ABSTRACT
FROM the eighteen-seventies to the First World War certaintrends of change in the distribution of economic activitiesshowed themselves so persistently that they seemed to belong almost to the permanent order of things. While economic growth, as indicated by the size of the national product, was very large, agricultural production was more or less stagnant, so that agriculture steadily declined to a relatively minor place in the economy. Within that general stagnation two contrary tendencies were concealed: an absolute decline in arable and an expansion of livestock output. Industrial production was growing roughly at the same rate as the economy in general (perhaps just a little less) but this achievement owed much to the exceptional and prolonged expansion of coalmining. Manufacture, relatively to other activities, was barely holding its own and building, though following a very irregular course, appeared by the twentieth century to be definitely falling behind. But transport, distribution and various commercial and financial services were becoming relatively more important. Simultaneously, relations with the outside world were changing. Though external merchandise trade grew more slowly than before, this was partly offset by the increase in 'invisible; trade, especially that associated with a large export of capital, and both production and consumption at home became more than ever dependent on foreign trade. In short, the late Victorian and Edwardian economy was one in which primary and secondary production were of gradually declining relative importance and services of gradually increasing importance, and in which a growing involvement in an international economy took place and was dependent on a large supply of international capital and services.
