,^4<^ KXTKIliXt !1.\1 !• XT (»K IXDlSTin'. 



enjoy a secure and |)rotital)le market. Public <)])ini()n in dreat 

 Britain has encouraged competition in price to the widest hmits, 

 with the resuh that prohts have been reduced to the narrowest 

 h"mits. The one abidinj:^- concern of the Government, ltx:al 

 authorities and private buyers, has been to force jirices down to 

 the lowest possible point short of driving the manufacturer to 

 give up the business in despair. What matters as long as the 

 prices are low? The average English and South African buyer 

 cares nothing for the quality of goods or the wages of the pro- 

 ducers. At the same time they expect the British or Colonial 

 manufacturer to be as ])rogressive on a 5 ])er cent, margin as 

 the American or (ierman manufacturer is on a 10 or 15 per 

 cent, margin. They expect him cheerful!}' to scraj) ])lant with 

 many years of useful life, to spend money continually on re- 

 organising his factories, to make increasing concessions to his 

 workpeo])le, to endow research which ma\- l)ring only a distant 

 reward in cash, to employ a staff of experts in devising new 

 processes which involve fresh capital and fresh speculation, and 

 to lavish money on commercial development in. all jjarts of the 

 world. In a word, they expect the manufacturer to spend money, 

 while they conspire to prevent him making it. Investigations 

 re(|uire a large and s])eculative outlay of money, and the Ameri- 

 can and (Jerman industries, with their entrenched markets and 

 other advantages, were the only ones who could afford it. 



Money is the sinews of trade. Theoretically, everyone ad-r 

 mits the truth of this summary statement ; everyone agrees that 

 it is obvious. The time has now come to act upon it. There 

 must be an end to the worship of the lowest possible i)rice at al! 

 costs. No industrial progress can t)ccur — no founding i;)f new 

 industries, no renewal of old enterprises, no capture of (Germany's 

 trade — if the Cio\ernment, the labour leader, and the consumer 

 in general do not realise that the fair ])ricc for commodities 

 must allow a margin for the cost of research, develoiMiient, edu- 

 cation, and tlie oilu-r constructive enter])rises which are now 

 demanded of the manufacturer. And in addition to these argu- 

 ments for the comnumal benetits of ample ])rolits, we have the 

 siniiile economic tact that out of dixidehds come the resources 

 which later appear as capital. " Xo profits, n^) capital," is another 

 «ib\ioii'> I null which is again and again flouted in ])ractice. 



'i'luTc ha> been too great a tendenc\ in the past in South 

 Africa to subordinate all considerations to the one of the lowest 

 possible ])rice. The low grade mines ha\e encouraged it, and 

 received sub>iantial benefits in the form of remission of revenue, 

 which has conse(|Uently to fall on other shoulders. The im])ort- 

 ers and merchants have raised it as a fetish to be worshipped un- 

 <|ueslioningly, declaring in tlieir self-iiuerested blindness that 

 South Africa could never be ;ui\ thing bin a iiiiiiiiuj, pastoral and 

 affriiiilliiral coiiiilry. and that those iiuerc-t-^ were best ser\ed 

 by a i)olicy of I'rce Trade. That is precisely what was ^aid by 

 the ^ame class of people in .\ustralia, but every single .State 

 in the ( ■onnnonwealth has seen through their s])ecious arguments, 



