ch money he'll save.

How thankful we all ought to be
That this most kind and careful M.P.
Thus shows Woolwich men
They will be employed when
They're off to the States--Q.E.D.[798]

Some Socialists take a very pessimistic view of the economic position
of Great Britain. Mr. Hyndman said that "Great Britain had lost her
commercial and industrial supremacy. The United States now stood
first, Germany second, and Great Britain was forced into third
place."[799] Many years ago some far-seeing Socialists had prophesied
the coming industrial decline of Great Britain. "The notion that
Britain can hold a monopoly of engineering, or of any other trade,
must be given up. Britain cannot; countries that have been almost
wholly agricultural are rapidly becoming manufacturers too."[800] Of
late these pessimistic forecasts have become louder and more frequent.
The progress of industrial countries can be measured, to some extent,
by their output of coal, and "at no distant date Germany will probably
also surpass our output and we will be relegated to third place."[801]
This event will very likely take place about 1910. The statistics
published by the British Board of Trade are deceptive. They leave out
Germany's very large and constantly growing output of lignite, which
amounts to about 60,000,000 tons per annum, and which increases
Germany's coal output, as stated by the Board of Trade, by about 50
per cent.

British Socialists have found out that the Free Trade doctrine with
its hypothetical "consumer" for a centre is opposed to science, to
experience, and to common-sense. "The present system of trade is, in
my opinion, opposed entirely to reason and justice. Nearly all our
practical economists of to-day put the consumer first and the producer
last. This is wrong. There can be no just or sane system which does
not first consider the producer and then widely and equitably
regulates the distribution of the things produced."[802] They
recognise that Free Trade has caused ill-balanced production, and
that, through the stagnation and decay of industries, men who ought to
be engaged in production have been forced into more or less
unprofitable and more or less useless employments. "What this country
is rotting for is the want of more and better producers of
necessaries--more and better market-gardeners, fruit-growers,
foresters, general farmers, wool-workers, builders, and useful makers
generally. Instead of whi