Page:Great Britain and the Suez Canal.djvu/12

 cent, to another Liverpool or London merchant. The latter purchased it under orders for, say, an Austrian manufacturer, to whom he charged a further commission of 2 per cent, for his trouble. Each of these merchants received thus a handsome commission, and the English warehouse owner, assurance company, and labourer were in turn paid for their services. Then the cotton was shipped on an English sailing ship or steam-vessel for Trieste, whence it was finally forwarded for the manufacturer's use.

Now all these operations, profitable to English merchants, shipowners, labourers, and others, have in most cases ceased; and the Austrian manufacturer can and does contract with a Bombay house through its European agent for the shipment direct from Bombay to Trieste of the required bales of cotton. Some of this cotton, it is true, is still carried by an English ship, but for a much shorter distance and for a small fraction of the freight formerly charged. I need not add that even for this fragment of the old traffic the energetic Mediterranean shipowner competes severely with the shipowner of our own country. For the Mediterranean shipowner has the advantage of being present in person at one end of the voyage to watch with a master's eye the disbursements, the condition of his vessels, and the conduct and management of his captains and his crews.

What has been said of our Austrian competitor holds no less true of all our other competitors on the Continent. "What has happened in the cotton trade has happened in other trades. Tea, for instance, now comes direct from China to Russia. In my early days London was the centre of the Eastern silk trade. The silk of China and of India came to London, and was thence distributed over Europe. Formerly this was one of the most profitable branches of our business. Since the opening of the Suez Canal, Lyons has succeeded London as the capital market for the silk of the East. But, with regard to silk, the Suez Canal perhaps did no more than assist a process already begun. Being so valuable an article, it was to a considerable extent, brought across the Isthmus previous to the opening of the Canal. What Trieste and Lyons have gained at the expense of London and Liverpool, that Havre, Marseilles, and, Odessa have gained too. To complain of all this would be ridiculous. That it should be so is perfectly right. But it is also ridiculous to say in the face of these facts that the opening of the Suez Canal has