l pursuits; for in all classes of fancy fabrics of a
high quality, whether in woollen, worsted, cotton, linen, or
jute materials, the manufacturers of the United Kingdom have
scarcely felt the effects of German competition."

My second quotation is from a lecture delivered by Mr. Swire Smith, of
Keighley, at the Bradford Technical College, and reported in the
_Bradford Observer_ of November 27th last:--

"Those who tell us that our English worsted industry is being
ruined by the competition of Germany, must be unaware of the
fact that the German worsteds, whose increasing exports were
creating such alarm among the Fair-traders, are mainly composed
of yarns 'made in Bradford.' Indeed, Bradford afforded a
concrete example of the effect of German competition, for it
would be difficult to say which country had benefited most by
it. The export of woollen, worsted, and alpaca yarns to Germany
in the average of the following periods of years amounted in
1880-85 to 41,500,000 lb. per year; 1890-95, to 63,800,000 lb.
per year; and 1895, to 78,900,000 lb. Bradford had been the
greatest contributor to German success in the weaving of
worsteds and alpacas, and Germany had been the greatest
contributor to the success of the spinning industry of Bradford
by buying its yarns. To put a tax on German worsteds that would
shut them out of England would stop the sale of Bradford yarns
in Germany."

THE "PERCENTAGE TRICK."

That is enough about woollens. About jute a couple of sentences will
suffice. In order to make the facts in this trade look worse than they
are--there is nothing really bad about them--Mr. Williams first places
German figures in marks side by side with English figures in pounds
sterling, and then plays what can only be called the "percentage trick."
The German increase in eleven years, he says, is at the rate of 1,100
per cent., while the British is only 19 per cent. Remarkable! Yet Mr.
Williams might have discovered from his own figures, if he had only
taken the trouble to turn marks into pounds, that the German increase in
eleven years was only L107,000, while the British increase was L412,000.
In other words, our increase was almost four times as great as
Germany's, and our total is now L2,588,000, against their total of
L117,000. Exactly the same percentage trick is employed by Mr. Williams
in comparing German and English trade wit