This accepted,
it becomes at once a question of business management. Things profitable
must be continued; things unprofitable must be eliminated. Either the
Empire is a profit to England, or it is a loss. If it is a loss, it must
be done away with. If it is a profit, it must be managed so that the
average man comes in for a share of the profit.
If the struggle for commercial supremacy is profitable, continue it. If
it is not, if it hurts the worker and makes his lot worse than the lot of
a savage, then fling foreign markets and industrial empire overboard. For
it is a patent fact that if 40,000,000 people, aided by Civilisation,
possess a greater individual producing power than the Innuit, then those
40,000,000 people should enjoy more creature comforts and heart's
delights than the Innuits enjoy.
If the 400,000 English gentlemen, "of no occupation," according to their
own statement in the Census of 1881, are unprofitable, do away with them.
Set them to work ploughing game preserves and planting potatoes. If they
are profitable, continue them by all means, but let it be seen to that
the average Englishman shares somewhat in the profits they produce by
working at no occupation.
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