Part 6 (2/2)
ON WHAT SHALL WE LAY A TAX?
It is, indeed, just because the advance of Germany in a few limited directions has scared some people into the belief that we are losing our foreign trade, that such books as Mr. Williams's ”Made in Germany” are written. The whole point of their lament is that Germany is ousting us from neutral markets. a.s.sume that it is so-though it is not-what then?
How will Protection help us to maintain the hold we are said to be losing? All that Protection can do is to make more difficult the entry of foreign goods into our own country. But what are the foreign goods that enter our country? Four-fifths at least are food or the raw materials of manufacture. In support of this statement I must refer the reader to the Custom House returns to make his own cla.s.sification. After going through the figures carefully I arrive at the following rough result for 1895:-
----------------------+-------------- | Million 's.
----------------------+-------------- Food and Drink | 177 Raw Materials | 163 Manufactured Goods | 76 +-------------- Total Imports | 416 ----------------------+--------------
Colonel Howard Vincent, I see, puts the total of manufactured goods at 80 millions. His figure will serve as well as mine. Either shows clearly enough the character of the great ma.s.s of our imports. On which of the two main branches, on food or on raw materials, do the Protectionists propose to levy a tax? It is a strange way of helping our manufacturers in their struggle for the markets of the world to impose additional taxation on the food of their workpeople or on the raw materials of their industry.
A NEW ROAD TO FORTUNE.
There remains the comparatively small amount of manufactured goods we import, representing articles which our manufacturers cannot or will not produce at all, or cannot produce so cheaply as the foreigner does.
Supposing we taxed every one of these articles as it entered our ports, where would the advantage be to British manufacturers whose main ambition is to send their goods abroad? There is, it is true, just one possibility of benefit to them. It is possible that the imposition of a tax on some of these foreign manufactured articles would enable the British manufacturer so to raise his prices in the home market that he could afford to forego all profit on his sales abroad and sell to his foreign customers at or below cost price. That is the only conceivable way in which a Protective tariff could help the British manufacturer in his rivalry with his German compet.i.tors for the markets of the world. As for the cost of this topsy-turvy system of trade it is to be borne of course by that patient a.s.s the British public. The British consumer is to be compelled to pay more dearly for certain goods in order that some other people, j.a.ps or Chinamen, may be able to buy those goods below cost price. Here, again, I will not a.s.sert that such an apparent act of folly is not worth committing under given conditions. I can imagine a firm or a country consenting for a time to work for less than no profit in order to get a foothold in a new market. But we already have the foothold, and have already worked it for what it is worth. If now we discover that, for one reason or another, there is no more profit in it, surely our wisest policy is to try something else. Otherwise we might continue for ever to sell at a loss-individual or national-for the sole pleasure of adding to the total figures of our turnover. Even the Protectionists would hardly contend that along such lines lay national prosperity.
INTER-IMPERIAL TRADE.
There is, however, another, though not entirely distinct, proposal for dealing with the alleged mischief of German compet.i.tion. It is this-that we should try and persuade our Colonies and Possessions to give preferential treatment to our goods in return for a similar preference accorded by us to their goods. It would be unfair to call this scheme Protectionist in the ordinary sense of the term, for it is inspired as much by the desire to bring about a closer union of different portions of the empire as by the fear of foreign compet.i.tion; but as it is with the question of foreign compet.i.tion that we are here primarily concerned, we will deal first with the Protectionist side of the proposal. On this side the object aimed at is the destruction or diminution of foreign compet.i.tion in our Colonial markets. Undoubtedly, were the Colonies willing to make the necessary tariff adjustments in our favour, that object could be attained and our German rivals could be excluded in part or in whole from Canada, from Australia, from India, or from the Cape. So far so good. But what would that exclusion be worth to us? In a previous article I referred to figures showing how insignificant as compared with our own is German trade with our Colonies. It is worth while to present these figures in a fuller form.
They will be found in the following table:-
IMPORTS INTO THE FOLLOWING BRITISH POSSESSIONS.
Average of the Three Years-1890, 1891, 1892.
In Millions Sterling.
-------------------------+----------+--------+--------+--------+-------- | Total | Amount | Amount | Amount | Amount | Imports | from | from | from | from | from all | United | United |Germany | France.
|Countries.|Kingdom.| States.| | -------------------------+----------+--------+--------+--------+-------- India | 84 | 589 | 15 | 16 | 12 Australasia | 666 | 284 | 26 | 16 | 3 South Africa | 127 | 103 | 4 | 2 | 04 North America | 246 | 92 | 112 | 8 | 5 West Indies | 64 | 28 | 19 | 05 | 1 Other British Possessions| 314 | 66 | 6 | 4 | 6 +----------+--------+--------+--------+-------- Total | 2257 | 1162 | 182 | 46 | 28 -------------------------+----------+--------+--------+--------+--------
These figures are, unfortunately, two or three years behind date, and probably a later return would show that the proportion of British exports to our princ.i.p.al Colonies had fallen off and the German proportion somewhat increased, but this change has certainly not been sufficiently great to affect the general aspect of the table. That table shows that more than half of the total import trade of our Colonies is in our hands, and that our three princ.i.p.al rivals together have little more than a tenth of the whole trade. Indeed, were it not for the inevitably big trade of the United States with Canada, our three rivals together would only have about one-fifteenth of the trade of our Colonies. As for Germany in particular the table shows that the amount of the trade she has so far been able to secure is absolutely insignificant in comparison with our figures.
THE COST TO THE COLONIES.
”But,” argue the preferentialists, ”German trade with our Colonies has been growing rapidly, and may continue to grow.” Possibly it may, if our manufacturers go to sleep; but what we have here to consider is whether it is worth while to take any political action to stop the possible growth of a competing trade which at present is insignificant in amount.
Remember that if such action is taken by the Colonies to please us, we shall have to pay a price for their complaisance-for their loss by the exclusion of German or any other foreign goods would be twofold. In the first place the Colonial consumer would suffer. He now buys certain German goods because they suit him best, either in quality or in price.
That privilege it is proposed to take from him. His loss is therefore certain. Secondly, there is a considerable danger of injury to the Colonial producer. If the Colonies close their markets to German goods Germany may retaliate by closing her markets to Colonial goods; and Germany is, so far as the trade goes, a fair customer to the British Colonies. Here are the figures:-
TRADE OF BRITISH POSSESSIONS WITH GERMANY.
Average of Three Years (1890, 1891, 1892).-In Thousands Sterling.
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