The discussion on Imports and Exports, in the Times, has
been singularly instructive in showing us how little economical knowledge the ordinary thinking public has. Mr. Arthur Cohen, the Member for Southwark, is the only writer admitted by the Times, who appears to have any complete grasp of the question. The confused notion in almost everybody else's mind that the inability to sell goods to foreign countries at the old rate of profit implies (1) a total inability to manufac- ture them, and (2) a total inability to dispose of them, is somewhat amazing. The fact is that during the whole time of depression there has been, on the whole, an increase in the volume, though a depreciation in the value, of our exports,— that the capital employed in producing them has been larger than ever, the wages paid to the producing labourers larger than ever, and that the loss, regarding the export trade as a whole, has been confined to the profit on capital and the con- sequent inducements to accumulate it. Mr. Gladstone's Leeds speech was in this matter perfectly accurate, while his censors have been almost pathetically innocent of even the elements of economical knowledge, or acquaintance with the relevant facts of the case.
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