GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. 309 



of foreign manufactured or partially manufactured goods into Great 

 Britain has increased since 1870, at " a slightly more rapid rate " than 

 the increase of its population, having been £1*97 per head in the 

 period 1870-'74, and £2-35 per head in the period 1880-'84. The 

 extent of the injury to British interests from these changes in the con- 

 ditions of the world's trade, does not, however, appear to have been as 

 great as might have been anticipated, or as is popularly supposed ; and 

 very curiously has manifested itself in a reduction of profits, rather 

 than in any reduction of the volume of British trade ; the value of 

 British exports to the six protectionist countries of the world — the 

 United States, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, and Italy — having 

 been larger during the years 1880-'84 than in any quinquennial 

 period of British history, with the exception of the period from 1870- 

 '74, when British trade is known to have been abnormally inflated. It 

 is also not a little interesting to note that the countries of the world in 

 which, according to the most recent and accepted statistics, the ratio 

 of wealth and the ratio of foreign commerce to the population are the 

 greatest, are Holland and Great Britain, the two states that have eman- 

 cipated themselves in the greatest degree from all restrictions on the 

 interchange of products with foreign nations — the customs revenue of 

 the former amounting to about one per cent on her imports, and that 

 of the latter to about five and a half per cent.* In India, also, where 

 there are few artificial restrictions on the freedom of exchange, inter- 

 nal trade, manufactures, and foreign commerce have increased in an 

 extraordinary degree within recent years, and the wages of skilled 

 labor have also, at the same time, notably advanced. 



An analysis of the comparative values of the export trade of the 

 nations of Europe during the five years from 1880 to 1885 — a period 

 of intense struggle for the domination of the world's markets — affords 

 the following interesting results : In cotton and woolen yarns and dry- 

 goods, England has strengthened her position ; in iron and steel goods, 

 her share of the world's trade has increased from 64*2 to 66"5 per cent ; 

 while in machinery her exports have been pushed up from 66*7 to 69*1 

 per cent. In glass and glass goods England's percentage remained 

 constant, while that of France and Belgium declined. Germany in- 

 creased her exports of glass and glassware, and also very largely of 

 paper, and slightly of machinery, losing ground in respect to the ex- 

 portation of iron and steel goods, in common with France and Austria. 



* It is popularly believed that ihe per -capita wealth of the people of the United States, 

 which the census of 1880 fixed at $860 — but which, allowing for duplications, is prob- 

 ably not over §500 — is greater than that of any other people. This, however, is not the 

 fact; the ratio of wealth to each Inhabitant in Great Britain being $1,245, and in Hol- 

 land, $1,200. The wealth of Holland, moreover, doubled in the twenty years next prior 

 to 1880, while the gain in population of the country during the same period was com- 

 paratively insignificant. In respect to commerce, the ratio to each inhabitant, in 1880, 

 was $150 in Holland, as compared with $91 for Great Britain, and $32 for the United 

 States. 



