Maurice Hewlett - "The Forest Lovers"

Various - "The Best Short Stories of 1915"

Robert Neilson Stephens - "An Enemy To The King"

Johan Olof Wallin - "The Angel of Death"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

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GREAT BRITAIN A BEEHIVE OF MERCANTILE AND MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

Britain like all other civilised countries, was originally an
agricultural country. Although for some centuries she has been one of
the chief manufacturing and mercantile countries of the world, it has
been only during the past one hundred years, and especially during
the past fifty years, that her development in manufactures and in
commerce has been remarkable. Britain is still, in respect of quality,
the foremost agricultural country on the globe. Her breeds of horses,
cattle, sheep, and swine are the standard breeds from which almost all
other breeds derive their origin, and by which from time to time they
are improved. And nowhere is the raising of grains and roots for food
of man and beast pursued with more skill and success than in Britain.
But agriculture is fast ceasing to be an important industry of
Britain. Two million acres less are under cultivation now than were
cultivated fifty years ago. The total amount of wheat raised is
sufficient only for three months' consumption of the people; the
remaining quantity needed must be supplied by importation. Three
fifths of the total population of the island live in towns, and only a
small proportion of the population that live in the country is
actually supported by agriculture. Agriculture, in fact, supports only
fifteen per cent. of the population in all Britain, and in England
only ten per cent. Three and a half times as many people are
personally engaged in manufactures as in rural pursuits. For three
quarters of a century the population in towns and cities has been
growing four times faster than the population of the rural parts. At
the same time the working power of the urban population has been
constantly growing more effective. In fifty years, by the general
adoption of machinery, the effective working power of the British
workman has been increased sixfold. In England eighty-six per cent. of
the total work of the country is done by steam, and in Scotland ninety
per cent. Great Britain, therefore, has become practically one great
beehive of mercantile and manufacturing industry. Agriculture as a
general occupation of the people, except in the production of the
finer food products, such as choice beef and mutton and high-grade
dairy products, is no longer profitable. Indeed, during the last
fifteen years the plant (including land) employed in agricultural
industries has been depreciating in value at the rate of $150,000,000
yearly; that is, in these fifteen years the enormous sum of
$2,250,000,000 of capital employed in agriculture has been
obliterated. But the gain to capital employed in profitable mercantile
and manufacturing pursuits has much more than compensated for this
enormous loss in agriculture.

GREAT BRITAIN'S COAL-FIELDS AND IRON DEPOSITS

One reason for the great development which Britain has made as a
manufacturing and trading nation lies in the fact that Britain was the
first nation to utilise on a large scale the power of steam as a help
to manufacture and trade. The steam-engine was a British invention.
The first railways were built in Britain. The first steamship to cross
the Atlantic was a British enterprise. A second reason lies in the
fact that when Britain began to use steam as a motive power she found
her supplies of coal so near her iron mines, and so near her clays and
earths needed for her potteries, that from the very first she was able
to manufacture cheaply and undersell most of her competitors. Her
coal-fields have an area of over 12,000 square miles, and wherever her
coal-beds are other natural products have been found near by, so that
her manufacturing areas and her coal areas are almost identical.
Taking Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Sheffield,
Leeds, Newcastle, Durham, Bristol, Stoke, Carlisle, Cardiff, Swansea,
Glasgow, Paisley, and Dundee as centres, around each of these lies a
coal area of such richness as amply sustains it in its commercial and
manufacturing pre-eminence. London is almost the only great
commercial centre of Britain that does not lie in the midst of or
quite adjacent to a rich coal and other mineral region. But London is
within easy distance, not only by rail, but also by canal and by
coastwise sailing, of every coal-field and mineral deposit of Britain.
London, however, is an importing and exporting centre rather than a
manufacturing centre.

[Illustration: The coal-fields of England.]

LONDON'S SPECIAL TRADE FEATURES

The commercial supremacy attained by many of the large cities of
Britain is not wholly due to natural causes, or even to ordinary
causes. Much of it is due to extraordinary enterprise and forethought
on the part of their citizens. London, for example, is the centre of
the wool trade of Britain. The woollen manufacturers of Britain use
about 250,000 tons of wool annually, and three fourths of this is
imported. Other cities that lie near the seats of the great woollen
manufactures--Liverpool, for example--have tried to secure a share of
this vast importation of wool, but London, because of the special
attention it gives to this trade, manages to keep almost the whole of
the trade in its own hands. Similarly, London almost wholly
monopolises the trade of England with Arabia, India, the East Indies,
China, and Japan. It is therefore the great emporium for tea, coffee,
sugar, spices, indigo, and raw silk. It also enjoys the bulk of
Britain's trade in fruits (oranges, lemons, currants, raisins, figs,
dates, etc.) and in wines, olive oil, and madder, with the countries
that lie about the Mediterranean. By virtue partly of its situation,
but largely because of the enterprise of its merchants, it absorbs
nearly the whole of Britain's French trade, and of England's trade
with Germany, Belgium, Holland, and Denmark. This includes principally
wines (from France), and butter, eggs, and vegetables. Another great
branch of its trade is that with the ports of the Baltic, including
those of Russia, the imports comprising, besides wheat and wool,
tallow, timber, hemp, and linseed. The tobacco imported from Virginia
into England goes almost wholly to London; so does almost the whole of
the Central American and South American trade in fine woods,
dye-stuffs, drugs, sugar, hides, india-rubber, coffee, and diamonds.
Quite a large share of the trade of Britain with Canada is
concentrated in London; also, more than one half of the trade of
England with the West Indies, the imports from the latter country
comprising principally sugar, molasses, fruit, rum, coffee, cocoa,
fine woods, and ginger.

THE SPECIAL TRADE FEATURES OF GLASGOW, LIVERPOOL, AND MANCHESTER

The great commercial centres of Britain after London are GLASGOW
(800,000), LIVERPOOL (700,000) and MANCHESTER (640,000, including
SALFORD). All these cities have derived the greater portion of their
size from the progress they have made during the present century. All,
of course, owe their progress and their prosperity largely to their
natural advantages of situation, etc. LIVERPOOL stands on the margin
of the Atlantic, "the Mediterranean of the modern world," and thus
enjoys the principal share of the trade with America, especially that
with the United States. Great Britain's imports from the United States
amount to over $500,000,000 per annum, and her exports to the United
States (exclusive of bullion, etc.) to over $100,000,000. (Formerly
the exports to the United States were twice this amount.) Of this vast
trade, amounting to one fifth of Britain's total trade with the world,
Liverpool enjoys the lion's share. Nearly all the cotton, not merely
of the United States but of the world, that is used in Europe is sent
to Liverpool for distribution. Similarly, GLASGOW, situated with its
aspect directed toward the same maritime routes, enjoys also an
immense transatlantic trade both north and south. And MANCHESTER,
situated in the very heart of the richest coal districts of the
kingdom, and within easy reach of the great cotton port, Liverpool,
has built up a cotton-manufacturing industry surpassing that of all
the rest of the world.

THE BUSINESS ENTERPRISE OF GLASGOW, LIVERPOOL, AND MANCHESTER

But the natural advantages of situation possessed by these great
cities have been grandly supplemented by the enterprise of their
inhabitants. GLASGOW is only a river port. For twenty miles below its
site the Clyde is naturally narrow, shallow, and shoal-encumbered. In
places it is naturally not more than fifteen inches deep. By the
expenditure of no less a sum than $60,000,000 this shallow stream has
been converted into a continuous harbour, lined on either side for
miles with wharves and docks, and easily capable of accommodating the
largest and finest merchant ships afloat. As a consequence of this
enterprise Glasgow has become the greatest ship-building port in the
world. No less than twenty shipyards--in efficiency and magnitude of
the very highest class--are to be found along the banks of the once
shallow, impassable Clyde, between Glasgow proper and the river's
mouth.

Similarly, the enterprise of the ship merchants of LIVERPOOL has
converted a port, that high tides and impassable bars would naturally
render unfit for modern ships, into the greatest shipping port in the
world. One hundred million dollars were spent in making the
improvement, but $5,000,000 is the annual revenue derived therefrom
in dock dues alone. And because of this enterprise Liverpool can now
boast of controlling one fourth of all the imports of the kingdom, and
two fifths of all the exports, and of handling three fourths of all
the grain and provision trade of the kingdom, and of having the
largest grain warehouses in the world.

[Illustration: The Manchester ship canal.]

But MANCHESTER, a wholly inland city, forty miles distant from
Liverpool, its nearest port, has outdone even Glasgow and Liverpool in
its endeavour to bring the sea to its own doors. It also has spent
$100,000,000--not, however, in amounts spread over a number of years,
and as occasion seemed to demand, but all at once, in one lump sum, in
one huge enterprise. It has built a canal to the Mersey where it is
navigable, thirty-five and one half miles in length, and sufficiently
deep and wide, so that the whole of its vast importation of cotton,
and the whole of its vast manufacture of cotton and other textile
fabrics, and as much else as may be desired, may be brought in from
the sea or taken to the sea in merchant vessels of the very largest
size now afloat. And it has done this in the face of engineering
difficulties, and of obstacles raised against it by jealous competing
interests that were almost insurmountable.

GREAT BRITAIN'S SPECIALISATION OF HER INDUSTRIES IN DEFINITE CENTRES

In no part of the world are manufacture and trade carried on with such
strict regard to the conditions of economic production and the
economic handling of goods as in the British Isles. The free-trade
policy of the empire permits everywhere within its borders not merely
national but world-wide competition; and yet it is but truth to say
that wherever Great Britain attempts to sell her goods abroad every
nation and every community in the world rises against her. Even her
colonies are against her. Her markets are open to every one's trade,
and yet in almost every market in the world which she does not
absolutely control barriers are raised against her trade. She is able
to sell goods in foreign markets only because, despite these barriers,
she is able to undersell all competitors in them, or to give better
value for the same money than they. Even when she obtains the control
of new markets, as she has in India, China, Egypt, West Africa, etc.,
she allows every nation to trade in these markets on precisely the
same terms as she herself trades in them. In the face of this
world-wide competition, therefore, the industries of Britain would
cease to exist if every condition conducive to economy of
production--climatic suitability, availability of cheap motive power,
accessibility to cheap raw material, and accessibility to natural and
cheap means of transportation--were not taken advantage of to the
utmost. But this is just what Britain does. She does take advantage to
the utmost of conditions conducive to economy of production; and this
is why, to a degree nowhere else attempted in the world, she has
specialised her industries in definite favouring localities.

THE NATURAL APTITUDES OF COMMUNITIES IN GREAT BRITAIN FOR SPECIAL
INDUSTRIES

A result of this specialisation of industries in definite centres is
that a natural aptitude for the industry specialised in a locality is
developed among the inhabitants of the locality, and this, being
stimulated by association, is transmitted from generation to
generation with ever-increasing efficiency. Again, this inherited
aptitude of the community for the industry historically associated
with it is a prime element in the economic prosecution of the
industry. Also, in turn, it acts as an important influence in
continuing the industry in the locality where once it has been
successfully specialised. In no country in the world, outside of Asia,
have great industries had such long-continued successful existence in
definite localities as in Britain. And therefore in no country in the
world do the natural aptitudes of communities for special industries
constitute such an important element of economic industrial
production. A community of efficient "smiths," for example, has
existed in and about Birmingham since the fifteenth century. As a
consequence of this the Birmingham country has for several centuries
been the greatest seat of the metal or hardware industries in the
world. Again, the manufacture of woollen cloths has been an industry
successfully specialised in West Yorkshire from the fourteenth
century. It results that nowhere in the world is the woollen
manufacture carried on more prosperously than in West Yorkshire
to-day. The potteries of Staffordshire have been in existence time out
of mind, and in the eighteenth century they took a pre-eminent place
among the industries of the world. They hold that place of
pre-eminence now, even though since then the methods of manufacture
have been several times revolutionised.

THE COTTON MANUFACTURES OF GREAT BRITAIN

But the influence which more than anything else has determined the
specialisation of industries in certain places in Britain rather than
in others has been the presence of coal-fields. In only a very few
instances have great industries been maintained in districts that are
not coal-producing. The busiest industrial centre in all Britain is,
perhaps, South Lancashire, the great seat of the COTTON MANUFACTURE.
South Lancashire is one great coal-field. LIVERPOOL, the great cotton
port of the world, is at one edge of this field. MANCHESTER, the
cotton metropolis of the world, is at the other edge. Between and near
these two chief towns is a whole nest of large towns and
cities--PRESTON, BURNLEY, BLACKBURN, ROCHDALE, BOLTON, BURY, ASHTON,
STOCKPORT, OLDHAM, etc.--every one of which is wholly devoted to the
cotton interest. From their position all these towns obtain both their
motive power and their raw material at the lowest possible cost. But,
in addition to its advantages of cheap coal and cheap raw material,
South Lancashire has one other great advantage in favour of its
special industry--its climate is eminently suited to the industry. Its
atmosphere is moist, and not too moist, and its temperature is not too
cold. Cotton thread can be spun and woven in Lancashire which
elsewhere would break. In scarcely any other place in England has
cotton-weaving or cotton-spinning ever proved a success. The cotton
industry of Scotland is not so localised as it is in England, but
PAISLEY (65,000) is famous all the world over for its identification
with the manufacture of cotton thread. Ireland has no important cotton
manufactures except in BELFAST. One third of the cotton manufactured
in the world is manufactured in the United Kingdom. The total product
is about 14,000 miles of cloth daily. The number of separate mills is
over 2500. The annual product is $500,000,000, which is one hundred
times what it was one hundred years ago. The quantity of raw cotton
imported annually to sustain this immense production is 1,750,000
pounds.

[Illustration: The great manufacturing districts of England.]

THE WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES OF GREAT BRITAIN

A second great industry of Great Britain is its WOOLLEN MANUFACTURE.
This industry is specialised in England, principally in West
Yorkshire, a district which is as well supplied with coal as is South
Lancashire. LEEDS (410,000) and BRADFORD (232,000) are the two
principal seats of the industry, but HUDDERSFIELD and HALIFAX are also
important "cloth towns," and many other communities are identified
with the manufacture of woollens. The noted "West of England" cloths
are made principally in Gloucestershire, where their manufacture in
the town of STROUD is a survival of an ancient industry once general
throughout the whole county. In Scotland there are two centres of the
woollen industry. The first and most important is in southeast
Scotland, where, in the valley of the Tweed (in GALASHIELS, HAWICK,
JEDBURGH, etc.), the celebrated "Scotch tweeds" are manufactured. The
second is in the valley of the Teith (STIRLING, BANNOCKBURN, etc.). At
one time the sheep that were pastured on the wolds of Yorkshire were
the chief supply of the raw material for this industry in the whole of
Britain, but that time is now long past. The total annual import of
wool into the United Kingdom is about 750,000 pounds, of which about
one half is retained for home manufacture. Two thirds of this import
comes from Australia. The number of wool and worsted factories in the
kingdom aggregates over 2750. The value of the woollen goods produced
annually is about $250,000,000, which is about one fourth of the total
product of the world.

THE LINEN MANUFACTURES OF GREAT BRITAIN

The third great textile manufacture of the United Kingdom is that of
LINENS. This is the one manufacture in which Ireland surpasses her
sister kingdoms, England and Scotland. The cultivation of flax and the
spinning of linen yarn have been domestic industries throughout all
Ireland from time immemorial. But at the present time the
linen-manufacturing industry of Ireland is almost wholly concentrated
in BELFAST. In Scotland, which now almost rivals Ireland in the extent
and perfection of her linen manufactures, the industry is principally
located in Fifeshire and Forfarshire, especially in the towns of
DUNDEE and DUNFERMLINE, the latter town being greatly famed for its
napery and table linens. Linen, like cotton, requires a peculiar
atmospheric condition of temperature and moisture for its manufacture,
and only in few localities has the linen industry been successfully
established. The total value of the annual linen manufacture of the
United Kingdom is $100,000,000.

OTHER TEXTILE MANUFACTURES OF GREAT BRITAIN

The annual value of the total manufacture of textile fabrics in the
British Isles is about $1,000,000,000--not far short, indeed, of one
fourth of the total manufacture of textile fabrics in all the world.
Great Britain has over $1,000,000,000 invested in her textile
industry, and one half of her total exports consists of textile
manufactures. Cotton, woollen, and linen cloths are the chief staples
of this industry, but there are many other branches of it and many
other localities in which it is specialised besides the ones already
mentioned. LEICESTER (204,000), which, like so many other
manufacturing cities of England, lies at the centre of a coal-field,
is the chief seat of the WOOLLEN HOSIERY manufacture. DUMFRIES is the
chief seat of the woollen hosiery manufacture in Scotland.
KIDDERMINSTER, in Worcestershire, is the chief seat of the "Brussels"
carpet industry; WILTON, in Wiltshire, of the Wilton carpet industry.
KILMARNOCK, in Ayrshire, is the chief seat of the carpet manufacture
in Scotland. NOTTINGHAM (233,000) is the metropolis of the cotton
hosiery and lace manufacture of England. NORWICH (110,000), in eastern
England, has a noted manufacture of muslins and fine dress-goods. The
Norwich textile manufacture is an instance of the continuance of an
industry in a community historically associated with it, although its
seat is far removed from a coal-field. The SILK manufacture of Great
Britain is almost entirely confined to the county of Derby and
adjacent districts in England. MACCLESFIELD, in Cheshire, is the chief
centre. COVENTRY is noted for its silk ribbons and gauzes. But the
manufacture of silk in Britain is not prospering like that of her
other textile fabrics. In fact, in forty years it has depreciated
three fourths. British silk manufacturers are not as adept in
weighting their products with dyes as their French competitors are,
and in consequence English silks, though intrinsically better than
French silks, look inferior and therefore cannot be sold at profitable
prices. But, on the other hand, the JUTE manufacture of Great Britain
is increasing by leaps and bounds. Established only sixty years ago,
the value of its annual output is now twice that of the whole
manufacture of silk, and in twenty-five years has tripled. The chief
seat of this industry is DUNDEE (160,000), in Scotland.

THE HARDWARE MANUFACTURES OF GREAT BRITAIN

The textile manufactures of Great Britain are in the aggregate
first in importance, but the HARDWARE manufactures come a close
second. The total amount of Great Britain's hardware products is
about $750,000,000, or one fourth of the total product of the
world, and of this about one third is exported. Even more than her
textile fabrics, the hardware manufactures of Great Britain are
associated with her coal-fields. The most distinctive "hardware
centre" is that one which is identified with the great coal-field
in the middle of England known as the "Black Country." BIRMINGHAM
(506,000), the chief place in this centre, is unrivalled in
the world for the multifariousness and extent of its metal
manufactures. It is literally true that everything from a "needle
to an anchor" is made within its limits. But though its industries
comprise principally those of iron and steel, its manufactures in
gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, and aluminium are also very
important. Birmingham, too, is unrivalled in the world in the
application of art to metal work. Its manufacture of jewellery, and
gold and silver ornaments, is enormous. Its manufacture of small
wares is also enormous. For example, it turns out 15,000,000 pens
weekly. Its manufacture of buttons runs into the hundreds of
thousands of millions. WOLVERHAMPTON (88,000), also in the Black
Country, is noted for its manufacture of heavy hardware and
machinery. So also in OLDHAM, in the Lancashire district. So also
in LEEDS, in the West Yorkshire district. SHEFFIELD (352,000), also
in Yorkshire, is historically identified with its celebrated
cutlery manufacture, an industry that first began there because of
the quality and abundance of the grindstones found near by. With
the coal-beds of Durham and Cumberland are identified the great
ship-building and locomotive-building industries of NEWCASTLE
(218,000), SUNDERLAND (142,000), and DARLINGTON, on the northeast
side of England, and the great steel manufactures (the largest in
the kingdom) and ship-building industries of BARROW-ON-FURNESS,
on the northwest side. With the coal-fields of South Wales (noted
for its smokeless coal) are identified the smelting industries of
SWANSEA (70,000). Ores of copper especially, but also of silver,
zinc, and lead, are brought from all over the world to Swansea to
be smelted. These South Wales coal-fields also account for the fact
that in respect to amount of tonnage CARDIFF (160,000) is one of
the chief ports for exports in the world, ranking in this respect
next after New York. The exports of coal from Cardiff are now
12,000,000 tons annually.


II. THE TRADE FEATURES OF FRANCE

FRANCE A RICHLY FAVOURED COUNTRY

France by nature is one of the most highly favoured countries in the
world. Its climate is genial. Its temperature is so varied that almost
every vegetable, grain or fruit needed for the sustenance of man may
be raised within its borders. Its soil, though not surprisingly
fertile, yet yields abundantly such products as are suited to it. Its
mineral resources, especially in coal, iron, lead, marble, and salt,
are very considerable. Its area is compact. Its facilities for foreign
commerce are unsurpassed. It lies between the two bodies of water--the
Atlantic and the Mediterranean--of greatest commercial importance in
the world. And its people, especially those in rural parts, are
exceptionally frugal and industrious. But France as a nation has not
made the progress in the world that its natural advantages call for.
It has been cursed with expensive and unstable governments and
sanguinary wars. Its upper classes, the natural leaders of its
peoples, are excessively fond of pleasure and military glory, and the
energies of the nation have been much misdirected. As a consequence,
despite its natural advantages, France is losing ground among the
nations of the world. Its national debt amounts to nearly
$7,000,000,000, the largest national debt known in history, being per
head of population seventeen and one half times as great as that of
Germany, six times as great as that of the United States, and much
more than one and one half times as great as that of Great Britain.
But, what is of more serious consequence, the vitality of its people
seems debilitated. For years the annual number of births in France has
been steadily decreasing, while the annual number of deaths has been
more or less increasing. Over a great part of the country the number
of deaths annually exceeds the number of births. In numerous years
this is so for the whole country. The birth rate is the lowest in
Europe. The death rate, while not the highest, is yet higher than in
many other countries. As a consequence of all this the population of
France is almost stationary. During the last seventy years it has
increased only 18 per cent., while that of Great Britain has increased
63 per cent., Germany 75 per cent., Russia 92 per cent., and Europe as
a whole 62 per cent. And even this increase, small as it is, is
largely due to immigration from other countries. Nor is the emigration
of Frenchmen to their colonies or to other countries to be set down as
a sufficient explanation. The French are averse to emigration. At the
present time the number of Frenchmen residing abroad is only a little
more than half a million, while of foreigners residing in France the
number is not far short of a million and a quarter.

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