Part 7 (2/2)
That accusation I cannot withdraw. It has been deliberately made because the facts compelled it. Doubtless in the ordinary affairs of life Mr.
Williams is not less honourable than other men, but in his zeal to establish a case, which cannot be established, he has blinded himself to the main facts of the matter with which he was dealing, and has often so quoted facts and figures as to convey an impression the reverse of the truth. Even from his own point of view this was a pity, for it throws discredit upon the whole of his work, whereas several of his statements are quite true. It is, for example, true that Germany has made great progress in the chemical and in the iron trades. It is also true that her commerce is gaining a foothold in Eastern markets once almost exclusively our own. These, and several other perfectly true statements, are to be found in Mr. Williams's pages, and might have been edifying to exalted persons who can only discover a distorted image of the truth ten years after the main facts have been clearly seen by those common folk who are primarily concerned with them. To such individuals Mr. Williams, without his picturesque exaggerations and strange twistings of the truth, might have been really useful. As it is, he has only helped to lead them astray. Indeed, it is much to be feared that these hasty students of a big subject have by the perusal of Mr. Williams's neatly-turned sentences and epigrammatic phrases acquired an impression which no drab-coloured statement of simple fact will ever be able to dislodge.
NOT ONLY A PROTECTIONIST PAMPHLET.
One ground of complaint Mr. Williams may possibly feel that he has against me-that I have so far treated his book as if it were only a Protectionist pamphlet. My excuse is that the spirit of the Protectionist breathes in almost every page he has written. Nowhere does he show the slightest grasp of the central fact that all commerce must be mutual, that exports cannot exist unless there are imports to pay for them; everywhere he speaks as if each useful commodity sent us from abroad were a net loss to the British nation, and as if the people who sent it were ”robbing” us of our wealth. Nor is that all. I take his chapter dealing with the reasons ”why Germany beats us,” and I find that after examining some half dozen reasons in succession and dismissing them as unimportant, he comes to Protection and exclaims, ”Here at last, we are on firm ground.” Again, in his next chapter he specifies ”Fair Trade” as the first of the ”things that we must do to be saved.” The second is the commercial federation of the Empire. I think, therefore, that I have had good reason for concentrating my argument on these two points.
TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND THE METRIC SYSTEM.
There are, however, several minor suggestions in ”Made in Germany,” and I am glad to be able to express my full agreement with what Mr. Williams said about technical education, about metric weights and measures, and about the excessive conservatism of the English people. I agree with him that it is monstrous that English lads should nowadays have no chance of thoroughly learning any trade. The old system of apprentices.h.i.+p is almost dead, and the modern device of technical education remains a pure farce, mainly owing to the political influence of trade unions. In the same way I agree that it is ridiculous that Great Britain should go on using a clumsy and exclusive system of weights and measures, when the rest of the world is rapidly adopting the almost ideally perfect system invented a hundred years ago by the French. This is a striking instance of the conservatism and self-conceit of the English race, of which Mr.
Williams so justly complains. But in this particular case, as it happens, it is not the commercial cla.s.ses who are to blame. For years Chambers of Commerce throughout the Kingdom have pet.i.tioned for the legalisation of the metric system, and yet last Session when a Bill to grant this prayer was at length introduced into the House of Commons by the Government the most audible comment from the a.s.sembled wisdom of the nation was a silly guffaw.
NO SIGNS OF DECAY.
Let me, however, not be misunderstood. I agree with Mr. Williams that these things are desirable, but not for the reason for which he desires them. By him they are put forward as devices to help to stave off the impending ruin of the country. For that purpose they are not needed, for there is not the slightest real evidence that ruin is impending. On the contrary, we are progressing rapidly in trade abroad and in prosperity at home. It is solely because I believe that we are capable of making even more rapid progress, and because I realise how great is the ma.s.s of misery still to be removed, that I support Mr. Williams's demand for technical education, for metric weights and measures, for the more careful study of foreign languages, and generally for a greater readiness to receive new ideas, and a greater prompt.i.tude to meet new wants.
THE CRY OF ”WOLF!”
One word more-Mr. Williams's book has been defended, by himself and by others, on the ground that it is a useful warning, that the nation requires to be stirred up, and so on. Has Mr. Williams forgotten the story of the little boy who cried ”Wolf! Wolf!” when there was no wolf?
It is one thing to warn the country of a problematic danger in the dim future; it is another to scream in the market-place that the danger is at our doors. Mr. Williams's book is one long scream-a literary scream, I admit, and therefore in some measure harmonious, but still a scream in the sense that there is no reason behind the noise that is made. The danger is not at our doors, our industrial glory is not departing from us, our trade is not being ruined by Germany. On the contrary, in spite of the remarkable progress of Germany in a few limited directions, the general figures show that we are fully maintaining our splendid lead, if indeed we are not actually bettering it. I cannot, therefore, admit this attempted justification of the character of Mr. Williams's book. To quote _Mr. Punch's_ admirable picture, Mr. Williams, like his pupil Lord Rosebery, has been trying to make our flesh creep. There is more harm than humour in such a pastime. That the motives of both these disturbers of our nerves were patriotic I do not for a moment doubt; but their conduct is neither patriotic nor wise. It does us no manner of good to be for ever cheapening ourselves in the eyes of the world. A great nation should have dignity enough to be silent about her own greatness, neither on the one hand perpetually boasting of her pre-eminent virtue, nor on the other fretfully asking how her credit stands with other countries. We are what we are-what our forefathers and our own brains and arms have made us. Let us be content to possess our souls in peace, and to get on with our work.
APPENDIX.
MR. WILLIAMS'S REPLY.[3]
[Footnote 3: This reply has been reprinted _verbatim_ from the _Daily Graphic_. On the other hand, in preparing my own articles for republication I have made certain modifications with a view of meeting Mr. Williams's objections, where I thought they were worth that trouble. Many of the objections have therefore lost their point; but I thought it better to let Mr. Williams's reply stand as he wrote it.]
_To the Editor of the ”Daily Graphic.”_
Sir,-The first reflection arising from a perusal of your correspondent's criticism of ”Made in Germany” is that perhaps it is as well that he and I are English and not French journalists. Across the Channel disagreeable formalities sometimes ensue when one writer takes to dealing in such expressions as ”artfully picked out,” ”trickery,”
”gross exaggeration and suppression,” ”misrepresentations,”
”exaggerations-to use the mildest possible term,” ”grossest exaggeration,” ”skilfully conveyed a false impression,” ”twisting the truth,” and others of like offensiveness. As they are a direct impeachment of my honour as a man, apart from my ability as an economist, I am compelled to preface my defence with a protest. The adoption of this style is a pity, too, in that it was wholly unnecessary. My antagonist was not in the position of the proverbially abusive lawyer; he had a case to state; and, apart from personalities and some other faults to be mentioned later, I sincerely congratulate him on the ability with which he has stated that case. Of course no one will mistake my meaning. By admitting that my opponent has a case I am not confessing defeat; I am simply testifying to the general truth of the saying that there are two sides to every question, albeit one side is the right one.
THE ”ADVOCATUS DIABOLUS.”
It is possible to raise objections (and not necessarily foolish objections) to almost any thesis, and the thesis is not hurt thereby.
The Vatican wisely employs an _advocatus diabolus_, whose paradoxical function is to establish the sanct.i.ty of a candidate for canonisation by alleging all of what is not saintly that he can rake up in the candidate's career. Your correspondent has acted as _advocatus diabolus_ to ”Made in Germany.” He has said what there is to be said for the other side, and my book, I respectfully submit, is uninjured. Unfortunately in this case it is the case of the _advocatus diabolus_ only with which most of his readers are acquainted-a circ.u.mstance calculated to obscure their judgment. To them I would say: Read my book; you can buy it for half-a-crown, or you can get it for nothing out of the Free Library.
This is not a puff of my own wares; it is a necessity of the case. Until you have read the book you cannot form an opinion on the worth of the attack. The small s.p.a.ce allotted to me for criticism of my critic is obviously quite insufficient to prove a case which was with difficulty compressed into 174 octavo pages; neither, apart from consideration of s.p.a.ce, would you thank me for copying out matter already published elsewhere. You will therefore kindly bear in mind that the ensuing remarks are not a complete statement of my position, but only some supplementary criticisms prompted by the attack.
<script>