On Tuesday at a crowded and successful meeting of the
Free-Trade Union, Lord Avebury presiding, at the Queen's Hall, Mr. Asquith dealt with the fashionable Tariff Reform argument that capital is being "driven out of the country" which would otherwise stay at home and give continuous employment. This, the latest of the Tariff Reformers' bogies, was due to what they had come to regard as the alarming increase in our exports. Yet at the beginning of the Fiscal controversy it was the export figures which were said to be in such a sickly condition because they were not high enough. In those days the British investor was supposed to be recalling his capital from abroad in order that he might live on it at home. It was perfectly true that the volume of capital exported from Britain was greater than that from any other country. But was that a misfortune P Or did it involve us in the additional loss that interest came back in the form of foreign manufactured goods which under- sold our own P British capital was not exported to any extent in silver and gold. It was exported in the shape of produce. The return for our capital came as food and raw material. Of eourse there might be a compulemy export of capital owing to dwindling resources, but that condition would be betrayed in other ways than by the export figures. It would show itself In banking accounts and Clearing House return, and in the payment of taxes.
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