a new epoch in Colonial policy. I hope I may be allowed to regard it as another favourable circumstance that the Royal Colonial Institute has accorded the first place in a new session to the discussion of this all-important subject. This Institute has done much for the Empire by furnishing reliable and useful information respecting the Colonies; it has done much in extending a cordial welcome to Colonial visitors, a welcome which I know is always most warmly appreciated; it has done much by keeping alive the Imperial sentiment at home and abroad; but all these valuable efforts require to be solidified and strengthened by the bond of material interests to be of lasting and practical advantage to the Empire at large.

Mr. Chamberlain, speaking at the Canada Club in March last, said: "We appreciate and we cordially respond to the notes, the stirring notes, of loyalty and affection that have been evoked from our Colonies when the great Mother Country has appeared to be in danger. We look forward with hope and with confidence to the development of those countries which are populated by our children and by our kinsmen, but these sentiments alone will never make an Empire unless they are confirmed by bonds of material interest, and we can only found Imperial unity upon a common weal." On the same occasion the Colonial Secretary also said: "We may approach this desirable consummation by a process of gradual development. We may endeavour to establish common interests and common obligations. When we have done that, it will be natural that some sort of representative authority should grow up to deal with the interests and the obligations we have created. What is the greatest of our common obligations? It is Imperial defence. What is the greatest of our common interests? It is Imperial trade."

We have again from one of the most thoughtful and respected statesmen on the Liberal side, Lord Rosebery, the same view of the question. He says: "It is, as I believe, impossible for you to maintain in the long run your present loose and imperfect relations to your Colonies, and preserve those Colonies as part of the Empire. I wish to say that on the ground of commercial interests alone the question is worthy of the consideration of our great commercial communities."

I know that this question of commercial federation is scoffingly referred to by some ethereal persons as belonging to the order of "bread-and-butter politics; " but for the great mass of our people the question of bread and butter is of the first consideration. It certainly plays a large part in building up a prosperous, happy, and

contented nation, which even etherealists admit to be a desirable product. For my part, I consider it the prime duty of any wellordered Government to care for the well-being of the governed, and to see that they are helped rather than hindered in the fierce struggle which present-day competition imposes upon our workers. In a memorable speech, Lord Salisbury recognised this obligation when he said: "The first function of the Government, its most vital and imperative duty, is to care for the vast industry, whose prosperity or depression means the difference between well-being or misery, between health and disease, between a life of hope and a life of despair, to the millions of our fellow countrymen."

It was, I think, a wise idea which prompted Mr. Chamberlain's despatch of November last, asking for information as to the relative position held in the various Colonies by British and foreign products, and inviting patterns and samples of the latter where they had displaced, or were displacing, British manufactures in Colonial markets. Of all lessons, "object" lessons are the most lasting, and the exhibits displayed at the rooms of the London Chamber of Commerce, at the instance of Mr. Chamberlain, cannot fail to be of use to our manufacturers and artisans, who have visited them in large numbers. The conclusions so far arrived at have, I think, established the fact that British artisans and manufacturers can turn out, if they choose, goods that will compare favourably with foreign products. If they have been a little backward hitherto in studying local demands either for more attractive packages or handier articles, the remedy is in their own hands.

There can be no doubt, however, that in some cases they are heavily handicapped by the fact that foreign manufacturers, assured under a system of protection of a certain sale in their own country for their wares at remunerative prices, can afford to export any surplus stock at cost price, or it may be at a small loss. We all know how terribly our West Indian sugar industries have suffered by the German and French bounties, under which German and French growers have been able to export their produce at less than cost price, obtaining their remuneration solely from the bounty paid by their respective Governments for the encouragement of the industry. A proof of the reality of the distress caused by these bounties has reached me in the shape of a resolution passed at a public meeting held at Georgetown, British Guiana, on October 6, 1896, which reads as follows:

Whereas the bounties given on sugar, exported from beet-producing countries, have recently been increased, and the larger output and export

thereby encouraged has resulted in the price of sugar falling below the cost of production; and Whereas in consequence the sugar industry in this Colony, on which the inhabitants are mainly dependent for a livelihood, is threatened with extinction:

Be it resolved, That a petition be addressed through the Secretary of State for the Colonies to the Queen and Parliament, asking that some very prompt measure of relief be afforded to the sugar industry of this Colony, and thus save its inhabitants from distress and ruin.

That is a form of competition with which it is impossible to compete except by some form of retaliation, and the result has been that the East End is studded with derelict refineries, and the dock gates are besieged by large numbers of men driven out from this and other industries by no fault of their own to swell the ranks of the unemployed. There is another side to this unwholesome competition in the lamentable fact that the rich, pure sugars of our West Indian producers have been displaced by the wretched beetroot productions of Germany and France, to the detriment both of the national health and the national purse.

An immediate outcome of Inter-British Federation would be, I hope and believe, to put British producers in the West Indies and Queensland-now a large sugar producer-on something like an even footing with foreign competitors. The almost extinction of the English silk industry was forcibly brought home to me a few evenings since, when I was presiding at a Spitalfields charity gathering. What was once a flourishing industrial centre is now a povertystricken neighbourhood, and it is easily explained when we glance at the Board of Trade statistics, and find that our exports of manufactured silk have fallen to £1,500,000, while our imports of foreign silk have risen to £18,000,000 annually.

Coventry has happily found "weal" in the new and flourishing cycle industry, but in poor Spitalfields the "woe" has no such antidote. These are not the only industries which have been enormously depleted during the last ten or fifteen years. Iron and steel manufactures which were exported in 1874 to the value of £31,190,256, had fallen in 1884 to £24,496,065, and in 1894 to £18,688,763.

The United States of America have passed us completely in what used to be regarded as the most stable and safe of our manufacturing industries. Sheffield cutlery, which justly held and should still hold the first place in the world, was exported to the extent of £4,107,125 in 1882; but, in 1894 it had fallen to £1,834,481, whilst German cutlery exported in the same year, 1894, had risen to £3,704,100,

9

In a recent issue of the Cotton Factory Times the following significant passages occur with regard to the cotton industry:

"Viewed all round, the only conclusion that can be arrived at is that so far as our export trade is, concerned it is practically stationary. Whether future developments will enable us to put ourselves on the improving side is for the future to tell, but there can be no question that at present we are at a standstill, which means that as machinery improves fewer workers will be required. The labouring people are all right with low prices for food and clothing so long as they can be assured of good wages and regular employment, but the latter is becoming more precarious year by year in those industries which have to a great extent to depend upon the export trade, and the men who are thrown out of employment on account of the cause which has produced cheap articles of food and clothing are worse off with such advantages than they were when prices were considerably higher, and they were in full work and earning good wages. The great fall in the price of agricultural products has been injurious to the cotton industries of Lancashire, as it has greatly interfered with the demand for cotton goods for home consumption, checked the extent of mill building, and caused a large number of cotton mills in various parts of the country to be closed on account of the great loss of capital arising from working the same."

In my own constituency of Haggerston the boot and shoe industry is being similarly affected, and large numbers of artisans who for years have supported themselves and their families in comfort are being driven to desperation by these outside influences, which are gradually either cutting down wages or decreasing the output. I might draw numerous other illustrations from my own knowledge and observation, but these will serve as samples of the rest. To my mind they amply demonstrate two propositions: (1) that the import of foreign manufactured articles is increasing to an alarming extent; (2) that the same competition threatens to deprive us not only of our home but of our Colonial markets.

In a reliable analysis of the trade returns for 1894 and 1895, published by the Royal Statistical Society in March last, it is shown that our net imports in 1895 exceeded those of 1894 by £6,335,000. A careful study of these figures shows further that the whole of that increase was due to manufactured articles which we imported to the value of £75,625,000 in 1895, against £68,925,000 in 1894. This means a loss on the year of nearly £3,000,000 in wages, representing the average earnings of 37,500 families, a grim fact which

largely accounts for the distress of which we hear on all sides, not it would seem without good cause.

The same competitors are pressing us hard in our Colonial markets, and every day that Inter-British Federation is delayed gives them a stronger foothold. Here are some striking examples taken from the St. James's Gazette, showing how in particular industries foreign countries are supplanting us in some of our Colonial markets. Canada imported 50 per cent. more of German iron and steel, and of British nearly 100 per cent. less in 1894 than in 1893. The total German exports to Canada, which stood at £93,806 in 1880, increased to £1,200,317 in 1894, an increase of nearly 1,200 per cent. In the same period German exports to Victoria rose from £27,434 to £284,638, an increase of over 1,000 per cent. In the same period Germany's exports to the Cape rose from £38,182 to £448,412, an increase of over 1,100 per cent. France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland have largely increased their trade with British Colonies during the same period, whilst the United States, who were £1,000,000 below us in the Canadian trade in 1880, were £3,000,000 above us in 1894. In Australia, United States manufacturers are competing very keenly against British. Enormous industrial strides are also being made by Japan, who with the initial advantages of low-priced labour and a national aptitude for imitation, threatens us very seriously in our Eastern and Southern markets. These facts and figures accentuate the necessity for Great Britain strengthening her hold upon Colonial markets by reciprocal arrangements.

We are indebted to Mr. Ernest Williams, the gifted author of "Made in Germany," for having called our attention to the remarkable development of German export trade, a development unfortunately accomplished largely at our expense. The export trade of Germany (according to the Times of September 26, 1896) was in 1871 £116,000,000, while the annual average from 1890 to 1894 was £155,000,000, an increase of £39,000,000. For the period

1890 to 1894 the foreign export trade of Great Britain and that of Germany stood at the same average level, viz.-£155,000,000 per annum. In 1894, however, they were relatively £143,184,000 and £148,130,000, a difference in favour of Germany of nearly £5,000,000 on the year.

If we analyse the figures of our whole foreign trade we are confronted by the fact that between 1870 and 1894 they fell from 174 millions per annum to 155 millions, a decrease of 19 millions, or 11 per cent., and further study shows that it is upon