142 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS 
THe EFFECT OF STRIKES OR A RISE IN WAGES IN Foop- 
Propucine AND Foop-LACKING CoUNTRIES. 
But the difference in the purchasing power of the English 
breadwinner is not the only disadvantage. Her purchasing 
power is also not merely limited by the extent of the market 
for her manufactures, but upon her success in underselling 
foreign rivals who are also by necessity compelled to exchange 
manufactures for the prime necessaries of raw products of food 
and clothing ; and hence her success depends either upon her 
superiority in skill and local appliances, or in cheapness or 
extending the hours of labour. It is a necessity that a manufac- 
turing country must produce cheaply, and necessity will force 
her to attain this end by extending the hours of the labourer 
without extra recompense, should other means fail her as a 
competitor for the bread and raw products of food-producing 
countries. Strikes and combinations among workmen are only 
of value to them within very narrow limits. For let us suppose 
that England’s supremacy as a manufacturing country depends 
upon her present power to undersell rival countries to the extent 
of 15 per cent., it would then follow that any xominal success 
attaimed by the combined strikes of her workmen, thereby 
improving their hours of labour or rates of wages to the extent 
of, say, 16 to 20 per cent. would be altogether disastrous, for it 
would destroy the competitive power of England as a manufacturer 
for other countries than her own. But if England was thus shut 
within herself there would probably be no employment whatever, 
and no means of subsistence for perhaps 20 millions of her present 
population of 38 millions. This would be a terrible result arising 
out of the success of combined strikes among her manufacturing 
workmen: 
That an increase of the cost of her products to the extent of 
what has been indicated is not a very improbable matter 
springing from strikes has been foreshadowed by the recent 
combination among English dock labourers, who succeeded in 
having their rate of wages raised 2d. per Hotirs As the average 
rate of workmen in Brgland is only 4-?°d, per hour, a general 
increase of 13d. per hour would raise the cost of wages 35- vivper 
cent. ; and as the price of labour is the chief item of cost in all 
manufactures, it is not improbable that the ultimate cost of her 
manufactures would be raised 20 per cent., thus cutting her off 
from her previous advantage, which enabled her successfully to 
outrival all other countries in supplying the external markets of 
the world with manufactures. 
In countries where food and raw products are or can be produced 
far in excess of local requirements, the effect of prohibitive tariffs 
in raising local prices would not have a similar effect. If the 
cost of living would be xominally raised thereby, it would be 
