John Henry Birchenough

“ Let us examine first of all that portion of our Imperial trade which appeals particularly to us at home, the trade which Great Britain carries on with her Colonies and dependencies.
What is the amount of the trade we do with our Colonies as compared with the trade we do with the rest of the world? Of all the things we buy from the world rather more than one-fifth comes to us from the Empire, and of all the things of our own manufacture and production we sell to the world, considerably more than one-third goes to the Empire. ”

“ Enough has been said to show the power which Great Britain's possession of vast loanable capital has given her in the work of Empire-building. In the modern world, with its large affairs, its immense undertakings, finance often plays a decisive part. What is above all to be desired is that British finance should always go hand-in-hand with British industry, that the one should consciously support the other, and both should, as far as possible, be guided in the interests of a great Imperial trade policy. ”

“ It is possible that in a world of economic automata everyone would resign himself cheerfully to buy only in the cheapest and to sell only in the dearest markets. The British Empire is not, however, composed of economic automata, but of men and women who are influenced in all their business transactions by circumstances and conditions far more numerous and complicated than can be taken into account in any price-list. What strikes one most in studying Imperial trade is that all through its varied activities, its thousand changing forms, it reflects the mind and the character of our race. ”

“ Here we see they are the things which make life possible in new countries; they are the visible signs and accompaniments of Imperial expansion. In a thousand ways they are imparting new life to an Empire which covers one quarter of the earth's surface. We call them loans from England to Greater Britain, and are sometimes alarmed at the great debts the Colonies have piled up during the last fifty years. And yet this is the branch of Imperial trade of which we have, perhaps, the best right to be proud ”

“ I am not particularly concerned to prove here how far trade follows or accompanies the flag, but I do wish to show what Imperial trade actually is, and what it is doing, or may be expected to do, for the Empire. In dealing with this question it is important to arrive at a larger conception of Imperial trade than can be conveyed by any statement of figures, however elaborate and varied such a statement may be. Statistics have their proper use. They should constitute the solid groundwork of our conceptions; they should control and set a definite limit to the play of our imagination. ”

“ Traders are at last beginning to learn the lesson, even if politicians are not, that a system which is adequate when you have the field to yourself is entirely inadequate when you are face to face with rivals; that, in a word, the methods of monopoly are not the methods of competition.
To this end the study of German methods and German policy is perhaps more likely to prove immediately fruitful than the study of American methods, although of the two nations America is by far the more formidable rival in Imperial trade. ”

“ But what it is important to realize and to exhibit clearly, are not the figures which measure trade, but the living, life-giving thing itself, which with a thousand threads knits the Empire together in a solidarity of mutual interests and obligations that an alert and wise policy ought to make indestructible. ”

“ Every time the period of transit is shortened even by a few hours the field of trade is widened. Something can be brought or sent which the few hours of delay, with its risks of deterioration in transit, made it not worth while to send before. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of communications to Imperial trade. The best hopes for the future lie in the development of direct telegraphic cables, great linking lines of railway, and, most of all, regular services of steamships between the different States of the Empire. ”

“ One by one the great Colonies are ceasing to be dependents, and are taking their places as allies of the Mother Country in the struggle for the world's trade, bringing to her aid all the wealth of their natural and developed resources. It is clear that in the variety of its commercial activities, in the multiplicity and abundance of its products, the British Empire is rapidly becoming a self-sufficing commercial State. ”

“ What we are wanting in is not so much the actual instruments of education as the zeal and determination which in other countries are making such instruments effective. There is already an Imperial patriotism which rallies men to the ranks in defence of the Empire; there should be a like patriotism which would fill our schools now that danger threatens Imperial trade. ”

“ Then it is of paramount importance not only to trade, but to the whole future of the Empire, that we should improve all means of communication necessary to develop and facilitate transport from one part of the Empire to another. We noted in passing the tendency of distant Colonies to gravitate towards the nearest great industrial community, and it is easy to see how dangerous this tendency might become to Imperial trade, and even to the Imperial connection, if it were left unchecked. ”

“ A further very obvious and very real danger to Imperial trade arises from the similarity of the fiscal systems of the self-governing Colonies to those of foreign countries, and their dissimilarity from that of the Mother Country. The larger States, such as Canada and Australia, are in a position, and will in the future be increasingly tempted, to make reciprocity treaties with foreign countries, which may prove as injurious to inter-Imperial trade as they are certain to prove dangerous to Imperial unity. ”

“ Imperial trade is, however, something far wider, far larger than all these movements of exports and imports, these operations of barter and exchange. The British Colonies and possessions not only depend upon the Mother Country for the supply of their industrial wants, they also lean upon her financially, and look to her for the provision of capital for all their great public and private undertakings; and capital is as vitally necessary for the development of new countries as are men and women.
Great Britain is the banker and financial agent of most of her Colonies and possessions. ”

“ Taking imports and exports together, the colonial trade represents rather more than one-quarter of our total external trade. Moreover, upon the export side it has grown, and still continues to grow, more rapidly than our trade with foreign countries. Indeed, as has frequently been pointed out, it is the expansion of our exports to colonial markets which has of late years compensated us for the shrinkage in our dealings with European markets. Looking back over a period of years, our colonial trade has developed with remarkable steadiness. ”

“ Experience confirms this supposition, for the vitality and progressiveness of our trade are most clearly indicated in those Colonies and possessions which are inhabited by people of our own race, whose habits and prejudices are very like ours, among whom fashions follow the same course, and popular demand is much the same as at home. ”

“ There is, indeed, a kind of law of gravitation which tends to cause distant Colonies to revolve in the industrial orbit of the nearest great commercial community rather than in that of the Mother Country. Obviously, we cannot hope to deprive our rivals of these geographical advantages; we can only endeavour to create counter-attractions in order to keep such Colonies within our own trade system. ”

“ One of the ways to meet it is to reduce the distance that separates us from our Colonies by shortening the time of transit between us. The problem before us in the immediate future is to annihilate distance, to bring it about that produce can be poured from distant possessions into the home markets, and vice versâ, along the great Imperial trade-routes more easily and more rapidly than into markets that lie geographically thousands of miles nearer to them. ”

“ It is probably the consciousness of these facts, the sense that we are face to face with competition, political and commercial, more severe, more far-reaching, more dangerous, than at any previous period, that is impelling us to take more careful stock of our own Empire, its commercial as well as its naval and military possibilities, its commercial as well as its naval and military future. ”

“ We actually see the political concentration of the Empire taking place before our eyes in the gradual federation of the great groups of self-governing Colonies. The North American Colonies are already merged in the Dominion of Canada; the Australian Colonies constitute a united Commonwealth; at no very distant date South Africa will be a federated State from the Zambesi to the Cape. It cannot be questioned that this political concentration will facilitate, if it does not actually bring about, a corresponding commercial rapprochement throughout the Empire. ”

“ The growth of trade between Germany and Australia, South Africa, East Africa, and the Indies is largely due to the regular services which have been established between German and colonial ports, supported as they are partly by direct bounties and still more by indirect bounties skilfully engineered through the State railways. One has only to see the rapid increase of foreign tonnage entered and cleared from colonial ports to realize what a vigorous assault is being made upon England's position as distributor of colonial produce to the rest of the world. ”

“ And this extension of foreign shipping is certain to go on and even to become more accentuated. The vital importance of sea-power is only now being realized by the great nations of the world; just as last century witnessed the competition of land armaments, so this century will certainly see the rivalry of great navies. Sea-power, to be secure, must rest upon a large mercantile marine, so that, whatever be the cost, the growth of merchant shipping must be fostered by any country which looks forward to a great political and industrial future. ”

“ I cannot, however, admit that, where the interests at stake are so vital, where the actual circumstances are so favourable, where the ideal is in itself so fine, a satisfactory solution is beyond either the courage or the political gifts of our race. ”

“ I believe that all the public attention which has of late been directed to foreign competition, and even the somewhat exaggerated alarm which it has excited, are extremely salutary, and must have the effect of arousing us from any apathy into which we may have fallen. ”

“ In saying this I have no desire to attach exclusive importance to education as a preparation for trade. Other elements count for much in the commercial success of a nation—natural aptitudes, inherited predispositions, and most of all, national character. ”

“ Nothing is to be gained by revising to recognise its difficulties, the large concession of principle at the outset, the delicate adjustment of interests, the thorny questions which might arise in the early days of its application. ”

“ The forces which tend to divide us can, with care and forethought, be weakened, while those which draw us together can be increased in strength. Political and commercial influences act and react upon each other. As was said earlier, all the deep-lying causes which are drawing the Empire into more intimate political relations are also bringing it into closer commercial relations, and vice versâ. ”

“ Attention has been called to the benefits which immediately accrued to both the export and import trade of Germany through the establishment of regular services of steamers between German and British colonial ports, and certain causes have been indicated for the probable rapid growth of foreign shipping in the immediate future. Those causes are not so much economic as political No modern State is in future likely to leave the development of its mercantile marine to the free and unaided play of economic forces. ”

“ It is impossible to withhold our admiration from Germany for the thoroughness with which she has prepared herself for her industrial career. She has neglected nothing to insure success. At home she trains physically, intellectually, and morally her whole working population. ”

“ The changes of the last twenty years in the commercial policy of our European neighbours and their new colonial activities have modified our position as Empire-builders and as traders in a closely parallel manner. In each case rivals have come into a field which was almost exclusively our own. ”

“ Those who have most carefully studied the German educational system, physical as well as intellectual, while fully acknowledging its drawbacks and its imperfections, are most impressed—it might almost be said are most depressed—by its marked superiority over our English system, if system it can be called. ”

“ It is however, no use copying German or American methods unless we can acquire the spirit which underlies them. It has been said of the Americans that they are taught from their earliest years that whatever is being done can, and ought to be, better done. That is the attitude of mind which makes a people efficient and progressive. ”

“ The chief immediate difficulty lies in the fact that the different States of the Empire have no common fiscal policy, and that differences of opinion, of practice, and of revenue requirements make the adoption of any such common policy seem well-nigh impossible. ”

“ Russia and the United States have awakened to it, and in order to encourage shipping have confined their coasting trade to their own ships, even to the point of interpreting a coasting voyage as extending from Riga to Vladivostok, or from Boston to San Francisco or the Philippines. ”