atom to complete anything, much less such an idea as this requiring the devotion of the best souls of the next 200 years. There are three essentials: (1) The plan duly weighed and agreed to. (2) The first organisation. (3) The seizure of the wealth necessary.
I note with satisfaction that the committee appointed to inquire into the McKinley Tariff report that in certain articles our trade has fallen off 50 per cent., and yet the fools do not see that if they do not look out they will have England shut out and isolated with ninety millions to feed and capable internally of supporting about six millions. If they had had statesmen they would at the present moment be commercially at war with the United States, and they would have boycotted the raw products of the United States until she came to her senses. And I say this because I am a Free Trader. But why go on writing? Your people do not know their greatness; they possess a fifth of the world and do not know that it is slipping from them, and they spend their time on discussing Parnell and Dr. Tanner, the character of Sir C. Dilke, the question of compensation for beer-houses, and omne hoc genus. Your supreme question at the present moment is the seizure of the labour vote at the next election. Read the Australian Bulletin (New South Wales), and see where undue pandering to the labour vote may lead you; but at any rate the eight-hour question is not possible without a union of the English-speaking world, otherwise you drive your manufactures to Belgium, Holland, and Germany, just as you have placed a great deal of cheap shipping trade in the hands of Italy by your stringent shipping regulations which they do not possess, and so carry goods at lower rates.
