ment,
and consequent want and misery; and want and misery among the British
masses are likely to continue increasing and ever increasing until
Great Britain adapts her economic policy to the altered circumstances
of the time, protects the industries by which her workers live, and
secures a sufficient outlet for their productions by preferential
arrangements with the self-governing Dominions. Under the shelter of
Protection at home and with the aid of preferential arrangements
throughout the empire, Great Britain will be able vastly to extend her
manufacturing industries. Great Britain has unrivalled facilities for
manufacturing. Whilst the manufacturing centres of the United States,
Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy, and other countries
lie far inland near their coalfields, Great Britain has the unique
advantage of being able to manufacture on the seashore, where coal,
iron, great manufacturing towns, and excellent harbours lie in close
proximity. The potentialities of the British industries under fair
conditions and under the wise care of a fostering Government are
boundless.

Under the shelter of Protection the rural industries of Great Britain
may be revived, especially if the British peasantry be re-created. A
hundred years ago the great agricultural authority, Arthur Young,
wrote: "The magic of property turns sand into gold. Give a man a bleak
rock, and he will turn it into a garden. Give him a nine years' lease
of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert." Since the time
when these words were written most European countries have created a
freehold peasantry by buying out the landed proprietors and settling
the rural labourers on the land, and Great Britain will be wise in
following their example.

The tripartite question of Fiscal Protection for the home market, of
an Imperial Customs Union, and of Imperial Federation is not a party
question. It is a question of life or death for Great Britain. It may
soon become a question of prosperity or starvation for the masses.
Great Britain stands at the parting of the ways. She must either
protect and re-create her industries, federate with her colonies, and
make the British Empire a reality, or sink into insignificance, and
history knows no instance of a great nation becoming a small one
without the most intense suffering to the masses of the people. Great
Britain must either adopt that constructive and protective national
policy which the greatest