For such a conflict, which may come about to-morrow, and
unless a great change takes place must come about in the near future,
Great Britain is not prepared.
The food of our people and the raw material of their industries come to
this country by sea, and the articles here produced go by sea to their
purchasers abroad. Every transaction carries with it a certain profit
which makes it possible. If the exporter and the manufacturer who
supplies him can make no profit they cannot continue their operations,
and the men who work for them must lose their employment.
Suppose Great Britain to be to-morrow at war with one or more of the
Great Powers of Europe. All the sailing vessels and slow steamers will
stop running lest they should be taken by hostile cruisers. The fast
steamers will have to pay war rates of insurance and to charge extra
freights. Steamers ready to leave foreign ports for this country will
wait for instructions and for news. On the outbreak of war, therefore,
this over-sea traffic must be greatly diminished in volume and carried
on with enormously increased difficulties. The supply of food would be
considerably reduced and the certainty of the arrival of any particular
cargo would have disappeared. The price of food must therefore rapidly
and greatly rise, and that alone would immediately impose very great
hardships on the whole of the working class, of which a considerable
part would be driven across the line which separates modern comfort from
the starvation margin.
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