e being ousted by German. In
the second place, it is not true that German salt is much cheaper than
Cheshire, at any rate so far as the Indian market is concerned. It will
be found by reference to the Indian Blue Books that the price of German
salt imported into India in 1894-5 works out to 17.6 rupees per ton, and
the price of English salt only to 17.0 rupees per ton. In other words,
German salt was of the two slightly the dearer. So much for the salt
bogey which Mr. Williams had conjured up.

CHEMICAL DYE STUFFS.

We next pass to chemical dye stuffs. It is undoubtedly true that in this
branch of manufacture Germany has gone ahead at a remarkable rate, and
it is also probable that some of our manufacturers have allowed
themselves to be passed in the race by neglecting the scientific methods
which Germans employ. But that is no reason why Mr. Williams should
exaggerate his case. In order to magnify the fall in our trade, if such
there be, he picks out the year of highest export (1890) and says, Lo!
since 1890 our export of dye stuffs has dropped from L530,000 to
L473,000. One cannot tell whether this is a real drop in trade, or
merely the consequence of a fall in price, but this we do know--that the
value of our exports fluctuates largely from year to year, and that 1895
was a good average year. The figures for ten years are given below:--

VALUES OF DYE STUFFS EXPORTED.

------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
|1886|1887|1888|1889|1890|1891|1892|1893|1894|1895
------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
Thousands of L's | 483| 499| 469| 492| 531| 524| 443| 452| 415| 473
------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----

FANCY SOAPS AND FANCY ASSERTIONS.

The last point in Mr. Williams's chapter on the chemical trades with
which it is worth while to deal is what he says about soap:--

"In the old days, when brown Windsor was a luxury, Englishmen
washed with soap of English make; and those who could not afford
'scented' cleansed themselves with 'yellow' or 'mottled.' Thanks
(partly) to Continental chemistry, we have changed all that....
The progress of practical chemistry has evidently reached a
point at which the manufacture of agreeable toilet soaps at a
low figure is possible. But why should this manufacture be so
largely in foreign hands? They twit us with our debased fondness
fo