The Project Gutenberg EBook of Are we Ruined by the Germans?, by Harold Cox This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Are we Ruined by the Germans? Author: Harold Cox Release Date: February 3, 2010 [EBook #31163] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARE WE RUINED BY THE GERMANS? *** Produced by Irma Spehar, Markus Brenner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) ARE WE RUINED BY THE GERMANS? BY HAROLD COX, FORMERLY SCHOLAR OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. Republished from the “Daily Graphic” for the Cobden Club. CASSELL and COMPANY, Limited: LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE. PREFACE. The greater part of the contents of this little volume appeared originally in the Daily Graphic, in the form of a series of six articles written in criticism of Mr. Ernest Williams’s “Made in Germany.” To these articles Mr. Williams replied in two letters, and to that reply I made a final rejoinder. In the present reproduction this sequence has been abandoned. For the convenience of readers, and for the economy of space, I have anticipated in the text all of Mr. Williams’s objections which appeared to me to have any substance, and, in addition, I have modified or omitted phrases, in themselves trivial, upon which he had fastened to build elaborate but unsubstantial retorts. By doing this I have been able to preserve the continuity of my argument and at the same time to cut down a somewhat lengthy rejoinder into a brief concluding chapter. Incidentally a few new points and some further figures have been added to the articles. This arrangement, unfortunately, deprives Mr. Williams’s reply of most of its original piquancy; but, in order that my readers may have an opportunity of seeing what the author of “Made in Germany” was able to say for himself, his letters are reprinted verbatim in an Appendix. I am indebted to the proprietors of the Daily Graphic for their courteous permission to republish the articles, and to the Committee of the Cobden Club for undertaking the republication. I have only to add that the opinions expressed throughout are my own, and that the Cobden Club does not necessarily endorse every one of them. H. C. Gray’s Inn, December, 1896. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I.— Our Expanding Trade 1 II.— Germany: One of Our Best Customers 8 III.— Picturesque Exaggerations 14 IV.— More Misrepresentations 21 V.— Our Growing Prosperity 33 VI.— Let Well Alone 43 VII.— Conclusion 54 APPENDIX 57 Are we Ruined by the Germans? CHAPTER I. Our Expanding Trade. In a little book recently published, an attempt is made to show that British trade is being knocked to pieces by German competition, that already the sun has set on England’s commercial supremacy, and that if we are not careful the few crumbs of trade still left to us will be snapped up by Germany. This depressing publication, aptly entitled “Made in Germany,” has received the quasi-religious benediction of an enterprising and esoteric journalist, and the puff direct from a sportive ex-Prime Minister. Thus sent off it is sure to be widely circulated, and, being beyond dispute well written, to be also widely read. Unfortunately—such is the nature of the book—it cannot be so widely criticised. It consists largely of quoted statistics and deductions therefrom, and few readers will have the means at hand for verifying the many figures quoted, while fewer still will have the patience to compare them with other figures which the author omits to mention. As a necessary consequence, a large number of persons will believe that Mr. Williams has proved his case, and some of them will jump to the conclusion, which is evidently the conclusion to which Mr. Williams himself leans, that the only way to prevent the commercial downfall of our country is to reverse the Free Trade policy which we deliberately adopted fifty years ago. THE ART OF EXAGGERATION. [1] That may or may not be a wise thing to do, but at least let us be certain before taking action, or before taking thought which is preliminary to action, that we know our facts, and all our facts. The second point is as important as the first. On hastily reading Mr. Williams’s book for the first time, my impression was that he had only erred by overlooking facts which told on the other side. On general grounds, considering the signs of prosperity on every side, it seemed to me impossible that the condition of our foreign trade could be so bad as the author of “Made in Germany” paints it. A cursory glance at a few staple figures convinced me that my general impression was a sound one, that our trade was not going to the dogs, and that Mr. Williams had only succeeded in producing so gloomy a picture by fixing his gaze on the shadows and shutting his eyes to the sunlight. On this supposition I began a more critical examination of his book, not with a view to refuting his positive statements, but with a view to showing that in spite of the ugly facts which he had, on the whole usefully, brought to light, there were counterbalancing considerations from which we might draw, at any rate, partial consolation. This I propose to do, but in addition I shall be able to show that many of Mr. Williams’s alleged ugly facts are not in reality so ugly as he makes them look, and that what he has done, in his eagerness to prove his case, is to so choose his figures and so phrase his sentences as to convey in particular instances an entirely false impression. How this is done will be shown in detail later on. For the present it is sufficient to state that it is done, and that some of the most alarmist statements in “Made in Germany” will not bear critical examination. In a word, the author, in his polemical zeal, has sinned both sins—he has suggested the false and he has omitted the true; he has misrepresented, in particular instances, the facts to which he refers, and he has not referred at all to facts which refute his general argument. THE WHOLE TRUTH. It is with these that I propose first to deal, with the facts which show that our trade is in a very healthy condition, and that though Germany is also doing well and hitting us hard in some trades, there is no reason to believe that her prosperity is, on the whole, injuring us. And to guard myself, at the outset, against a temptation to which Mr. Williams has frequently succumbed—the temptation of picking out years peculiarly favourable to my argument—I propose to take the last ten or the last fifteen years, for which statistics are available, and to give wherever possible the figures for each year in the whole period. The figures that will be here quoted are all taken from official records, except when otherwise stated. OUR TOTAL TRADE FOR TEN YEARS. The first point to attack is the question of the total import and export trade of the United Kingdom. The figures are contained in the following table:— Ten Years’ Trade of the United Kingdom (Exclusive of Bullion and Specie). In Millions Sterling. 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 Total Imports 350 362 388 428 421 435 423 405 408 417 Total Exports 269 281 299 316 328 309 292 277 274 286 Excess of Imports over Exports 81 81 89 112 93 126 132 128 134 131 These figures may be illustrated as follows:— Ten Years' Trade (By permission of the Proprietors of the “Daily Graphic.”) These figures hardly bear out the statement that “commercial dry rot,” to use one of Mr. Williams’s favourite phrases, has already laid hold of us. In spite of the fall in prices, the money value of our trade, both import and export, has fully maintained its level. It is true that the year 1886, with which the diagram starts, was a year of depression, but the point which I wish to bring out by the diagram is not that 1895 was a better year than 1886, but that the general course for the whole period of ten years shows no downward tendency. Later on I shall give a diagram, covering a period of fifteen years, which brings out the same point even more clearly. It is important, however, at once to point out that the mere comparison of the money totals of our trade in different years is necessarily inconclusive, because no account is taken of prices. To get a true comparison between any two years, say 1895 and 1890, we ought to calculate what the [2] [3] [4] value of our trade in 1895 would have been if each separate commodity had been sold at the prices of 1890. Were this done, it would probably be found that 1895, instead of showing a decline, would show an immense advance. A similar comparison has been privately worked out in one of the Government offices for the years 1873 and 1886 with startling results, which I am permitted to quote. It must be premised that only certain articles are entered in our returns by quantity as well as by value, and it is therefore only between these that such a comparison as I have indicated can be made. In 1873, the total declared value of our exports of these articles was 172 millions sterling; in 1886, it was 131 millions, showing an apparent fall of 41 millions. But if these exports of 1886 had been declared at the prices of 1873 the total value would have been 215 millions. In this sense, then, our aggregate trade in these commodities in 1886, instead of being 41 millions worse than 1873, was 43 millions better. This is undoubtedly an extreme illustration, for the prices of 1873 were exceptionally high, and those of 1886 exceptionally low. Nevertheless, the illustration is most instructive as showing how extremely misleading it may be to compare values only, without taking account of quantities. Unfortunately, when we are dealing with the total trade of a country, a comparison of values is the only comparison possible, for there is no other common denominator by means of which varied articles—say, steam ploughs, cotton piece-goods, and patent medicines—can be brought into our table. OUR IMPORTS OF GOLD AND SILVER. To return to our diagram—it may be asked, “How does it happen that there is such a large and growing excess of imports over exports? Surely that is a bad sign.” On the face of it, why should it be? It only means that we are, apparently, getting more than we give, and most people do not in their private relations regard that as a hardship. There are, however, people to be found who, seeing that we every year buy more goods than we sell, will jump to the conclusion that we must pay for the difference in cash. Where we are to get the cash from they do not pause to think. Hitherto the Welsh hills have resolutely refused to give up their gold in paying quantities, and as for the silver which we separate from Cornish lead, it is worth something less than £50,000 a year. The notion then that we pay for our foreign purchases with our own gold and silver may be dismissed at once, although a hundred years ago this same delusion had not a little influence in shaping our commercial policy. As a matter of fact, instead of sending gold and silver out of the country to pay for our excess of imports, we almost every year import considerably more bullion and specie than we export. The actual figures are given in the following table:— The Movements of Bullion and Specie. In Millions Sterling. 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 Imports Gold 12·9 10·0 15·8 17·9 23·6 30·3 21·6 24·8 27·6 36·0 Imports Silver 7·5 7·8 6·2 9·2 10·4 9·3 10·7 11·9 11·0 10·7 Exports Gold 13·8 9·3 14·9 14·5 14·3 24·2 14·8 19·5 15·6 21·4 Exports Silver 7·2 7·8 7·6 10·7 10·9 13·1 14·1 13·6 12·2 10·4 Total excess or deficiency of imports over exports of gold and silver together - + - + + + + + + + ·6 ·6 ·5 2·0 8·8 2·3 2·4 3·6 10·8 15·0 EXCESS OF IMPORTS OVER EXPORTS. The movements of gold and silver then, instead of helping to explain the excess of imports over exports, only increase the need for explanation. Happily, the explanation that can be given, though it cannot be statistical, is fully sufficient. It is fourfold. In the first place the Custom House returns do not include in the tables of exports the large export which we every year make of ships built to order for foreign buyers, so that our exports appear smaller than they really are by at least five millions a year. Secondly, an allowance must be made for the profit on our foreign trade. If, in return for every pound’s worth of British goods sent out from our ports, only a pound’s worth of foreign goods came back, our merchants would make a better living by selling penny toys along the Strand. What the average profit is on our foreign trade there is no means of knowing, but putting it as low as 10 per cent. on the double transaction, we at once account for some £30,000,000 sterling in the difference between our exports and imports. The third item in the explanation is the sum earned by British shipowners for carrying the greater part of the sea-commerce of the world. This sum has been estimated at £70,000,000 a year, but that is only a guess, and it is certainly a high one. Lastly, we have the enormous sum annually due to this country for interest on the money we have lent abroad. The amount of this annual payment can again only be guessed at, but it probably exceeds £100,000,000 a year. Adding then these four items together, and making every allowance for over-estimates, we not only account for the whole excess of imports over exports, but have a balance over, which means that we are still exporting capital to foreign countries. The capital we export goes out in the form of mining machinery to South Africa, steel rails to India, coal to South America; the interest due to us comes home in the form of American wheat, Argentine beef, Australian wool, Indian tea, South African diamonds. THE WORLD’S TRIBUTE. Of what do the Protectionists complain? Would they have us forego the interest we are owed? Apparently Mr. Williams would, for he says (page 19) that we ought not to spend all our income from foreign investments “in foreign shops.” How else, in the name of the Prophet, are we to receive all or any part of what is due to us from foreigners, [5] [6] whether it be due for interest on investments, or for goods carried, or for ships sold? Does Mr. Williams mean that we are to compel foreign nations to pay us a couple of hundred millions a year in actual gold and silver, and then dig a hole in the ground and sit on our hoard like an Indian cook who has saved money out of the perquisites of his profession? Gold and silver are useless to us beyond a very few millions every year; if more bullion were sent the market would reject it. If we are to be paid at all we must be paid in foreign commodities, and the mechanism of commerce enables us to select just those commodities which we most want. This is the whole story of our excess of imports over exports. Furthermore, that excess would be even greater than it is did we not every year send fresh millions abroad on loan to our Colonies and foreign countries, to produce in due course (it is to be hoped) additional hundreds of thousands in the way of interest. OUR ENTREPÔT TRADE. There is one other important point to be dealt with in considering the movement of our trade as a whole. It is this— that part of the enormous quantity of goods we import is not consumed by ourselves, but is re-exported to foreign countries or to our Colonies. For many reasons it is interesting to distinguish these re-exports from the exports of goods produced within the United Kingdom. The separate figures for the last fifteen years are given in the following table:— Our Entrepôt Trade and our Home Trade. In Millions Sterling. 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 Re-exports of Imported Goods 63 65 66 63 58 56 59 64 67 65 62 65 59 58 60 Exports of Home Produce 234 242 240 233 213 213 222 235 249 264 247 227 218 216 226 Total Exports 297 307 306 296 271 269 281 299 316 329 309 292 277 274 286 There is not much to grumble at in these figures. Our entrepôt trade, which was supposed to be slipping away, seems somewhat to halt in the process, in spite of the notorious and not entirely unpleasing fact that our Colonies are now doing a larger direct trade with foreign countries than ever before. At the same time the figures for the exports of our own goods are most satisfactory if we take into account the lower range of prices at which our manufacturers are now working. Altogether there is nothing in the general figures of our trade to justify the wild statements that “dry rot” has set in, and that “the industrial glory of England is departing.” CHAPTER II. Germany: One of Our Best Customers. In the previous chapter it was shown that the general figures of our import and export trade gave no indication of the ruin of our commerce either by Germans or by anybody else. In the present chapter it is proposed to show that though Germany is among the keenest of our trade competitors, she is also one of our best customers. For a sufficient indication of the truth of this proposition we have only to turn to the annual statement of the trade of the United Kingdom. It is true that the figures there published are not entirely satisfactory, because much of the trade of Germany is shipped from Dutch or Belgian ports, and credited to Holland and Belgium respectively. But this is probably also true, and to about the same extent, of British goods destined for Germany, and travelling viâ Belgium or Holland, so that in comparing imports and exports this factor may be neglected. The same cause of error will probably be also present to the same extent in successive years, so that we can ignore it when comparing one year with another. Purely for comparative purposes then the annexed table, and the diagram illustrating it, are sufficiently accurate, although the actual figures for any one year by itself have, for the reasons given, little positive value. Our Total Trade with German Ports. In Millions Sterling. 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 Imports from Germany 21·4 24·6 26·7 27·1 26·1 27·0 25·7 26·4 26·9 27·0 Exports to Germany 26·4 27·2 27·4 31·3 30·5 29·9 29·6 28·0 29·2 32·7 These figures may be illustrated diagrammatically as follows:— [7] [8] Total Trade with German Ports (By permission of the Proprietors of the “Daily Graphic.”) A VERY SATISFACTORY TRADE. These figures furnish a striking answer to the alarmists who can see in Germany nothing but a vigorous and not too scrupulous rival. In every year during the last ten years she has apparently bought more from us than she has sold to us. It is quite true that all the things she has bought from us were not produced or manufactured by us. A portion of her purchases consists of foreign or colonial goods sent to London, or Liverpool, or Hull, and there purchased for re-sale in Germany. But in the same way some of the goods we buy from Germany certainly had their origin in other countries, and have only passed through Germany on their way to us; so that the fairest way of making a comparison is to take the whole trade in each case. Moreover, this entrepôt trade of ours is not in itself a thing to be sneezed at; it contributes a goodly fraction of the wealth of the city of London. In order, however, to complete the picture of our trade with Germany, the following table is appended, distinguishing in each of the ten years under review the home produce exported from the foreign and colonial goods re-exported. This table shows that in purely British goods we are doing a very satisfactory trade with Germany. Taking averages, we see that during the ten years our export of our own manufactures and produce to German ports was at the rate of £17,800,000 a year, against a total import from German ports of £25,900,000, this figure including both German goods and other countries’ goods passing through Germany. If we recollect that on the whole our imports from the outside world must be very much larger than our exports, for the reasons detailed in the preceding chapter, it will be seen that these two figures, even by themselves, are not unsatisfactory. Analysis of our Trade with German Ports. In Millions Sterling. 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 British Goods exported to German ports 15·7 15·7 15·8 18·5 19·3 18·8 17·6 17·7 17·8 20·6 Foreign and Colonial Goods exported from British ports to German ports 10·6 11·5 11·6 12·8 11·2 11·1 12·1 10·3 11·4 12·2 OUR PRINCIPAL CUSTOMERS. Let us now go a step further and compare our trade with Germany and our trade with other principal customers. The comparison is worked out in the following table, which shows the total imports into the United Kingdom from the respective countries, and the total exports from the United Kingdom to the same countries:— Trade of the United Kingdom with the following Countries. Ten Years’ Average, in Millions Sterling, according to British Returns. Imports into U.K. Exports from U.K. From and to Germany 25·9 29·2 " " France 42·6 21·7 " " United States 91·8 40·2 " " British India 30·5 31·3 " " Australasia 28·3 23·1 " " British North America 12·2 8·4 These figures are taken from the British Custom House returns, and are subject to the objection to which allusion has already been made, that the Custom House authorities have no means of ascertaining the real origin of goods entering this country, nor the real destination of goods leaving it. Thus, for example, everyone knows that there is a considerable trade between Great Britain and Switzerland, yet Switzerland has no place at all in the Custom House returns, because, having no seaboard, all her goods must pass through foreign territory, and each package is credited by our Customs [9] [10] [11] House to the port—French, or Belgian, or Dutch—through which the package passes to England. In order, therefore, to provide some check on the above figures, I have averaged in the same way the figures collected by the different foreign countries in their Customs Houses. These foreign and colonial figures have no more title to be considered absolutely accurate than ours, nor do they cover quite the same ground. Their value lies in the rough confirmation they give of the very rough conclusion which we are able to draw from our own figures:— Trade of the following Countries with the United Kingdom. Ten Years’ Average, in Millions Sterling, according to Foreign and Colonial returns. Exports to U.K. Imports from U.K. Germany 29·1 26·6 France 38·2 22·0 United States 84·6 34·2 British India (Rx) 36·4 (Rx) 60·4 Australasia 28·5 27·2 British North America 10·5 9·1 These figures include treasure as well as merchandise. On the whole, these figures tally more closely with those derived from British returns than might have been expected, and if we make allowance for the fact that the Colonial figures include treasure, it will be seen that both tables show that Germany is our best customer after the United States and India. THE ALARMIST’S ARTS. In order to obscure this important fact, while alarming the British public with the notion that English manufacturers are being ruined by German competition, Mr. Williams picks out half a dozen or so items of our imports from Germany, and then exclaims in horror at the amount of “the moneys which in one year have come out of John Bull’s pocket for the purchase of his German-made household goods.” He prefaces his list with the unfortunate remark that the figures are taken from the Custom House returns, “where, at any rate, fancy and exaggeration have no play.” That is so; the fancy and exaggeration are supplied by Mr. Williams. In 1895, he says, Germany sent us linen manufactures to the value of £91,257. He omits, however, to mention that according to the same authority—the Custom House returns— the value of the linen manufactures which we sold to Germany was £273,795. Again, he mentions that we bought from Germany cotton manufactures to the value of £536,000, but he is silent on the fact that our sales to Germany amounted to £1,305,000. He does not even hesitate to pick out such a trumpery item as £11,309 for German embroidery and needlework, but he forgets to tell his readers that the silk manufactures which in the same year we sold to Germany were worth £92,000. In the same way, were it worth doing, one could go through the whole of Mr. Williams’s list, pitting one article against another. It would be labour wasted. The simple fact is that, according to the authority upon which Mr. Williams relies for all the figures just quoted, our total exports to Germany exceed our total imports from Germany, and no trickery with particular items can destroy, though it may obscure, that broad fact. A SELF-DESTRUCTIVE POLICY. But, for the reasons already explained, in replying to Mr. Williams I do not rely wholly on British figures. It is from the double testimony of British and foreign figures that I deduce the fact that of all our customers Germany is one of the best. The practical moral of this fact is sufficiently obvious. In private business a tradesman does not go out of his way to offend a good customer, even though that customer is also a keen trade competitor. He bestirs himself instead to keep ahead, if possible, of his rival without doing anything to destroy the mutually profitable trade relationship between them. Such palpable considerations of expediency are ignored by our latter-day Protectionists, among whom Mr. Williams deservedly ranks as a leading prophet. Their ambition is to induce the Colonies to discriminate in their tariffs between goods from the Mother Country and goods from foreign countries, admitting the former on favourable terms and penalising the latter. It is avowedly against German competition that this policy is directed, and we are light- heartedly told to risk our trade with one of our best customers on the chance of encouraging trade with Colonies which so far have shown much more eagerness to sell their goods to us than to buy ours. Even supposing that this policy succeeded in destroying the whole of the German export trade to our Colonies and Possessions, the possible gain to us would be very small. Here are the figures of the trade of our three principal Colonies with the United Kingdom and with Germany, derived in each case from the Colonial returns:— Trade of the following British Possessions with the United Kingdom and with Germany. Ten Years’ Average, in Millions Sterling or Millions Rx. Imports. Exports. From Germany. From U.K. To Germany. To U.K. India (Rx) ·9 58·4 3·8 36·4 [1] [1] [1] [1] [12] [13] Australasia ·9 27·4 ·7 28·2 Brit. N. America ·8 9·1 ·1 10·1 Thus these great groups of Colonies and Dependencies together buy rather less than £3,000,000 worth of German goods against more than £60,000,000 worth of British goods. Yet in order to crush this fractional competition of Germany in neutral markets, in order to scrape up these crumbs that have fallen from our table, we are invited to risk the loss of a direct trade with Germany worth nearly ten times as much as all the crumbs heaped up together. CHAPTER III. Picturesque Exaggerations. It has now been shown, first that there is nothing in the general figures of our import and export trade to warrant the alarmist view expressed in “Made in Germany,” and secondly, that the country whose rivalry is supposed to be ruining us is one of the best of all our customers. What I propose to do in the present chapter is to examine some of the detailed statements in Mr. Williams’s book and to show that in many cases the inferences he draws are so seriously exaggerated as to amount to a positive misrepresentation of the facts. For the purposes of this examination we cannot do better than begin with the chapter which Mr. Williams devotes to chemicals. “The chemical trade,” he tells us, “is the barometer of a nation’s prosperity.... The discomforting significance of the appearance of chemicals in this Black List of mine will, therefore, be at once apparent.” More follows about a “Bottomless pit for capital,” and “Germany seizing the occasion while England has let hers slide,” and so on. THE ALKALI TRADE. Thus much for generalities with regard to the chemical trade; now for details. Let us begin with alkalies, which Mr. Williams selects for special comment. He says:— “Here we are confronted with the damning fact that whereas fresh uses and (owing to the growth of manufactures abroad) fresh markets for alkali products are continually being found, the export of the greatest alkali trader of the world was last year of little more than half its value in the early seventies. Nor do the latest years show any sign of recuperation. The decline since 1891 has been continuous.... There is no question here of an insidious advance. The matter is simply that our trade has gone to the devil, while the Germans are piling up fortunes.” To the average reader this paragraph would certainly suggest that at least half our trade in alkali had already disappeared, and that the remainder would soon be gone to the devil or elsewhere. I have not verified Mr. Williams’s statement with regard to the early seventies, but it is quite sufficient to point to the course of the trade during the last fifteen years. Both quantities and values are given in the following table:— Exports of Alkali from the United Kingdom. 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 Quantities—million Cwts. 6·8 6·7 6·9 6·6 6·7 6·2 6·2 6·3 6·0 6·3 6·2 5·9 5·8 6·0 6·2 Values—million £’s 2·1 2·1 2·1 2·1 2·0 1·8 1·7 1·6 1·6 2·1 2·3 2·1 1·9 1·6 1·6 These figures show that our alkali trade has been on the whole remarkably steady, except for the slight ups and downs in successive years to which all trades are liable. To show these ups and downs more graphically, I have drawn the following diagram, covering the last ten years’ exports:— Diagram of the Quantities of British Alkali Exported. (By permission of the Proprietors of the “Daily Graphic.”) If the reader will examine this diagram and the more complete figures given above he will be able to see how completely misleading are Mr. Williams’s sensational statements about the British alkali trade. I do not for a moment deny that the German alkali trade has made remarkable progress; I only assert that there is no evidence that “our trade has gone to the devil.” [14] [15] CHEMICAL MANURES. We turn next to chemical manures. On this subject Mr. Williams remarks:— “Every farmer will testify to the exceeding value of these stuffs. ’Tis a modern means of fertilising the soil, and there can be no doubt that it has a very great future. Obviously then it is in the highest degree important that England should keep a firm hold of the trade. What, alas! is equally obvious is that England’s grip on it is relaxing, but that Germany is tightening hers.” It may be true—probably is true—that the industry of Germany is expanding in this as in almost every other branch of the chemical trades. It is also true that the value of chemical manures sent by Germany to this country—still only a quarter of what we send to Germany—is increasing. What is not true is the statement that England’s grip on the trade is “obviously relaxing.” The figures are given below. They do not look much like a relaxed grip. Exports of Chemical Manures from the United Kingdom. In Millions Sterling. 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1·8 2·0 2·2 2·1 1·7 1·6 1·6 1·8 2·1 2·1 2·1 2·1 2·3 2·3 1·9 The figures for the past ten years are illustrated in the following diagram:— Exports of Chemical Manures from the UK (By permission of the Proprietors of the “Daily Graphic.”) SOME SUPPOSITIONS ABOUT SALT. Salt is the next subject to which Mr. Williams turns. What he has to say about it is more picturesque than accurate:— “The story is worth study. The Salt Union was formed in England in 1889, and the manufacture of salt thereby converted into a big monopoly.... The directors reckoned without their Germany. They can make salt there, too. It is not so good as the Cheshire product, but it is salt, and it is much cheaper than that sold by the Salt Union. When that syndicate’s price went up the German manufacturers pushed into the world market, and that to a purpose which is strikingly illustrated in the case of our great Dependency. India needs much foreign salt, and the Indian ryot needs it cheap: for the salt he uses has to bear the burden of a tax. The natural result followed: German salt to a large extent ousted English from the Indian market.” Most impressive! if only it were true. So far as the world market is concerned, the figures below give no indications of the havoc alleged to have been wrought by the machinations of the Salt Union. Exports of British Salt. 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 Quantities—thousand tons 805 819 899 667 726 671 654 636 769 741 Values—thousand £’s 588 525 486 539 653 596 539 505 604 546 So far as India is concerned, Mr. Williams is doubly wrong. In the first place, German salt has not “to a large extent ousted English.” During the past five years—it was only in 1889 that the wicked Salt Union came into being—Indian imports of salt have been as follows:— Indian Imports of Salt. Thousands of Tons. Years ending March 31st. From U.K. From Germany. 1891 273 61 1892 222 103 1893 241 47 1894 269 48 1895 315 82 This does not look as if English salt were being ousted by German. In the second place, it is not true that German salt is much cheaper than Cheshire, at any rate so far as the Indian market is concerned. It will be found by reference to the [16] [17] Indian Blue Books that the price of German salt imported into India in 1894-5 works out to 17·6 rupees per ton, and the price of English salt only to 17·0 rupees per ton. In other words, German salt was of the two slightly the dearer. So much for the salt bogey which Mr. Williams had conjured up. CHEMICAL DYE STUFFS. We next pass to chemical dye stuffs. It is undoubtedly true that in this branch of manufacture Germany has gone ahead at a remarkable rate, and it is also probable that some of our manufacturers have allowed themselves to be passed in the race by neglecting the scientific methods which Germans employ. But that is no reason why Mr. Williams should exaggerate his case. In order to magnify the fall in our trade, if such there be, he picks out the year of highest export (1890) and says, Lo! since 1890 our export of dye stuffs has dropped from £530,000 to £473,000. One cannot tell whether this is a real drop in trade, or merely the consequence of a fall in price, but this we do know—that the value of our exports fluctuates largely from year to year, and that 1895 was a good average year. The figures for ten years are given below:— Values of Dye Stuffs Exported. 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 Thousands of £’s 483 499 469 492 531 524 443 452 415 473 FANCY SOAPS AND FANCY ASSERTIONS. The last point in Mr. Williams’s chapter on the chemical trades with which it is worth while to deal is what he says about soap:— “In the old days, when brown Windsor was a luxury, Englishmen washed with soap of English make; and those who could not afford ‘scented’ cleansed themselves with ‘yellow’ or ‘mottled.’ Thanks (partly) to Continental chemistry, we have changed all that.... The progress of practical chemistry has evidently reached a point at which the manufacture of agreeable toilet soaps at a low figure is possible. But why should this manufacture be so largely in foreign hands? They twit us with our debased fondness for the tub, and they do but add injury to insult when they send us soap for use therein. The Germans—a non-tubbing race—have not yet invaded the English soap market so victoriously as is their wont, though even here the Teuton hand may be discerned by the expert in forged trade marks.” If this paragraph means anything at all, it means that even in the soap industry our manufacturers are being beaten by the foreigner. To what extent foreign soap is imported into the United Kingdom it is impossible to ascertain, for no separate entry under that head is kept at the Custom House. But from the German Green Books one may learn that in 1895 Germany sent to Great Britain soap valued at £35,700. The amount sent by France may have been as much, and probably the United States also sent us a little. The total export of German soap to all parts of the world in 1895 was valued at £197,000. Now for the British side of the case! As to the total production and consumption of soap in this country, no figures are available, but everyone knows how enormous is the consumption of soap produced by English firms whose names are household words. In addition to their providing for the wants of probably ninety-nine out of a hundred of their own countrymen, our soap manufacturers do an enormous and rapidly growing business abroad. Here are the figures:— Exports of Soap from the United Kingdom. 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 Quantities—thous . cwts. 354 409 392 476 402 427 453 500 493 497 524 541 605 577 728 Values—thous . £’s. 398 458 450 548 472 447 452 482 503 534 571 586 644 621 757 The following diagram illustrates the almost continuous increase in the value of our soap exports during the last ten years:— (By permission of the Proprietors of the “Daily Graphic.”) Looking at the above figures, it will be seen that in the last six years alone we have added to our exports a sum greater than the total yet attained by Germany. Is it necessary to say more? What pessimistic madness could have led Mr. Williams to “black-list” such a splendidly-thriving and notoriously profitable industry as this, just because he finds a few thousand hundredweight of foreign soap creeping into the country? [18] [19] d d [20] CHAPTER IV. More Misrepresentations. Attention was called in the last chapter to some of the picturesque exaggerations—to use the mildest possible term—in which Mr. Williams had indulged in dealing with the chemical trades. We now pass to the two chapters which he devotes to the iron and steel and their “daughter trades.” And at the outset let it be clearly understood that I do not for a moment deny that in some of these trades the progress of Germany has been relatively more rapid than our own. A child, if it is to grow at all, must move faster than an adult. An infant four weeks old doubles its age in a month; an adult takes thirty or forty years to double his. Nor can we expect that the whole world will stand still while Great Britain goes on every year adding to her strength. All that I do argue is that the shooting-up of the German infant does us on the whole no harm, and that there is nothing whatever in the figures of our trade to suggest that full-grown England is approaching senile decay. “ICHABOD! OUR TRADE HAS GONE.” With this general prelude let us turn to what Mr. Williams has to say about the industries connected with iron and steel. He opens by referring to a visit of the English Iron and Steel Institute to Düsseldorf in 1880:— “And when the time of feasting and talk and sight-seeing was over, they returned to their native land, and there, in the fulness of time, they perused the fatuous reports of the British Iron Trade Association, which bade them sleep on, sleep ever. And they did as they were bid, until the other day, when they awoke to the fact that their trade was gone.” Another paragraph, headed “Ichabod!” begins:— “And now all that is changed. The world’s consumption (of iron) is greater than ever before. Yet our contribution in the years since 1882 has dropped at a rate well nigh unknown in the history of any trade in any land. From the 8,493,287 tons of 1882 pig iron has gone hustling down to the 7,364,745 tons of 1894.” Truly Mr. Williams is an ingenious person. By picking out the two years 1882 and 1894 he has cunningly obscured the fact that the production of pig iron, as of everything else, is subject to fluctuations, and that 1894, following worse years than itself, will in all probability be followed by better. Here are all the figures for the last fifteen years for which statistics are available, with the German figures set beside them:— Production of Pig Iron. In Millions of Tons. 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 In the United Kingdom 7·7 8·1 8·6 8·5 7·8 7·4 7·0 7·6 8·0 8·3 7·9 7·4 6·7 7·0 7·4 In Germany 2·7 2·9 3·4 3·5 3·6 3·7 3·5 4·0 4·3 4·5 4·7 4·6 4·9 5·0 5·4 These figures show that Germany has without doubt been rapidly gaining upon us, but it is the grossest exaggeration to say that our trade “has gone.” As a matter of fact the output of pig iron in the United Kingdom rose to 7·9 million tons in 1895, and—according to the Economist of November 11th—the estimated output for the present year (1896) is 8·7 million tons. If that figure is realised it will be the largest on record. So much for Mr. Williams’s “Ichabods,” and all his talk of departed glory! COMPARISONS SAID TO BE “ODIOUS.” Turning to another paragraph headed “Odious Comparisons,” we find— “Under the general heading of iron, wrought and unwrought, the returns of our German exports exhibit a fall from 374,234 tons in 1890 to 295,510 tons in 1895.... Of unenumerated iron manufactures Germany supplied us with 219,841 cwt. in 1890 and with 311,904 cwt. in 1895.” Had Mr. Williams taken the trouble to convert the German figures from cwts. into tons he might have found this comparison somewhat less “odious.” If we send Germany 295 thousand tons against 15 thousand tons she sends us, our iron manufacturers have not much to grumble at. But, as a matter of fact, no reliance can be placed upon these particular figures, because, as was pointed out in a previous chapter, much of the stuff that we get from Germany is credited in our Blue Books to Holland and Belgium, and these countries in the same way are debited with a large amount of British stuff that ultimately finds its way to Germany. Exactly the same causes of error vitiate the figures published in the German Green Books, and it may safely be asserted that there is no means of ascertaining with even approximate accuracy how much British iron and steel goes to Germany and how much German steel and iron comes to Great Britain. What can be ascertained is the total export of German iron from Germany to all parts of the world, and the total export of British iron from the United Kingdom to all parts of the world. This comparison, which is one of the best means of testing the relative progress of Great Britain and Germany, is worked out in the following table:— Iron and Steel Goods. In Millions of Tons, Metrical and British. [21] [22] [23] [A Metrical Ton = 2,204 lb.; a British Ton = 2,240 lb.] 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 Total Exports from Germany (Metrical Measure) ·8 ·7 ·8 ·8 ·7 ·7 ·6 ·8 ·8 ·8 ·9 Total Exports from Belgium (Metrical Measure) ·4 ·3 ·3 ·4 ·4 ·5 ·4 ·4 ·4 ·4 ·4 Total Exports from United Kingdom (British Meas.) 3·5 3·1 3·4 4·1 4·0 4·2 4·0 3·2 2·7 2·9 2·6 The above figures undoubtedly show a distinct decline in British exports of iron and steel, but they also show that that decline is not due to the increased invasion of our own or of neutral markets either by Germany or by Belgium. It is due to a decline which subsequent events have shown to be temporary in the world’s demand for iron and steel goods. Even were this decline permanent, it would not be the fault of our manufacturers, nor—except as a device for reducing their personal expenditure—is there any reason why these gentlemen should sit in sackcloth and ashes. STATISTICAL LEGERDEMAIN. We pass to the subject of shipbuilding. Mr. Williams is good enough to admit that England is actually at the head of the shipbuilding trade. But having made this admission, a pang of regret comes over him, and he tries to show that he is justified in putting even the British shipbuilding trade on his “black list.” This is his argument:— “In 1883 the total tonnage built in the United Kingdom was 892,216; in 1893 it reached only 584,674; in 1894, ’tis true, it rose to 669,492, but this is much below the total even of 1892, which was 801,548.” Again one can only admire Mr. Williams’s ingenuity. Reading his paragraph, who would dream that between the years so skilfully selected for comparison the trade had experienced an enormous drop, and afterwards, to all intents and purposes, completely recovered itself; that then a smaller drop had occurred, and that this in turn was being fast made good? The best way to expose the above piece of statistical legerdemain is to give without further comment the whole of the figures for the past fifteen years. They will be found in the following table. With figures such as these before him—and they must have been before him—it is astounding that Mr. Williams should have ventured to put shipbuilding on his black list. Fifteen Years of British Shipbuilding. Total Output of British and Irish Yards. In Thousands of Tons. 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 609 783 892 588 441 331 377 574 855 813 809 801 585 669 648 These figures may be illustrated as follows:— Fifteen Years of British Shipbuilding (By permission of the Proprietors of the “Daily Graphic.”) SHIPS BUILT FOR FOREIGNERS. But his perverse ingenuity does not end with the paragraph quoted. A few lines lower down he says:— “All these figures include vessels built for foreigners as well as those for home and the Colonies. The year in which we built most vessels for other nations was 1889, when we supplied them with 183,224 tons. The four following years showed a progressive decrease, getting down as low as 89,386 tons in 1893; and though 1894 showed an increase to 94,876 tons, their upward movement was slight compared with the successive decreases of the previous years.” The man who wrote these sentences obviously intended to convey to his readers the impression that our trade in the building of ships for foreign purchasers was a declining trade. That impression is false, and it is a little hard to understand how Mr. Williams could fail to see its falsity. The following figures show—what to most persons would be sufficiently obvious on reflection—that the tonnage of ships launched at our great yards varies largely from year to year. To pick out the year 1889, as Mr. Williams does, and declare that since that year there has been a decline in our sales to foreigners, is as grossly unfair as it would be, on the other hand, to pick out the year 1885, and say that since then there had been a fourfold increase. Ships Built by us for Foreigners. [24] [25] Thousands of Tons. 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 108 116 124 91 36 39 70 91 183 161 139 109 89 95 128 WAR-SHIPS FOR FOREIGNERS. The above figures include war-ships as well as merchant-ships built by us for foreigners, and, noting this fact, Mr. Williams is distressed to find what he calls a drop in our output of foreign war-ships. He writes:— “Still more remarkable is the drop in our supply of foreign war-ships from 12,877 tons in 1874 to 2,483 in 1894.” What is even more remarkable still is the fact that Mr. Williams should have dared to put such a statement before the public, knowing, as he must have known, how completely it misrepresents the truth. I wonder what he would have said of me if I had spoken of the remarkable growth in our output of foreign war-ships as evidenced by an increase from 14 tons in 1876 to 4,152 tons in 1895! Yet this statement would have been every bit as justifiable as his own. The whole truth of the matter of course is, that such an industry as the construction of foreign war-ships must vary enormously from year to year, and a comparison between any two single years can prove nothing, except the folly or the mala fides of the person who makes it. In order that the reader may see for himself the source from which Mr. Williams drew his “remarkable” statement, I append all the figures since 1870:— War Vessels Built for Foreigners. Years. Tons. Years. Tons. Years. Tons. 1870 970 1879 716 1888 1,899 1871 80 1880 385 1889 726 1872 40 1881 5,338 1890 3,437 1873 280 1882 447 1891 300 1874 12,877 1883 270 1892 2,792 1875 12,280 1884 2,339 1893 2,471 1876 14 1885 5,462 1894 2,483 1877 3,435 1886 840 1895 4,152 1878 2,482 1887 3,966 MACHINERY AND STEAM ENGINES. It is becoming monotonous to follow Mr. Williams in detail through his ingenious misrepresentations. I will therefore hastily pass over the many pages which he devotes to “black-listing” sundry iron and steel manufactures. His black list, which includes “steam engines,” “other machinery,” and “tools and implements” of industry, is arrived at by giving only the figures for 1890 onwards and ignoring the preceding years. The unfairness of this procedure need not be again pointed out. The figures for a decade, or for a longer period, show that trade moves up and down, and that a depression in one year or group of years is succeeded by an elevation a few years later. Throughout his book, in instances too numerous to be especially mentioned, Mr. Williams has persistently ignored this obvious fact. Again and ag...