I. Introduction.

For the majority of the English-speaking race, midnight on the 31st of December, 1900, marked the close of the nineteenth and the dawn of the twentieth century. The German Emperor, with that true imperial instinct which has ever distinguished him, has decided that the nineteenth century ended on December 31st, 1899. Those who read the heated correspondence in the Times on this subject in December, 1899, will appreciate the significance of this action, and will be ready to agree that it is at times useful to possess an Emperor able and willing to settle off-hand questions so disturbing to the mental balance of the average man and woman. This decision, as a witty German lady pointed out to the writer, has placed Germany page 29 twelve months ahead of all her industrial competitors in the new century, and may be regarded as but another instance of the care and forethought of the Emperor for our Teutonic cousins' welfare.

But whether the twentieth century be held to have commenced upon the 1st of January, 1900, or upon the 1st of January, 1901, the decision is without weight for the purposes of this Chapter. Either date will suit equally well as the standing point from which to review the industrial progress of the century which has just closed, and the industrial prospects of our country in the century upon the threshold of which we stand.

To the future historian the nineteenth century will be known as the century of coal and steam. Steam-power has revolutionised all industrial operations, and has led to the substitution of the factory system of manufacture for home and cottage industries. The possession of extensive and cheaply-worked coal-beds has been the chief factor in this industrial change, and to the early development of her coal resources England owes her present position at the head of the manufacturing nations of the world.

In the year 1801 the total import and export trade of the United Kingdom was valued at £55,000,000. In 1899 this total had grown to £740,000,000, or thirteen-fold; although the population is estimated to have only increased from 16,345,000 to 40,800,000 in the same period of time. No other country in the world can show such a growth in industrial wealth and importance in the nineteenth century.

In the following pages an attempt will be made to trace this growth through its various stages: to analyse some of the causes which have led to severe fluctuations in the value and volume of our trade: and Anally to estimate the extent and strength of the forces which are operating to retard our industrial progress as a nation in the century upon which we have just entered.

For the purposes of this Chapter all the figures have been thrown into diagrammatic form, and the results are page 30 presented in Diagrams I., II., III. and IV. This is the most scientific method of using series of numbers that show marked variations from year to year, and it is the only one which enables the real extent and significance of these variations to be grasped.