Shall we Lose our Export Trade?

This is for the workers in each industry to consider for themselves. The same fear has been expressed about every previous Factory Act : yet the successive reductions of hours in the textile factories have been followed by a rapid increase of textile exports. But even if it were true that any branch of our export trade depended on the overwork and degradation of our working population, we could afford to let that branch go, with the certainty of finding in our home markets better employment for the workers engaged in it. However, we shall always find that the easiest way to get Greek currants and Jamaica sugar is to buy them with our own productions. The fear of foreign competition is used as a bogey to frighten the workers in every country. The French coal miners are told that unless they work themselves to death they must starve to death, because of "English competition." Will our coal miners let themselves be frightened by the same story?