THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL AND TO-DAY WHILE Ex-Premier Rosebery was recently lauding the triumphs of the Free Trade Manchester School at Manchester, Foreign Minister Goluchowski, in Vienna, was beseeching the nations of Europe to combine against the destructive competition with Trans-Oceanic countries: We must fight shoulder to shoulder against the common danger,' he exclaims, and arm ourselves for the struggle with all the means at our disposal.' 'European nations must close ranks in order successfully to defend their existence.' Thus do extremes meet, and we see once more how much depends upon the point of view. Had the predictions of the Manchester School been realised, cheaper goods from across the seas would be hailed as an economic gain, and a blessing to the recipients, instead of being considered a menace to their existence. Every port would be open to this influx of goods, and the new countries which supplied them hailed as benefactors, for Free exchange of commodities' was the watchword, but it was undreamt of then that the commodities of the new lands sent to the old might take the form of competing manufactured articles, which makes all the difference. Sixty years ago steam upon land and upon sea-the steamship and the railway train-began their revolutionary work, Britain, their creator, situated upon beds of coal and ironstone, being naturally the scene of their development. The world was a mere looker-on while she harnessed steam and began to change it. If any other country wished to avail itself of the advantages of the new inventions, to Britain it must go for everything connected therewith. Britain had realised her destiny, and was soon to become the workshop of the world. There appeared upon the scene the Manchester School-Villiers, Cobden, Bright, and their colleagues-demanding on behalf of the masses that the taxes upon food should be repealed. The repeal of these taxes, which passes under the name of 'Free Trade' in Britain, in contradistinction to Protection,' has little to do with the modern doctrine of Protection, as it is now known in other countries. Such taxes could never have been defended by the Protectionist of to-day, because it was impossible that the amount of food-products could thereby be considerably increased. The only sound defence for a protective duty, according to the cosmopolitan protectionist, is when it can be justly claimed that to levy it for a time will so stimulate home production of the article taxed as to supply the wants of the nation; and, further, that home competition will then soon result in the nation obtaining a surer, cheaper, and better supply from within its own domain than it ever did or could do from foreign sources. A tax levied under these conditions is endorsed by John Stuart Mill's celebrated paragraph, which John Bright once said to the writer 'would cause hereafter more injury to the world than all his writings would do good,' and is also recognised as sound or unsound by Marshall, according to circumstances, and is what is meant in our day by Protection' outside of Britain. Conditions connected with this tax have in no wise changed, and therefore the work of the Manchester School stands. Such a tax imposed upon food to-day would operate precisely as it did before, unless by some marvellous discovery the soil of Britain can be made to grow an abundance of food for the wants of its inhabitants. A temporary tax then, if necessary, to induce capital to develop the new process would be justifiable. For the reason stated, the modern advocate of Protection denounces as strenuously as any Corn Law Repealer the tax upon food in Britain. The wonderful success of these British inventions, the steamship and the train, and the profits resulting from the command of the world's manufacturing which these inventions gave, coupled with the undoubted advantages flowing from the free importation of food products, had the natural result of creating the most sanguine views of the future position and prosperity of the United Kingdom, and the successful apostles of the Manchester School were above all men justifiably the most sanguine, and this was the lesson they drew from the then existing conditions: Nature has decreed, and wisely so, that all nations of the earth shall be interdependent, each with a mission. To one is given fertile soil, to another rich mines, to a third great forests; to one sunshine and heat, to another temperate zone, and to another colder clime; one nation shall perform this service, another that, and a third shall do something else; all co-operating, each furnishing its natural product, forming one grand harmonious whole. How beautiful the picture! Then followed the second postulate: It is clearly seen that to our beloved land, Great Britain, has been assigned the high mission of manufacturing for her sister nations. Our kin beyond the sea shall send to us in our ships their cotton from the Mississippi valley; India shall contribute its jute, Russia its hemp and its flax, Australia its finer wools, and we, with our supplies of coal and ironstone for our factories and workshops, our skilled mechanics and artificers, and our vast capital, shall invent and construct the necessary machinery, and weave these materials into fine cloth for the nations; all shall be fashioned by us and made fit for the use of men. Our ships which reach us laden with raw materials shall return to all parts of the earth laden with these our higher products made from the crude. This exchange of raw for finished products under the decrees of nature makes each nation the servant of the other, and proclaims the brotherhood of man. Peace and goodwill shall reign upon the earth, one nation after another must follow our example, and free exchange of commodities shall everywhere prevail. Their ports shall open wide for the reception of our finished products, as ours are open for their raw materials. Such the beliefs, the hopes-the not unreasonable hopes, judging from their premises-of the Manchester School; for let it be said, in justice to these good and great men, that the picture they drew, and which we have endeavoured to portray, was realised, Great Britain did become the workshop of the world, and each of the great nations played the rôle prescribed and performed the services indicated. No nation, not even the American, ever made such progress or accumulated such wealth upon products manufactured as Britain did in this stage of her history. The prospectus of the Barrow Steel Company stated that profits had been 30 and 40 per cent. per annum, and in one year they had reached the incredible rate of 60 per cent. upon the entire capital. This is only one straw showing the unheardof returns made by the manufacturers of Britain when the world was at its feet, and before strenuous competition had reduced, and in many cases banished, profits. And well deserved was the reward reaped by the nation, great as it was, which had given steam to the world, inaugurated the age of machinery, and made the world its debtor for all time. The law of Nature as interpreted by the Manchester School was revealed in the supposed facts that the resources of the various countries of the earth greatly differed, the capabilities of the men and women thereof not less so, and that manufacturing could be successfully conducted only in Great Britain. That tool-steel, or indeed any kind of steel, much less fine machinery, could be made except there that the finest woollen, linen, and cotton cloth could be produced successfully in new lands were suggestions which at that day were not even hinted, but which, if they had been made, would have been greeted with derision. It is unreasonable to suppose that these able men of the Manchester School would ever have assumed that the principal nations of the earth, or those aspiring to become such, would contentedly play the subordinate part assigned them had the manufacturing field been open to them. The very keystone of the Manchester structure was necessarily that the various nations were restricted by Nature to play the rôle of growers of raw materials, no other being possible. We find to-day, on the contrary, after a period of enforced acquiescence, that nations with rare unanimity have aspired to share the higher task of fashioning their raw materials into finished products for themselves, and neither British Indeed, capital nor skill has been wanting to insure their success. it is chiefly owing to these that competition with their own country has been rendered possible in the Far East. So far from the resources of nations being generally meagre and unsuitable for manufacturing, or their people incapable, as the Manchester School assumed, the success of their manufacturing efforts, generally speaking, has been surprising. Germany has become one of the largest manufacturing countries. France and Switzerland have almost monopolised the silk manufacture in Europe. Russia is engaged in building steel and engineering works under the supervision of the most skilled American constructors; two of these establishments, now well forward, rival the best works of America, after which they are copied. Japan and China are building factories of the latest and most approved character, always with British machinery and generally under British direction. Mexico is weaving cotton cloth, manufacturing paper, and two bicycle factories are now under construction there. The jute and cotton mills of India are numerous and increasing, and Bombay is establishing an Engineering Works. It is stated that one British manufacturing concern sends abroad the complete machinery for a new mill every week. Of America it is unnecessary to speak. Thus every nation of the first rank, or which has the elements of future rank, has rejected the role which the Manchester School assigned it, and aspires to manufacture for itself. Political Economy now points out that it is for the benefit of mankind that the transportation charges incurred by distance between producer and manufacturer should be saved. Attempts to manufacture by some small populations in certain directions will no doubt fail and be abandoned, but success in the main seems assured. Some lands, notably Germany and America, not content to supply their own wants, now appear as exporters of many competing articles to other countries, several of which reach the United Kingdom, and the experience which the men of other nations have long had of innumerable articles made in Britain' is now being brought home to the Briton, and it is found that there is a good deal of human nature in him' not differing from that of other lands. A score of articles 'made in Germany' cause him irritation; contracts given to American manufacturers for engines in London, Dublin, and Edinburgh are not approved. Glasgow rejects an American bid for water-pipes, and gives it to Glasgow manufacturers at a higher price. When a great show of bicycles takes place in London, no room can be found for the American. Government contracts, even including stationery, must be filled by home-made articles. Although free entrance for importations is not denied, yet when purchases are to be made--no foreigner need apply. The mails must go by slow home-made ships, even if thereby delayed. All this is only what we should expect and excuse. He is a poor citizen who does not prefer and patronise his own country rather than foreign lands, but the Briton should expect the American, and German, and others to be equally patriotic. With the same feelings with which he regards competing articles 'made in Germany' or America invading his own country, let him realise that the patriotic German and American naturally regard competing articles 'made in Britain' which invade theirs. To-day it is seen that Nature has distributed more generously than was imagined the indispensable minerals, coal, lime, and ironstone, as it was known before that it had widely distributed the ability to grow raw materials; and that it has endowed the man and woman of most countries with latent ability, sufficient under the new conditions to manufacture their own raw materials, in most cases not so well, in one or two special lines perhaps as well, as the Briton or American, and that hence there is not to be only one or two but many principal manufacturing countries. The wonderful machinery, mostly of British invention, especially in iron and steel and in textile manufactures, enables the Hindoo of India, the Paeon of Mexico, the negro of America, the Chinaman and the man of Japan, to manufacture with the more carefully educated workman of Britain and America. The mechanical skill of old is not now generally required, but, where necessary for a few positions in each huge factory, is readily obtained from the older manufacturing lands. Automatic machinery is to be credited as the most potent factor in rendering non-essential to successful manufacturing a mass of educated mechanical labour such as that of Britain or America, and thus making it possible to create manufacturing centres in lands which, until recent years, seemed destined to remain only producers of raw materials. We see everywhere to-day the influence of this new machinery. It can be accepted as an axiom that raw materials have now power to attract capital, and also to attract and develop labour for their manufacture in close proximity, and that skilled labour is losing the power it once had to attract raw materials to it from afar. This is not change; it is revolution. The ablest and best citizens of every country are inspired to favour the development of its resources. They cannot consider it right to hide the talents given them, and are now enabled to see clearly that the evident law of Nature is that there shall be given to many nations the blessings of diversified industries, in the pursuit of which the various aptitudes and talents of their people shall find scope. All this the Manchester School could by no possibility have fore seen. It is delightful to survey the movement of the nations in the march of industrial progress under the new conditions. Had one or VOL. XLIII-No. 252 U |