“I’ve ’eard about it,” she said, “but I don’t ’ave much time to read the papers. They want to make us pay more for our food, don’t they?” “For some of it,” I explained. “But, then, we shall pay less for other things, so that really we shan’t be paying more at all.” “There don’t seem much in it, either way,” was Mrs. Wilkins’ opinion. “Just so,” I agreed, “that is the advantage of the system. It will cost nobody anything, and will result in everybody being better off.” “The pity is,” said Mrs. Wilkins “that pity nobody ever thought of it before.” “The whole trouble hitherto,” I explained, “has been the foreigner.” “Ah,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “I never ’eard much good of ’em, though they do say the Almighty ’as a use for almost everything.” “These foreigners,” I continued, “these Germans and Americans, they dump things on us, you know.” “What’s that?” demanded Mrs. Wilkins. “What’s dump? Well, it’s dumping, you know. You take things, and you dump them down.” “But what things? ’Ow do they do it?” asked Mrs. Wilkins. “Why, all sorts of things: pig iron, bacon, door-mats—everything. They bring them over here—in ships, you understand—and then, if you please, just dump them down upon our shores.” “You don’t mean surely to tell me that they just throw them out and leave them there?” queried Mrs. Wilkins. “Of course not,” I replied; “when I say they dump these things upon our shores, that is a figure of speech. What I mean is they sell them to us.” “But why do we buy them if we don’t want them?” asked Mrs. Wilkins; “we’re not bound to buy them, are we?” “It is their artfulness,” I explained, “these Germans and Americans, and the others; they are all just as bad as one another—they insist on selling us these things at less price than they cost to make.” “It seems a bit silly of them, don’t it?” thought Mrs. Wilkins. “I suppose being foreigners, poor things, they ain’t naturally got much sense.” “It does seem silly of them, if you look at it that way,” I admitted, “but what we have got to consider is, the injury it is doing us.” “Don’t see ’ow it can do us much ’arm,” argued Mrs. Wilkins; “seems a bit of luck so far as we are concerned. There’s a few more things they’d be welcome to dump round my way.” “I don’t seem to be putting this thing quite in the right light to you, Mrs. Wilkins,” I confessed. “It is a long argument, and you might not be able to follow it; but you must take it as a fact now generally admitted that the cheaper you buy things the sooner your money goes. By allowing the foreigner to sell us all these things at about half the cost price, he is getting richer every day, and we are getting poorer. Unless we, as a country, insist on paying at least twenty per cent. more for everything we want, it is calculated that in a very few years England won’t have a penny left.” “Sounds a bit topsy turvy,” suggested Mrs. Wilkins.