competition, Mr. Williams picks out half a dozen or so items of
our imports from Germany, and then exclaims in horror at the amount of
"the moneys which _in one year_ have come out of John Bull's pocket for
the purchase of his German-made household goods." He prefaces his list
with the unfortunate remark that the figures are taken from the Custom
House returns, "where, at any rate, fancy and exaggeration have no
play." That is so; the fancy and exaggeration are supplied by Mr.
Williams. In 1895, he says, Germany sent us linen manufactures to the
value of L91,257. He omits, however, to mention that according to the
same authority--the Custom House returns--the value of the linen
manufactures which we sold to Germany was L273,795. Again, he mentions
that we bought from Germany cotton manufactures to the value of
L536,000, but he is silent on the fact that our sales to Germany
amounted to L1,305,000. He does not even hesitate to pick out such a
trumpery item as L11,309 for German embroidery and needlework, but he
forgets to tell his readers that the silk manufactures which in the same
year we sold to Germany were worth L92,000. In the same way, were it
worth doing, one could go through the whole of Mr. Williams's list,
pitting one article against another. It would be labour wasted. The
simple fact is that, according to the authority upon which Mr. Williams
relies for all the figures just quoted, our total exports to Germany
exceed our total imports from Germany, and no trickery with particular
items can destroy, though it may obscure, that broad fact.

A SELF-DESTRUCTIVE POLICY.

But, for the reasons already explained, in replying to Mr. Williams I do
not rely wholly on British figures. It is from the double testimony of
British and foreign figures that I deduce the fact that of all our
customers Germany is one of the best. The practical moral of this fact
is sufficiently obvious. In private business a tradesman does not go out
of his way to offend a good customer, even though that customer is also
a keen trade competitor. He bestirs himself instead to keep ahead, if
possible, of his rival without doing anything to destroy the mutually
profitable trade relationship between them. Such palpable considerations
of expediency are ignored by our latter-day Protectionists, among whom
Mr. Williams deservedly ranks as a leading prophet. Their ambition is to
induce the Colonies to discriminate in their tariffs between goods from