ABSTRACT
The conflict of interests which Free Traders foresaw and feared has been engendered in no uncertain manner. It is a human tendency to confuse one's personal interests with the interests of one's company or industry, and the interests of one's company or industry with the national interests. So it is perhaps not extraordinary that almost every manufacturer and farmer who has foreign competition to face is convinced that it is in the national interest that his production should be protected. It is a natural corollary that such people are incapable of seeing "the other man's" point of view and fail entirely to appreciate the objections of the user and consumer whose interests demand an untaxed supply. Supplies forwarded from the coastal ports to London are predominantly of a very inferior quality. Home supplies were quite inadequate to meet the huge demand although remarkable progress had been made under Free Trade in recent years.
