when indicating the lines of progress for dealing with 
economic problems he states :— 
“It will be no longer a question of free trade pure 
and simple, which frequently conveys the impression 
of the launching of a war by a country which is best 
armed, most ready, and has therefore a decisive ad- 
vantage over certain other countries. Nor will it be 
a matter of strait-laced mean ego-centric nationalist 
protection, which in its turn means a fighting policy, 
the struggle of the weak against the strong. 
Both the old free trade policy and the old protec- 
tionist policy should be superseded by a policy which 
represents a collective and rational safeguarding of all 
legitimate interests.’’ 
“But bodies representing an industrial undertaking, 
be it in a national or in an international framework, 
cannot be considered by themselves as adequate 
elements of organisations 
All these organised interests should be co-ordinated. 
In combination they should be made to serve a higher 
end, first the organisation of the national economic 
life, and next the organisation of the international 
economic life.” 
In this matter we agree in one respect with what we 
understand to be implied in the Prime Minister’s speech 
at Northampton, namely, that if the attitude of those who 
control the industry is one calling .upon the Government 
to apply tariffs, while leaving the industry entirely to its 
own devices, that is not a policy which’ a Government 
could adopt. Moreover, those who require the protection 
of the State. must be subject to its jurisdiction. 
On the other hand, if the industry is to be charged with 
the responsibility for its financial and organic reconstrue- 
tion, and to make itself a stable and progressive part of 
the national economic life, it may with justification require 
that the State shall afford it reasonable security against the 
disability of aggressive forms of competition and which 
are not consistent with healthy commercial relations or 
fair industrial conditions. In a publicly owned under- 
taking, such a claim would be indisputable. 
If, however, the State is to afford protection to private 
enterprise in the conduct of its business, then the State 
must be satisfied in the first instance that those who seek 
that protection are without question carrying out their 
own obligations in the policy they adopt and pay due 
regard to the effect of that policy upon the national in- 
terete. 
To demand the protection of Parliament on the one 
hand and to protest against State interference on the other, 
is to ask for a blank cheque. It is often those who claim 
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