The Indianapolis journal., 1895-01-14
DECLINE OF BRITISH TRADE.

A recent issue Of Industries and Iron,
paper devoted to British manufactur-
ing industries, says that survey of the
industrial features of 1894 increases the
apprehension which has been growing of
late years that the period of British
commercial supremacy has passed it's
zenith and is on the decline. In support
of this view it regretfully admits that
the volume of British exports is stead
lily shrinking; that British manufacture
ers are being beaten on their own
ground by foreign rivals; that British
agriculture has .gone to the dogs and
our iron industry seems in a fair way
of following it's example" Particulariz-
ing still further it says
1: is a stupefyng fact, would have
been so regarded but a few years ago,
that Belgian irOnwOrk is actually imported
for use in the country of iron. Our textile
industry is gradually being undermined
sedulously inducing our export customers
to manufacture their own fabrics and set
building the American ship yards are as
sum.ng the aspect of rivals of more and
more formidable proportions. Our locomo-
tive export trade is relatively paralyzed be-
cause foreigners now make their own
gines. Our chemical trade is departing to
markets | are deluged % With foreign produc
tions both cheaper and better than we
can make ourselves. In agricultural ma
cIinery our manufacturers toll for great
part unsuccessfuily against the products
of Germany and the United States.
Coming from an organ of British
trade these statements have peculiar
significance. The commercial supremacy
of England has furnished free traders
with a stock argument in favor of their
theory. They have said: Here is an
isolated little country whose total area
is less than one of our large States, yet
by a persistent adherence to the policy
of free trade it has reached the head of
the industrial processiOA and acquired
control of the markets of the world"
Yet here comes British trade paper
and says that not only is Britain'S
foreign trade decreasing, but that in
almost every line British manufactur-
ers are being beaten on their own
ground by foreign rivals. If this is true
there is an end of the argument for
England's commercial supremacy in IA
vor of free trade.
From another point of view the arti-
Gle suggests an interesting line of con-
lecture as to how long and how far the
decline of British commercial supremacy
may continue. The history of the world
furnishes many instances of the trans
ference of commercial supremacy from
one country to another, of the complete
loss Of particular lines Of trade by coun-
tries which have had almost a nonop-
oily of them, and of the decline and de-
cay Of great commercial cities. The his
tory of commerce is a history of the
rise and fall of empires and the shift
ing channels Of the worlds trade are
strewn with the ruins of cities whose
ships once whitened all it's seas. His
tory repeats itself. and it is quite within
the range of possibility that the COM
mercial supremacy of Great Britain
which has been SO grandly maintained
for SO long time may have passed it's
elimination and entered upon its clos
ing stage. The scepter will not be re-
hnquished without struggle, but the
time may come when it will have to be,
and then there can be little doubt that
it will pass to the country which has
the greatest possibilities of future de-
velopment of any country on earth to-
day, and which is even now England's
most formida BILE rival OF course this
means the United States