President of the Economic section, stated plainly that 'the days of
great trade profits in England were over, and there was a pause in the
progress of several great branches of industrial labour. _The country
might almost be said to be entering the non-progressive state_.'

"But what is to be the consequence? Capitalist production _cannot_
stop. It must go on increasing and expanding, or it must die. Even
now, the mere reduction of England's lion's share in the supply of the
world's markets means stagnation, distress, excess of capital here,
excess of unemployed workpeople there. What will it be when the
increase of yearly production is brought to a complete stop?

"Here is the vulnerable place, the heel of Achilles, for capitalistic
production. Its very basis is the necessity of constant expansion,
and this constant expansion now becomes impossible. It ends in a
deadlock. Every year England is brought nearer face to face with the
question: either the country must go to pieces, or capitalist
production must. Which is it to be?

"And the working-class? If even under the unparalleled commercial and
industrial expansion, from 1848 to 1866, they have had to undergo such
misery; if even then the great bulk of them experienced at best but a
temporary improvement of their condition, while only a small,
privileged, 'protected' minority was permanently benefited, what will
it be when this dazzling period is brought finally to a close; when
the present dreary stagnation shall not only become intensified, but
this, its intensified condition, shall become the permanent and normal
state of English trade?

"The truth is this: during the period of England's industrial monopoly