IS BRITAIN DOOMED?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 73, 16 March 1908, Page 3

IS BRITAIN DOOMED?

AN ARTICLE AFFORDING FOOD FOR SfcRIOLS THOUGHT.

Will tliu " Decline and Fall of the British Empire" come to be written, years hence, as ol Home many years ago! One need not be a Tariil Heiormcr to recognise lliat the rapid advance ul oilier nations must some time brijg about a backward movement in Britain, and men of great judgment think that time is near.

1 Here are two ominous signs visible at present (says a writer in Answers) - uiie is the crowding of the people in every civili-ed stale into the towns, which means that those countries wiil soon lie making for themselves the things which they have bought from us up to now. The other sign is even move serious, it is the tendency to manufacture raw material in the place where it is produced. Obviously, it that practice spreads to cotton, wool, jute, silk, and leather, our days as a great nation are numbered.

Let us what is happening. >'ot I so many years ago we made nearly ail our own matches. Sow they mostly conic from Scandinavia. Why! Because it is cheaper to make them where the raw material exists, in the form of pine forests. We also made most of our paper, and a good part of the supply lor other countries. But since nau.;r came to be made from grasses and woodpulp a great change lias occurred, it is ~asier and cheaper to manufacture this raw material in the country which produces it than to import it and du the manufacturing here. We have some instructive figures on this point. In 18'JS we iinuorteu 53i,00U toiia of raw material for paper. Ten years lator our import was 800,000 tons. That's a'l right as far as it goes. But in the former year we imported 3,01)1,000 ewt. of manufactured paper, and in the latter year no less than 8,061,000 ewt. Thus the. increase in raw material was only 51 per cent.; but the increase in the ready-made paper was 101 per cent. Another distressing example of this law is that of wood manufactures. Doors, window-sashes, and other woodwork are now being brought to this country, ready made, in large quantities. It if cheaper to make tUem where the wood grows. So that, while our imports of unmanufactured wood have increased only 44 per cent, in ten years, our imports* of manufactured wood have »one up 158 per cent. Follow up this idea, and it is eaty to see what will ultimately happen. We depend on foreign countries and the colonies for three-fourths of our bread, and nearly half our meat; Ur all of our tea, coffee, cocoa, sugar, dried fruits, win© and tobacco, and for a large part of our eggs, cheese, butter, margarine, condensed milk, etc. (The money with which we buy these is the price' of nur exports. But our exports consist largely of raw material brought from abroad and manufactured here. Our most valuable export is cotton goods—not far short of one hundred million sterling. Three-fourths of the raw material comes from the United States. We get a. good quantity from Egypt, and sonic from India and other places. But we could not grow an ounce of raw material at home. Suppose that the producing countries take to manufacturing their cotton, what will become of the millions of North-country workers? This is no dream. The United States cotton factories are increasing rapidly. One day they will use all their raw material at home. As the Americans get skill they will equal our makes, and supply the world, for it is almost the universal rule that raw material j can be most cheaply manufactured in the place where it is produced. Japan, the papers say, is bidding for our cotton trade in the East, and we know what marvellous things Japan can do when it tries. It will have the cotton at its doors. But the same thing will happen to wool, jute, and silk. Already our silk and linen trades have gone backward, bceause other countries are using th?ir raw material. And in this connection it is unpleasant to know that we are shipping textile machinery in great quantities to all the civilised world. -Wool, linen, silk, and jute manufactures account for thirty-four milium pounds' worth of exports. If they go. then we shall that much less with winch

to purchase food. Wo lar«clv export leather, paper, and other manufactures. But here, again, wo depend on foreign countries for the raw material. And one has only to dance at the statistics of manufactures in those countries to see signs that we shall not always be able to buy the raw material, even if we could sell it when manufactured. What will be the issue of it all? For a Ion" time we shall have, coal and iron. These are practically our only raw materials produced at 'home. But our export, of these, together with machinery, implements, earthenware, and other things on which w 0 can always depend, will not be worth more than .•£125,000,000 to C 150.000,000. Add the freight we get bv our ships, and the interest on money invested abroad, and we have an annual income of .6200,000,000, or a little more. With that we could not pay for tue foreign food we have to buy. It costs us at present about £250,000,000. And how shall we purchase the cotton, wool, and silk for our own clothes, the wood for our houses and furniture, the oil for our lamps, the materials for point and paper, and all the other tilings which the goil and climate of this country will not let us produce? The conclusion is obvious. At some period not very far distant this country will not be able to support its present population of forty-four millions. The birth-rate will have to decrease. We shall emigrate by the million, as the Italians are doing. And when that happens we shall be at the mercy of a* least the two future giant nations of the world-Russia and the United States.