ENGLAND ALWAYS ON TOP.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2050, 11 January 1901, Page 6

ENGLAND ALWAYS ON TOP.

The allegation made recently in the German Parliament that German trade is on the decline takes few observers by surprise. A great deal of the much-lauded increase in German trade is believed to be fictitious. No doubt there Las been a large development in German industry, and, Germany being an industrious nation, with highly - educated work people, that development must continue. Only there has been a feverish promotion of industrial enterprise, which may very well receive a check ; and, again, the swelling of the statistics by the operation of the Merchandise Marks Act has run its course. That Act, as it has often been pointed out, materially affected the international statistics, and the .alteration was seized upon to manufacture evidence of the decline of British trade before German competition. This apparent gain has, now been included in the German returns once and for all. There can be no more such fictitious increase. \.'-

Very likely we are on the eve of a reaction all the Avorld over, but it is to be noticed that so far all the accounts speak of a continuance in Great Britain of the wonderful prosperity of the past few years. This is the more noteworthy because of the persistent efforts in Australia to disparage the Mother Country from the industrial standpoint. Dr Leyds has been busy in Europe using a secret service fund to put in circulation fabulous statements of British discomfiture ; and equal industry has been exhibited in these colonies in putting, about tales to the effect that Great Britain, is more and more lapsing into a squalicl®)ndition. She is depicted as stupidly while other nations pass her in the race, and while her population sinks lower and lower in the scale. This is what ought to happen if her open-door policy is the idiotic fraud that it is declared to be, and therefore we have descriptions of how It does happen. And all these tales are as pure fabrications as any of the Leyds stories on the Continent, the ‘fact being that Great Britain is flourishing more than ever by virtue of her policy of obtaining the most she can for her money. The prosperity of England is described in a characteristic fashion in a late- number of the r Daily Mail’;—“John Bull is now a gentleman in the easiest of circumstances. A golden wave of prosperity, substantial like himself, has rolled lovingly over him. He is taking boxes at the play, and giving chic dinners by the million. He is drinking deeper than ever before of the glowing wine of life. The manufacturer and the working man never had such a time as this within the past few years. There are but few unemployed, wages have been going hand in band with a most prosperous home trade. Then the Board -of Trade returns show a big foreign trade too.” l the ‘ Daily Express ’ of October 8, when commenting upon the last report of the Board of Trade on ‘Rates of Wages,’ writes:—“ The upward tendency of wages is not only maintained. but exhibits a startling increase. In 1897 tbe increase in the weekly rate of wages aggregated £45,000 over the rate prevailing in the previous year. In 1898 the increase was £95,000, and in 1899 £114,656 per week, or a little under six millions sterling per annum. During the eight months of the current year for which the figures are available the net increase averages over £150,000 per week, or a little less than £8,000,000 per annum.”

It is a. curious and significant spectacle that Great Britain presents at the close of the century. She is the great open mai’ket of the world. One and all of the nations are competing for her orders. And, while thus living by her, many of them indulge in ridicule and abuse. But our great Mother Country passes on her way, not unheeding, but without wasting time in rebuke, content to prosper herself and to teach the world by an illustrious example.—‘ Argus.’