nd fortune in new
countries, but most of her citizens prefer poverty even, and, if need be,
poverty in the gutters of her thriving cities, to a home of promise in
distant lands. Hence, a rapidly increasing and dense population obtains
in all the British Isles, and labor becomes abundant and cheap, and often
a drug in the market. The repeal of the Corn Laws first became a
necessity, then a fact, and the cheaper food made cheaper labor possible.
Lynx-eyed capital, in the financial metropolis of the world, was quick to
discover surplus labor.

"Already English inventors had made valuable inventions in machinery for
the manufacture of iron, cotton, woolen and other goods, which further
cheapened labor and the product of labor.

"England with cheap capital and cheap labor, now had two of the four
things needed to enable her to go forward to larger trade with the world.
The third requisite, cheap and abundant raw material, she also secured.
Material, not furnished from her own mines and soils, was brought in
plentiful supply at nominal freights, or as ballast, by her vessels,
whose sails are spread on every sea.

"For three centuries Great Britain has vigorously and profitably pursued
Sir Walter Raleigh's wise policy: 'Whosoever commands the sea, commands
the trade, whosoever commands the trade, commands the riches of the
world, and consequently the world itself.'

"On the ceiling of the reading-room of the Liverpool Cotton Exchange is
painted the pregnant words:--'O Lord, how manifold are thy works, in
wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy riches.' Under
divine inspiration, therefore, English capital seeks investment
everywhere, and with cheap capital, cheap labor, and cheap raw materials,
she finds herself able to compete successfully with the world. It is
possibly pardonable then that the British manufacturer and politician
should seek earnestly the fourth requisite, viz., a large market abroad.
Hence the necessity of free trade.

"To advocate publicly that other nations should adopt free trade, that
England might have an increased number of buyers, and consequently
greater profit on her products, perhaps would not be judicious; so the
principle of free trade for the world at large must be sugar-coated, to
be acceptable. Therefore your philanthropic and alert Richard Cobden, and
John Bright, and your skilled writers, both talked and wrote much about
the 'brotherhood of mankind,' hoping that the mark