But some good people have said to me lately, Your anticipations as to injury to British trade and manufactures have not been verified. Look how prosperous the-country is; look what a magnificent Budget we have had: look at the savings bank returns; the income-ta: of trade, and soon. Why We were never better off. quite prepared to admit that there is a deal of fight in the old country yet. There fire many signs of prosperity to be met with. Certain classes, I take, have been doing very well indeed of late, especi those connected with the gold mining industry, and the new gold of the past four or five years must be having its effect. But are all classes equally prosperous, and, if not, why not? Idoubt if there ever was atime in the history of the country before this where you had stich inequality of wealth and earning power among the different sections of the community. But is not this just what bimetallists have been preaching? There has been no destruction wealth in the world, but only a great disturbance in its distribution. One class of men have gained largely where they had no expectation of gaining and no equitable right to gain, and another class have lost where they had done nothing to merit losing. The creditor class have gained and the debtor class have lost. The rich have become richer and the poor, poorer—I don't mean absolutely, but relatively. Those who have debts to pay find the burden made heavier, and those who have money to recei find it goes farther than when they lent So that, though you may have no falling off or even an increase in the Board of Trade returns, or in the income-tax receipts as whole, you may still have all the inequality and injustice to one class and another that bimetallists complain of. Even if it could be shown that the industry and productive ower of the country had not been affected in the aggregate itis no less a legitimate grievance that one man should be ruined in order that another man might prosper.
'THE ULTIMATE EFFECT CERTAIN, And as to the ultimate effect of all this on Lancashire manufacturers, have a very strong feeling that you have not got to the end of it yet. You gentlemen know better than I do how far manufacturing has been a money-making industry in the last eight ten years. And when one observes the amount of cotton spinning and weaving machinery that is now being exported to silver-using countries, a conviction forces itself on the mind that a change is going on which will in the end have grave consequences. According to the Board of Trade returns, this export has increased since 1893 by 86 per cent., as against a rise of 32 per cent. to European countries, By the end of this year there will be running in China and Japan close on 2,000,000 cotton spindles. That isnot a bad beginning, and Shen you consider the enormous size an capacity of the former country, and the millions of willing hands whose very industry and readiness to work have caused them to be dreaded by white labour, it is not easy to predict what it may grow to. I have no hesitation in saying that but for the fall in silver you would have had no such Eastern competition—at all events, not at the present moment. But now that it has taken root the industry, I anticipate, cannot but grow, the more so as.I see by recent China papers that the Chinese Government is adopting a fairly liberal policy in regard to taxation of the product. An excise duty equivalent to the import duty is to be charged which will also free the yarn, &e., from all inland or transit duties. " The competition may be but little felt as yet, or for some years to come. Of course, a great industry exnnot be built up in a day lit is transplanted slowly. But the important thing is to consider that economic forces have been set at work which are all tending in that direction. It would be a fatal mistake to conclude that because the results of this Eastern competition are not immediately apparent it therefore does not exist at all.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.