it is clear that we have no prospect in the * principal protected countries/ and must look elsewhere.
VI.
We turn, then, to the next question, Whether it may be possible to find a firm basis for the maintenance of our commercial and Imperial position in our trade with the other foreign countries?—those which are classed by the Board of Trade, not in all cases correctly, as 'neutral' markets. In the year which has seen the close of the Far Eastern war—under circumstances emphasizing as nothing previously had done the new position of Imperialist America in matters affecting the policy and commerce of the world, and especially of that portion of it to which we are now about to direct our attention—we stand in relation to the neutral markets where we stood in 1870 in relation to the chief European markets. We shall be fortunate if the experience of a generation in the latter forewarns us and forearms us for the conditions we shall have to encounter during the coming generation in the former.
Under Group B are included the Scandinavian countries, the markets of the Near East, including the Turkish Empire; those of the Middle East, including Egypt; those of the Far East, including China and Japan; those of Mexico and Central America, and those of South America, including Argentina. The rest are negligible. In each of these geographical divisions there are one or two dominating countries (so far as British interests are concerned), like Turkey, Egypt, China and Japan, and Argentina. Our future in these countries will obviously determine our future in the re^ons to which they belong. The subject, therefore, is less complex than would at first sight appear, and lends itself to an extremely interesting and significant investigation. Repeating figures we have already glanced at, let us exhibit the not inconsiderable progress of British trade during the last quarter of a century in these markets as a whole.
