A similar explanation is to be given of the fact that London is the
great financial centre of the world. The same policy which has made
Britain a great trading country has also made her a great
manufacturing country. The food products of all the world pour in upon
her shores, and Britain has become a cheap place to live in. Her
artisans are supplied with the best food that the world can produce,
and this at prices that are practically what the British demand makes
them to be. The British artisan is therefore both well fed and cheaply
fed. As a consequence of this, British manufactures are produced more
efficiently and more cheaply than those of most other nations, and
they are therefore exported enormously to every quarter of the globe.
London, from its accessibility with respect to the great manufacturing
centres at home, and from its trade connections and facilities for
trade abroad, is the great distributing centre of this enormous
manufacture. London exporters have accounts for goods sold by them all
the world over. There is, therefore, no quarter of the world where
money is not constantly owing to London; or, if not to London, then to
Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Glasgow, or some other
manufacturing centre in close financial touch with London. In this,
then, lies the explanation of the financial supremacy of London. No
matter in what quarter of the world money is owed by any place, the
final destination of that money is London; for in almost all cases it
will be found that the locality to which the money is owed, if it be
not London, will itself be a debtor to London. London, therefore, from
necessity, and as a matter of custom and convenience, has become the
great clearing-house of the world. The final adjustments of the
indebtedness of all the commercial centres of the world are made
there.
[Illustration: London bridge.]