The Press Thursday, August 11, 1921. Protectionist Statistics.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17221, 11 August 1921, Page 6

The Press Thursday, August 11, 1921. Protectionist Statistics.

? A cool many years ago, when the Pro* " 0 } "teotionists in Britain were preparing if 3 tbe,way for.the "Tariff Reform" moveA ment, a> Mr Ernest Edwin Williams book called "Made in Gerur< <* many?*' which is chiefly remembered, it is remembered at all, for the '->r? " manner in which its anther converted ' *■' . statistics to -the uses of "Fair Trade" ' -A* (aa the Protectionists of those days callJ& ed "their policy, with that love of eva--7 ■**, eionvthat makes the present-day Protec tionist in.this country talk of "stabit '-» * "nation of industry*'). I&e other »i _ trades, Mr Williams' said, British ship* **£• „ bniiding was in a bad way. "Still y-j- ."more remarkable," he continued, "is drop in our supply of foreign */-•£' 12,877 tons in 1874, to * Jf'SMSS tons in 1894." Here were the fc-f-"actual figures relied upon by Mr Wilf/'liania,' but* not fully quoted by'him, in m '1896.- - ' fXear. JIJom., Tear. Tons. Si-:. 'S3WB *>.»;%; 48 1892 2,792 "S>.i, «V 12,877 1894 2,483 "Jr-- 1875 ...12,230 1895 4,152 un ,1676 ... 14 I*B6 30,000 f" r /The duplicity of Mr Williams in his %,* selection of years is so obvious as hard",,ly to-need comment. It would have ,*"*<' boen,as,Treaaonable to quote the figures ;: the output had grown t "Wpam» by

the Industrial Association of Canterbury has handled statistics in an appendix printed in a pamphlet containing an address delivered by Mr J. A. Frostick some time ago. We give a short extract: — A further proof that the trade of the world is not secured by the operation of free trade is given by the following figures for the United Kingdom, which 6how that whereas America had increased her credit balance enormously in five years, the British fir-ures show an alarming increase in the debit balance a3 betwee-i the two years:— 1914. 1919. £ £ British imports from oil countries .. 697,432,649 1,631,901,864 Exports to alltountries, including re-exports .. 525,720,311 962,694,911 £171,712,338 £669,206,953 A still further proof U piven by the following figuTea, tbat in the exchange of commodities between the United Kingdom and America, a protected country can compete successfully with a free trade country in regard to productions which require skill: 1914. 1919. ■£ £ American exports to United Kingdom 138,616,000 543,057,000 American import*! from United Kingdom* .. 34,170.000 33,921,000 Creditbalance .. £104,416,000 £509,136,000 •Not including foreign and colonial products ehipped to America) through England. The Customs tariffs in protected countries have promoted the stabilisation of the industries where they have been carried on on the principles of the highest efficiency; this applies particularly in America. The degree of skill poeses»?d by the workers in that country is probably the highest in the world; strict economy in every stage of production and the adoption of the most economic methods of handling and distributing goods have enabled them to be sold in successful competition with the whole world. What is one to say of those who can seriously put forward such figures as evidence against freetrade, or, rather, evidence in favour of Protection ? Even Mr Ernest Edwin Williams would probably have shrunk from doing so. For he would hardly have ventured to suppose, as the Industrial Association's writer supposes, that the public have already forgotten that between the years 1914 and 1919 the affairs of the United Kingdom were quite seriously disturbed. Those figures are evidence of nothing except the occurence of a war which strained Britain nearly to breaking-point and which gave an impetus to American industry equally great. We have seen much strange statistical argument by Protectionists, but never anything quite 60 lamentable as the passage we have quoted. We feel bound to say that there is something positively painful to loyal admirers of Britain in this jeering quotation of the statistical measure of her great struggle between 1914 and 1919 for the freedom of the world as the measure of her failure—stupid and effete old nation" that she is—to capture "the trade of the world" during that quinquennium. It is plain that there is no clogging delicacy about the Protectionist propagandist, and that the intelligence to which the high Protectionists appeal is the intelligence of those who had forgotten that" a war began in 1914. It would have been bad enough if the Association had presented these figures without making any remarks about them. But on top of the implication that these figures have nothing to do with the war, but merely show how Freetrade fails in five years, we have the impression conveyed th&£ the American goods so abundantly imported into the United Kingdom in 1919 *ere manufactured—were *'pro- " ductions which, require skill," the prodnctß of the highly organised technical industries so eloquently described in the concluding paragraph of the passage quoted. We have not at hand all the classified details (although we have many of them, and all the totals) of the 1919 figureß,.butwe have the details of the figures for 1918, when the imports from America into Britain were nearly as great as in 1919—615. millions instead of 543 millions. Now, of that 515 millions, only 47 millions were manufactured goods, the balance of 468 millions consisting of food (grain, fish, fruit, bacon, hams, beef, milk, and sugar), tobacco, cotton, petroleum,' rosin, and timber. , During-1919 there I were large increases in the imports of I important materials like cotton, to* , bacco, and wheat, and corresponding ' decreases in the, imports of manufactured goods, Eo that the American! manufactures imported into Britain in competition with British goods in 1919 were certainly less than 50, and possibly less than 40 Bullions. Yet the Industrial Association would have people believe that protected America was able so to out-do unprotected Britain as to find a market in Britain for 543 millions' worth of the products of tariff-created skill I This is a sample of the statistical method employed by the advocates of high Protection in this country, and we think most people will agree that it is not much credit to them. Since the name of Mr W. J. Jenkin, president of the Association, is appended to the matter from which we hate quoted, it would be interesting to know whether, now that his attention has been called to it, he thinks ,it intelligent or candid, or marked even by any recognition of what stupid old Britain was doing between 1914 and 1919J ■■■v ■?;.<:■-