PREFERENTIAL TARIFFS.
conditions of town life is having its effect on the stamina of the race. Although the standard for the Army has been reduced to that of a well-grown girl of 16, in Manchester in 1899, 8000 out of 11,000 men who presented themselves for service had to be rejected as physically unfit, while for the three years 1899, 1900, 1901, the percentage fit for service was only 28 per cent. Recent census statistics show that the increase of the population has been checked, while the average family in London is said in three generations to become extinct.
If the race in the mother country is physically degenerating and becoming unable to reproduce itself, the decline in the agricultural population has become a most serious national question; and I believe that Mr. Chamberlain's policy ought to be considered, and that the people of this country will be prepared to consider it from this as well as from other points of view. I say this because, whenever I have alluded to the subject at the immense number of Liberal meetings which I have addressed in the last three years in the great centres of population in England and Scotland, its importance has been appreciated by my audiences, which have been mainly composed of working men.
Unsatisfactory position of England's export trade.4. The future of British manufacturing industries is as important as that of agriculture; and the fact that during the last ten years of the 19th century the imports into the United Kingdom increased by over 100 millions sterling per annum, whereas the exports of British produce, apart from the increased value of coal, remained practically stationary, does not indicate a satisfactory condition. That the British manufacturer is being beaten, even in the home market,
139
