Are we Ruined by the Germans? Part 2

--------------+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--- |1881|'82|'83|'84|'85|'86|'87|'88|'89|'90|'91|'92|'93|'94|'95 --------------+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--- Quant.i.ties-- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | million Cwts. | 68|67|69|66|67|62|62|63|60|63|62|59|58|60|62 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Values-- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | million 's | 21|21|21|21|20|18|17|16|16|21|23|21|19|16|16 --------------+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---

These figures show that our alkali trade has been on the whole remarkably steady, except for the slight ups and downs in successive years to which all trades are liable.

To show these ups and downs more graphically, I have drawn the following diagram, covering the last ten years' exports:-

DIAGRAM OF THE QUANt.i.tIES OF BRITISH ALKALI EXPORTED.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

If the reader will examine this diagram and the more complete figures given above he will be able to see how completely misleading are Mr.

Williams's sensational statements about the British alkali trade. I do not for a moment deny that the German alkali trade has made remarkable progress; I only a.s.sert that there is no evidence that "our trade has gone to the devil."

CHEMICAL MANURES.

We turn next to chemical manures. On this subject Mr. Williams remarks:-

"Every farmer will testify to the exceeding value of these stuffs. 'Tis a modern means of fertilising the soil, and there can be no doubt that it has a very great future. Obviously then it is in the highest degree important that England should keep a firm hold of the trade. What, alas! is equally obvious is that England's grip on it is relaxing, but that Germany is tightening hers."

It may be true-probably is true-that the industry of Germany is expanding in this as in almost every other branch of the chemical trades. It is also true that the value of chemical manures sent by Germany to this country-still only a quarter of what we send to Germany-is increasing. What is not true is the statement that England's grip on the trade is "obviously relaxing." The figures are given below.

They do not look much like a relaxed grip.

EXPORTS OF CHEMICAL MANURES FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM.

In Millions Sterling.

----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- 1881|1882|1883|1884|1885|1886|1887|1888|1889|1890|1891|1892|1893|1894|1895 ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- 18| 20| 22| 21| 17| 16| 16| 18| 21| 21| 21| 21| 23| 23| 19 ----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----

The figures for the past ten years are ill.u.s.trated in the following diagram:-

[Ill.u.s.tration]

SOME SUPPOSITIONS ABOUT SALT.

Salt is the next subject to which Mr. Williams turns. What he has to say about it is more picturesque than accurate:-

"The story is worth study. The Salt Union was formed in England in 1889, and the manufacture of salt thereby converted into a big monopoly.... The directors reckoned without their Germany.

They can make salt there, too. It is not so good as the Cheshire product, but it is salt, and it is much cheaper than that sold by the Salt Union. When that syndicate's price went up the German manufacturers pushed into the world market, and that to a purpose which is strikingly ill.u.s.trated in the case of our great Dependency. India needs much foreign salt, and the Indian ryot needs it cheap: for the salt he uses has to bear the burden of a tax. The natural result followed: German salt to a large extent ousted English from the Indian market."

Most impressive! if only it were true. So far as the world market is concerned, the figures below give no indications of the havoc alleged to have been wrought by the machinations of the Salt Union.

EXPORTS OF BRITISH SALT.

--------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- |1886|1887|1888|1889|1890|1891|1892|1893|1894|1895 --------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- Quant.i.ties-thousand | | | | | | | | | | tons | 805| 819| 899| 667| 726| 671| 654| 636| 769| 741 | | | | | | | | | | Values-thousand 's | 588| 525| 486| 539| 653| 596| 539| 505| 604| 546 --------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----

So far as India is concerned, Mr. Williams is doubly wrong. In the first place, German salt has not "to a large extent ousted English." During the past five years-it was only in 1889 that the wicked Salt Union came into being-Indian imports of salt have been as follows:-

INDIAN IMPORTS OF SALT.

Thousands of Tons.

------------------------------------------------------ Years ending March 31st. From U.K. From Germany.

------------------------------------------------------ 1891 273 61 1892 222 103 1893 241 47 1894 269 48 1895 315 82 ------------------------------------------------------

This does not look as if English salt were being ousted by German. In the second place, it is not true that German salt is much cheaper than Cheshire, at any rate so far as the Indian market is concerned. It will be found by reference to the Indian Blue Books that the price of German salt imported into India in 1894-5 works out to 176 rupees per ton, and the price of English salt only to 170 rupees per ton. In other words, German salt was of the two slightly the dearer. So much for the salt bogey which Mr. Williams had conjured up.

CHEMICAL DYE STUFFS.

We next pa.s.s to chemical dye stuffs. It is undoubtedly true that in this branch of manufacture Germany has gone ahead at a remarkable rate, and it is also probable that some of our manufacturers have allowed themselves to be pa.s.sed in the race by neglecting the scientific methods which Germans employ. But that is no reason why Mr. Williams should exaggerate his case. In order to magnify the fall in our trade, if such there be, he picks out the year of highest export (1890) and says, Lo!

since 1890 our export of dye stuffs has dropped from 530,000 to 473,000. One cannot tell whether this is a real drop in trade, or merely the consequence of a fall in price, but this we do know-that the value of our exports fluctuates largely from year to year, and that 1895 was a good average year. The figures for ten years are given below:-

VALUES OF DYE STUFFS EXPORTED.

------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- |1886|1887|1888|1889|1890|1891|1892|1893|1894|1895 ------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+---- Thousands of 's | 483| 499| 469| 492| 531| 524| 443| 452| 415| 473 ------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----

FANCY SOAPS AND FANCY a.s.sERTIONS.

The last point in Mr. Williams's chapter on the chemical trades with which it is worth while to deal is what he says about soap:-

"In the old days, when brown Windsor was a luxury, Englishmen washed with soap of English make; and those who could not afford 'scented' cleansed themselves with 'yellow' or 'mottled.' Thanks (partly) to Continental chemistry, we have changed all that....

The progress of practical chemistry has evidently reached a point at which the manufacture of agreeable toilet soaps at a low figure is possible. But why should this manufacture be so largely in foreign hands? They twit us with our debased fondness for the tub, and they do but add injury to insult when they send us soap for use therein. The Germans-a non-tubbing race-have not yet invaded the English soap market so victoriously as is their wont, though even here the Teuton hand may be discerned by the expert in forged trade marks."

If this paragraph means anything at all, it means that even in the soap industry our manufacturers are being beaten by the foreigner. To what extent foreign soap is imported into the United Kingdom it is impossible to ascertain, for no separate entry under that head is kept at the Custom House. But from the German Green Books one may learn that in 1895 Germany sent to Great Britain soap valued at 35,700. The amount sent by France may have been as much, and probably the United States also sent us a little. The total export of German soap to all parts of the world in 1895 was valued at 197,000. Now for the British side of the case! As to the total production and consumption of soap in this country, no figures are available, but everyone knows how enormous is the consumption of soap produced by English firms whose names are household words. In addition to their providing for the wants of probably ninety-nine out of a hundred of their own countrymen, our soap manufacturers do an enormous and rapidly growing business abroad.

Here are the figures:-

EXPORTS OF SOAP FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM.

--------------+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--- |1881|'82|'83|'84|'85|'86|'87|'88|'89|'90|'91|'92|'93|'94|'95 --------------+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--- Quant.i.ties- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | thousd. cwts. | 354|409|392|476|402|427|453|500|493|497|524|541|605|577|728 Values- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | thousd. 's. | 398|458|450|548|472|447|452|482|503|534|571|586|644|621|757 --------------+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---

The following diagram ill.u.s.trates the almost continuous increase in the value of our soap exports during the last ten years:-

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Looking at the above figures, it will be seen that in the last six years alone we have added to our exports a sum greater than the total yet attained by Germany. Is it necessary to say more? What pessimistic madness could have led Mr. Williams to "black-list" such a splendidly-thriving and notoriously profitable industry as this, just because he finds a few thousand hundredweight of foreign soap creeping into the country?

CHAPTER IV.

MORE MISREPRESENTATIONS.

Attention was called in the last chapter to some of the picturesque exaggerations-to use the mildest possible term-in which Mr. Williams had indulged in dealing with the chemical trades. We now pa.s.s to the two chapters which he devotes to the iron and steel and their "daughter trades." And at the outset let it be clearly understood that I do not for a moment deny that in some of these trades the progress of Germany has been relatively more rapid than our own. A child, if it is to grow at all, must move faster than an adult. An infant four weeks old doubles its age in a month; an adult takes thirty or forty years to double his.