The Mover of the Motion has said that in order to feed our people we must sell our manufactured goods abroad. From that he went on to say that only in so far as Germany is able to sell her manufactured goods abroad, or Europe in general, will they be able to buy our goods. I hope a large number of the hon. Gentleman's party have also come to that conclusion, because it differs very considerably from their usual views. The hon. Gentleman went further, and said we were getting up against international competition. That is more or less true. I believe it can be said, with a good deal of truth, that every country possessing fuel, economic power, or even, we will say, natural economic power, with any quantity of raw material at all, has proceeded to use that raw material for manufacturing. The industrial revolution has not been confined to any one country. It is a curious thing that every country that has proceeded along the lines of industrial revolution has taken the notion that it must manufacture for export. It may be perfectly natural, but that is one point the inquiry ought to go into, whether it is absolutely necessary to manufacture for an export trade. They might consider, at the same time, whether, in the competition to capture and maintain an export market, as they do to-day, the chief way of reducing the cost of productions is to reduce the wages of the worker, thereby restricting the home market by lowering home consumption and necessitating, by their very advance, a further export market. It is true that if we can reduce overhead charges, make industry more efficient, and give higher wages to the workers we shall increase our home market and, so far as we in- crease our home market, do away with the necessity of this enormous export market.

It would appear that the necessity for an export market for every manufacturing country has some relation to the inequality of the distribution of capital. A man with an income of £10,000 will not spend as much upon the economic necessities of life as one with an income of £1,000, and I think the home consumption of a people could be increased by a more equal distribution of capital. Again, to come to the development of Imperial cotton, I think the hon. Gentleman will notice this fallacy in his argument, that as America begins to manufacture her own raw cotton so we shall have to find more raw material to keep Lancashire going. That is true, but notice at the same time that unless the consumption of the world's cotton goods goes up, the increased production of cotton will not solve the problem, because as America manufactures her own cotton she will be attempting to get the very markets we have now, and if you increase the raw cotton to keep Lancashire going without increasing the market for the consumption of the goods you will be up against a difficulty as badly as you are to-day. There is another factor. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has ever considered whether the export of capital has anything to do with the industrial development of countries on competitive lines with our own.