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THE PRESEf\T ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND OUTLOOK 429
'\Y ~ may f~rJy ex~e!=t our miscellaneous exports, in-
vIsible as well as vIsible, and our miscellaneous manu-
factures for home consumption to grow, though it is
quite impossible to anticipate where the growth will be
or where there may be I'elative and even actual decay.
A hundred years ago canals and roads occupied the
pla~e now held by railways and tramways. As yet gas
was not, the electric light had not been so much as
imagined, and petroleum was equally unthought of; still
less were the improvements in steam and navigation in
any way anticipated. We cannot tell whether equally
revolutionary inventions may not be at hand, changing
the uses and powers of the metals and of innumerable
agricultural products, and giving an entirely new direc-
tion to different industries and different groups. To
stereotype the present conditions by using artificial
means to maintain industries which appear to our short-
sighted ideas indispensable, but which may be the least
fitted to survive. cannot but be the extremest foIly.
Even if we knew more exactly than is possible what is
coming, we should have no power to prevent the sub-
stantial changes. but we cannot even look forward for
a single generation. The members of the community
acting individuaIly wiII adapt themselves to the new
circumstances almost without knowing, the time their
legislatures and governments would be plunging widely
if they took the matter in hand.
There is nothing accordingly in the fair· trade ideas
and suggestions to alter the view we have taken of the
economic outlook. They are quite irrelevant in reality
to the question of economic development. There is no
reason consequently why we should not look forward
cheerfuIIy, basing our antici{>ations on the continuation
of a natural evolution to which there appears as yet no
siQ'n of a check. Possibly disturbance may come if by
.r;y chance our governments should be foolish enough
to let fair-trade nostrums have a trial. But there is
reaIly little fe.ar: I imagine: that fair:tr'~de ~i1l. ever get
so far, while It IS also pOSSible that If It dId. Its power