CORRESPONDENCE.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S FIGURES.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR, I should like with your leave to say a word or two in regard to Mr. Chamberlain's figures. If we may rely on Mr. Chamberlain's present views, retaliation is to be adopted not so much to open a closed door as to satisfy the desire of the natural man to "hit back." How peculiarly disappointing such a policy is from the commercial point of view may be seen from the fact that in no case, except one, do retaliatory countries trade more with one another than we do with them. The exception is the 'United States, whose exports to Germany exceed ours by 213,000,000, and they include a great number of natural productions, such as cotton and oil, which we cannot supply. For the period 1898-1900 the figures are as follows :—

IMPORTS IN MILLIONS OF POUNDS.

From Into France. Into Germany.

Into 'U.S.A.

United Kingdom ... 24 33 27' France

15

13 -

Germany

15

17

U.S.A. 21 46

Therefore, in spite of all the tariffs which have so gravely injured our exports to France, Germany, and the 'United States, we still beat our rivals in their markets. Apparently we are to adopt retaliation merely from a fierce joy in conflict, but that policy has done little at present for its votaries, for we enjoy the best treatment accorded to any nation in all Protectionist markets.

But the real crux of Mr. Chamberlain's argument lies in the theory that he can give the workers of this country a large and rapidly growing market in our Colonies : " 226,000,000 a year might come to this country which goes to France and Germany if a reasonable preference were given to British manufactures." The export trade, too, with our Colonies, he tells us, has grown enormously during the thirty years in which it has fallen off with certain Protec- tionist countries, and " what," Mr. Chamberlain asks, " will it be when there are forty instead of eleven millions of our white fellow-citizens " in those lands ? Well, the answer to the latter conundrum seems obvious. Colonial manufactures have at present only partially developed, the Colonies are new countries, and their inhabitants have been forced therefore to turn their attention to agriculture and kindred pursuits. When there are forty millons of inhabitants it will be very different. Manufactures will rapidly develop, and we shall ,not increase our sales of our own manufactured goods to them at the ratio of four to one. The present proportion may even decrease as their manufacturers demand new duties.

But how are we to capture that portion of the Colonial trade with foreign nations which consists of goods we could supply ? This, according to Mr. Chamberlain, amounts to 226,000,000. A more accurate estimate would appear to be about 224,000,000. Of these 224,000,000 we must take out 210,000,000 which go to Canada. If we could not capture these 210,000,000 under the preference which we have en- joyed for five years, we shall not get them in the future. Of the remaining £14,000,000 or 216,000,000 we could not possibly get all, for there are many considerations to take into account, such as distance of transport; and if we set down £10,000,000 of this as possibly obtainable, the estimate is generous. We cannot expect to reduce the foreign im-

..

porta to zero, and in the end we might get 26.000,000 of the whole; on this Mr. Chamberlain raises the glittering superstructure of "employment for a hundred and sixty-six thousand men, and subsistence for more than three millions of persons." Never in the whole history of political agitation was so wild and extravagant a theory based on so visionary a. foundation. But even to effect this much we must dis- locate our foreign trade. The taxation of food would, first of all, affect the United States. In 1902 we imported from them a total amount of £127,000,000 worth of goods. Only £20,000,000 worth of this total consisted of manufactured goods not available for further manufacture, and even this sum includes such items as paper and leather, much of which we probably make up again and re-export. Of the remainder, £62,272,000 worth represents food; and 245,363,000 worth materials, either raw or partly made up, all of which we use in our manufactures. Contrast with these figures the amount we draw from our own possessions,-244,000,000 worth of food, and £46,000,000 worth of materials. In fact, more than a fourth of all the food and materials we use we draw from the United States, for from the whole world our imports of food were in 1902 £223,000,000, tusul of materials £159,000,000. Therefore by adopting " preference " with all our possessions, and taxing food and partially manufactured articles, we run the risk of entering into a contest of tariffs with the United States, which supply us with necessities in the proportion shown above. This is stigmatised as a " craven " argument,

• but it is hard to see in what our working classes stand to gain by quarrelling literally with their bread and butter. We must remember, too, that twenty-eight and a half millions of bushels of Canadian wheat passed last year through American ports. If, as a retaliatory measure, these ports were shut to Canada (except under a heavy duty), we should have to ship our Canadian wheat five months in the year from St. John (for the St. Lawrence is closed from December to May), a most dangerous nautical course owing to fog and floating ice. What must be the self-confidence of an orator who, under these conditions, prophesies that by a system of preference with our Colonies "both sides may gain and neither lose " !

I may perhaps be allowed to notice one other matter to which Mr. Chamberlain alluded as a sign of our decaying in- dustries. I mean sugar. The sugar industry, he told us, had been practically killed in this country, which, " under ordinary circumstances, would have given employment to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands." This is a striking instance of Mr. Chamberlain's effective use of hyperbole. Under present conditions those of our refiners who have adopted the newest machinery and methods have done extremely well. They employ two thousand four hundred and seventeen people, who handle forty per cent. of our total consumption ; clearly, therefore, six thousand people at most could refine, with modern appliances, all we use here. Where, then, is the work for the " tens, if not hundreds, of thousands "14 As a matter of fact, the coarser part of the refining process is usually carried out where the sugar is grown. If we would find the "hundreds of thousands " who gain employment by sugar, we must seek them in the trades built up on cheap sugar,—sugar- boiling, biscuits, chocolate, mineral waters, &c.; they engage a hundred and twenty thousand hands or more. But for " jams and pickles" and such industries Mr. Chamberlain has a great contempt, even, it would seem, a personal antipathy, hardly justified by the harmless nature of these productions. " The jam industry," he told us last July in the House of Commons, "lives on bounties and the ruin of other trades," and the West Indian industry is more deserving of consideration. This was surely an extraordinary view to take of a flourishing industry, and a striking example of the Imperial frenzy which leads Mr. Chamberlain to throw away the existing prosperity of British workmen for the purely hypothetical benefit of distant Colonies. To do the. Colonies justice, they demand nothing of the kind. Canadian politicians have even specifically repudiated interfering with the food of our poorer classes. This is surprising to no one who is aware that the poverty of our great towns was a revelation to •Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his associates last year.

Surely there never was a scheme launched by a leading statesman so carelessly framed, so likely to create discord among our Colonists themselves no less than between them and us, and so vague in its possibilities of benefit to those classes who can least of all afford to risk the little they already possess.—I am, Sir, &c.,

AN IMPERIALIST FREE-TRADER.