Page 159 - clra62_0019-(GIPE)

PROTECTION FOR MANUFACTURES IN NEW COUNTRIES IS 1
United Kingdom is the workshop of the world, but,
notwithstanding this, the proportion of the occupied
population engaged in manufacturing, including many
manufactures that are local in their nature, does not
appear to be more than about 20 per cent. The figures
are a little difficult, but if we refer to that useful pub-
lication, "The Abstract of Labour Statistics," pp. 17°-
190, we find the total factory population 1 given as 3~
millions, as compared with a total occupied population of
16! millions, or about one-fifth. Certain deductions, how-
ever, must be made for manufactures that are necessarily
local, and probably if that were done we should arrive
at a proportion of less than a fifth of the population of
the United Kingdom occupied in those manufactures
which are suitable for exportation, and which new
countries would seek to establish by means of protective
import duties. To what proportion would that fifth sink
if the English manufacturers had only the home market?
Answering this question I may say that I doubt ex-
tremely if more than 5 to 7t per cent of the population
would be employed, although the home market of
England, owing to the great accumulation of wealth in
the country, is no doubt much larger in proportion to
population than that of any other country. There is no
means of giving an exact answer, but the proportion
must certainly be much less than a tenth. Comparing
the exports themselves with the above figures of oc-
cupied population it appears that about two-thirds of
those engaged in manufactures are making for export
and one-third for the home market, which would give
the proportion above stated; and whatever the real
proportion may be, it cannot at any rate be much
higher.
My next point is, that if we look at the import stat-
istics of new countries themselves, and compare the
manufactures they import with their population and re-
I This does not include a workshop population of half a million
where the industries, however, are almost purely of a local nature for
local consumption.