old, or too infirm to earn even four shillings as the price of a
hundred and twelve hours' work?"[785]

Free Trade may have been beneficial in Cobden's time, when Great
Britain was the chief manufacturing country in the world. But what is
its effect under the changed conditions of the present time, and how
will these changes affect her industries and her workers? "In the
early days of our great trade the commercial school wished Britain to
be the 'workshop of the world,' and for a good while she was the
workshop of the world. But now a change is coming. Other nations have
opened world-workshops, and we have to face competition. France,
Germany, Holland, Belgium, and America are all eager to take our
coveted place as general factory, and China and Japan are changing
swiftly from customers into rival dealers. Is it likely, then, that
we can keep all our foreign trade, or that what we keep will be as
profitable as it is at present?"[786] "Suppose we lost a lump of our
export trade. Suppose the Japanese, Chinese, or Americans capture some
of our markets. Where should we get our food? If we could not sell our
exports, we could not buy imports of food. We are walking on thin ice,
my countrymen. And if competition became keener, what would the
champions of Free Trade do to meet it? They would say: 'We must sell
our manufactures, or you will get no food. To sell our manufactures we
must reduce the price. To reduce the price we must reduce the cost of
production. To reduce the cost of production we must cut down
wages.'"[787] "Free Trade means _laisser faire_ all round, not only in
regard to inanimate commodities, but in respect to that most important
commodity of all--human labour power. Chinese, Japanese, Indians,
negroes are all permitted under complete Free Trade to compete freely
on their lower standard of life a