814 REPORT— 1887. 



our own rate of growtli, except by cliecking foreig'n growth still more, whieli is not 

 the case we are considering, because the allegation is that foreign competition is 

 increasing at our expense. That I do not insist on this argument is not to be con- 

 sidered as a sign that it is dropped or that I am not fully sensible of its logical 

 completeness. It seems enough, at present, to fortify it by considerations from 

 actual practical facts which no one can dispute. 



The question of an increase of foreign competition from natural causes is more 

 difficult. It is beyond all question, as I have pointed out elsewhere, that foreign 

 competition in every direction from natural causes must continue to increase, and 

 that it has increased greatly in recent years. But when the facts are examined, it 

 does not appear that this competition has been the cause of a check to our own rate 

 of growth. One of the facts most commonly dwelt upon in this connection is the 

 great increase of the imports of foreign manufactured articles into the United King- 

 dom. But the increase in the last ten years is not more than about 18,000,000/., 

 taking the facts as i-ecorded in what is known as Mr. Ritchie's return, viz., from 

 about 37,000,000/. in the quinquennial period 1870-74 to 55,000,000/. in the quin- 

 quennial period 1880-81, or about 50 per cent. Out of 18,000,000/. increased 

 imports of such articles it is fair to allow that at least one-half, if not more, is the 

 value of raw material which we should have had to import in any case ; so that 

 only 9,000,000/. represents the value of English labour displaced by these increased 

 imports. Even the whole of this 9,000,000/. of course is not lost, only the difference 

 between it and the sum which the capital and labour ' displaced ' earns in some 

 other employment, which may possibly even be a plus and not a nmms difference. 

 If we add articles ' partly manufactured ' no difference would be made, for the 

 increase here is only from 26,000,000/. to 28,000,000/. in the ten years. Such 

 differences, it need not be said, hardly count in the general total of the industry of 

 the country. Further, the rate of increase of these imports was just as great in the 

 period when our own rate of growth was greater as in the last ten years, the 

 increase in manufactured articles between 1860-64 and 1870-74 being 19,000,000/., 

 viz., from 18,000,000/. to 37,000,000/., or over 100 per cent, as compared with 50 per 

 cent, only in the last ten years, and in articles partly manufactured from 17,000,000/. 

 to 26,000,000/., an increase of 9,000,000/. as compared with an increase of 2,000,000/. 

 only in the last ten years. Making all allowance for the fall in prices in recent 

 years, these figures still show a greater relative increase of imports of manufactured 

 articles before 1875 than afterwards. It cannot, therefore, be the increased import 

 of foreign manufactures which has caused the check to our own growth in the 

 last ten years. 



But foreigners, it is said, exclude us from their own markets and compete with us in 

 foreign markets. Here again, however, we find that any check which may have 

 occurred to our foreign export trade is itself so small that its effect on the general 

 growth of the country would be almost nil. Take it that the check is as great as 

 the diminution in the rate of increase in the movements of shipping, viz., from an 

 increase of about 55 per cent, to one of 33 per cent, only, that is, broadly speaking, 

 a diminution of one-third in the rate of increase of our foreign trade, whatever that 

 rate may have been. Assuming that rate to have been the same as the rate of 

 increase in the movements of shipping itself, the change would be from a rate of 

 increase equal to one-half in ten years to a rate of increase equal to about one-third 

 only. Applying these proportions to the exports of British and Irish produce and 

 manufactures, which represent the productive energy of the country devoted to 

 working for foreign exchange, and assuming that ten years ago the value of British 

 labour and industry in the produce and manufactures we exported, due deduction 

 being made for the raw material previously imported, was about 140,000,000/.,' 

 then it would appear that if the same range of values had continued the check to 

 the growth of this trade would have been that at the end of ten years the British 

 labour represented in it instead of having increased 50 per cent., viz., from 

 140,000,000/. to 210,000,000/., would have increased one-third onlv, or from 

 140,000,000/. to about 187,000,000/. The annual diflerence to the energy of the 



' See my Essays in Finance, 1st series. 



