Are we quite sure that it pays us as well as that now? And if it does pay as well as that now, can we hope that it will go on paying as well for any length of time.
In the early days of our great trade the commercial school wished Britain to be the "workshop of the world"; and for a good while she was the workshop of the world.
But now a change is coming. Other nations have opened world-workshops, and we have to face competition.
France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, and America are all eager to take our coveted place as general factory, and China and Japan are changing swiftly from customers into rival dealers.
Is it likely, then, that we can keep all our foreign trade, or that what we keep will be as profitable as it is at present?
During the last few years there have emanated from the Press and from Chambers of Commerce certain ominous growlings about the evils of Trade Unionism. What do these growls portend? Much the same thing as the mutterings about the need for lowering wages.
Do we not remember how, when the colliers were struggling for a "living wage," the Press scolded them for their "selfishness"? The Press declared that if the colliers persisted in having a living wage we should be beaten by foreign competitors and must lose our foreign trade.
That is what is hanging over us now. A demand for a general reduction of wages. That is the end of the fine talk about big profits, national prosperity, and the "workshop of the world." The British workers are to emulate the thrift of the Japanese, the Hindoos, and the Chinese, and learn to live on boiled rice and water. Why? So that they can accept lower wages and retain our precious foreign trade.
Yes; that is the latest idea. With brutal frankness the workers of Britain have been told again and again that "if we are to keep our foreign trade the British workers must accept the conditions of their foreign rivals."