“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!