Classification and Distribution of Exports.
—As an outlet for those districts which produce the chief British staples, London cannot com pare with Liverpool. Over a third of the total exports of British produce goes by way of the Mersey, only about a quarter by way of the London group. At Liverpool, cotton goods provide half the export, then come iron and steel in all stages of manufacture, large quan tities of woolens, with textile machinery, chemi cals and earthenware. In fact the main indus tries of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cheshire and the Midlands are here represented roughly in order of their relative importance. With one or two qualifications, the foreign trade of Liver pool may be taken as a type of that of the whole kingdom.
The export business of the London group is less easy to define, partly owing to the many minor industries of London and district, partly owing to the modifying effects of cost of trans port from the great producing centres. Tex tiles still hold the first place in the customs list, but large quantities of leather, millinery and apparel, paper and stationery, provisions, .con fectionery, pickles and medicines, suggest rather the minor activities of a great centre of .popu lation than the staple industries of modern life. In short, London may be regarded rather as a general store, handling every kind of goods and forwarding to all parts. The main activities are typical of commercial rather than England.
The export trade of the east coast has cer tain peculiarities worth a moment's attention. Many million tons of coal leave the Tyne and Humber for European ports, while the textile industries are represented by yarns and machin ery rather than finished Foods. A certain amount of iron and steel, with ships and their machinery, completes the main features of the trade. The European markets, owing to their advance in industrial organization, tend to be accessible only to certain restricted groups of British industries; the changing conditions are reflected in the customs records of the eastern seaports.
On the west coast, a few million pounds worth of cotton, iron and steel, ships and ma-: chinery represent the industrial activity of the Glasgow district; while the linens of Belfast, the iron, steel and tin plate of the Severn ports and £18,000,000 worth of steam coal from Car diff complete the schedule of the chief British exports.
In the entrepot business, London and Liver pool alone are worthy of notice. London is still the chief European market for wool, though her position has been affected by the increase of direct relations between Australia and the continent. But the supreme control of the world's tea trade has dropped from her grasp. The teas of China, whether destined for Europe or America, no longer fill her warehouses. In
this, as in other less important departments of commerce, the development of commercial pol icy of the Powers in the Far East and more particularly the activity of their shipping, have gradually undermined those special advantages on which the great entrep6t trade was founded. London still remains a convenient market for miscellaneous tropical and colonial pioducts, and this position she shares with Liverpool. Broadly speaking, the one looks to the east for imports, the other to the west; together they provide a collecting centre for minor com modities of the whole world. So long as British trade and shipping exist on their pres ent scale, and London maintains its reputation in the financial transactions of commerce, this type of commission business is likely to per sist, though it may represent a decreasing pro portion of the total commercial activity of the country.
Changes in Character and Sources of Im ports.— The ultimate destination of exports or the origin of imports may be a matter of indif ference to the individual trader; but in a review of the whole movement of commerce, the ques tion of sources of supply and markets for prod ucts is of the highest interest. In recent years there have been great changes both in the distribution of British manufactures exported and' in the sources of the national food supply. Raw materials for the great industries have been affected to a less degree. A generation ago Europe vied with North America as an exporter of wheat and flour to the United Kingdom; at the close of the century her share had fallen from over 40 to less than 10 per cent. North America had annexed the trade, the larger share falling to the United States, though Canada was rapidly improving her position. India, the Argentine Republic and Australasia merely supplemented the deficiencies of this supply. But the situation has changed radically, in the last 10 years, through the enormous defi ciency in the supply from the United States, coupled with a corresponding rise in that from India, the Argentine and Eastern Europe. Moreover, there are elements of permanence in the change. Apart from the fact that the United States may have considerably less to spare, in the near future, after the satisfaction of the needs of her own industrial population, there are evident economic advantages involved in the purchase of food supplies from those re gions which, in their turn, provide an equiva lent market for British manufactures. The im ports of live cattle from Etirope have also ceased, while a new trade in fresh meat with the most distant regions has been created under modern conditions of transport.