At the annual dinner of the Wolverhampton Chamber of Commerce,
Mr. George Curzon delivered a speech on British Trade and Foreign Competition. Part of the business of the Foreign Office was to help all British traders who showed a disposition to help themselves. There never was a time when that assistance was more needed than at present. The monopoly which England had once enjoyed was now broken down. On the danger of Asiatic, and especially Chinese, com- petition, he was particularly gloomy. "They had only to look to China, the millions of which country were, in his humble judgment, the people best adapted for labour on the face of the globe, to realise that the Caucasian stock had no monopoly of industrial or commercial capacity, and that the East was at last taking a tardy revenge upon the West for its conquest." Still the Far East had, or ought to have, over- whelming importance in the eyes of the business man. " China was peopled by 350 millions, of whom it was true that there were many, many millions who had never yet handled a'British implement or seen British goods." The conquest of these markets was a matter of which we should never lose sight as one of the achievements of the future.
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