68 THE DECENTRALISATION 



1906 the exports were similar to those of 1873 ; 

 and they were better still in 1911, which was a 

 year of an extraordinary foreign trade, when 

 7,041,000,000 yards of stuffs and 307,000,000 Ib. 

 of yarn were exported : the two being valued at 

 163,400,000. However, it was especially the 

 yarn which kept the high prices, because it is 

 the finest sorts of yarn which are now exported. 

 But the great profits of the years 1873-1880 

 are irretrievably gone. 



We thus see that while the total value of the 

 exports from the United Kingdom, in proportion 

 to its growing population, remains, broadly 

 speaking, unaltered for the last thirty years, the 

 high prices which could be got for the exports 

 thirty years ago, and with them the high profits, 

 are gone. And no amount of arithmetical cal- 

 culations will persuade the British manufacturers 

 that such is not the case. They know perfectly 

 well that the home markets grow continually 

 overstocked ; that the best foreign markets are 

 escaping ; and that in the neutral markets 

 Britain is being undersold. This is the un- 

 avoidable consequence of the development of 

 manufactures all over the world. (See Ap- 

 pendix J.) 



Great hopes were laid, some time ago, in Aus- 

 tralia as a market for British goods ; but 

 Australia will soon do what Canada already 



