280

THE EMPLOYER'S LESSON

CHAP.

Even where industries are entirely suitable for our country, our employers must recognise, more seriously and conscientiously than they have done, what their responsibility is. Their function in the industrial organism is to organise the capital and regiment the labour of the nation, and "bear the brunt" of change; their "profits" are the payment for this work. It is indeed a very honourable position to fill. In a Socialistic State, it would be entrusted only to men possessing high qualifications, both natural and acquired. It is a far finer thing to organize a thousand workers to earn good wages than to command a brigade. For its due performance it requires no less than professional zeal, and sometimes employers must be content with little else than the knowledge that they have kept the labour world employed. There was a time when every one who could scrape together capital enough counted himself fit to take this function on himself. But, with the phenomenal advance of science and its applications, the superannuation of fixed capital tends to be very rapid, the necessity of quick and expensive adaptation to new conditions and methods is more urgent, and the place of the employer becomes more and more difficult to fill. If, in these circumstances, men still rashly assume the position, it cannot be said that they are fit objects for compassion if they fail; certainly they have little claim on state subsidy through a protective system. It is to be feared that employers have not yet got it burned into them that, if they cannot organise

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the nation, they have no business to undertake the work. They themselves cry loudly enough against any Trade Union interference with their liberty of paying off workers who are not worth a wage; they ought to realize that no wrong is done them if the competition of employer with employer remorselessly eliminates those who are not worth a profit.

Happily, the industries which we may expect to decline under international competition are fewer than one would think. So long as we are allowed to bring in food, materials, and machinery free, we are in almost as good an economic situation as any other country. It is not as if we were an inland kingdom, and had to carry our imports over hundreds of miles of railway. All around us is the path of the deep watersthe cheapest means of conveyance. Ours is a little island, but its economic position is enormously strong, so long as we retain the freedom of drawing on all the world for everything we require. But if one would see how a country, more favoured by nature than ourselves in many, perhaps in most, respects, can throw away her chances by not preserving this freedom, it is enough to look at shipping in America.1

1In 1835 De Tocqueville said, in his Democracy in America: "Ever since the Declaration of Independence the shipping of the Union has increased almost as rapidly as the number of its inhabitants. The Americans themselves now transport to their own shores nine-tenths of the European produce which they consume. And they also bring three-quarters of the exports of the New World to the European consumer. The ships of the United States fill the docks of Havre and of Liverpool, whilst the number

282

OUR NATIONAL EXPANSION

СНАР.

Finally, I would would very earnestly ask my countrymen to consider the political position which Free Trade has given us, and us alone, among nations.

France, Germany, ourselves, even of late the United States, are accused of thrusting our civilisation on backward countries at the point of the bayonet. It is not missionary zeal that makes us take such interest in the welfare of our fellow men. It may be mere ambition; it may be a deliberate policy of preparing an outlet for growing population; it may be the last resort of governments whose peoples will adventure too far and get into difficulties; it may be for recovery of debts; it may be "for purposes of trade." Anyhow none of the great nations has many scruples about its own expansion. Opinions will differ as to whether this is a good thing or a bad. Personally, I do not count it a bad thing for Egypt that the bondholders were influential enough to to rouse two great nations

to take over the administration: and I do count it a bad thing that political jealousies are as yet too strong to prevent France thrusting her civilisation on Morocco.

But, whatever the motive and intention of other countries may be, as regards ourselves it is generally the commercial interest we have in of English and French vessels at New York is comparatively small." The words may well give thought to an American when he notices that the oversea tonnage of his country now is less than it was in 1840, and is not a tenth part of ours. (During 1904, not a single ocean steamer was launched from American yards.)

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AND THE "OPEN DOOR"

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foreign markets that first makes us cognisant of the universal interest in honest and settled government. And here one thing is clear: that the first thing we do, after running up the Union Jack over a new country, is to throw its ports open to every nation under heaven. We at least do not count it a preserve to be shot over only by the owner and his friends.

Were it not for this, the growth of our Empire would probably have been more vehemently resented by other nations than it has been; and, if we were now to adopt a protective system, the further expansion of that Empire would certainly not be considered, as it now is, a commercial gain to the whole world.

APPENDIX.1

THE ABUSE OF SHIPPING STATISTICS.

Its services,

SHIPPING is one of our greatest industries. as "invisible exports," play a large part in explaining the Balance of Trade. It is, moreover, an industry on which much, politically, depends. It is of importance, then, to ascertain how our shipping stands, and whether it is gaining or losing in comparison with that of other nations. But the comparison is so beset with technical and statistical difficulties that it may be advisable to set forth these in some detail.

As preliminary, it seems desirable to show, in untechnical language, the difference between gross and net tonnage, and their relation to cargo-carrying capacity.

Lloyd's Register gives the gross tonnage, and, according to it, the Merchant Navy of Great Britain appears as over 16,000,000 tons, or about half the gross tonnage of the world. Statistical statements, however (e.g. the Statistical Abstract and the recent Board of Trade Memoranda), give the net tonnage, and this appears as 10,000,000 tons. What constitutes the difference between the two?

When a vessel is put into the water, her weight is, of course, the number of tons of water she displaces. As she loads and sinks deeper, she displaces so many more tons,

1 See above, p. 180.