Part 8 (2/2)

Sir,-In my first article I endeavoured to show that the charges of disingenuousness brought against me by your critic not only missed their aim, but possessed a boomerang quality. I will ask your attention to another instance. In his second article your correspondent, in order to damage my reputation for intellectual honesty, writes:-”Mr. Williams has artfully picked out half-a-dozen or so items of our imports from Germany, and then exclaims in horror at the amount of 'the moneys which _in one year_ have come out of John Bull's pocket for the purchase of his German-made household goods.'” This, in vulgar language, is a staggerer.

Let me explain my artfulness. In a half-jocular section in my first chapter, I invited the reader just to look round his own house and make an inventory of the German goods it probably contains. I helped him with a list of the toys in the nursery, the piano in the drawing-room, the servant's presentation mug in the kitchen, the pencil on the study table, &c., and then tried to give point and solidity to my little excursion into the lighter style of writing by enumerating the yearly national bill which Germany presents to us for these household items.

The correspondent (to use his own admirable verb) ”twists” this into the implication above quoted, and writes as though these were the only figures I had adduced. Ingenuous, is it not?

THE ALKALI TRADE.

Now to another matter wherein the correspondent has superficially scored a point, but has done so largely by the process of quoting me in disconnected bits. I refer to his alkali trade section in the third article. He quotes two or three sentences of mine commenting on some startling English export figures I had just given. Then he misses out a couple of most important pages, and finishes the quotation with two sentences referring to the increase of German trade. This leaving-out of the pith of the matter, and the bringing into juxtaposition of two sets of unrelated semi-rhetorical remarks, gives to the quotation a forced and rather _non sequitur_ air. The part that was left out is too long for me to reproduce, but it comprises a number of most pregnant instances of the havoc wrought in England's alkali trade, and of the great progress made in the German trade. The correspondent might, with advantage to the forwarding of public knowledge on the subject, have made some reference to these facts, even had it cramped the s.p.a.ce at his disposal for inveighing against my ”grossly inaccurate impressions.”

Here is a case which ill.u.s.trates the necessity of my appeal to the reader to go direct to the incriminated book.

THE CHEMICAL MANURE TRADE.

Neither can I admire the correspondent's sudden and peculiar change of method in dealing with the chemical manure trade. Anyone acquainted with the trade in sulphate of ammonia knows how the Germans are capturing it, their estimated annual production amounting now to 100,000 tons. It is among the most startling instances of Germany's wonderful progress in her chemical trades. Even the correspondent loses heart, and is fain to confess the expansion here. But in order that he may at all hazards score a point, he introduces the argument that ”probably the British farmer ... does not regard this compet.i.tion of German with English manure manufacturers as altogether disadvantageous.” This is all very well; but even a hard-pressed critic cannot serve two masters; he cannot set out to prove that the Germans are not beating us, and then, when he tumbles against an instance to the contrary which repulses all attempts to explain it away, turn round and say that it is a very good thing. It is possible to score points in a way which does not improve the scorer's position. Altogether, I venture to suggest to the correspondent that his general case would have been strengthened had he pa.s.sed over the chemical trades in discreet silence.

SOAP IMPORTS FROM GERMANY.

Especially was he ill-advised when, for the purpose of bringing into greater prominence my addiction to false statement, he burst out into italics in the following sentence: ”_So far as the Custom House returns show, not one single ounce of foreign soap is imported into the United Kingdom, either from Germany or from any other country._” Because the German returns show an export of soap to England under three different headings. The correspondent should have provided himself with Green Books as well as Blue Books before he set out to demolish me. He would then have learned-what he should have known anyway, considering the attention he has given to the subject-that the English Custom House returns do not show everything.

IMPORTS OF IRON.

This limited acquaintance with German statistics has caused the correspondent to go wrong on other occasions. For instance, in the fourth article he produces a table purporting to show our iron trade with Germany, in which the iron exports from Germany to England cut a very insignificant figure beside the English exports to Germany. To quote his own words in another place-”Most impressive! if only it were true.” I had occasion the other day to get out a detailed list of the German exports to England of iron and steel manufactures in 1891; they reached a total of 109,956 tons. The correspondent gives 11,000 tons as the total of iron manufactures; the complete total of iron and steel manufactures, according to the source whence he obviously drew his information, was about 16,000 tons. The explanation is of course that the English returns do not always show the actual place of origin. (It doesn't matter much; compet.i.tion in any other name hits just as hard, and Germany, after all, is but one rival out of many. I only used her as an instance of foreign compet.i.tion generally.)

A ”PETTY ACCUSATION.”

This particular table is, therefore, hopelessly wrong, and is certainly valueless for any purpose of destructive criticism. It is on this page that the correspondent brings against me a petty accusation of which he should have been ashamed. He says that I have ”skilfully conveyed a false impression” by giving certain German figures in hundredweights and English figures in tons. Surely he had the wit to see that I was merely transcribing figures without stopping to translate them; and it is difficult to imagine he could think I was so witless as to adopt a silly sleight-of-hand trick such as that of which he accuses me, a trick which would not deceive a child in the lowest standard of a Board school.

FANCIFUL FOREBODINGS?

Here I must bring to an end my short, detailed criticism of the _Daily Graphic_ correspondent's attack, for I have already exceeded the s.p.a.ce offered to me by the editor, though I have perforce left untouched a number of points on which I should have liked to enlarge my defence. I have not touched the two concluding articles in the series. The last is a statement (more lucidly and ably put than anything I remember ever to have read) of the Free Trade position in general and the case against a Customs Union in particular; but I have recently elsewhere stated my views on those subjects at length. Regarding the penultimate article, I should like to say a word in conclusion. That article attacks me by a side wind. It does not contest the facts contained in my book; on the contrary, it leads off with an airy dismissal of ”Mr. Williams and his fanciful forebodings,” and it shows, by much rhetorical writing and some interesting ill.u.s.trations, that England is a land flowing with milk and honey and manufactures and money, and generally in a wonderful state of millennial prosperity. My answer is two-fold. In the first place I must congratulate the correspondent on the pleasant surroundings among which alone his days can have been pa.s.sed; but I should like to take him through some awful wildernesses I know-deserts of ”mean streets,”

where half-clothed, underfed children s.h.i.+ver for warmth and food at the knees of women gaunt and haggard with the suffering which hopeless poverty inflicts on them; and by way of explanation of these grisly phenomena I would take him to the dock gates in the early morning, where not unlikely he would see men literally fighting for entrance because there is not work enough to go round. If that does not point him out the cause with sufficient clearness I would suggest an examination of the employment returns of the trade unions. There, by-the-by, he would see the greatest want of employment to be in those trades where the pinch of foreign compet.i.tion-”the harmless growth of the German infant,” he phrases it-is most in evidence.

A WARNING.

In the second place, I would point out to him that the initial object of my book was to warn the nation in the day of its prosperity-such as it is-that a grave danger was lurking in the way. The fact that the easy-going man of business is surrounded by so many signs of industrial prosperity, such as those which the correspondent details, only made it the more important that he should be aroused to a knowledge of the forces that were undermining the foundations.

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