TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 815 



country developing itself in the foreign trade would on this showing he about 

 23,000,000/. only, an insignificant sum compared with the aggregate income of the 

 people of the country ; while the country, it must he remembered, does not lose the 

 whole of this sum, but only the difference between it and the sum earned in those 

 employments to which those concerned have resorted, which agaiu may be a plus 

 and not a minus difference. Even therefore if foreign competition is the cause of 

 a check to our general growth, yet the figm-es we are dealing with in our foreign 

 trade are such that any visible check to that trade which can have occurred must 

 have been insufScieut to cause that apparent diminution in the rate of our material 

 growth generally which has to be explained. 



It has to be remembered, moreover, that when the figures are studied and the 

 fall of prices allowed for it is not in our foreign trade that any clieck worth 

 mentioning seems to have occurred at all. The diminution in the rate of increase 

 in the movements of shipping is very largely to be accounted for in the way ah-eady 

 explained, viz., by the fact that the increase just before 1875 was largely owing to 

 the multiplication of lines of steamers, and that a framework had then been pro- 

 vided up to which the traffic has since grown. Even an increase of one-third in 

 the movements in the last ten years may thus show as great an increase in real 

 business as an increase of 50 or 60 per cent, in the movements in the twenty years 

 before. Foreign competition, even from natural causes, is thus insufficient to 

 account for the diminution in the rate of increase of our material growth in the 

 last ten years. 



These figures may be put directly another way. The increase of our foreign 

 exports per head between 1860-64 and 1870-74 was from 4/. 14*. lid. to 71. 7s. bd., 

 or about 55 per cent., and allowing for an average rise of prices between the two 

 dates may be put as having been at the extreme about 50 per cent. Between 

 1870-74 and 1880-84 instead of an increase there is a decrease, viz., from 71. 7s. 5d. 

 to 61. 12s. Qd., but deducting about one-third from the former figure for the fall in 

 prices, the real increase in the last ten years would appear to be as from 4/. 16s. 3d. 

 to 61. 12s. 9fZ., or over 35 per cent. The difference in the rate of increase in the 

 last ten years compared with the previous ten is thus the difference between 35 

 and 50 per cent, only, equal to about :21,000,000/. annually on the amount of 

 140,000,000/., assumed to represent the value of British industry in cur foreio'n 

 exports, deduction being made for the value of raw material included. A deduction 

 of this sort from the annual income of the country is too small to account for such 

 a check to the rate of our growth generally as that we are now discussing as 

 probable, especially when we recollect that the labour is only diverted, and it is 

 not the whole 21,000,000/. that is lost, but only the difference between that sum 

 and what is otherwise earned, which may even be a plus and not a ininus difference. 



To bring the matter to a point, an increase of 40 per cent, in the income of the 

 country in ten years would on an assumed income of 1,000 millions only in 1875, 

 and the figure must then have been more, have brought the income up to 1,400 

 millions ; an increase of 20 per cent, woidd have brought it up to 1,200 millions 

 only, a difference of 200 millions, which must have arisen from the alleged difi'er- 

 ence in the rate of our material growth in question if it had occurred. Clearlv 

 nothing can have happened in our foreign trade to account for anythino- more 

 than the smallest fraction of such a difference. The figures are altoo-ether too 

 small. We may repeat again then that it is not the check to our foreio-n trade 

 which foreign competition may have caused to which we can ascribe the recent 

 check to our general rate of growth. 



I need hardly add that in point of theory foreign competition was not likely to 

 have the effect stated. I have set forth elsewhere in an elaborate essay ' the reason."* 

 for holding this opinion ; why it is, in fact, that as foreign nations grow richer we 

 should be better off absolutely than if they were to remain poor, though relativelv 

 they might advance more than we do. But, whatever theory may say, in point of 

 fact the check to the rate of our material growth cannot, for the reasons stated 

 have been due to anything which has happened to our foreign trade. 



See my Essays in Finance, 2nd series, ' Foreign Manufactures and English Trade.' 



