Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/244

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

A B C of the subject — in taking the year 1872 as the starting year for his comparisons. If you had taken 1870, two years before, or if you had taken 1876, four years after, instead of finding only a growth of 20 to 30 millions, you would have found a growth of over 80 millions in ex- ports; and, what is still more striking, if you had taken the exports of 1900 at the prices of 1872, you would have found that they amounted to 425 millions, or an increase of 170 millions, instead of Mr. Chamberlain's 30 millions.

To sum up what I have been saying about this, I have pointed out that this allegation — that dur- ing the last thirty years British trade has been in a stagnant condition — involves at least four distinct fallacies. Let us enumerate them once more. In the first place, it entirely ignores the home trade, which is a much more important factor than the foreign trade; in the second place, it makes exports alone the criterion of the volume of our trade ; in the third place, it places among exports exported goods alone, and takes no notice of the services that we render to other countries; finally, even taking exported goods as the criterion, a year is deliberately selected which is no fair test of the matter at all. Then what becomes of the case which is the foundation of Mr. Chamberlain's contention that British trade has been in a "stagnant" condition during the last thirty years?

Then I come to the other assumption, which is: that unless we are prepared to establish a 208

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