Why was the linotype machine adopted? Because it was a saving of cost. What became of the compositors? They were thrown out of work. Did anybody help them? Well, Socialism would save cost. If it displaces labour, as the machine does, should that prevent us from adopting Socialism? Socialism would organise labour, and leave no man to starve. But will the Trusts do that? No. And the Trusts are coming; the Trusts which will swallow up the small firms and destroy competition; the Trusts which will use their monopolies not to lower prices, but to make profits. You will have your choice, then, between the grasping and grinding Trust and the beneficent Municipality. Can any reasonable, practical, hard-headed man hesitate for one moment over his choice? CHAPTER X FOREIGN TRADE AND FOREIGN FOOD We have heard a great deal lately about the danger of losing our foreign trade, and it has been very openly suggested that the only hope of keeping our foreign trade lies in reducing the wages of our British workers. Sometimes this idea is wrapped up, and called "reducing the cost of production." Now, if we must have foreign trade, and as much of it as we have now, and if we can only keep it by competing against foreign dealers in price, then it is true that we must try to reduce the cost of production. But as there are more ways of killing a dog besides that of choking him with butter, so there are other ways of reducing the cost of production besides that of reducing the wages of our British workers. But on that question I will speak in the next chapter. Here I want to deal with foreign trade and foreign food. It is very important that every worker in the kingdom should understand the relations of our foreign trade and our native agriculture. The creed of the commercial school is that manufactures _pay_ us better than agriculture; so that by making goods for export and buying food from abroad we are doing good business. The idea is, that if by making cloth, cutlery, and other goods, we can buy more food than we can produce at home with the same amount of labour, it _pays_ us to let the land go out of cultivation and make Britain the "workshop of the world." Now, assuming that we _can_ keep our foreign trade, and assuming that we can get more food by foreign trade than we could produce by the same amount of work, is it quite certain that we are making a good bargain when we desert our fields for our factories? Suppose men _can_ earn more in the big towns than they _could_ earn in the fields, is the difference _all_ gain? Rents and prices are higher in the towns; the life is less healthy, less pleasant. It is a fact that the death-rates in the towns are higher, that the duration of life is shorter, and that the stamina and physique of the workers are lowered by town life and by employment in the factories.