| 1880 | 1881 | 1882 | 1883 | 1884 | 1885 | 1886 | 1887 | 1888 | 1889 | 1890 | 1891 | 1892 | 1893 | 1894 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brit. Imports | 348 | 334 | 348 | 362 | 327 | 313 | 294 | 303 | 324 | 360 | 356 | 373 | 360 | 346 | 350 |
| Brit. Exports | 223 | 234 | 242 | 240 | 233 | 213 | 213 | 222 | 234 | 249 | 263 | 247 | 227 | 218 | 216 |
| Ger. Imports | 141 | 148 | 156 | 163 | 163 | 147 | 144 | 156 | 165 | 201 | 208 | 208 | 202 | 199 | 198 |
| Ger. Exports | 145 | 149 | 160 | 164 | 160 | 143 | 149 | 157 | 160 | 158 | 166 | 159 | 148 | 155 | 148 |
These figures may be illustrated diagrammatically as follows:—
WOULD PROTECTION HELP US?
So far, therefore, as Germany is concerned, Protection has been, for the general ends for which it was intended, a complete failure. Is there any reason to believe that it would be more successful in Great Britain? Every consideration of common sense points the other way. What Germany had to do was to build up comparatively new industries, in face of the overwhelming competition of Great Britain. In some instances she has been successful, and in some instances it is possible that Protection may have helped her by giving particular manufacturers an advantage in their home market at the expense of the whole German nation. But in England we have no such task to undertake. Our industries are already established; our wares are already known in every quarter of the globe; it is our competition that every other manufacturing country dreads. Nor is that the only difference. In Germany and in France and in the United States it is the home market that Protectionist manufacturers and Protectionist statesmen are anxious to secure. All their efforts are directed towards preventing their own citizens from purchasing British or other foreign goods. But with us the home market is not the primary consideration. Our business is with the whole world: our customers are of every race and colour from the patient Chinaman to the restless New Englander, from the supple Bengalee to the African savage. If we can keep their custom we need have no fear of our power to satisfy the wants of our own countrymen.
ON WHAT SHALL WE LAY A TAX?
It is, indeed, just because the advance of Germany in a few limited directions has scared some people into the belief that we are losing our foreign trade, that such books as Mr. Williams’s “Made in Germany” are written. The whole point of their lament is that Germany is ousting us from neutral markets. Assume that it is so—though it is not—what then? How will Protection help us to maintain the hold we are said to be losing? All that Protection can do is to make more difficult the entry of foreign goods into our own country. But what are the foreign goods that enter our country? Four-fifths at least are food or the raw materials of manufacture. In support of this statement I must refer the reader to the Custom House returns to make his own classification. After going through the figures carefully I arrive at the following rough result for 1895:—
| Million £’s. | |
|---|---|
| Food and Drink | 177 |
| Raw Materials | 163 |
| Manufactured Goods | 76 |
| Total Imports | 416 |
Colonel Howard Vincent, I see, puts the total of manufactured goods at 80 millions. His figure will serve as well as mine. Either shows clearly enough the character of the great mass of our imports. On which of the two main branches, on food or on raw materials, do the Protectionists propose to levy a tax? It is a strange way of helping our manufacturers in their struggle for the markets of the world to impose additional taxation on the food of their workpeople or on the raw materials of their industry.