o 



52 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



of a commodity incluJos cost, charges and profits; but however 

 profound may be the knowledge of the gentlemen who dabble 

 in national statistics and parade before a wondering world 

 whole battalions of statistical statements, they can never prove 

 that the Indian ryot who buries his savings in Mother Earth, 

 or the astute American farmer who sells his hundred dollars' 

 worth of wheat to his English cousin across the water, take 

 from this country an exact equivalent value in British goods. 

 The thing is impossible of proof, and however proud we may be 

 of our economic science, our statistical knowledge, and of 

 our many 'isms and 'ologics, no " scientist " will ever be able 

 to prove to anybody's satisfaction that the foreigner, who sells 

 us a quarter of wheat, or a hundred fowls' eggs, invests his 

 profits in this country or takes in exchange for them an exact 

 equivalent value of British goods. 



FOEEIGNERS BUY FROM US LESS THAN THEY SelL 



Nor would such a contention find any support from the 

 national statistics themselves; indeed, these would appear to 

 prove the contrary, inasmuch as our imports largchj exceed our 

 exports. Here are the figures for 1907 : Imports, £645,807,942 ; 

 Exports, £426,035,083 ; * and when it is officially declared 

 that we import £127,000,000 worth of goods annually more 

 than we export, it can be well understood that those who 

 supply us with the enormous total of our imported foods have 

 ample scope of buying from us less than they send us. Briefly 

 — the foreign countries do not buy from us as much as they 

 sell us, nor are their profits on the £170,000,000 worth of 

 agricultural produce, which we buy from them annually, in- 

 vested in this country. 



If, on the other hand, we produce this stupendous amount 

 of food-stuffs in our own country, it follows that the profits 

 accruing from so great an industry would be invested and re- 

 invested in and among our own commercial enterprises. In 

 addition to this the numerous suhsidiarg industries which 

 must necessarily spring out of so universal a system of 

 agriculture, would, in combination with this intelligible factor, 

 play so important a part in stimulating our own trades and 

 manufactures that extra supplies of raw and semi-manufactured 

 material from foreign countries would have to be imported to 

 meet the increased and growing local demand. The extent of 

 this new, and yet perfectly intelligible, demand is impossible to 



* Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom. Cd. 4258 : 1908. 



