SOME SOCIALIST VIEWS ON FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION
In his thoughtful book on Socialism, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P., the
Socialist leader, attributes the rise of the Socialist movement in
great Britain to various causes, one of which is "the reaction against
Manchesterism."[766]
Socialists, generally speaking, are opposed to Free Trade. Neither the
moderate nor the revolutionary sections of British Socialism have a
good word to say for it. The Socialist leaders, looking at the
question of Free Trade and Protection from the worker's point of view,
have arrived with Lecky at the conclusion that the whole Liberal Free
Trade agitation is one of the greatest political impostures which the
world has witnessed,[767] a view which, by the by, was also expressed
by Bismarck.[768]
Socialists are not under any illusion as to the causes which led to
the introduction of Free Trade into Great Britain, and they sneer at
the humanitarian cant with which its promoters successfully surrounded
it. One of the leading Socialist books states with regard to this
point: "Protection was no longer needed by the manufacturers, who had
supremacy in the world-market, unlimited access to raw material, and a
long start of the rest of the world in the development of machinery
and in industrial organisation. The landlord class, on the other
hand, was absolutely dependent on Protection. The triumph of Free
Trade therefore signifies economically the decay of the old landlord
class pure and simple, and the victory of capitalism. The capitalist
class was originally no fonder of Free Trade than the landlords. It
destroyed in its own interest the woollen manufacture in Ireland, and
it would have throttled the trade of the colonies had it not been for
the successful resistance of Massachusetts and Virginia. It was
Protectionist so long as it suited its purpose to be so. But when
cheap raw material was needed for its looms, and cheap bread for its
workers; when it feared no foreign competitor, and had established
itself securely in India, in North America, in the Pacific; then it
demanded Free Trade."[769] "Protection at home was needless to
manufacturers who beat all their foreign rivals, and whose very
existence was staked on the expansion of their exports. Protection at
home was of advantage to none but to the producers of articles of food
and other raw materials, to the agricultural interest, which, under
the then existing circumstances in England, meant the receivers of
rent, the landed aristocracy."[770]
The Free Trade manufacturers, who were chiefly interested in cheapness
of production, cared little what became of the workers. "The
individualist devotees of _laisser faire_ used to teach us that when
restrictions were removed, free competition would settle everything.
Prices would go down, and fill the 'consumer' with joy unspeakable;
the fittest would survive, and as for the rest--it was not very clear
what would become of them, and it really didn't matter."[771]
The doctrines and the boasts of the Free Traders are usually treated
by the Socialists with contempt. "Cobdenites ascribe every known or
imagined improvement in commerce, and the condition of the masses, to
Free Trade. Things are better than they were fifty years ago: Free
Trade was adopted fifty years ago. _Ergo_--there you are. There is not
a word about the development of railways and steamships, about
improved machinery, about telegraphs, the cheap post and telephones,
about education and better facilities of travel."[772]
The unsoundness of the fundamental doctrine of Free Trade, "Buy in the
cheapest and sell in the dearest market," has frequently been exposed
by Socialists. Mr. Blatchford, for instance, in a book of his of which
more than a million copies have been sold gives prominence to Cobden's
pronouncement in the House of Commons in which he expounded the
celebrated maxim: Buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market:
"To buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest, what is the
meaning of the maxim? It means that you take the article which you
have in the greatest abundance and with it obtain from others that of
which they have the most to spare; so giving to mankind the means of
enjoying the fullest abundance of earth's goods."[773] Mr. Blatchford
then comments upon Cobden's doctrine as follows: "Let us reduce these
fine phrases to figures. Suppose America can sell us wheat at _30s._ a
quarter, and suppose ours costs _32s. 6d._ a quarter. That is a gain
of 1/15th in the cost of wheat. We get a loaf for _3d._ instead of
having to pay _3-1/4d._ That is all the fine phrases mean. What do we
lose? We lose the beauty and health of our factory towns; we lose
annually some twenty thousand lives in Lancashire alone; we are in
constant danger of great strikes; we are reduced to the meanest shifts
and the most violent acts of piracy and slaughter to 'open up
markets' for our goods; we lose the stamina of our people, and we lose
our agriculture."[774]
Most Socialists recognise that under the Free Trade _regime_ Great
Britain has sacrificed her safety and her strength to profit. "Did you
ever consider what it involved, this ruin of British agriculture?
Don't you see that if we lose our power to feed ourselves we destroy
the advantages of our insular position?"[775] "Don't you see that the
people who depend on foreigners for their food are at the mercy of any
ambitious statesman who chooses to make war upon them? And don't you
think that is rather a stiff price to pay to get a farthing off the
loaf? No nation can be secure unless it is independent; no nation can
be independent unless it is based upon agriculture."[776] "We must buy
wheat from America with cotton goods; but first of all we must buy raw
cotton with which to make those goods. We are therefore entirely
dependent upon foreigners for our existence."[777]
"The present national ideal is to become 'The workshop of the world.'
That is to say, the British people are to manufacture goods for sale
to foreign countries, and in return for those goods are to get more
money than they could obtain by developing the resources of their own
country for their own use. My ideal is that each individual should
seek his advantage in co-operation with his fellows, and that the
people should make the best of their own country before attempting to
trade with other people's."[778] "The Free Traders tell me that under
their glorious system of free exchange nations naturally occupy
themselves in those industries which produce the most wealth. Thus, if
Great Britain, by employing a million men in growing corn, can produce
_50,000,000l._ a year, while she can produce _51,000,000l._ by
employing the men in getting coal. Great Britain will 'naturally'
employ those men in getting coal! Sending her coal abroad, Great
Britain can get _1,000,000l._ a year more wealth. What a beautiful
doctrine! Enormous increase in wealth. Foreigners can send us
_51,000,000l._ of corn for our coal, while Great Britain could only
grow _50,000,000l._ Free Trade for ever! It never occurs to the Free
Traders to ask: 'Is it better to have a million men working in the
bowels of the earth, or a million men tilling the surface?"[779]
"The idea is, that if by making cloth, cutlery, and other goods we can
buy more food than we can produce at home with the same amount of
labour, it pays us to let the land go out of cultivation and make
Britain the 'workshop of the world.' Now, assuming that we can keep
our foreign trade, and assuming that we can get more food by foreign
trade than we could produce by the same amount of work, is it quite
certain that we are making a good bargain when we desert our fields
for our factories? Suppose men can earn more in the big towns than
they could earn in the fields, is the difference all gain? Rents and
prices are higher in the towns; the life is less healthy, less
pleasant. It is a fact that the death-rates in the towns are higher,
that the duration of life is shorter, and that the stamina and
physique of the workers are lowered by town life and by employment in
the factories. And there is another very serious evil attached to the
commercial policy of allowing our British agriculture to decay, and
that is the evil of our dependence upon foreign countries for our
food. The plain and terrible truth is that even if we have a perfect
fleet and keep entire control of the seas, we shall still be exposed
to the risk of almost certain starvation during a European war. As I
have repeatedly pointed out before, we have by sacrificing our
agriculture destroyed our insular position. As an island we may be,
or should be, free from serious danger of invasion. But of what avail
is our vaunted silver shield of the sea if we depend upon other
nations for our food? We are helpless in case of a great war. It is
not necessary to invade England in order to conquer her. Once our
food-supply is stopped, we are shut up like a beleaguered city, to
starve or to surrender. Stop the import of food into England for three
months and we shall be obliged to surrender at discretion. And our
agriculture is to be ruined and the safety and honour of the Empire
are to be endangered that a few landlords, coal-owners, and
moneylenders may wax fat upon the vitals of the nation."[780] "For
over half a century we have been committing industrial suicide. By
laying waste our own land and throwing ourselves upon the mercy of the
foreign food-producers, we have been deliberately sacrificing the
millions and the future to the millionaires and the moment."[781]
The celebrated cheapness argument of the Free Traders has little
attraction for Socialists. "'Ah,' says the Free Trader, 'but think of
the cheaper grocery and the cheaper boots!' Yes, let us think of them.
What good does it do me, my countrymen, one of the unemployed, to
think of the wealth of the Rothschilds, or the cheap boots and the
cheap bread and the cheap clothes of those who benefit by these
things? I am one of the nation. Are these things that are so good for
the nation good for me? How can these cheap wares do me any good, who
have no money at all? The fact is that Free Trade and cheap goods are
only good for certain individuals. They are good for those who benefit
by them."[782]
Cheapness means low wages. Cheapness may benefit that strange and
mythical figure the abstract "consumer" of the text-books, but need
not benefit the working man. Very likely it will harm him, because
"Cheap goods mean cheap labour, and cheap labour means low wages. You
have nothing but your labour to sell, and you are told that it will
pay you to sell that cheaply."[783] "All commodities are produced by
labour, therefore to drive commodities down to their cheapest rate
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 against the white man."[788] "A demand
for a general reduction of wages is the end of the fine talk about big
profits, national prosperity, and the 'workshop of the world.' The
British workers are to emulate the thrift of the Japanese, the
Hindoos, and the Chinese, and learn to live on boiled rice and water.
Why? So that they can accept low wages and retain our precious foreign
trade. Yes, that is the latest idea. With brutal frankness the workers
of Britain have been told again and again that, 'If we are to keep our
foreign trade, the British workers must accept the conditions of their
foreign rivals,' and that is the result of our commercial glory! For
that we have sacrificed our agriculture and endangered the safety of
our Empire."[789]
The assertion of the Free Traders that Free Trade has made Great
Britain prosperous is treated with scorn. "The Free Traders say we,
the nation, are richer under this system than we should be under
Protection. By employing ourselves in those occupations in which we
can produce the cheapest article, we earn the most wealth in money
value.--In money value.--They do not consider the twelve million
underfed, the hundreds of thousands of unemployed. The nation, _we_,
are richer. That is the test. Well, my countrymen, I think it is a
damnable doctrine, and its results are damnable. The Free Traders
boast of our wealth. Are twelve million underfed, a million starving
children, a million paupers, an infantile death-rate of 150 per
1,000--are these signs of wealth? The question is not 'Is the nation
wealthy?' but 'Are the people wealthy?' Judged by this standard, how
poor a nation is this, my countrymen! The Free Traders tell us that we
earn more wealth under Free Trade than we should under Protection.
Again I ask: Who are _we_?"[790] A Socialist weekly lately said:
"Great Britain, I understand, has recovered its prosperity; our
exports are going strong, and our imports have nothing much to
complain about. Prosperity? Why, Great Britain is simply rolling
in--statistics."[791]
Socialists rightly demand that the effect of British fiscal policy
should be judged not by its effect upon the wealth of the few, but
upon the employment of the many, and they clearly recognise the
destructive effect which Free Trade has upon the national industries.
"Under Free Trade it is possible for a foreign trader to take trade
away from a British trader. If for any reason we lost an important
trade, or several small trades, our unemployed would naturally grow.
The Free Trade theory that the capital and the labour in the lost
trades will find other employment is simply theory. Suppose they
didn't. The Free Trader has no answer except: Look at our enormous
wealth. My countrymen, looking at another man's wealth does not feed
me, clothe me, and house me."[792] "When men are thrown out of work,
by competition, or depression, or any cause, they do not so easily
'transfer their services to some other new employment.' It is easy to
make them do so--on paper. And when they do get a fresh job, is it
always as good as the one lost? Do they not often lose all their
belongings, and get into debt, while looking for that new employment
which the Free Traders talk about so glibly? and do not capitalists
often lose a good deal of capital before they give up the fight for
the trade? Nevertheless, say the Free Traders, we, the nation, are
richer under this system than we should be under Protection. By
employing ourselves in those occupations in which we can produce the
cheapest article, we earn the most wealth in money value."[793] To
this argument the Socialists reply: "Does your moral law say it is
right that men should be thrown on the streets to starve because other
men in other countries produce goods 2-1/2 per cent. cheaper?"[794]
The statistics of an enormous foreign trade, which Free Traders
triumphantly display for the edification of the masses, give,
according to the Socialists, little consolation to the unemployed and
ill-employed workers. "Figures, be they never so dazzling, and
numbers, be they never so round, will not feed the hungry, house the
homeless, or bring light and warmth into the drear, precarious lives
of the mass of our people. The increase of trade means only an
increase of production, and not necessarily of persons employed or
wages gained. With the rapid concentration of industries and the
perfection of labour-saving devices, production has been enormously
increased without any corresponding increase of employment; in some
cases, with an actual decrease of employment. What the workers are
interested in is not the mere growth of profitable trade, but the
extent to which the industries of their country afford them and their
families a security of livelihood, and the reasonable comforts and
recreations which their labour has more than earned."[795]
Most Socialists frankly own that Free Trade has been a failure. "In
the House of Commons on March 12th, 1906, Mr. P. Snowden, M.P., said:
'Sixty years of Free Trade had failed to mitigate or palliate to any
considerable extent the grave industrial and social evils which Free
Traders and Protectionists alike were compelled to admit. Sir H.
Campbell-Bannerman had admitted them when he said that 30 per cent. of
our population were on the verge of hunger. He contended that whatever
improvement had been effected in the condition of the people during
the last sixty years was due to other causes than Free Trade."[796]
During 1907 the complaints among the Socialists about the effect of
Free Trade upon employment have become louder. The fact that British
unemployed workmen furnished an apparently inexhaustible supply of
strike-breakers to Continental employers, that men fought like wild
beasts at the registry offices in order to be allowed to act as
strike-breakers in Hamburg and Antwerp, has shown the great prevalence
of unemployment. Commenting hereon a Socialist monthly said in bitter
irony, under the heading "British Blacklegs": "The intervention in the
Antwerp dock-workers' strike of British workmen as blacklegs is a
striking commentary on the prosperity of the people of this country.
Under Free Trade we have been told--_ad nauseam_--by Liberal
politicians that the British working-man is the most prosperous and
well-fed human being on the face of the earth. He, with wages nearly
double those of the best-paid Continental workman, with all kinds of
provisions infinitely cheaper--thanks to Free Trade--than they can be
procured elsewhere, is indeed 'God's Englishman.' It would be as
unkind as rude to suggest that these honourable politicians had been
lying. The only alternative conclusion to be arrived at is that the
British workman is a most disinterested being, willing to sacrifice
his prosperity and comfort in order to compel the miserably paid
dockers of Antwerp and Hamburg to submit to the conditions against
which they have revolted."[797] The action of Mr. Haldane, the present
Secretary of State for War, in dismissing a large number of workmen
from Woolwich Arsenal and giving a contract for 100,000 horseshoes for
the British Army to an American firm on account of greater cheapness,
prompted the following verses:
Mr. Haldane was smiling and suave
As his views upon horseshoes he gave;
He will buy from the Yanks
(Who take orders with thanks).
And believes that much 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 which, the present system is giving us more and
more non-producers--more and more shopkeepers, middlemen, commercial
travellers, advertising agents, dealers, and wasters generally.
According to the last census returns, we find that whilst the
agricultural class shows a terrible decline, and the industrial class
has barely kept pace with the population as a whole, on the other hand
the commercial, or selling class, shows an increase of over 42 per
cent. inside ten years."[803]
Free Trade has been tried and has been found wanting, and a return to
Protection, which is in accordance with the needs of the times and the
spirit of the workers, especially of the trade unionists, is
inevitable. "Capitalist Free Trade is a manifest failure. Trade
unionism is, in its essence, a very sturdy form of Protection, as we
can see, if not here in Great Britain, certainly in America and in
Australia."[804] "Society is constantly changing its form of living:
every day some supposed old truth goes into the limbo of forgotten
things, and, looking around us, those who have eyes to see and ears to
hear may see and hear on all hands the death-knell of the old
Manchester school of political economy."[805]
The claims of Free Trade and the cheap-food cry are disregarded and
treated with contempt. "Free Traders talk about the folly of
Protection. But Free Trade itself is a form of Protection. It protects
the strong and the cunning against the weaker and the more honest. It
protects the cheap and nasty against the good."[806] The founder of
modern Socialism had stated already in 1847: "What is Free Trade under
the present conditions of society? Freedom of capital."[807] Free
Trade undoubtedly directly protects capital and leaves labour
unprotected. "Your food will cost you more! I am to bow down to the
idol of cheapness. I, one of the unemployed. What is cheapness to me,
who have no money at all?"[808] "Your Manchester school treat all
social and industrial problems from the standpoint of mere animal
subsistence."[809] Declarations such as "The Social-Democratic
Federation stands for universal free trade or free exchange and for
the abolition of all indirect taxation,"[810] and "The only form of
Protection advocated by the Social-Democratic Federation is the
protection of the proletariat against the robbery and exploitation of
the master-class"[811] have not the ring of seriousness about them.
Only very rarely are utterances in favour of Free Trade to be found in
Socialist writings. However, frequently the demand is made that Tariff
Reform and Socialism must go hand in hand, and doubt is expressed
whether the Tariff Reform agitation is carried on for the benefit of
the manufacturer or for that of the workers. "Mr. Chamberlain is not a
Socialist. His Government will not be a Socialist Government. His plan
would protect only the rich. This fiscal fight is a fight between
capitalists as to who shall make the profits. It is not a fight for
the benefit of the 'nation.' That is what they tell you. The
capitalist who loses his trade through foreign competition is a Tariff
Reformer. He wants Protection. The capitalist who depends on cheap
foreign imports for raw material is a Free Trader. He does not want
his prices raised."[812] "Preferential trade is the proposal of
individual capitalists who desire to make profits out of our Imperial
connections."[813]
The Fabian organ looks at Free Trade and Protection merely as a
business proposition. "We care nothing for abstract Cobdenite
economics, and are quite willing to welcome Tariff Reform if its
advocates show us that it can be used as a lever for raising the
standards of life and labour. The Labour party is therefore eminently
wise in seeing how far it can be used for their advantage.
Protectionism of the Australian Labour party is the right kind of
Protectionism--Labour-Protectionism: a very different thing from the
Capital-Protectionism which is (with a few exceptions) the
characteristic mark of Tariff Reformers in this country."[814]
Some revolutionary Socialists are in favour of Free Trade because they
hope that it will bring on a revolution in Great Britain. Their great
leader, Karl Marx, taught sixty years ago, when Free Trade was being
introduced: "The Protective system is nothing but a means of
establishing manufacture upon a large scale in any given country.
Besides this, the Protective system helps to develop free competition
within a nation. Generally speaking, the Protective system in these
days is conservative, while the Free Trade system works destructively.
It breaks up old nationalities and carries the antagonism of
proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the
Free Trade system hastens the social revolution. In this revolutionary
sense alone I am in favour of Free Trade."[815] Those Socialist
revolutionaries who wish to increase the misery of the people, hoping
that unbearable poverty, owing to increasing unemployment and
consequent want, will at least madden the people and cause a
revolution--they remember that the great French revolutions were also
brought about by unemployment and consequent widespread misery--are
the most determined champions of Free Trade.
FOOTNOTES:
[766] Macdonald, _Socialism_, p. 16.
[767] Lecky, _History of the Eighteenth Century_, quoted in _Fabian
Essays in Socialism_, p. 81.
[768] Ellis Barker, _Modern Germany_, p. 531.
[769] _Fabian Essays in Socialism_, pp. 80, 81.
[770] F. Engels in Marx, _Discourse on Free Trade_, p. 5.
[771] _Fabian Essays in Socialism_, p. 90.
[772] Blatchford, _God and My Neighbour_, p. 154.
[773] Blatchford, _Merrie England_, p. 33.
[774] Blatchford, _Merrie England_, p. 33.
[775] _Ibid._ pp. 33, 34.
[776] _Ibid._ p. 35.
[777] _Ibid._ p. 34.
[778] _Ibid._ p. 12.
[779] Suthers, _My Right to Work_, p. 100.
[780] Blatchford, _Britain for the British_, pp. 97, 98, and 118.
[781] Hall, _Land, Labour, and Liberty_, p. 11.
[782] Suthers, _My Right to Work_, p. 82.
[783] Blatchford, _Merrie England_, p. 92.
[784] _Ibid._ p. 97.
[785] _Ibid._ p. 97.
[786] Blatchford, _Britain for the British_, p. 100.
[787] Suthers, _My Right to Work_, p. 103.
[788] _Justice_, November 23, 1907.
[789] Blatchford, _Britain for the British_, p. 100.
[790] Suthers, _My Right to Work_, pp. 102, 103.
[791] _Clarion_, October 25, 1907.
[792] Suthers, _My Right to Work_, pp. 96, 97.
[793] _Ibid._ p. 101.
[794] _Ibid._ p. 104.
[795] _Labour Leader_, January 12, 1906.
[796] _National Union Gleanings_, vol. xxvi. January-June 1906, p.
220.
[797] _Social-Democrat_, September 1907, pp. 519, 520.
[798] _Battersea Vanguard_, November 1907, p. 5.
[799] _Report, 27th Annual Conference Social-Democratic Federation_
1907, p. 29.
[800] Mann, _The International Labour Movement_, p. 8.
[801] Jones, _Mining Royalties_, p. 14.
[802] Blatchford, _Competition_, p. 9.
[803] Hall, _Land, Labour, and Liberty_, pp. 9, 10.
[804] _Justice_, November 23, 1907.
[805] George Lansbury, _The Principles of the English Poor Law_, p.
16.
[806] Suthers, _My Right to Work_, p. 104.
[807] Karl Marx, _A Discourse on Free Trade_, p. 39.
[808] Suthers, _My Right to Work_, p. 100.
[809] Blatchford, _Merrie England_, p. 15.
[810] H. Quelch, _The Social-Democratic Federation_, p. 11.
[811] _Ibid._
[812] Suthers, _My Right to Work_, p. 119.
[813] J. Ramsay Macdonald, _Labour and the Empire_, p. 97.
[814] _New Age_, October 10, 1907, p. 369.
[815] Karl Marx, _A Discourse on Free Trade_, p. 42.