Page:The empire and the century.djvu/119

 In 1880 we still retained our leadership. The character of the exchange has so altered that while the value of our manufactured exports to the first group of countries has absolutely decreased, they send us nearly twice as much as they sent us then—and nearly twice as much as we send them now. In relation to the first group of markets our commercial supremacy has totally disappeared already. It will not, presumably, be denied by any orthodox economist that hostile tariffs have driven down our trade in manufacture in the principal protected countries. It will not be denied that free imports have enormously increased the influx of foreign manufacture from these same countries. This process seriously weakens ourselves and sensibly strengthens our rivals—so much will be admitted—and must, therefore, reduce our relative competitive vigour.

The average mind does not readily grasp the meaning of very large figures. But let us look again, with a little exertion of the imagination, at the enormous totals concerned, and endeavour to realize the political as well as the economic significance of the contrast given.

What does it mean? It means that the trade taken away from us by hostile tariffs means profit taken away and employment taken away. It means a positive loss in man-power and money-power. Simultaneously the continual and huge increase in the business of manufacturing for our market directly enables our competitors to maintain a larger industrial population—to make still stronger, therefore, the home market they monopolize; to accumulate capital at a faster rate; to raise a greater revenue; to build more formidable navies. Our own policy has nourished the agricultural prosperity of the United States and the manufacturing power superimposed upon it. Our own policy has stimulated the manufacturing, maritime, and naval development of Germany. Foreign tariffs touch our financial resources and our ability to support population, wherever they touch our trade, and they hurt us politically—ours is the only country in which it would be neces-