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THE PRESEliT ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND OUTLOOK 4 23
primary in<Atstries of agriculture and mining, has yet
advantages of its own as a place of residence and for
carrying on all other industries. in which no other com-
m\JJlity excels it.
In all respects, then. t;e conditions for the industrial
future of the country into which we have been inquiring
are satisfactory. The amount and proportion of the
things we require to import from abroad are not ex-
ceptionally large, and we are not in fact put to any
exceptional strain in obtaining them. By means of our
foreign investments; our exports of certain raw materials
of which we have a monopoly; our exports of manufac-
tures eo nomt"ne; and the earnings of our ships and other
earnings-our invisible exports, as they are caUed-
we do obtain easily enough a11 that we require. and the
conditions up to the latest date remain unchanged.
Finally, the United Kingdom is exceptionally favoured
by its climate and in other ways as a place of residence
and for carrying on all kinds of miscellaneous industries.
while it has special advantages as a free and large
market. due largely to its system of free imports, and
enjoys unequalled banking facilities. If we do not suc-
ceed, therefore, in the future as in the past, it must be
our own fault. Although we have many defects. there
is yet no sign of want of success.

The discussion might be left at this point, but it may
he convenient to refer to one or two notions of a mis-
leading kind which have been at the basis of a great
deal of the recent fiscal agitation, and which are based
in turn on a fundamental misconception of the relative
proportion of different .function~ of the e~onomic organ-
ism. They are the fair-trade Ideas which have been
cropping up at intervals during the last thirty years,
long before the full-blown development which has now
taken place at Mr. Ch~mberlai~'s si~na1; full of fallacies
which the average faIr-trader IS qUite unable to shake
~
o ff. .
One of these misleading notions is that great as our