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128 produce of the little island could support. But this monopoly could not last for ever. Other nations have waked to a consciousness of the benefits of trade,—steady hard-working nations like the Germans, who deserve to succeed, are competing with Englishmen all over the world, are cutting out the English abroad and even in England. London tradespeople complain with a bitterness which one can understand, that in London itself there are a hundred thousand Germans who have ousted so many Englishmen from work, who are daily ousting more because they can live on so much less than Englishmen of the same class. Frugal, abstemious, almost stingy in their habits, the Germans work hard and spend little,—while even the London shop boy has not yet learnt to save, but must needs enjoy his holiday and spend his little savings with his chums or his sweetheart in the Crystal Palace. Abroad there is the same competition, continental labour is cheaper, continental goods compete with English goods even in English colonies and sell cheaper! At the same time all over Europe,—the French, the Germans and other nations are protecting their home industries against English products by heavy protective import duties, and England vainly asks them to be free traders and to repeal these duties. The United States do just the same thing and even the English Colonies, Canada, Cape Colony and the Australian States protect their own goods and keep out English products by heavy duties, and England cannot ask them to repeal such duties as she has made India do. Thus the circle of foreign markets is gradually contracting,