Part 4 (2/2)
LINEN, SILK, AND WOOLLENS.
So much for cotton! With regard to linen, it is unnecessary to follow in detail what Mr. Williams says, for he himself admits that the decline which has taken place since the 'sixties is largely due to a change in fas.h.i.+on, jute and cotton goods taking the place of linen. In the last decade, however, as will be seen from the above table, the linen industry has held its own. With regard to silk, the figures show that there is no cause for serious alarm. In woollens, on the other hand, there is apparently better ground for Mr. Williams's mourning. The table on the preceding page points to a distinct downward tendency in our export of woollen manufactures, a tendency which has been only partly checked by the inflation of 1895. If this were the whole truth about our woollen trade, it might be conceded that here at any rate Mr. Williams had made out his case. But it is not the whole truth. Almost _pari pa.s.su_ with this decline in our export of woollens, which began some twenty years back, there has been a steady increase in the consumption of our woollen manufactures by our own people, and this increased home demand has _more than made good_ the decline in the foreign demand.
THE EXPANSION OF OUR WOOLLEN INDUSTRY.
The proof of this statement will be seen in the following figures.
During the five years, 1870 to 1874, the average yearly import of raw wool into the United Kingdom was 342,000,000 lb.; during the years 1890-94 the average was 475,000,000. That gives the measure of the enormous increase in the amount of the raw material worked up by our woollen manufacturers. Take next the question of the amount of labour employed. Unfortunately, there are no official figures since 1890, but that year will serve. Here is the comparison:-
PERSONS EMPLOYED IN WOOLLEN AND WORSTED MILLS.
----------+-----------+-----------+----------- | Men. | Women. | Children.
----------+-----------+-----------+----------- 1870 | 94,000 | 116,000 | 24,000 1890 | 118,000 | 156,000 | 23,000 ----------+-----------+-----------+-----------
These figures are doubly satisfactory, for they point, first, to a large increase in the adult labour employed; and, secondly, to a small but gratifying decrease in child labour.
THE NATURE OF GERMAN COMPEt.i.tION.
To still further rea.s.sure politicians and others who have been alarmed by Mr. Williams's book, I may quote two pa.s.sages from lectures on German compet.i.tion recently delivered in the West Riding. The first is from a lecture by Professor Beaumont, delivered in the Yorks.h.i.+re College in October last. From the report in the _Leeds Mercury_ of October 10th, I take the following:-
”In the woven fabrics imported from Germany we have examples of the standard of workmans.h.i.+p attained in German mills. These textures chiefly comprise low mantle cloths and cloakings, and limited quant.i.ties of dress stuffs composed of mixed materials, showing that almost invariably it was the price which caused these goods to sell in British markets. Viewed from this standpoint, there is an impregnable argument in favour of our industrial pursuits; for in all cla.s.ses of fancy fabrics of a high quality, whether in woollen, worsted, cotton, linen, or jute materials, the manufacturers of the United Kingdom have scarcely felt the effects of German compet.i.tion.”
My second quotation is from a lecture delivered by Mr. Swire Smith, of Keighley, at the Bradford Technical College, and reported in the _Bradford Observer_ of November 27th last:-
”Those who tell us that our English worsted industry is being ruined by the compet.i.tion of Germany, must be unaware of the fact that the German worsteds, whose increasing exports were creating such alarm among the Fair-traders, are mainly composed of yarns 'made in Bradford.' Indeed, Bradford afforded a concrete example of the effect of German compet.i.tion, for it would be difficult to say which country had benefited most by it. The export of woollen, worsted, and alpaca yarns to Germany in the average of the following periods of years amounted in 1880-85 to 41,500,000 lb. per year; 1890-95, to 63,800,000 lb.
per year; and 1895, to 78,900,000 lb. Bradford had been the greatest contributor to German success in the weaving of worsteds and alpacas, and Germany had been the greatest contributor to the success of the spinning industry of Bradford by buying its yarns. To put a tax on German worsteds that would shut them out of England would stop the sale of Bradford yarns in Germany.”
THE ”PERCENTAGE TRICK.”
That is enough about woollens. About jute a couple of sentences will suffice. In order to make the facts in this trade look worse than they are-there is nothing really bad about them-Mr. Williams first places German figures in marks side by side with English figures in pounds sterling, and then plays what can only be called the ”percentage trick.”
The German increase in eleven years, he says, is at the rate of 1,100 per cent., while the British is only 19 per cent. Remarkable! Yet Mr.
Williams might have discovered from his own figures, if he had only taken the trouble to turn marks into pounds, that the German increase in eleven years was only 107,000, while the British increase was 412,000.
In other words, our increase was almost four times as great as Germany's, and our total is now 2,588,000, against their total of 117,000. Exactly the same percentage trick is employed by Mr. Williams in comparing German and English trade with j.a.pan. In this case there is also an important error in his arithmetic; but let that pa.s.s. The trick consists in deluding the uncritical reader into the belief that German trade with j.a.pan is increasing faster than our own, whereas during the period selected by himself for comparison our increase has been almost exactly double the German increase. It is by devices such as these that Mr. Williams has succeeded in filling his pages with gloomy statements and gloomier prophecies. To track him further along his tortuous path would be profitless. ”Here ends,” he writes at the close of one of his most despairing and most deceptive chapters, ”the tale of England's industrial shame.” If candour should be an essential to fair controversy, there is other shame than England's to be ended.
CHAPTER V.
OUR GROWING PROSPERITY.
Having now shown, both generally and in detail, how absolutely void of foundation are many of the most gloomy statements in ”Made in Germany,”
we can dismiss Mr. Williams and his fanciful forebodings, and examine instead the direct and abundant evidence of the growing prosperity of our country. The first point to notice is the immense development of our s.h.i.+pping industry. In the last quarter of a century the tonnage of s.h.i.+pping engaged in foreign trade entering our ports has more than doubled, and this increase has been steady and persistent, with no retrogression worth noticing in any year. But that is not all. Twenty years ago the proportion of British s.h.i.+ps engaged in this foreign trade of ours was only 67 per cent. of the total; it is now well over 72 per cent. In the same period the number of tons of s.h.i.+pping per hundred of the population, taking entries and clearances together, has risen from 130 tons to 200 tons. No other country can point to such figures.
Germany, starting from small beginnings, has improved rapidly, but her totals are insignificant compared with our own. Only 43 per cent. of her foreign trade is carried in her own s.h.i.+ps, as against nearly 73 per cent. in our case, while per hundred of the population the s.h.i.+pping to and from her ports is less than a quarter of ours. If we turn to France we find that while the total s.h.i.+pping to and from French ports has increased as rapidly as with us, the proportion carried under the French flag has appreciably fallen. In the case of the United States there has been a still greater fall. Twenty years ago 33 per cent. of the foreign trade of the United States was carried in United States s.h.i.+ps, now the proportion is only 23 per cent. The following table shows the growth of s.h.i.+pping of all kinds to and from British ports:-
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