Part 3 (2/2)

Again one can only admire Mr. Williams's ingenuity. Reading his paragraph, who would dream that between the years so skilfully selected for comparison the trade had experienced an enormous drop, and afterwards, to all intents and purposes, completely recovered itself; that then a smaller drop had occurred, and that this in turn was being fast made good? The best way to expose the above piece of statistical legerdemain is to give without further comment the whole of the figures for the past fifteen years. They will be found in the following table.

With figures such as these before him-and they must have been before him-it is astounding that Mr. Williams should have ventured to put s.h.i.+pbuilding on his black list.

FIFTEEN YEARS OF BRITISH s.h.i.+PBUILDING.

Total Output of British and Irish Yards.

In Thousands of Tons.

----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- 1881|1882|1883|1884|1885|1886|1887|1888|1889|1890|1891|1892|1893|1894|1895 ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- 609| 783| 892| 588| 441| 331| 377| 574| 855| 813| 809| 801| 585| 669| 648 ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----

These figures may be ill.u.s.trated as follows:-

[Ill.u.s.tration]

s.h.i.+PS BUILT FOR FOREIGNERS.

But his perverse ingenuity does not end with the paragraph quoted. A few lines lower down he says:-

”All these figures include vessels built for foreigners as well as those for home and the Colonies. The year in which we built most vessels for other nations was 1889, when we supplied them with 183,224 tons. The four following years showed a progressive decrease, getting down as low as 89,386 tons in 1893; and though 1894 showed an increase to 94,876 tons, their upward movement was slight compared with the successive decreases of the previous years.”

The man who wrote these sentences obviously intended to convey to his readers the impression that our trade in the building of s.h.i.+ps for foreign purchasers was a declining trade. That impression is false, and it is a little hard to understand how Mr. Williams could fail to see its falsity. The following figures show-what to most persons would be sufficiently obvious on reflection-that the tonnage of s.h.i.+ps launched at our great yards varies largely from year to year. To pick out the year 1889, as Mr. Williams does, and declare that since that year there has been a decline in our sales to foreigners, is as grossly unfair as it would be, on the other hand, to pick out the year 1885, and say that since then there had been a fourfold increase.

s.h.i.+PS BUILT BY US FOR FOREIGNERS.

Thousands of Tons.

----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- 1881|1882|1883|1884|1885|1886|1887|1888|1889|1890|1891|1892|1893|1894|1895 ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- 108| 116| 124| 91| 36| 39| 70| 91| 183| 161| 139| 109| 89| 95| 128 ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----

WAR-s.h.i.+PS FOR FOREIGNERS.

The above figures include war-s.h.i.+ps as well as merchant-s.h.i.+ps built by us for foreigners, and, noting this fact, Mr. Williams is distressed to find what he calls a drop in our output of foreign war-s.h.i.+ps. He writes:-

”Still more remarkable is the drop in our supply of foreign war-s.h.i.+ps from 12,877 tons in 1874 to 2,483 in 1894.”

What is even more remarkable still is the fact that Mr. Williams should have dared to put such a statement before the public, knowing, as he must have known, how completely it misrepresents the truth. I wonder what he would have said of me if I had spoken of the remarkable _growth_ in our output of foreign war-s.h.i.+ps as evidenced by an _increase_ from 14 tons in 1876 to 4,152 tons in 1895! Yet this statement would have been every bit as justifiable as his own. The whole truth of the matter of course is, that such an industry as the construction of foreign war-s.h.i.+ps must vary enormously from year to year, and a comparison between any two single years can prove nothing, except the folly or the _mala fides_ of the person who makes it. In order that the reader may see for himself the source from which Mr.

Williams drew his ”remarkable” statement, I append all the figures since 1870:-

WAR VESSELS BUILT FOR FOREIGNERS.

------------------+------------------+------------------ Years. Tons. | Years. Tons. | Years. Tons.

------------------+------------------+------------------ 1870 970 | 1879 716 | 1888 1,899 1871 80 | 1880 385 | 1889 726 1872 40 | 1881 5,338 | 1890 3,437 1873 280 | 1882 447 | 1891 300 1874 12,877 | 1883 270 | 1892 2,792 1875 12,280 | 1884 2,339 | 1893 2,471 1876 14 | 1885 5,462 | 1894 2,483 1877 3,435 | 1886 840 | 1895 4,152 1878 2,482 | 1887 3,966 | ------------------+------------------+------------------

MACHINERY AND STEAM ENGINES.

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