Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/238

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

is the basis on which he proceeds. Let me ask my fellow countrymen to see what has been our condition during this era of stagnant trade. During that period the amount assessed to the income tax has doubled; the interest upon our foreign investments has more than doubled; the deposits in our savings banks have multiplied two and threefold; the bankers' cheques cleared, taking the annual average, have risen in amount from 5,300 millions to over 8,000 millions ster- ling; and last, but not least, the wages of the working classes have risen, measured not merely in terms of money — tho there has been a con- siderable rise in our money wages — but much more measured in their real terms, in the terms of that which money can buy. As the Board of Trade has told us, 100s. buys as much as 140s. twenty years ago. Talk about Germany, the protectionist paradise ! I hope you will compare, from the material the blue books place at your disposal, the wages, the standard of living, and the hours of labor of the German workmen and your own. Well, all that has been going on — this enormous accumulation of wealth, this steady rise in the savings of all classes of the country — all that has been going on through a period of 'stagnant trade."

The truth is, Mr. Chamberlain entirely ignores the whole of our home trade, as do most of the new protectionists, and that is at the bottom of not a few of their fallacies. It is difficult to say exactly what the bulk of our home trade is; but 204

�� �