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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 77

III. Does the British Empire provide at present a sufficient market for the surplus manufactured goods of the United Kingdom?

III. Does the British Empire provide at present a sufficient market for the surplus manufactured goods of the United Kingdom?

The total values of the exports of manufactured goods by the United Kingdom have been obtained from the Trade and Navigation Returns of the Board of Trade. The figures of the past eight years are as follows—
Total Values of Manufactured Goods Exported by the United Kingdom.
1893 £189.809,000
1894 184,647,000
1895 195,736,000
1896 209,832,000
1897 £200,824.000
1898 199,075,000
1899 215,158,000
1900 226,465,000

The values of new ships have been deducted in 1899 and 1900, because not included in the earlier returns.

The above figures show an increase of £36,600,000 in the eight years, equal to a gain of 19 per cent.; but the value of our export trade varies greatly in successive years, and comparisons of individual years are never trustworthy.

Turning now to the figures representing the value of the total imports of manufactured goods by our Colonies and dependencies, we find that if the imports of similar goods by the United Kingdom be included, the answer to our page 73 inquiry is in the affirmative—the Empire does at present provide an adequate market for the surplus manufactures of the United Kingdom. The detailed figures are given below—for the reasons already given, totals covering a series of years being employed.

Total Value of the Imports of Manufactured Goods, by the Various Divisions of the British Empire, in million Sterling.
1893 £189,135,000
1894 174,675,000
1895 195,206,000
1896 219,839,000
1897 £230,999.000
1898 227,879,000
1899 246,675,000
1900 266,088,000

The figures for the latest year for which returns are available (1900) show that the Empire, as a whole,

Diagram III.—Annual Values of the Exports of the United Kingdom for the Period 1856-1900, At the Prices of 1881.

Diagram III.—Annual Values of the Exports of the United Kingdom for the Period 1856-1900, At the Prices of 1881.

The curve thus represents the fluctuation in the volume of our export trade. Each vertical division equals ten million sterling; each lateral division one year.

imported £40,000,000 worth more goods of this description than were exported by the United Kingdom, the exact totals being £266,088,000 and £226,465,000 respectively. The increase in the eight years has been over £76,000,000, and there is consequently little doubt that the present demand for manufactured goods by the British Empire is in excess of its producing power.

page 74

The visions of those who see this country filled with deserted mills and factories and starving operatives, as a result of any attempt to restrict British trade to British channels of supply are therefore wholly false. Such visions are the result, not of a serious study of the figures beam; on the subject, but of preconceived ideas as to the value of the colonial trade.

Were not one pound's worth of our goods sold outside the countries over which the British flag is flying, our manufacturers would still have a larger trade than is theirs to-day.

The inauguration of a preferential tariff system for the Empire is therefore a change in our fiscal policy which would tend to benefit, rather than to endanger, our home industries.