We wish that the anxious and timid people who are
always worrying about our commercial and industrial decadence because we are " flooded " with cheap German cutlery and cheap German lamps, would look at the very striking article in Tuesday's Times entitled "The Shipbuilding Boom." Half England has never heard of this boom ; for though all England rings with an "ominous shrinkage in the tin-pot trade," nobody troubles to advertise an increase in a great and profitable industry. Oar shipbuilders will close the year with about two million tons of work on hand. That is nearly four times as much as the total amount of tonnage built in all foreign countries in 1897, and half a million tons more than that of the shipping under construction this time last year. The total value of the mercantile shipbuilding completed during the year is £20,000,000. But of course the benefit has not been solely to the shipping industry. All the allied industries—engineering, electrical engineering, iron and steel manufactures, and a hundred other industries—have been helped and stimulated. In fact, the ball set rolling has run through innumerable trades. And yet there are people who think that we ought to abandon Free-trade and adopt a policy of Protection I The shipbuilding trade, remember, is the direct offspring of Free-trade.
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