Britain at Bay

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Spenser Wilkinson. Britain at Bay

Britain at Bay

Table of Contents

CHAPTER

Chapters XIV. to XX. have appeared as articles in the Morning Post and are by kind permission reproduced without substantial change

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

THE END

Отрывок из книги

Spenser Wilkinson

Published by Good Press, 2022

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The food of our people and the raw material of their industries come to this country by sea, and the articles here produced go by sea to their purchasers abroad. Every transaction carries with it a certain profit which makes it possible. If the exporter and the manufacturer who supplies him can make no profit they cannot continue their operations, and the men who work for them must lose their employment.

Suppose Great Britain to be to-morrow at war with one or more of the Great Powers of Europe. All the sailing vessels and slow steamers will stop running lest they should be taken by hostile cruisers. The fast steamers will have to pay war rates of insurance and to charge extra freights. Steamers ready to leave foreign ports for this country will wait for instructions and for news. On the outbreak of war, therefore, this over-sea traffic must be greatly diminished in volume and carried on with enormously increased difficulties. The supply of food would be considerably reduced and the certainty of the arrival of any particular cargo would have disappeared. The price of food must therefore rapidly and greatly rise, and that alone would immediately impose very great hardships on the whole of the working class, of which a considerable part would be driven across the line which separates modern comfort from the starvation margin. The diminution in the supply of the raw materials of manufacture would be much greater and more immediate. Something like half the manufacturers of Great Britain must close their works for want of materials. But will the other half be able to carry on? Foreign orders they cannot possibly execute, because there can be no certainty of the delivery of the goods; and even if they could, the price at which they could deliver them with a profit would be much higher than it is in peace. For with a diminished supply the price of raw material must go up, the cost of marine insurance must be added, together with the extra wages necessary to enable the workmen to live with food at an enhanced price.

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