THE PROSPECT IN GREAT BRITAIN

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 30, 1879

THE PROSPECT IN GREAT BRITAIN.

The following article which we copy from the daily Inter-Ocean of Jan. 14, 1879, is somewhat lengthy for our limited space, but we consider its interest and importance sufficient to justify its insertion in full. It is a deep and philosophical examination of one of the great problems of the age, which is eliciting the profound interest of all thoughtful men, and which is so intimately connected with prophecy; namely, the growing and deepening distress among the lower classes. In England financial matters, it seems, were never in a worse condition, and there is not one ray of light in the prospect of the future. Such is the gloomy picture presented before us, one calculated to excite in thoughtful minds the inquiry whether this state of things may not have some prophetic significance. The article is a most instructive one, and will repay careful study.

All the great natural forces which co-operate in the advance of civilization have been hostile to the thoroughly artificial edifice of English prosperity. It has been truthfully said that however solid her commercial supremacy may have seemed at times, it was no more secure than one of those vast temple walls which the traveler sees in India—walls constructed centuries ago to resist the violence of earthquake as well as more ordinary forces of destruction, but now toppling to their fall because a banyan seed has germinated in a neglected crevice, and the huge roots are gradually hurling the stones from the places where they seemed fixed forever. The germ of free trade, once worshiped in England as the banyan is by the superstitious natives of India, has been the means of undermining and destroying the temple which had been reared with such great pains. The terrible and continued complaints of the depression of trade in England, and the fears among the free traders of what they term a “Protection Revival,” have reached this side of the Atlantic in various forms for the past three months. Mr. Wedgwood showed in Parliament, last September, that during the entire series of years from 1840 to 1872, British trade exhibited elasticity and growth. Then came a change, and the exports have diminished from $1,280,000,000 in 1872 to $990,000,000 for last year. In spite of continued

predictions from year to year and month to month that the tide was at the point of turning, it has not turned yet.

Mr. Mundella, one of the leading members of Parliament, stated the other day that British exports have fallen about 24 per cent from the highest point. Steel rails, which had been selling at $75 and $100 per ton, are to-day being delivered at $26. The price of coal has declined about 50 per cent, and cotton and woolen goods were never so cheap in the history of manufacturers.

Mr. Norwood, another English authority on commercial matters, consoles his countrymen by considering it unreasonable for Englishmen to expect that they should continue to be the sole manufacturers of the world.

Mr. John Morley, the editor of the Fortnightly Review, lately gave a long, careful, and, in the main correct, discussion on the present state of trade and on the prospects of the manufacturing interests. His conclusions are that there has been over-production everywhere. Business is being carried on in all branches at ruinously low terms.

But what cheer can the English merchant gain from the most recent Board of Trade returns? The testimony of these reports fails to yield any comfort in respect to the condition of the great industries of the country. The imports of raw cotton are less by upwards of one-fourth than they were in the corresponding month last year. The imports of flax and hemp have fallen off by one-fifth. The evidence of the principal exports points in the same direction. Cotton, piece goods, linen and jute manufactures, iron and steel, hardware and cutlery, all show a decline, both in quality and in value, and the decline in value is much greater than in quantity. The outlook for trade is, therefore, very dark, and, as we have fully shown, the fact is now generally acknowledged. In spite of successive reductions in the rate of wages and in the price of raw materials, the English manufacturers seem to be losing their hold on the foreign markets. But the other day the London Times in a leader said:

“The firms which have fought a losing battle against fate for four disastrous years, with the help of the banks, were encouraged to prolong the contest by the hope of better days that never came. At this moment there are, it may be said, less signs than ever of their coming.”

The current number of the London Quarterly Review furnishes some startling figures in regard to the decline of the cotton trade. The consumption of English cotton goods in foreign markets no longer grows at its old pace, and the reason is not far to seek. Her rivals are making greater progress than England, for since 1870 Great Britain's annual consumption of cotton has increased less than 400,000 bales, while that of the continent of Europe, the United States, and India, has grown more than 1,250,000 bales. Below we present the actual figures of the cotton consumption in thousands of bales:—

	1870	1871	1872	1873	1874	1875	1876	1877
Great Britain	2,760	3,222	3,132	3,335	3,149	3,077	3,117	3,149
Cont't Europe	1,722	2,327	1,770	2,090	2,397	2,369	2,605	2,383
United States	928	1,140	1,067	1,214	1,816	1,194	1,357	439
India	—	—	—	—	—	—	216	237

Under the influence of protection, the United States has increased its consumption of cotton to such an extent that our imports of cotton goods have steadily declined from 227,000,000 yards in 1860 to 61,000,000 yards in 1877, and but 26,000,000 yards in the first seven months of 1878; while, on the other hand, especially during the last five years, our exports have undergone an entirely opposite process, the exports having been only $2,400,000 in 1872, and having steadily increased until they reached, in 1877, $10,660,000. The British imports of cotton goods from the United States have grown in the last few years.

But with depression in business and falling off of trade the winter in England opens with a very considerable and significant increase of pauperism. The figures for the year are before us. The fact of the increase is somewhat obscured in the general totals, there being about two per cent more paupers in all England than there were in 1877. A careful analysis of the returns shows that in the Northern manufacturing districts and Wales the augmentation is much more formidable. At the end of July last, in the Northwestern or Lancashire district, the increase in the number of paupers was as much as 6,079 on a total of 60,175. In the York district the increase at the same date was 3,948 on the total of 56,854. Altogether, in the West Midland, North Midland, Northwestern, York, Northern, and Welsh districts, the augmentation amounted at the above date to 17,513 upon a total of 824,895. These figures form painful evidence of the extent to which the masses near the verge of distribution have been pushed over the limit, and have been at least temporarily pauperized. But there is yet another proof to complete the melancholy picture. The Inter-Ocean has before shown what a great index the amount of deposits in the English postal savings banks is to the financial condition of the masses. The report of the Postmaster-General, just out, shows signs of withdrawals, and this fact indicates conclusively the extent of the distress and suffering among the working classes in England.

We do not want to dwell on these dismal topics for any grim pleasure that may be derived from the prostration of a rival. The facts are presented rather with a view of ascertaining what, if any, significance they have to America. This depression cannot come to an end without effecting vast and permanent changes in the relations of the chief industrial communities. As Professor Thompson, of Philadelphia, in a recent address, has clearly shown, previous panics effected no such change. England, the chief monopolist of the world's commerce, came out of them a little better established in her pre-eminence than she went in. She had used the period of prostration chiefly to crush native rivals in her foreign markets. No nation “had so strong a back,” and could hold out so long as England.

The facts and figures above given clearly indicate that it is to the United States that England looks for the possible destruction of her commercial supremacy. In the long run, one must succumb. Will it be the English, or will it be the American producer? Professor Thompson says that a careful examination of the facts shows beyond a doubt that the former must succumb. In the first place, the American, with control of the home market and a moderate export, will be very well off. The former he already has, the latter he is fast getting. We have shown that England is so overloaded with industries of all sorts that she cannot afford to lose even her American market. But ours is already shut on her, and her colonies, even India, as above shown, are rapidly shutting theirs. And in Europe, where her free-trade propaganda seemed likely to bear such abundant fruit, the outlook is far from promising. It is a well-known fact that Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia are not advancing in the free-trade direction. Those who had it are adopting tariffs; those whose tariffs were weak are strengthening them.

That America will ultimately take the lead in the industrial race there can be no doubt, when, added to the eloquence of convincing facts and figures, the greatest of English statesmen, Mr. Gladstone, in the following words admits it: “The huge figure of $5,000,000,000, which may be taken roundly as the annual income of the United Kingdom, has been reached at a surprising rate; a rate which may perhaps be best expressed by saying that if we had started forty or fifty years ago from zero, at the rate of our recent annual increment we should now have reached our present position. But while we have been advancing with this portentous rapidity, America is passing us by in a canter. Yet even now the work of searching the soil and the bowels of the territory, and opening out her enterprise throughout its vast expanse, is in its infancy.”