Note 229 — Chapter XXVIII
Reading edition
The following passage from Sir C. W. Dilke’s valuable work “Greater Britain,” published since the above was written, throws further light on the retrogressive course in question:—
“Writing for the Englishmen of Old England, it is not necessary for me to defend free trade by any arguments. As far as we in our island are concerned, it is so manifestly to the pocket-interest of almost all of us, and, at the same time, on account of the minuteness of our territory, so little dangerous, politically, that for Britain there can be no fear of a deliberate relapse into protection, although we have but little right to talk about free trade so long as we continue our enormous subsidies to the Cunard liners.
“The American argument in favour of prohibition is in the main, it will be seen, political; the economical objection being admitted, but outweighed. Our action in the matter of our postal contracts, and in the case of the Factory Acts, at all events shows that we are not ourselves invariably averse to distinguish between the political and the economical aspect of certain questions.”—(“Greater Britain,” second edition, p. 69.)