In no part of the world are manufacture and trade carried on with such
strict regard to the conditions of economic production and the
economic handling of goods as in the British Isles. The free-trade
policy of the empire permits everywhere within its borders not merely
national but world-wide competition; and yet it is but truth to say
that wherever Great Britain attempts to sell her goods abroad every
nation and every community in the world rises against her. Even her
colonies are against her. Her markets are open to every one's trade,
and yet in almost every market in the world which she does not
absolutely control barriers are raised against her trade. She is able
to sell goods in foreign markets only because, despite these barriers,
she is able to undersell all competitors in them, or to give better
value for the same money than they. Even when she obtains the control
of new markets, as she has in India, China, Egypt, West Africa, etc.,
she allows every nation to trade in these markets on precisely the
same terms as she herself trades in them. In the face of this
world-wide competition, therefore, the industries of Britain would
cease to exist if every condition conducive to economy of
production--climatic suitability, availability of cheap motive power,
accessibility to cheap raw material, and accessibility to natural and
cheap means of transportation--were not taken advantage of to the
utmost. But this is just what Britain does. She does take advantage to
the utmost of conditions conducive to economy of production; and this
is why, to a degree nowhere else attempted in the world, she has
specialised her industries in definite favouring localities.
THE NATURAL APTITUDES OF COMMUNITIES IN GREAT BRITAIN FOR SPECIAL
INDUSTRIES
A result of this specialisation of industries in definite centres is
that a natural aptitude for the industry specialised in a locality is
developed among the inhabitants of the locality, and this, being
stimulated by association, is transmitted from generation to
generation with ever-increasing efficiency. Again, this inherited
aptitude of the community for the industry historically associated
with it is a prime element in the economic prosecution of the
industry. Also, in turn, it acts as an important influence in
continuing the industry in the locality where once it has been
successfully specialised. In no country in the world, outside of Asia,
have great industries had such long-continued successful existence in
definite localities as in Britain. And therefore in no country in the
world do the natural aptitudes of communities for special industries
constitute such an important element of economic industrial
production. A community of efficient "smiths," for example, has
existed in and about Birmingham since the fifteenth century. As a
consequence of this the Birmingham country has for several centuries
been the greatest seat of the metal or hardware industries in the
world. Again, the manufacture of woollen cloths has been an industry
successfully specialised in West Yorkshire from the fourteenth
century. It results that nowhere in the world is the woollen
manufacture carried on more prosperously than in West Yorkshire
to-day. The potteries of Staffordshire have been in existence time out
of mind, and in the eighteenth century they took a pre-eminent place
among the industries of the world. They hold that place of
pre-eminence now, even though since then the methods of manufacture
have been several times revolutionised.