Most Socialists recognise that under the Free Trade _régime_ 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]