The Daily soliphone., 1902-05-02
IN[ ND|T|N1 ON IHE NAIL.
Henry Labouchere Reads the Brit ish a Pointed Lecture in
 This Weeks Truth,
BRITISH TRADE SUPREMACY DOOMED.
While BritOns Have Been Pursuing a Shadow in Reproductive F1eIds, i Trade Rivals Have Slipped Tn hhu Cut the Very Ground From Under Their Feet.

New York, May 2.-Henry Lo- bouchere in this weeks Truth, under the heading of "Morganeering and the moral' tells the British Nation, says a Herald dispatch from London, that it's supremacy in trade and conn merce is not only threatened but best efforts of which the empire is capable, to prevent retrograde movement, which, if it begins, will in crease year by year.
 Mr. Lobouchere says:
 ssTo the impartial observer it is a frifle amusing to watch the pertur- bation of John Bull at the march of the American capitalist For gen. eration or two past the gospel of sal vation of mankind by the agency of British capital has been preached with sincere conviction. Whether 1t was a dying nation in Europe or Asia, rackety republic is South America, an unreclainaed region of Africa, peopled by idolators and can nibals. or even a poverty-stricken British colony, the means of regenera- tion were always the same-let Brit Ssh capital and British enterprise ex- ploit the patient thoroughly and there will be an end to all his dis eases, political, economic and social.
 'tFor 50 years we preached this gos- pei and acted up to it religiously. Now comes a little turning of tables.
 ''With much larger population and immeasurably greater natural resources, the United States offers field for the accumulation of greater wealth than we can ever aspire to.
 Americans, in their turn, now aspire to regenerate the world by American capital and American en- terprise. They practice upon us the doctrine which we so long applied to the rest of mankind. Lastly-for the present-they lay sacrilegious hands on the shipping, by means of which Britannia rules the waves
 s'No wonder John Bull is in comic. state of consternation. Instead of the exploiter he is becoming exploit ed.
 "For about 20 years we have been beset with a craze of acquiring in the most out-of-the-way parts of the world new openings for British capl- tal and new markets for British goods. The craze has colored all our national thought and policy.
 "While we have been pursuing this phantom what has the foreign been doing? He, too, seeks an opening abroad for his surplus capital, and foreign market for his surplus goods. And where does he first find them? In England.
 While we seek to extend the area of our comuerce and our investments by acquiring control of countries which have no population or of peo- ple who have no wants, the manu- facturers and investors of Germany and America find in this country the finest opening in the world. While we sink millions on the construction Of railways through the African conti- nent, which can not yield a return within the life of the present genera tion, or perhaps the next. the Amerl' can capitalists discover q remunera' tive investment for his millions in i'm proving the means of locomotion in London.
 ''While we spend countless millions in annexing vast tracts in Asia and Africa and maintaining armies to de. fend them with the view of supplying a penniless population with goods from Manchester and Birmingham our German and American competitors supplant us in our own country.
 "Indiyidual fools have, often enough, dropped the substance to grasp it's shadow, but never before has a whole nation deliberately com mitted itself to this folly.
 Our supremacy in trade and conn merce is not only threatened, but doomed.
 "Yet, by utilizing to the best ad- vantage our resources in raw mater ial, capital and labor, we can hold our own, even if we are forced to see Germany and America increase their output faster than we can. 1t is only by the stupidity of squandering our capital in foreign countries, over looking the opportunity of employ ment at home that foreign capital can supplant British in any home in dustry.
 "But at the present crisis of our economic history, what are the ob- iects which chiefly occuDy orr minds?