Page:Future of England - Peel.djvu/59

Rh we duly avail ourselves of the gift so as to provide means for our population, and whether the edifice of our manufactures is framed as substantially to last into the future as the foundation is, on the whole, well laid.

The industrial framework built upon this basis of coal has been raised, and is maintained daily, by three converging and co-operating forces—the brains of our men of business, the skill of our artisans, and the energising power of our capital. Consider each briefly in isolation, and then survey the whole result.

The quality of our men of business can be most accurately measured by a reference to our foreign trade, because the organisation of that trade is clearly one of their special provinces, arid outside the function of the artisan. England, of all countries, must sell abroad largely, in order to procure in return those supplies of food and raw materials necessary for our existence, and of which we are internally bereft.

At the opening of this century it was thought that this foreign trade, so absolutely vital for us, was in danger of weakening materially in the future. Foreign tariffs were rising to a prohibitory pitch, it was said. And certainly, the closing decade of the nineteenth century witnessed a serious heightening of tariff walls, so that these fears were grounded on solid considerations.

The truth was, however, that in spite of the unique height of foreign tariffs, our men of business