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RECENT RATE OF MATERIAL PROGRESS IN ENGLAND 117
question, as I have pointed out elsewhere, that foreign
competition in every direction from natural causes must
continue to increase, and that it has increased greatly
in recent years. But when the facts are examined, it
does not appear that this competition has been the
cause of a check to our own rate of growth. One of
the facts most commonly dwelt upon in this connection
is the great increase of the imports of foreign manufac-
turep articles into the United Kingdom. But the in-
crease in the last ten years is not more than about
£ 18,000,000, taking the facts as recorded in what
is known as Mr. Ritchie's return, viz., from about
£37,000,000 in the quinquennial period 1870-74 to
£55,000,000 in the quinquennial period 1880-84, or
about SO per cent.! Out of £18,000,000 increased
imports of such articles it is fair to allow that at least
one-half, if not more, is the value of raw material
which we should have had to import in any case; so
that only £9,000,000 represents the value of English
labour displaced by these increased imports. Even the
whole of this £9,000,000 of course is not lost, only the
difference between it and the sum which the capital
and labour" displaced" earns in some other employ-
ment, which may possibly even be a plus and not a
minus difference. If we add articles .. partly manufac-
tured" no difference would be made, for the increase
here is only from £26,000,000 to £28,000,000 in the
ten years. Such differences, it need not be said, hardly
count in the general total ofthe industry of the country.
Further, the rate of increase of these imports was just
as great in the period when our own rate of growth was
greater as in the last ten years, the increase in manu-
factured articles between 1860-64 and 1870-74 being
£19.000,000, viz., from £18,000,000 to £371xXJ,000,
or over 100 per cent. as compared with SO per cent.
only in the last ten years, and in articles partly manu·
factured from £17,000,000 to £26,000,000, an in-
, See Appendix to .. First Report of Royal Commission on Trade
Depression," p. 130.