THE INTERNATIONAL STRUGGLE FOR 

 MANUFACTURES AS ILLUSTRATED 

 BY THE HISTORY OF THE ALUM 

 TRADE 1 



By RHYS JENKINS, M.I. Mech. Engineers 



Modern industry has grown into an organisation of a most 

 complex structure. The development has been facilitated by 

 the low cost of sea transport ; nations have become inter- 

 dependent industrially to an increased degree, the accessories 

 required for carrying on the staple industry of one country may 

 be manufactured elsewhere, and similarly the utilisation of the 

 bye-products of an industry in one country may be the subject 

 of an important manufacture in another. This condition of 

 affairs, although it may facilitate production on the large scale 

 and tend to cheapness in the manufactured article, does not 

 necessarily conduce to the development of a particular nationality. 

 We are told that exports must be paid for by imports, but if 

 the exports be raw materials or partly finished goods, and the 

 imports are manufactured articles in a finished condition, it is 

 clear that the nationals of a foreign state have been doing work 

 which should be done at home. We ourselves are mere hewers 

 of wood and drawers of water, while the skilled and highly-paid 

 artisan carries on his occupation in, and helps to build up, the 

 foreign state, and the well-being of our own people stands on 

 a lower plane. 



Moreover, in so far as a nation depends upon foreign sources 

 of supply for its manufactures, so far is its economic life at the 

 mercy of circumstances over which it has no, or but an incomplete, 

 control. 



It behoves us then to utilise ourselves to the fullest extent 

 the natural productions of our own country and in particular to 



1 Although this paper has a distinct bearing upon some of the problems which 

 have become prominent in consequence of the war, it may be explained that it 

 was undertaken in response to a suggestion made by the Editor in June, and has 

 been written quite irrespectively of the conditions of the moment. 



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