Imperialism: A Study Part I, Chapter II The Commercial Value of
Imperialism The absorption of so large a proportion of public
interest, energy, blood and money in seeking to procure colonial
possessions and foreign markets would seem to indicate that
Great Britain obtains her chief livelihood by external trade.
Now this is not the case. Large as is our foreign and colonial
trade in volume and in value, essential as is much of it to our
national well-being, nevertheless it furnishes a small
proportion of the real income of the nation. Although the volume
and value of home industries are not directly calculable, the
total income of the nation, comprising profits, wages, rents,
and other gains from all sources, is approximately estimated at
£1,700,000,000 per annum. This sum, of course, covers all
payments, not only for productive services of land, capital and
labour in the making and distributing of material wealth, but
for professional and personal services as well. Real income in
the shape of goods or service