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120 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
been at the extreme about 50 per cent. Between 1870-
74 and 1880-84 instead of an increase there is a de-
crease, viz., from £ 7 7S. 5d. to £6 I2S. 9d., but deducting
about one-third from the former figure for the fall in
prices, the real increase in the last ten years would ap-
pear to be as from £4 16s. 3d. to £6 12S. 9d., or over 35
per cent. The difference in the rate of increase in the
last ten years compared with the previous ten is thus
the difference between 35 and 50 per cent. only, equal
to about £21,000,000 annually on the amount of
£ 140,000,000, assumed to represent the value of British
industry in our foreign exports, deduction being made
for the value of raw material included. A deduction of
this sort from the annual income of the country is too
small to account for such a check to the rate of our
growth generally as that we are now discussing as
probable, especially when we recollect that the labour
is only diverted, and it is not the whole £2 I ,000,000
that is lost, but only the difference between that sum
and what is otherwise earned, which may even be a
plus and not a minus difference.
To bring the matter to a point, an increase of 40 per
cent. in the income of the country in ten years would
on an assumed income of 1,000 millions qnly in 1875,
-and the figure must then have been more,-have
brought the income up to 1,400 millions; an increase
of 20 per cent. would have brought it up to 1,200 mil-
lions only, a difference of 200 millions, which must have
arisen from the alleged difference in the rate of our ma-
terial growth in question if it had occurred. Clearly
nothing can have happened in our foreign trade to ac-
count for anything more than the smallest fraction of
such a difference. The figures are altogether too small.
We may repeat again then that it is not the check to
our foreign trade which foreign competition may have
caused to which we can ascribe the recent check to our
general rate of growth.
I need hardly add that in point of theory foreign
competition was not likely to have the effect stated.