The Insular Supremacy and the Continental Powers -- North Americaand FranceIn all ages there have been cities or countries which have beenpre-eminent above all others in industry, commerce, and navigation;but a supremacy such as that which exists in our days, the worldhas never before witnessed.In all ages, nations and powers havestriven to attain to the dominion of the world, but hitherto notone of them has erected its power on so broad a foundation.Howvain do the efforts of those appear to us who have striven to foundtheir universal dominion on military power, compared with theattempt of England to raise her entire territory into one immensemanufacturing, commercial, and maritime city, and to become amongthe countries and kingdoms of the earth, that which a great city isin relation to its surrounding territory.to comprise withinherself all industries, arts, and sciences; all great commerce andwealth; all navigation and naval power -- a world's metropoliswhich supplies all nations with manufactured goods, and suppliesherself in exchange from every nation with those raw materials andagricultural products of a useful or acceptable kind, which eachother nation is fitted by nature to yield to her -- atreasure-house of all great capital -- a banking establishment forall nations, which controls the circulating medium of the wholeworld, and by loans and the receipt of interest on them makes allthe peoples of the earth her tributaries.Let us, however, dojustice to this Power and to her efforts.The world has not beenhindered in its progress, but immensely aided in it, by England.
She has become an example and a pattern to all nations -- ininternal and in foreign policy, as well as in great inventions andenterprises of every kind; in perfecting industrial processes andmeans of transport, as well as in the discovery and bringing intocultivation uncultivated lands, especially in the acquisition ofthe natural riches of tropical countries, and in the civilisationof barbarous races or of such as have retrograded into barbarism.
Who can tell how far behind the world might yet remain if noEngland had ever existed? And if she now ceased to exist, who canestimate how far the human race might retrograde? Let us thencongratulate ourselves on the immense progress of that nation, andwish her prosperity for all future time.But ought we on thataccount also to wish that she may erect a universal dominion on theruins of the other nationalities? Nothing but unfathomablecosmopolitanism or shopkeepers' narrow-mindedness can give anassenting answer to that question.In our previous chapters we havepointed out the results of such denationalisation, and shown thatthe culture and civilisation of the human race can only be broughtabout by placing many nations in similar positions of civilisation,wealth, and power; that just as England herself has raised herselffrom a condition of barbarism to her present high position, so thesame path lies open for other nations to follow: and that at thistime more than one nation is qualified to strive to attain thehighest degree of civilisation, wealth, and power.Let us now statesummarily the maxims of State policy by means of which England hasattained her present greatness.They may be briefly stated thus:
Always to favour the importation of productive power,(1*) inpreference to the importation of goods.
Carefully to cherish and to protect the development of theproductive power.
To import only raw materials and agricultural products, and toexport nothing but manufactured goods.
To direct any surplus of productive power to colonisation, andto the subjection of barbarous nations.
To reserve exclusively to the mother country the supply of thecolonies and subject countries with manufactured goods, but inreturn to receive on preferential terms their raw materials andespecially their colonial produce.
To devote especial care to the coast navigation; to the trade.
Between the mother country and the colonies; to encourageseafisheries by means of bounties; and to take as active a part aspossible in international navigation.
By these means to found a naval supremacy, and by means of itto extend foreign commerce, and continually to increase hercolonial possessions.
To grant freedom in trade with the colonies and in navigationonly so far as she can gain more by it than she loses.
To grant reciprocal navigation privileges only if the advantageis on the side of England, or if foreign nations can by that meansbe restrained from introducing restrictions on navigation in theirown favour.
To grant concessions to foreign independent nations in respectof the import of agricultural products, only in case concessions inrespect of her own manufactured products can be gained thereby.
In cases where such concessions cannot be obtained by treaty,to attain the object of them by means of contraband trade.
To make wars and to contract alliances with exclusive regard toher manufacturing, commercial, maritime, and colonial interests.Togain by these alike from friends and foes: from the latter byinterrupting their commerce at sea; from the former by ruiningtheir manufactures through subsidies which are paid in the shape ofEnglish manufactured goods.
