the figures are large, so that the usual criticism as to increase of mere percentages is not applicable.
What are the causes or reasons which explain the progress of our rivals, and in what manner can they be met?
In the first place, the scattered character of the Empire in itself exposes our trade peculiarly to foreign competition. The geographical proximity of highly industrial countries to parts of the Empire gives them great material advantages, and by this fact alone makes them most formidable rivals for the trade of the Colonies they are near. Thus the United States have quite naturally obtained a large share of the trade of Canada, Newfoundland, and the West Indies, while Japan will in the future play a rdle of increasing importance in the trade of our Eastern possessions. There is, indeed, a kind of law of gravitation which tends to cause distant Colonies to revolve in the industrial orbit of the nearest great commercial community rather than in that of the Mother Country. Obviously, we cannot hope to deprive our rivals of these geographical advantages; we can only endeavour to create counter-attractions in order to keep such Colonies within our own trade system.
There are, however, several foreign countries which, quite apart from any natural advantages, have shown themselves most dangerous competitors even in those Colonies where we meet them on equal terms, or where the advantage is all on our side.
So much publicity has been given to the alleged superiority of foreign methods of conducting and pushing trade that it is unnecessary to do more than refer to the indictment here. We have been told almost ad nauseum of the activity, alertness, and adaptiveness of the Americans and of the irrepressible enterprise of the ubiquitous German. I believe that all the public attention which has of late been directed to foreign competition, and even the somewhat exaggerated alarm which it has excited, are extremely salutary, and must have the effect of arousing us from any apathy into which we may have
