38 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS. 



dustries : they will not stop it ; it is unavoidable. For 

 each new-comer the first steps only are difficult But, 

 as soon as any industry has taken firm root, it calls into 

 existence hundreds of other trades ; and as soon as the 

 first steps have been made, and the first obstacles have 

 been overcome, the industrial growth goes on at an 

 accelerated rate. 



The fact is so well felt, if not understood, that the 

 race for colonies has become the distinctive feature of 

 the last twenty years. Each nation will have her own 

 colonies. But colonies will not help. There is not 

 a second India in the world, and the old conditions 

 will be repeated no more. Nay, some of the British 

 colonies already threaten to become serious competitors 

 with their mother country ; others, like Australia, will 

 not fail to follow the same lines. As to the yet neutral 

 markets, China will never be a serious customer to 

 Europe : she can produce much cheaper at home ; and 

 when she begins to feel a need for goods of European 

 patterns she will produce them herself. Woe to Europe 

 if the day that the steam engine invades China she is 

 still relying on foreign customers! As to the African 

 half-savages, their misery is no foundation for the well- 

 being of a civilised nation. 



Progress is in another direction. It is in producing 

 for home use. The customers for the Lancashire cot- 

 tons and the Sheffield cutlery, the Lyons silks and the 

 Hungarian flour-mills, are not in India nor in Africa. 

 They are amidst the home producers. No use to send 

 floating shops to New Guinea with German or British 

 millinery when there are plenty of would-be customers 

 for British millinery in these very islands, and for 

 German goods in Germany. And, instead of worrying 

 our brains by schemes for getting customers abroad, 

 it would be better to try to answer the following 

 questions: Why the British worker, whose industrial 

 capacities are so highly praised in political speeches; 



