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قراءة كتاب Are We Ruined by the Germans?
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view expressed in “Made in Germany,” and secondly, that the country whose rivalry is supposed to be ruining us is one of the best of all our customers. What I propose to do in the present chapter is to examine some of the detailed statements in Mr. Williams’s book and to show that in many cases the inferences he draws are so seriously exaggerated as to amount to a positive misrepresentation of the facts. For the purposes of this examination we cannot do better than begin with the chapter which Mr. Williams devotes to chemicals. “The chemical trade,” he tells us, “is the barometer of a nation’s prosperity.... The discomforting significance of the appearance of chemicals in this Black List of mine will, therefore, be at once apparent.” More follows about a “Bottomless pit for capital,” and “Germany seizing the occasion while England has let hers slide,” and so on.
THE ALKALI TRADE.
Thus much for generalities with regard to the chemical trade; now for details. Let us begin with alkalies, which Mr. Williams selects for special comment. He says:—
“Here we are confronted with the damning fact that whereas fresh uses and (owing to the growth of manufactures abroad) fresh markets for alkali products are continually being found, the export of the greatest alkali trader of the world was last year of little more than half its value in the early seventies. Nor do the latest years show any sign of recuperation. The decline since 1891 has been continuous.... There is no question here of an insidious advance. The matter is simply that our trade has gone to the devil, while the Germans are piling up fortunes.”
To the average reader this paragraph would certainly suggest that at least half our trade in alkali had already disappeared, and that the remainder would soon be gone to the devil or elsewhere. I have not verified Mr. Williams’s statement with regard to the early seventies, but it is quite sufficient to point to the course of the trade during the last fifteen years. Both quantities and values are given in the following table:—
Exports of Alkali from the United Kingdom.
| 1881 | 1882 | 1883 | 1884 | 1885 | 1886 | 1887 | 1888 | 1889 | 1890 | 1891 | 1892 | 1893 | 1894 | 1895 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quantities—million Cwts. | 6·8 | 6·7 | 6·9 | 6·6 | 6·7 | 6·2 | 6·2 | 6·3 | 6·0 | 6·3 | 6·2 | 5·9 | 5·8 | 6·0 | 6·2 |
| Values—million £’s | 2·1 | 2·1 | 2·1 | 2·1 | 2·0 | 1·8 | 1·7 | 1·6 | 1·6 | 2·1 | 2·3 | 2·1 | 1·9 | 1·6 | 1·6 |
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 Quantities of British Alkali Exported.
(By permission of the Proprietors of the “Daily Graphic.”)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 assert 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:—