Chapter IV: Export of Manufactures, I. (1)

I. Proportion to total export for the six great nations—II. Mr. Chamberlain’s pessimistic prophecies and the facts.

A great many foreigners, and even a considerable number of English people, seem to believe that the magnitude of England’s exports is due to coal; and pessimists say that the export of coal enriches the present at the expense of the future by exhausting natural resources; some go so far as to urge that its export should be prevented by raising the export duty 1s. a ton, since the use of English coal by foreign merchant service and factories helps them to compete against the English merchant service and English factories. A comparison of three tables shows how baseless such apprehensions are. The average export of coal, coke, and other fuel was £30,000,000 between 1900 and 1904; the total export, £289,000,000; and the export of manufactures, £232,000,000. Therefore, for every £100-worth of coal exported, England exports £773-worth of manufactured stuff—a total of £1,000.

Turning now to the proportion borne by the export of manufactures in England to that of other great nations—

Russia only exports 5 per cent. of manufactures, Holland less than 3 per cent. Thus the proportion borne by manufactured goods to total export in the United Kingdom exceeds that of Germany by 15 per cent., that of France by 25 per cent., and that of America by more than 50 per cent.; thus adding one more argument to those already given in the examination of protected and tributary industries to prove to any impartial mind that the Chamberlainists’ attempt to discover in the English export statistics any argument for a change in our fiscal system is very foolhardy, when England stands far above Germany, France, and the United States in absolute and relative exportation of manufactured goods.

In the last column English ships amounting to some 5 or 6 millions per annum are included.

The Protectionists have made great use of the argument from percentages. The increase in exports has certainly been greater in the United States than in the United Kingdom; and when one is added to one the result is 100 per cent. Very fine results can be deduced, as Mr. Chamberlain has shown, especially when he starts his German figures before 1890, that is, before the Free Towns came into the Zollverein.

The result of the German protective tariff has thus been to reduce the relative proportion of imports of manufactures to the total import rather more than 4 per cent. below that of the United Kingdom. M. Méline has succeeded in reducing it 7 per cent. for France—a wonderful result.

It must not be forgotten that England is the richest country in the world; its people are fond of luxury and comfort, and buy what they want whereever they find it. Yet the greater part of the manufactures which they buy are implements; structural iron and steel account for £8,000,000 (Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, a weldless tube manufacturer, said that Swedish steel bars were necessary in his trade); plates of copper and other metals, £20,000,000; implements, £4,000,000; machinery, £4,000,000; cotton (for the most part representing payment for debts, or raw materials), £6,000,000; more or less finished woollen goods, £12,000,000; leather and boots and shoes, £11,000,000. This last item makes the Chamberlainists furious; yet many of their countrymen are ill shod.