But, some person may urge, if Government interferes, and compels the
farmer to farm higher than he wishes to himself, the gross produce
will be more, and the employment for labourers will be at the same
time better. True, and this is the quintessence of Protection. The
whole point of Free Trade is to allow capital to be employed where it
is most profitable: high farming is only to be preferred (both for
individual and nation) to low when it is the more profitable. Capital
that cannot be employed to ordinary trade profit on the land must be
transferred to other industries where it will earn the ordinary rate
of trade profit; or, if there is no trade yielding such profit ready
to absorb it in England, the capital must go to the United States or
New Zealand and earn an increased profit. As to the labourers, they
must follow the capital; or they may starve in England leaving few
progeny, while the well-fed labourers of the Western States of
America and New Zealand leave large families: this will do instead of
emigration.

It is to be noted that great improvements in farming, especially in
machinery, have been effected in the last thirty years, largely by
the operation of the All England and County Agricultural Societies. I
note further that the people who abuse the farmers for bad farming
and clamour for Government interference to promote high farming,
conspicuously refrain from supporting these agricultural societies.



6. FREE TRADE IN RAILWAYS.

Government might monopolise the retailing of tea in England. At
present, in a country town like Exeter or Canterbury, there may be