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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 F GILL & SONS 
 
 Acoount JJook Maktl-, 
 WBSTOfl-SUPEB-MAJlE
 
 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES 
 I 900- 1903
 
 ,
 
 Essays & Addresses 
 1900- 1903 
 
 BY 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. LORD AVEBURY 
 
 p.c. 
 
 iLontJon 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1903 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAOF, 
 
 1. Huxley's Life and Work .... 1 
 
 2. John Ruskin . . . . . .44 
 
 3. EiCHARD Jefferies . . . . .67 
 
 4. Macaulay Ceremonial . . . .79 
 
 5. Manchester Public Library Jubilee . . .94 
 
 6. The Order of Merit ..... 107 
 
 7. On Bank Holidays . . . .114 
 
 8. On the Early Closing Bill . . . .124 
 
 9. On the Present Position of British Commerce . 140 
 
 10. Our Fiscal Policy . . . . .166 
 
 11. On Municipal Trading ..... 206 
 
 12. On Education ...... 237 
 
 13. The Study of Nature . . . . .261 
 
 14. Address to the London County Council Scholaii-s . 272 
 
 15. Address to the Churchmen's Union . .282 

 
 I 
 
 HUXLEY'S LIFE AND WORK^ 
 
 I ACCEPTED with pleasure the invitation of your 
 Council to deliver the first Huxley lecture, not only 
 on account of my affection and admiration for him 
 and my long friendship, but it seemed also especially 
 appropriate as I was associated with him in the 
 foundation of this Society. He was President of the 
 Ethnological Society, and when it was fused with 
 the Anthropological we, many of us, felt that Huxley 
 ought to be the first President of the new Institute. 
 No one certainly did so more strongly than your 
 first President, and I only accepted the honour 
 when we found that it was impossible to secure him. 
 
 But the foundation of our Institute was only 
 one of the occasions on which we worked together. 
 
 Like him, but, of course, far less effectively, 
 from the date of the appearance of Tlie Origin of 
 Species, I stood by Darwin and did my best to fight 
 the battle of truth against the torrent of ignorance 
 and abuse which was directed against him. Sir 
 
 ^ The first "Huxley Memorial Lecture " of the Anthropological Institute, 
 delivered on November 13, 1900. 
 
 B
 
 2 Essays and Addresses 
 
 J. Hooker and I stood by Huxley's side and spoke 
 up for Natural Selection in the great Oxford debate 
 of 1860. In the same year we became co-editors 
 of the Natural History Revieiv. 
 
 Another small society in which I was closely 
 associated w^itli Huxley for many years was the X 
 Club. The other members w^ere Georg-e Busk, 
 secretary of the Linnean Society ; Edward Frank - 
 land, President of the Chemical Society ; T. A. Hirst, 
 head of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich ; Sir 
 Joseph Hooker, and W. Spottiswoode, Presidents of 
 the Royal Society ; Herbert Spencer, and Tyndall. 
 It was started in 1864, and nearly nineteen years 
 passed before we had a single loss that of Spottis- 
 woode ; but Hooker, Spencer, and I are now, alas ! 
 the only remaining members. We used to dine 
 together once a month, except in July, August, and 
 September. There were no papers or formal dis- 
 cussions, but the idea was to secure more frequent 
 meetings of a few friends who were bound together 
 by common interests and aims, and strong feelings of 
 personal affection. It has never been formally 
 dissolved, but the last meeting was in 1893. 
 
 In 1869 the Metaphysical Society, of which I 
 shall have something more to say later on, was 
 started. 
 
 From 1870 to 1875 1 was sitting with Huxley on 
 the late Duke of Devonshire's Commission on 
 Scientific Instruction ; we had innumerable meetings, 
 and made_ many recommendations which are being 
 by degrees ad()})ted.
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 3 
 
 I had also the pleasure of spending some de- 
 lightful holidays with him in Switzerland, in Brittany, 
 and in various parts of England. Lastly, I sat by 
 his side in the Sheldonian Theatre at the British 
 Association meeting at Oxford during Lord Salis- 
 bury's address, to which I listened with all the more 
 interest, knowing that he was to second the vote of 
 thanks, and wondering how he would do it. At one 
 passage we looked at one another, and he whispered 
 to me, " Oh, my dear Lubbock, how I wish we were 
 going to discuss the address in Section D instead of 
 here ! " Not, indeed, that he would have omitted 
 any part of his speech, but there were other portions 
 of the address which he would have been glad to 
 have criticised. 
 
 I was in fact for many years in close and intimate 
 association with him. 
 
 Huxley showed from early youth a determination, 
 in the words of Jean Paul Kichter, " to make the 
 most that was possible out of the stuff," and this was 
 a great deal, for the material was excellent. He 
 took the wise advice to consume more oil than wine, 
 and, what is better even than midnight oil, he made 
 the most of the sweet morning air. 
 
 In his youth he was a voracious reader, and de- 
 voured everything he could lay his hands on, from 
 the Bible to Hamilton's Essay on the Philosojjhy of 
 the Unconditioned. He tells us of himself that when 
 he was a mere boy he had a perverse tendency to 
 think when he ought to have been playing. 
 
 Considering how pre - eminent he was as a
 
 4 Essays and Addresses 
 
 naturalist, it is rather surprising to hear, as he has 
 himself told us, that his own desire was to be a 
 c "mechanical engineer. "The only part," he said, "of 
 my professional course which really and deeply 
 interested me was physiology, which is the mechanical 
 engineering of living machines ; and notwithstanding 
 that natural science has been my proper business, I 
 am afraid there is very little of the genuine naturalist 
 in me ; I never collected anything, and species work 
 was a burden to me. What I cared for was the 
 architectural and engineering part of the business ; 
 the working out the wonderful unity of plan in the 
 thousands and thousands of diverse livinij con- 
 structions, and the modifications of similar apparatus 
 to serve diverse ends." 
 
 In 1846 Huxley was appointed naturalist to the 
 expedition which was sent to the East under Captain 
 Owen Stanley in the Rattlesnake, and good use 
 indeed he made of his opportunities. It is really 
 wonderful, as Sir M. Foster remarks in his excellent 
 obituary notice in the Royal Society's Proceedings, 
 how he could have accomplished so much under such 
 difficulties. 
 
 " Working," says Sir Michael Foster, " amid a 
 host of difficulties, in want of room, in want of 
 licrht, seekinfj to unravel the intricacies of minute 
 structure with a microscope lashed to secure steadi- 
 ness, cramped within a tiny cabin, jostled by the 
 tumult of a crowded sliip's life, with the scantiest 
 supply of l)ooks of reference, with no one at hand of 
 whom he could take counsel on the problems opening
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 5 
 
 up before him, he gathered for himself during those 
 four years a large mass of accurate, important, and, 
 in most cases, novel observations, and illustrated 
 them with skilful, pertinent drawings." 
 
 The truth is that Huxley was one of those all- 
 round men who would have succeeded in almost any 
 walk in life. In literature his wit, his power of 
 clear description, and his admirable style, would 
 certainly have placed him in the front rank. 
 
 He was as ready with his pencil as with his pen. 
 Every one who attended his lectures will remember 
 how admirably they were illustrated by his black- 
 board sketches, and how the diagrams seemed to 
 grow line by line almost of themselves. Drawing 
 was, indeed, a joy to him, and when I have been 
 sitting with him at Royal Commissions or on com- 
 mittees, he was constantly making comical sketches 
 on scraps of paper or on blotting-books, which, though 
 admirable, never seemed to distract his attention 
 from the subject on hand. 
 
 Again, he was certainly one of the most effective 
 speakers of the day. Eloquence is a great gift, 
 although I am not sure that the country might not 
 be better governed and more wisely led if the House 
 of Commons and the country were less swayed by 
 it. To its fortunate possessor, however, eloquence 
 is of great value, and if circumstances had thrown 
 Huxley into political life, no one can doubt that 
 he would have taken hio"h rank among our states- 
 men. Indeed, I believe his presence in the House 
 of Commons would have been of inestimable value
 
 6 Essays and Addresses 
 
 to the country. Mr, Hutton, of the Sjyectator 
 no mean judge ^has told us that in his judgment 
 " an abler and more accomplished debater was not 
 to be found even in the House of Commons." His 
 speeches had the same quality, the same luminous 
 style of exposition, with which his printed books 
 have made all readers in America and England 
 familiar. Yet they had even more. You could 
 not listen to him without thinking more of the 
 speaker than of his science, more of the solid, 
 beautiful nature than of the intellectual o^ifts, more 
 of his manly simplicity and sincerity than of all his 
 knowledge and his long services. His Friday 
 evening lectures at the Royal Institution rivalled 
 those of Tyndall in their interest and brilliance, and 
 were always keenly and justly popular. Yet he has 
 told us that at first he had almost every fault a speaker 
 could have. After his first Royal Institution lecture 
 he received an anonymous letter recommending him 
 never to try again, as, whatever else he might be fit 
 for, it was certainly not for giving lectures. It is also 
 said that after one of his first lectures, " On the 
 Relations of Animals and Plants," at a suburban 
 Athen?eum, a general desire was expressed to the 
 Council that they would never invite that young 
 man to lecture again. Quite late in life he told me, 
 and John Bright said the same thing, that he was 
 always nervous when he rose to speak, though the 
 feeling soon wore off when he warmed up to his 
 subject. 
 
 No doubt easy listening on the part of the
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 7 
 
 audience means hard working and thinking on the 
 part of the lecturer, and, whether for the cultivated 
 audience at the Royal Institution or for one to 
 working men, he spared himself no pains to make 
 his lectures interesting and instructive. There used 
 to be an impression that science w^as something up 
 in the clouds, too remote from ordinary life, too 
 abstruse, and too difficult to be interesting ; or else, 
 as Dickens ridiculed it in Pickwick, too trivial to be 
 worthy of the time of an intellectual being. 
 
 Huxley was one of the foremost of those who 
 brought our people to realise that science is of vital 
 importance in our life, that it is more fascinating 
 than a fairy tale, more brilliant than a novel, and 
 that any one who neglects to follow the triumphant 
 march of discovery, so startling in its marvellous 
 and unexpected surprises, so inspiring in its moral 
 influence and its revelations of the beauties and 
 wonders of the world in which we live and the 
 universe of which we form an infinitesimal, but, to 
 ourselves at any rate, an all important part, is de- 
 liberately rejecting one of the greatest comforts 
 and interests of life one of the greatest gifts with 
 which we have been endowed by Providence. 
 
 But there is a time for all things under the sun, 
 and we cannot fully realise the profound interest and 
 serious responsibilities of life unless we refresh the 
 mind and allow the bow to unbend. Huxley was 
 full of humour, which burst out on most unexpected 
 occasions. I remember one instance during a paper 
 on the habits of spiders. The female spider appears
 
 8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 to be one of the most unsociable, truculent, and 
 bloodthirsty of her sex. Even under the influence 
 of love she does but temporarily suspend her 
 general hatred of all living beings. The courtship 
 varies in character in different species, and is ex- 
 cessively quaint and curious ; but at the close the 
 thirst for blood, which has been temporarily over- 
 mastered by an even stronger passion, bursts out 
 with irresistible fury, she attacks her lover, and, if 
 he be not on the watch and does not succeed in 
 making his escape, ends by destroying and sucking 
 him dry. In moving a vote of thanks to the author, 
 Huxley ended some interesting remarks by the ob- 
 servation that this closing scene was the most 
 extraordinary form of marriage settlements of which 
 he had ever heard. 
 
 He seemed also to draw out the wit of others. 
 At the York "Jubilee" meeting of the British 
 Association, he and I strolled down in the afternoon 
 to the Minster. At the entrance we met Prof. H. 
 J. Smith, who made a mock movement of surprise. 
 Huxley said, " You seem surprised to see me here." 
 "Well," said Smith hesitatingly, "not exactly, l)ut 
 I should have expected to have seen you on one of 
 the pinnacles, you know," 
 
 His letters were full of fun. Speaking of Siena in 
 one of his letters, contained in Mr. Leonard Huxley's 
 excellent Life of his father, he says : " Tlie town is 
 the quaintest place imaginable, built of narrow streets 
 on several hills to start with, and then apparently 
 stirred up with a poker to prevent monotony of effect."
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 9 
 
 And aofain, writino- from Florence : 
 
 We had a morning at the Uffizi the other day, and came 
 back with minds enlarged and backs broken. To-morrow we 
 contemplate attacking the Pitti, and doubt not the result will 
 be similar. By the end of the week our minds will probably be 
 BO large, and the small of the back so small, that we should prob- 
 ably break if we stayed any longer, so think it prudent to be 
 off to Venice. 
 
 By degrees public duties and honours accumulated 
 on him more and more. He was Secretary, and 
 afterwards President, of the Royal Society, President 
 of the Geological and of the Ethnological Societies, 
 Hunterian Professor from 1863 to 1870, a Trustee 
 of the British Museum, Dean of the Royal College 
 of Science, President of the British Association, 
 Inspector of Fisheries, Member of Senate of the 
 University of London, Member of no less than ten 
 Royal Commissions, in addition to which he gave 
 many lectures at the Royal Institution and elsewhere, 
 besides, of course, all those which formed a part of 
 his official duties. 
 
 In 1892 he was made a Member of the Privy 
 Council, an unwonted but generally welcome re- 
 cognition of the services which science renders to 
 the community. 
 
 He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 
 1851. He received a Royal Medal in 1852, the 
 Copley in 1888, and the Darwin Medal in 1894. 
 
 Apart from his professional and administrative 
 duties, Huxley's work falls into three principal 
 divisions Natural Science, Education, and Meta- 
 physics.
 
 lo Essays and Addresses 
 
 Scientific Work 
 
 Huxley's early papers do not appear to have in 
 all cases at first received the consideration they 
 deserved. The only important one which was pub- 
 lished before his return was the one " On the 
 Anatomy and Affinities of the Family of the 
 Medusae." 
 
 After his return, however, there appeared a rapid 
 succession of valuable memoirs ; the most important, 
 probably, being those on Salpa and Pyrosoma, on 
 Append icularia and Doliolum, and on tlie iMorphology 
 of the Cephalous Mollusca. 
 
 In recognition of the value of these memoirs he 
 was elected a Fellow of the Koyal Society in 1851, 
 and received a Royal Medal in 1852. Lord Rosse, 
 in presenting it, said : " In these papers you have 
 for the first time fully developed their (the Medusa?) 
 structure, and laid the foundation of a rational theory 
 for their classification." " In your second paper, 
 ' On the Anatomy of Salpa and Pyrosoma,' the 
 phenomena, etc., have received the most ingenious 
 and elaborate elucidation, and have given rise to a 
 process of reasoning the results of which can scarcely 
 yet be anticipated, but must bear, in a very im- 
 portant degree, upon some of the most al^struse 
 points of what may be called transcendental phy- 
 sioloc^v." 
 
 A very interesting result of his work on the 
 Hydrozoa was the generahsation that the two layers
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 1 1 
 
 in the bodies of Hydrozoa (Polyps and Sea Ane- 
 mones), the ectoderm and the entoderm, correspond 
 with the two primary germ layers of the higher 
 animals. Again, though he did not discover or first 
 define protoplasm, he took no small share in making 
 its importance known, and in bringing naturalists 
 to recognise it as the physical basis of life, and in 
 demonstrating the unity of animal and plant 
 protoplasm. 
 
 Among other important memoirs may be mentioned 
 those " On the Teeth and the Corpuscula Tactus," 
 " On the Tegumentary Organs," '" Review of the 
 Cell Theory," " On Aphis," and many others. 
 
 His palseontological work, for which he has told 
 us that at first "he did not care," began in 1855. 
 That "On the Anatomy and Afiinities of the Genus 
 Pterygotus" is still a classic; in another, "On the 
 Structure of the Shields of Pteraspis," and in one 
 "On Cephalaspis" in 1858, he for the first time 
 clearly established their vertebrate character ; his 
 work "On Devonian Fishes" in 1861 threw quite 
 a new light on their afiinities ; and amongst other 
 later papers may be mentioned that " On Hypero- 
 dapedon," "On the Characters of the Pelvis," "On 
 the Crayfish," and one botanical memoir, " On 
 the Gentians," the outcome of one of his Swiss 
 trips. 
 
 / One of the most striking results of his palseonto- 
 logical work was the clear demonstration of the 
 numerous and close afiinities between Reptiles and 
 Birds, the result of which is that they are now
 
 12 Essays and Addresses 
 
 regarded by many as forming together a separate 
 group, the Sauropsida ; while the Amphibia, long con- 
 sidered as Reptiles, were separated from them and 
 united with Fishes under the title of Ichthyopsida. 
 At the same time he showed that the Mammalia were 
 not derived from the Sauropsida, but formed two 
 diverging lines springing from a common ancestor. 
 And besides this great generalisation, says the Royal 
 Society obituary notice, " the importance of which, 
 both from a classificatory and from an evolutional 
 point of view, needs no comment, there came out 
 of the same researches numerous lesser contributions 
 to the advancement of morphoJogical knowledge, in- 
 cluding, among others, an attempt, in many respects 
 successful, at a classification of birds." 
 
 In conjunction with Tyndall, he communicated to 
 the Philosophical Transactions a memoir on glaciers, 
 and his interest in philosophical geography was also 
 shown in his popular treatise on physiography. 
 
 But it would be impossible here to go through 
 all his contributions to science. The Royal Society 
 Catalogue enumerates more than a hundred, every one 
 of which, in the words of Prof S. Parker, " contains 
 some brilliant generalisation, some new and fruitful 
 way of lookiijg at the facts of science. The keenest 
 morphological insight and inductive power are every- 
 wliere ;i])parent ; but the imagination is always kept 
 well in hand, and there are none of those airy 
 speculations a liberal pound of theory to a bare 
 ounce of fact by wliich so many i-cputations have 
 been made." Huxley never allowed his imagination
 
 Huxley's Life and Work i 
 
 j> 
 
 to run away with him, nor on the other hand his 
 study of detail to prevent him from taking a wide 
 general view. 
 
 I now come to his special work on Man. 
 
 In the Ongin of Species Darwin did not directly 
 apply his views to the case of Man. No doubt he 
 assumed that the considerations which applied to the 
 rest of the animal kingdom must apply to Man also, 
 and I should have thought must have been clear to 
 every one, had not Wallace been in some respects, 
 much to my surprise, of a different opinion. At any 
 rate, it required some courage to state this boldly, 
 and much skill and knowledge to state it clearly. 
 
 He put it in a manner which was most conclusive, 
 and showed, in Virchow's words, " that in respect of 
 substance and structure Man and the lower animals 
 are one. The fundamental correspondence of human 
 organisation with that of animals is at present 
 universally accepted." 
 
 This, I think, is too sweeping a proposition. It 
 may be true for Germany, but it certainly is not true 
 here. Many of our countrymen and countrywomen 
 not only do not accept they do not even understand 
 Darwin's theory. They seem to suppose him to have 
 held that Man was descended from one of the living 
 Apes. This, of course, is not so. Man is not 
 descended from a Gorilla or an Orang-utang, but Man, 
 the Gorilla, the Orang-utang, and other Anthropoid 
 Apes are all descended from some far-away ancestor. 
 
 " A Pliocene Homo skeleton," Huxley said, " might 
 analogically be expected to differ no more from that
 
 14 Essays and Addresses 
 
 of modern men than the G^ningen cams from modern 
 Canes, or Pliocene horses from modern horses. If 
 so, he would most undoubtedly be a man genus 
 Homo even if you made him a distinct species. For 
 my part, I should by no means be astonished to find 
 the genus Homo represented in the Miocene say, the 
 Neanderthal man, with rather smaller brain capacity, 
 longer arms, and more movable great toe, but at most 
 specifically different." 
 
 In his work On Mans Place in Nature, while 
 referring to the other higher Quadrumana, Huxley 
 dwelt principally on the chimpanzee and the gorilla, 
 because, he said, "it is quite certain that the ape 
 which most nearly approaches man in the totality of 
 its organisation is either the chimpanzee or the 
 gorilla." 
 
 This is no doubt the case at present ; but the 
 gibbons (Hylobates), while difi'ering more in size, and 
 modified in adaptation to their more skilful power 
 of climbing, must also be considered, and, to judge 
 from Prof. Dubois' remarkable discovery in Java of 
 Pithecanthropus, which half the authorities have 
 regarded as a small man, and half as a large gibbon, 
 it is rather down to Hylobates than either to the chim- 
 panzee or the gorilla that we shall have to trace the 
 point where the line of our far-away ancestors will 
 meet that of any existing genus of monkeys. 
 
 Huxley emphasised the fact that monkeys difi"er 
 from one another in bodily structure as mucli or more 
 than they do from man. 
 
 We liave Haeckel's autliority for the statement
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 15 
 
 that, "after Darwin had, in 1859, reconstructed this 
 most important biological theory, and by his epoch- 
 making theory of natural selection placed it on an 
 entirely new foundation, Huxley was the first to 
 extend it to man ; and in 1863, in his celebrated three 
 lectures on Maris Place in Natiire, admirably worked 
 out its most important developments." 
 
 The work was so well and carefully done that it 
 stood the test of time, and writing many years after- 
 wards Huxley was able to say, and to say truly, that 
 " I was looking through Maris Place in Nature 
 the other day ; I do not think there is a word I need 
 delete, nor anything I need add except in confirma- 
 tion and extension of the doctrine there laid down. 
 That is great good fortune for a book thirty years 
 old, and one that a very shrewd friend of mine 
 implored me not to publish, as it would certainly 
 ruin all my prospects" {Life of Prof Huxley, p. 
 344). 
 
 He has told us elsewhere [Collected Essays, vii. 
 p. xi.) that "it has achieved the fate which is the 
 euthanasia of a scientific work, of being inclosed 
 among the rubble of the foundations of knowledge 
 and forgotten." He has, however, himself saved it 
 from the tomb, and built it into the walls of the 
 temple of science, and it will still well repay the 
 attention of the student. 
 
 For a poor man I mean poor in money as 
 Huxley was all his life, to publish such a book at that 
 time was a bold step. But the prophecy with which 
 he concluded the work is cominor true.
 
 1 6 Essays and Addresses 
 
 " After passion and prejudice have died away," he 
 said, " the same result will attend the teachings of 
 the naturalist respecting the great Alps and Andes of 
 the living world Man. Our reverence for the nobility 
 of manhood will not be lessened by the knowledge 
 that man is, in substance and in structure, one with the 
 brutes ; for he alone possesses the marvellous endow- 
 ments of intelligible and rational speech, whereby, in 
 the secular period of his existence, he has slowly 
 accumulated and organised the experience which is 
 almost wholly lost with the cessation of every indi- 
 vidual life in other animals ; so that now he stands 
 raised upon it as on a mountain top far above the 
 level of his humble fellows, and transfigured from his 
 grosser nature by reflecting here and there a ray from 
 the infinite source of truth" (Collected Essays, vii. 
 p. 155). 
 
 Another important research connected with the 
 work of our Society was his investigation of the 
 structure of the vertebrate skull. Owen had pro- 
 pounded a theory, and worked it out most ingeniously, 
 that the skull was a complicated elaboration of the 
 anterior part of the backbone ; that it was gradually 
 developed from a preconceived idea or archetype ; 
 that it was possihle to make out a certain number of 
 vertebrae, and even the separate parts of which they 
 were composed. 
 
 Huxley maintained that the archetypal theory was 
 erroneous ; and that instead of being a modification 
 of the anterior part of the primitive representative of 
 the backbone, the skull is rather an independent
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 17 
 
 growth around and in front of it. Subsequent in- 
 vestigations have strengthened this view, which was 
 now generally accepted. This lecture marked an 
 epoch in vertebrate morphology, and the views he 
 enunciated still hold the field. 
 
 One of the most interesting parts of Huxley's work, 
 and one specially connected with our Society, was his 
 study of the ethnology of the British Isles. It has 
 also an important practical and political application, 
 because the absurd idea that ethnologically the in- 
 habitants of our islands form three nations the 
 English, Scotch, and Irish has exercised a malignant 
 effect on some of our statesmen, and is still not with- 
 out influence on our politics. One of the strongest 
 arguments put forward in favour of Home Rule used 
 to be that the Irish were a "nation." In 1887 I 
 attacked this view in some letters to the limes, 
 subsequently published by Quaritch. Nothing is more 
 certain than that there was not a Scot in Scotland till 
 the seventh century ; that the east of our island from 
 John o' Groat's House to Kent is Teutonic ; that the 
 most important ethnological line, so far as there is 
 one at all, is not the boundary between England and 
 Scotland, but the north and south watershed which 
 separates the east and west. In Ireland, again, the 
 population is far from homogeneous. Huxley strongly 
 supported the position I had taken up. " We have," 
 he said, " as good evidence as can possibly be obtained 
 on such subjects that the same elements have entered 
 into the composition of the population in England, 
 
 Scotland, and Ireland, and that the ethnic differences 
 
 c
 
 1 8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 between the three lie simply in the general and local 
 proportions of these elements in each region. . . . 
 The population of Cornwall and Devon has as much 
 claim to the title of Celtic as that of Tipperary. . . . 
 Undoubtedly there are four geographical regions, 
 England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and the people 
 who live in them call themselves, and are called by 
 others, the English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish nations. 
 It is also true that the inhabitants of the Isle of Man 
 call themselves Manxmen, and are just as proud of 
 their nationality as any other 'nationalities.' 
 
 "But if we mean no more than this by 'nation- 
 ality,' the term has no practical significance" (The 
 Races of the British Isles, pp. 44, 45). 
 
 Surely it would be very desirable, especially when 
 political arguments are based on the term, that we 
 should come to some understanding as to what is 
 meant by the word " nation." The English, Scotch, 
 and Irish live under one Flag, one Queen, and one 
 Parliament. If they are not one nation, what are 
 they ? What term are we to use and some term is 
 obviously required to express and combine all three ? 
 For my part I submit that the correct terminology is 
 to speak of Celtic race or Teutonic race, of the Irish 
 people or the Scotch people ; l)ut that the people of 
 England, Scotland, and Ireland ay, and of the 
 Colonies also constitute one great nation. 
 
 As regards the races which have; combined to form 
 the nation, Huxley's view was that in Roman times 
 the population of Britain comprised people of two
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 19 
 
 types the one fair, the other dark. The dark people 
 resembled the Aquitani and the Iberians ; the fair 
 people were like the Belgic Gauls (Essays, V. vii. 
 p. 254). And he adds that " the only constituent 
 stocks of that population, now, or at any other period 
 about which we have evidence, are the dark whites, 
 whom I have proposed to call ' Melanochroi,' and the 
 fair whites or ' Xanthochroi.' " 
 
 He concludes (1) "That the Melanochroi and the 
 Xanthochroi are two separate races in the biological 
 sense of the word race ; (2) that they have had the 
 same general distribution as at present from the 
 earliest times of which any record exists on the 
 continent of Europe ; (3) that the population of the 
 British Islands is derived from them, and from them 
 only." 
 
 It will, however, be observed that we have (l) a 
 dark race and a fair race ; (2) a large race and a small 
 race ; and (3) a round-headed race and a broad-headed 
 race. But some of the fair race were large, some 
 small ; some have round heads, some long heads ; 
 some of the dark race again had long heads, some 
 round ones. In fact, the question seems to me more 
 complicated than Huxley supposed. The Mongoloid 
 races extend now from China to Lapland ; but in 
 Huxley's opinion they never penetrated much farther 
 west, and never reached our islands. " I am unable," 
 he says, " to discover any ground for believing that a 
 Lapp element has ever entered into the population of 
 these islands." It is true that we have not, so far as 
 I know, anything which amounts to proof We know,
 
 20 Essays and Addresses 
 
 however, that all the other animals which are associ- 
 ated with the Lapps once inhabited Great Britain. 
 Was man the only exception ? I think not, more 
 especially when we find, not only the animals of 
 Lapland, but tools and weapons identical with those 
 of the Lapps. I must not enlarge on this, and perhaps 
 I may have an opportunity of laying my views on the 
 subject more fully before the Society ; but I may be 
 allowed to indicate my own conclusion, namely, that 
 the races to which Huxley refers are amongst the 
 latest arrivals in our islands ; that England was 
 peopled long before its separation from the mainland, 
 and that after the Enejlish Channel was formed, 
 successive hordes of invaders made tlieir way across 
 the sea, they exterminated the men, or reduced them 
 to slavery ; but as they brought no women, or but 
 few, with them, they married the women. Thus 
 through their mothers our countrymen retain the 
 strain of previous races, and hence perhaps we differ 
 so much from the populations across the silver 
 streak. 
 
 Summing up this side of Huxley's work. Sir M. 
 Foster has truly said, that " Whatever bit of life he 
 touched in his search, protozoan, polyp, mollusc, 
 crustacean, fish, reptile, beast, and man and there were 
 few livino; thinfjs he did not touch he shed liuht on 
 it, and left his mark. There is not one, or hardly 
 one, of the many things which he has written which 
 may not be read again to-day with pleasure and with 
 profit, and, not once or twice only in such a reading, 
 it will be felt that the progress of science has given
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 21 
 
 to words written long ago a strength and meaning 
 even greater than that which they seemed to have 
 when first they were read." 
 
 Educational Work 
 
 In 1870 Huxley became a member of the first 
 London School Board, and though his health com- 
 pelled him to resign early in 1872, it would be 
 difficult to exaggerate the value of the service he 
 rendered to London, and indeed to the country 
 generally. 
 
 The education and discipline which he recommended 
 were : 
 
 (1) Physical training and drill. 
 
 (2) Household work or domestic economy, especi- 
 ally for girls. 
 
 (3) The elementary laws of conduct. 
 
 (4) Intellectual training, reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic, elementary science, music, and drawing. 
 
 He maintained that " no boy or girl should leave 
 school without possessing a grasp of the general 
 character of science, and without having been dis- 
 ciplined more or less in the methods of all sciences." 
 
 As regards the higher education, he was a strong 
 advocate for science and modern languages, though 
 without wishing to drop the classics. 
 
 Some years ago, for an article on higher education, 
 I consulted a good many of the highest authorities on 
 the number of hours per week which in their judgment 
 should be given to the principal subjects. Huxley,
 
 2 2 Essays and Addresses 
 
 amongst others, kindly gave me his views. He 
 suggested 10 hours for ancient languages and litera- 
 ture, 10 for modern languages and literature, 8 for 
 arithmetic and mathematics, 8 for science, 2 for 
 geography, and 2 for religious instruction. 
 
 For my own part I am firmly convinced that the 
 amount of time devoted to classics has entirely failed 
 in its object. The mind is like the body it requires 
 change. Mutton is excellent food ; but mutton for 
 breakfast, mutton for lunch, and mutton for dinner 
 would soon make any one hate the sight of a sheep, 
 and so Latin orrammar before breakfast, Latin o^rammar 
 before lunch, and Latin grammar before dinner is 
 enough to make almost any one hate the sight of a 
 classical author. Moreover, the classics, though an 
 important part, are not the whole of education, and a 
 classical scholar, however profound, if he knows no 
 science, is but a half-educated'^man after all. 
 
 In fact, Huxley was no opponent of a classical 
 education in the proper sense of the term, but he 
 did protest against it in the sense in which it is 
 usually employed namely, as an education from 
 which science is excluded, or represented only by a 
 few random lectures. 
 
 He considered that specialisation should not begin 
 till sixteen or seventeen. At present we l)egin in 
 our Public School system to specialise at the very 
 beginninfT and to devote an overwhelming- time to 
 Latin and Greek, which, after all, tlie boys are not 
 taught to speak. Huxley advocated the system 
 adopted by the founders of the University of Londop,
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 23 
 
 and maintained to the present day^ that no one should 
 be given a degree who did not show some acquaint- 
 ance with science and with at least one modern 
 language. 
 
 "As for the so-called 'conflict of studies,'" he 
 exclaims, " One might as well inquire which of the 
 terms of a Rule of Three sum one ought to know in 
 order to get a trustworthy result. Practical life is 
 such a sum, in which your duty multiplied into your 
 capacity, and divided by your circumstances, gives 
 you the fourth term in the proportion, which is your 
 deserts, with great accuracy " {Life of Prof. Huxley, 
 p. 406). 
 
 " That man," he said, " I think, has had a liberal 
 education, who has been so trained in youth that his 
 body is the ready servant of his will, and does with 
 ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, 
 it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic 
 engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in 
 smooth working order ; ready, like a steam engine, to 
 be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gos- 
 samers as well as forge the anchors of the mind ; 
 whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great 
 and fundamental truths of nature and the laws of her 
 operations ; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of 
 life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come 
 to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender 
 conscience ; who has learned to love all beauty, 
 whether of nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and 
 to respect others as himself" 
 
 ' But unfortunately now abandoned.
 
 24 Essays and Addresses 
 
 He was also strongly of opinion that colleges 
 should be places of research as well as of teaching. 
 
 " The modern university looks forward, and is a 
 factory of new knowledge ; its professors have to be 
 at the top of the wave of progress. Research and 
 criticism must be the breath of their nostrils ; labora- 
 tory work the main business of the scientific student ; 
 books his main helpers." 
 
 Education has been advocated for many good 
 reasons : by statesmen because all have votes, by 
 Chambers of Commerce because ignorance makes bad 
 workmen, by the clergy because it makes bad men, 
 and all these are excellent reasons ; but they may all 
 be summed up in Huxley's words, that " the masses 
 should be educated because they are men and women 
 with unlimited capacities of being, doing, and suffer- 
 ing, and that it is as true now as ever it was that the 
 people perish for lack of knowledge." 
 
 Huxley once complained to Tyndall, in joke, that 
 the clergy seemed to let him say anything he liked, 
 " while they attack me for a word or a phrase." But 
 it was not always so. 
 
 Tyndall and I went, in the spring of 1874, to 
 Naples to see an eruption of Vesuvius. At one side 
 the edge of the crater shelved very gradually to the 
 abyss, and, being anxious to obtain the best possible 
 view, I went a little over the ridge. In the autumn 
 Tyndall delivered his celebrated address to the British 
 Association at Jjclfast. Tliis was much admired, 
 much read, but also much criticised, and one of the 
 papers had an article on Huxley and Tyndall, praising
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 25 
 
 Huxley very much at Tyndall's expense, and ending 
 with this delightful little bit of bathos : " In con- 
 clusion, we do not know that we can better illus- 
 trate Prof. Tyndall's foolish recklessness, and the 
 wise, practical character of Prof. Huxley, than by 
 mentioning the simple fact that last spring, at the 
 very moment when Prof. Tyndall foolishly entered 
 the crater of Vesuvius during an eruption, Prof. 
 Huxley, on the contrary, took a seat on the London 
 School Board." 
 
 Tyndall, however, returned from Naples with 
 fresh life and health, while the strain of the School 
 Board told considerably on Huxley's health. 
 
 Huxley's attitude on the School Board with refer- 
 ence to Bible teaching came as a surprise to those 
 who did not know him well. He supported Mr. "W. 
 H. Smith's motion in its favour, w^hich indeed was 
 voted for by all the members except six, three of 
 whom were the Roman Catholics, who did not vote 
 either way. 
 
 " I have been," he said, '* seriously perplexed to 
 know by what practical measures the religious feeling, 
 which is the essential basis of conduct, was to be kept 
 up, in the present utterly chaotic state of opinion on 
 these matters, without the use of the Bible. Take 
 the Bible as a whole ; make the severest deductions 
 which fair criticism can dictate for shortcomings and 
 positive errors ; eliminate, as a sensible lay-teacher 
 would do if left to himself, all that it is not desirable 
 for children to occupy themselves with ; and there 
 still remains in this old literature a vast residuum of
 
 26 Essays and Addresses 
 
 moral beauty and grandeur. And then consider the 
 Gfreat historical fact that for three centuries this book 
 has been woven into the life of all that is best and 
 noblest in English history ; that it has become the 
 national epic of Britain, and is as familiar to noble 
 and simple, from John o' Groat's House to Land's 
 End, as Dante and Tasso were once to Italians ; that 
 it is written in the noblest and purest English, and 
 abounds in exquisite beauties of mere literary form ; 
 and, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind who 
 never left his villas^e to be io^norant of the existence 
 of other countries and other civilisations, and of a 
 great past, stretching back to the furthest limits of 
 the oldest nations in the world. By the study of 
 what other book could children be so much humanised 
 and made to feel that each figure in that vast 
 historical procession fills, like themselves, but a 
 momentary space in the interval between two eter- 
 nities, and earns the blessings or the curses of all 
 time, according to its effort to do good and hate evil, 
 even as they also are earning their payment for their 
 work ? " 
 
 Metaphysics 
 
 Another remarkable side of Huxley's mind was his 
 interest in and study of metaphysics. When the 
 Metaphysical Society was started in 18G9, tliere was 
 some doubt among the promoters whether Huxley 
 and Tyndall should be invited to join or not. Mr. 
 Knowles was commissioned to come and consult me. 
 1 said at once that to draw the line at the o}inions
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 27 
 
 which they were known to hold would, as it seemed 
 to me, limit the field of discussion, and there would 
 always be doubts as to when the forbidden region 
 began ; that I had understood there was to be perfect 
 freedom, and that though Huxley's and Tyndall's 
 views might be objectionable to others of our mem- 
 bers, I would answer for it that there could be 
 nothing in the form of expression of which any just 
 complaint could be made. 
 
 The Society consisted of about forty members, and 
 when we consider that they included Thompson, 
 Archbishop of York, Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester 
 and Bristol, Dean Stanley, and Dean Alford as repre- 
 sentatives of the Church of England ; Cardinal 
 Manning, Father Dalgairns, and W. G. Ward as 
 Roman Catholics ; among statesmen, Gladstone, the 
 late Duke of Argyll, Lord Sherbrooke, Sir M. E. Grant 
 Duff, John Morley, as well as Martineau, Tennyson, 
 Browning, R. H. Hutton, W. Bagehot, Frederic 
 Harrison, Leslie Stephen, Sir J. Stephen, Dr. Car- 
 penter, Sir W. Gull, W. R. Greg, James Hinton, 
 Shad worth Hodgson, Lord Arthur Russell, Sir 
 Andrew Clark, Sir Alexander Grant, Mark Patteson, 
 and W. K. Clifford, it will not be wondered that 1 
 looked forward to the meetings with the greatest 
 interest. I experienced also one of the greatest 
 surprises of my life. We all, I suppose, wondered 
 who would be the first President. No doubt what 
 happened was that Roman Catholics objected to 
 Anglicans, Anglicans to Roman Catholics, both to 
 Nonconformists ; and the different schools of meta-
 
 2 8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 physics also presented difficulties, so that finally, to 
 my amazement, I found myself the first President ! 
 The discussions were perfectly free, but perfectly 
 friendly ; and I quite agree with Mr. H. Sidgwick 
 that Huxley was one of the foremost, keenest, and 
 most interesting debaters, which, in such a company, 
 is indeed no slight praise. 
 
 We dined together, then a paper was read, which 
 had generally been circulated beforehand, and then it 
 was freely discussed, the author responding at the 
 close. Huxley contributed several papers, but his 
 main contribution to the interest of the Society 
 was his extraordinary ability and clearness in 
 debate. 
 
 His metaphysical studies led to his work on Hume 
 and his memoirs on the writings of Descartes, 
 
 One of his most interesting treatises is a criticism 
 of Descartes' theory of animal automatism. Descartes 
 was not only a great philosopher, but also a great 
 naturalist, and we owe to him the definite allocation 
 of all the phenomena of consciousness to the brain. 
 This was a great step in science, but, just because 
 Descartes' views have been so completely incorporated 
 with everyday thought, few of us realise how recently 
 it was supj)osed that the passions were seated in the 
 apparatuses of organic life. Even now we speak 
 of the heart rather than the brain in describing- 
 character. 
 
 Descartes, as is known, was much puzzled as to 
 the function of one part of the brain a small, })ear- 
 shaped body about the size of a nut, and known
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 29 
 
 as the pineal gland. It is very deeply seated in the 
 brain, and the use being quite unknown, he suggested 
 that it was the seat of the soul ; but it is now 
 regarded, and apparently on solid grounds, as the 
 remains of the optic lobe of a central eye once 
 possessed by our far-away ancestors, and still found 
 in some animals as, for instance, in certain lizards. 
 
 Descartes was much impressed by the movements 
 which are independent of consciousness or volition, 
 and known as reflex actions such, for instance, as 
 the winking of the eye or the movement of the leg if 
 the sole of the foot is touched. This takes place 
 equally if, by any injury to the spinal marrow, the 
 sensation in the legs has been destroyed. 
 
 Such movements appear to be more frequent 
 among lower animals, and Descartes supposed that all 
 their movements might be thus accounted for that 
 they were, like the movements of sensitive plants, 
 absolutely detached from consciousness or sensation, 
 and that, in fact, animals were mere machines or 
 automata, devoid not only of reason, but of any kind 
 of consciousness. 
 
 It must be admitted that Descartes' arguments 
 are not easy to disprove, and no doubt certain cases 
 of disease or injury as, for instance, that of the 
 soldier described by Dr. Mesnet, who, as the result of 
 a wound in the head, fell from time to time into a 
 condition of unconsciousness, during which, however, 
 he ate, drank, smoked, dressed and undressed, and 
 even wrote have supplied additional evidence in 
 support of his views. Huxley, while fully admitting
 
 30 Essays and Addresses 
 
 this, came, and I think rightly, to the conclusion 
 that the consciousness of which \we feel certain in 
 ourselves must have been evolved very gradually, and 
 must therefore exist, though probably in a less 
 degree, in other animals. 
 
 No one, indeed, I think, who has kept and studied 
 pets, even if they be only ants and bees, can bring 
 himself to regard them as mere machines. 
 
 The foundation of the Metaphysical Society led to 
 the invention of the term "Agnostic." 
 
 " When I reached intellectual maturity," Huxley 
 tells us, " and began to ask myself whether I was an 
 atheist, a tlieist or a pantheist, a materialist or an 
 idealist, a Christian or a freethinker, I found that the 
 more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the 
 answer ; until, at last, I came to the conclusion that 
 I had neither art nor part with any of these denomi- 
 nations except the last. The one thing in which 
 most of these good people were agreed was the one 
 thing in which I diff'ered from them. They were 
 quite sure they had attained a certain ' gnosis ' 
 had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of 
 existence ; while I was quite sure 1 had not, and had 
 a pretty strong conviction that the })roblem was 
 insoluljle. ..." 
 
 These considerations pressed forcibly on him wJien 
 he joined the Metaphysical Society. 
 
 " Every variety," he says, " of jJulosophical and 
 theological opinion was rei)rescnte<l there, and ex- 
 pressed itself with entire openness ; most of m\- 
 colleagues were ' ists ' of one sort or another; and,
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 31 
 
 however kind and friendly they might be, I, the man 
 without a rag or a habit to cover himself with, could 
 not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings which 
 must have beset the historical fox when, after leaving 
 the trap, in which his tail remained, he presented 
 himself to his normally elongated companions. So I 
 took thought, and invented what I conceived to be 
 the appropriate title of agnostic. It came into my 
 head as suggestively antithetic to the gnostic of 
 Church history, who professed to know so much 
 about the very things of which I was ignorant ; and 
 I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our 
 Society, to show that I, too, had a tail like the other 
 foxes." 
 
 Huxley denied that he was disposed to rank him- 
 self either as a fatalist, a materialist, or an atheist. 
 " Not among fatalists, for I take the conception of 
 necessity to have a logical, and not a physical, 
 foundation ; not among materialists, for I am. utterly 
 incapable of conceiving the existence of matter if 
 there is no mind in which to picture that existence ; 
 not among atheists, for the problem of the ultimate 
 cause of existence is one which seems to me to be 
 hopelessly out of reach of my poor powers." 
 
 The late Duke of Argyll, in his interesting work 
 on The Philosophy of Belief, makes a very curious 
 attack on Huxley's consistency. He observes that 
 scientific writers use " forms of expression as well as 
 individual words, all of which are literally charged 
 with teleological meaning. Men even who would 
 rather avoid such language if they could, but who
 
 32 Essays and Addresses 
 
 are intent on giving the most complete and expressive 
 description they can of the natural facts before them, 
 find it wholly impossible to discharge this duty by 
 any other means. Let us take as an example the 
 work of describing organic structures in the science 
 of biology. The standard treatise of Huxley on 
 the Elements of Compayxttive Anatomy affords a 
 remarkable example of this necessity, and of its 
 results. . . . 
 
 " How unreasonable it is to set aside, or to 
 explain away, the full meaning of such words as 
 ' apparatuses ' and ' plans,' comes out strongly when 
 we analyse the preconceived assumptions which are 
 supposed to be incompatible with the admission 
 of it. . . . 
 
 " To continue the use of words because we are 
 conscious that we cannot do without them, and then 
 to regret or neglect any of their implications, is the 
 highest crime we can commit against the only 
 faculties which enable us to grasp the realities of the 
 world." Is not this, however, to fall into the error 
 of some Greek philosophers, and to regard language, 
 not only as a means of communication, but as an 
 instrument of research ? We all speak of sunrise and 
 sunset, but it is no proof that the sun goes round the 
 earth. The Duke himself says elsewhere : 
 
 " We speak of time as if it were an active agent in 
 doing this, that, and the other. Yet we are quite 
 conscious, when we choose to think of it, that when 
 we speak of time in this sense we are really thinking 
 and speaking, not of time itself, but of the various
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 33 
 
 physical forces which operate slowly and continuously 
 in, or during, time. Apart from these forces, time 
 does nothing." 
 
 This is, it seems to me, a complete reply to his 
 own attack on Huxley's supposed inconsistency. 
 
 Theologians often seem to speak as if it were 
 possible to believe something which one cannot 
 understand, as if the belief were a matter of will, that 
 there was some merit in believing what you cannot 
 prove, and that if a statement of fact is put before 
 you, you must either believe or disbelieve it. 
 Huxley, on the other hand, like most men of science, 
 demanded clear proof, or what seemed to him clear 
 proof, before he accepted any conclusion ; he would, 
 I believe, have admitted that you might accept a 
 statement which you could not explain, but would 
 have maintained that it was impossible to believe 
 what you did not understand ; that in such a case 
 the word "belief" was an unfortunate misnomer; 
 that it was wrong, and not right, to profess to believe 
 anything for which you knew that there was no 
 sufficient evidence, and that if it is proved you 
 cannot help believing it ; that as regards many 
 matters the true position was not one either of belief 
 or of disbelief, but of suspense. 
 
 In science we know that though the edifice of fact 
 is enormous, the fundamental problems are still 
 beyond our grasp, and we must be content to 
 suspend our judgment, to adopt, in fact, the Scotch 
 verdict of "not proven," so unfortunately ignored in 
 our law as in our theology. 
 
 D
 
 34 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Faith, then, in the Bible sense, is a matter more of 
 deeds, not of words, as St. Paul shows in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews. If you do not act on what you profess to 
 believe, you do not really and in truth believe it. May 
 I give an instance ? The Fijians really believed in a 
 future life ; according to their creed, you rose in the 
 next world exactly as you died here young if you were 
 young, old if you were old, strong if you were strong, 
 deaf if you were deaf, and so on. Consequently it 
 was important to die in the full possession of one's 
 faculties, before the muscles had begun to lose their 
 strength, the eye to grow dim, or the ear to wax 
 hard of hearing. On this they acted. Every one 
 had himself killed in the prime of life ; and Captain 
 Wilkes mentions that in one large town there was 
 not a single person over forty years of age. 
 
 That I call faith. That is a real belief in a future 
 life. 
 
 Huxley's views are indicated in the three touching 
 lines by Mrs. Huxley, which are inscribed on his 
 tombstone : 
 
 Be not afraid, ye wailini; hearts that weep, 
 For f^till He giveth His beloved sleep, 
 And if an endless sleep He wills so best. 
 
 That may be called unbelief, or a suspension of 
 judgment, but it is not disbelief. 
 
 Huxley doubted. But disbelief is that of those 
 who, no matter what they say, act as if there was no 
 future life, as if this world was everything, and in the 
 words of Baxter in 77/ e Saiuts' Everlasting Rest,
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 35 
 
 profess to believe in Heaven, and yet act as if it was 
 to be " tolerated indeed rather than the flames of Hell, 
 but not to be desired before the felicity of Earth." 
 
 Huxley was, indeed, by no means without definite 
 beliefs. " I am," he said, " no optimist, but I have 
 the firmest belief that the Divine Government (if we 
 may use such a phrase to express the sum of the 
 ' customs of matter ') is wholly just. The more I 
 know intimately of the lives of other men (to say 
 nothing of my own), the more obvious it is to me 
 that the wicked does not flourish nor is the righteous 
 punished." 
 
 One of the great problems of the future is to clear 
 away the cobwebs which the early and mediaeval 
 ecclesiastics, unavoidably ignorant of science, and 
 with ideas of the world now known to be funda- 
 mentally erroneous, have spun round the teachings of 
 Christ ; and in this Huxley rendered good service. 
 For instance, all over the world in early days lunatics 
 were supposed to be possessed by evil spirits. That 
 was the universal belief of the Jews, as of other 
 nations, 2000 years ago, and one of Huxley's most 
 remarkable controversies was with Mr. Gladstone and 
 Dr. Wace with reference to the " man possessed with 
 devils," which, we are told, were cast out and 
 permitted to enter into a herd of swine. Some 
 people thought that these three distinguished men 
 might have occupied their time better than, as was 
 said at the time, " in fighting over the Gaderene 
 swine." But as Huxley observed : " The real issue 
 is whether the men of the nineteenth century are
 
 36 Essays and Addresses 
 
 to adopt the demoiiology of the men of the first 
 century as divinely revealed truth, or to reject it as 
 degrading falsity." 
 
 And as the first duty of religion is to form the 
 highest conception possible to the human mind of 
 the Divine Nature, Huxley naturally considered that 
 when a Prime Minister and a Doctor of Divinity 
 propounded views showing so much ignorance of 
 medical science, and so low a view of the Deity, it 
 was time that a protest was made in the name, not 
 only of science, but of religion. 
 
 Theologians themselves, indeed, admit the mystery 
 of existence. *' The wonderful world," says Canon 
 Liddon, " in which we now pass this stage of our 
 existence, whether the higher world of faith be open 
 to our gaze or not, is a very temple of many and 
 august mysteries. . . . Everywhere around you are 
 evidences of the existence and movement of a 
 mysterious power which you can neither see, nor 
 touch, nor define, nor measure, nor understand." 
 
 One of Huxley's difficulties he has stated in the 
 following words : " Infinite benevolence need not 
 have invented pain and sorrow at all infinite 
 malevolence would very easily have deprived us of 
 the large measure of content and happiness tliat falls 
 to our lot." 
 
 This does not, I confess, strike me as conclusive. 
 It seems an answer if not perhaps quite complete, 
 that if we are to have any freedom and responsibility, 
 the possibility of evil follows necessarily. If two 
 courses are open to us, there are two alternatives :
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 37 
 
 either the results are the same in either case, and 
 then it does not matter what we do ; or the one 
 course must be wise and the other unwise. Huxley, 
 indeed, said in another place : "I protest that if 
 some great power could agree to make me always 
 think what is true, and do what is right, on condition 
 of being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every 
 morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly 
 close with the offer. The only freedom I care about 
 is the freedom to do right ; the freedom to do wrong 
 I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to any 
 one who will take it of me. But when the Materialists 
 stray beyond the borders of their path, and talk about 
 there being nothing else in the world but Matter 
 and Forces and necessary laws, ... I decline to 
 follow them." 
 
 Huxley was no enemy to the existence of an 
 Established Church. 
 
 " I could conceive," he said, " the existence of an 
 Established Church which should be a blessing to the 
 community. A Church in which, week by week, 
 services should be devoted, not to the iteration of 
 abstract propositions in theology, but to the setting 
 before men's minds of an ideal of true, just, and pure 
 living ; a place in which those who are weary of the 
 burden of daily cares should find a moment's rest in 
 the contemplation of the higher life which is possible 
 for all, though attained by so few ; a place in which 
 the man of strife and of business should have time 
 to think how small, after all, are the rewards he 
 covets compared with peace and charity. Depend 
 
 aof!':^or^
 
 38 Essays and Addresses 
 
 upon it, if such a Church existed, no one would seek 
 to disestablish it." 
 
 It seems to me that he has here very nearly 
 described the Church of Stanley, of Jowett, and of 
 Kingsley. 
 
 Sir W. Flower justly observed that while, " if the 
 term ' religious ' be limited to acceptance of the 
 formularies of one of the current creeds of the world, 
 it cannot be applied to Huxley, still no one could be 
 intimate with him without feeling that he possessed 
 a deep reverence for ' whatsoever things are true, 
 whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are 
 just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things 
 are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report,' and 
 an abhorrence of all that is the reverse of these ; 
 and that, although he found difficulty in expressing 
 it in definite words, he had a pervading sense of 
 adoration of the infinite, very much akin to the 
 highest religion." 
 
 Lord Shaftesbury records that " Prof. Huxley has 
 this definition of morality and religion : ' Teach a 
 child what is wise that is morality. Teach him what 
 is wise and beautiful that is religion ! ' Let no one 
 henceforth despair of making things clear and of 
 giving explanations ! " {Life and Works, iii. 282). 
 
 I doubt, indeed, whether the debt which Religion 
 owes to Science has yet been ade(juately acknow- 
 ledged. 
 
 Tlie real conflict for conflict there has been and 
 is is not between Science and Religion, but between 
 Science and Superstition. A disbelief in the good-
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 39 
 
 ness of God led to all the horrors of the Inquisition. 
 Throughout the Middle Ages, and down almost to our 
 own times, as Lecky has so powerfully shown, the 
 dread of witchcraft hung like a black pall over 
 Christianity. Even so great and good a man as 
 Wesley believed in it. It is Science which has 
 cleared away these dark clouds, and we can hardly 
 fail to see that it is just in those countries where 
 Science is most backward that Relisfion is less well 
 understood ; and in those where Science is most 
 advanced that Religion is purest. The services which 
 Science has rendered to Religion have not as yet, I 
 think, received the recognition they deserve. 
 
 Many of us may think that Huxley carried his 
 scepticism too far that some conclusions which he 
 doubted, seem, if not indeed proved, yet to stand on 
 a securer basis than he supposed. 
 
 He approached the consideration of these awful 
 problems, however, in no scoffing spirit, but with an 
 earnest desire to arrive at the truth, and I am glad 
 to acknowledge that this has been generously re- 
 cognised by his opponents. 
 
 From his own point of view, Huxley was no 
 opponent of religion, however fundamentally he might 
 differ from the majority of clergymen. In Science 
 we differ, but we are all seeking for truth, and we do 
 not dream that any one is an enemy to " science." 
 
 In Theology, however unfortunately, as we think 
 a different standard has been adopted. Theologians 
 often, though no doubt there are many exceptions, 
 resrard a difference from themselves as an attack on
 
 40 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Religion, a suspension of judgment as an adverse 
 verdict, and doubt as infidelity. 
 
 It is therefore only just to them to say that their 
 obituary notices of Huxley were fair and even 
 generous. When they treated him as a foe they did 
 so, as a rule, in a spirit as honourable to them as it 
 was to him. 
 
 The Christia7i World, for instance, in a very 
 interesting obituary notice, truly observed that " if 
 in Huxley's earlier years the average opinion of the 
 churches had been as ready as it is now to accept the 
 evolution of the Bible, it would not have been so 
 startled by Darwin's theory of the evolution of man ; 
 and Darwin's greatest disciple would have enjoyed 
 thirty years ago the respect and confidence and 
 affection with which we came to regard him before 
 we lost him." 
 
 Surely it is a striking and suggestive fact that 
 both the retiring and the incoming Presidents of the 
 Royal Society, by way of climax to their eulogies, 
 dwelt on the religious side of Huxley's character. 
 " If religion means strenuousness in doing right, and 
 trying to do right, who," asked Lord Kelvin, "has 
 earned the title of a religious man better than 
 Huxley?" And similarly. Sir Joseph (now Lord) 
 Lister, in emphasising Huxley's intellectual honesty, 
 " his perfect truthfulness, his whole-hearted benevo- 
 lence," felt imj)elled to adopt Lord Kelvin's word and 
 celebrate " the relij^ion that consists in the strenuous 
 endeavour to be and do what is right." 
 
 Huxley was not only a great man, but a good and
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 41 
 
 a brave one. It required much courage to profess his 
 opinions, and if he had consulted only his own 
 interests he would not have done so ; but we owe 
 much to him for the inestimable freedom which we 
 now enjoy. 
 
 When he was moved to wrath it was when he 
 thought wrong was being done, the people were being 
 misled, or truth was being unfairly attacked as, for 
 instance, in the celebrated discussion at Oxford. 
 The statue in the Natural History Museum is very 
 powerful and a very exact likeness, but it is like 
 him when he was moved to righteous indignation. It 
 is not Huxley as he was generally, as he was when he 
 was teaching, or when in the company of friends. He 
 was indeed one of the most warm-hearted and genial 
 of men. Mr. Hutton, who sat with him on the Vivi- 
 section Commission, has recorded that, '' considering 
 he represented the physiologists on this Commission, 
 I was much struck with his evident horror of any- 
 thing like torture even for scientific ends." I do not, 
 however, see why this should have surprised him, 
 because the position of physiologists is that it is the 
 anti-vivisectionists who would enormously increase 
 the suffering in the world. To speak of inflicting 
 pain " for scientific ends " is misleading. It is not 
 for the mere acquisition of useless knowledge, but for 
 the diminution of suffering, and because one experi- 
 ment may prevent thousands of mistakes and save 
 hundreds of lives. The medical profession may be 
 mistaken in this, but it is obvious that their con- 
 viction, whether it be right or whether it be wrong,
 
 42 Essays and Addresses 
 
 is not only compatible with, but is inspired by, a 
 horror of unnecessary suffering. 
 
 The great object of Huxley's labours was, in his own 
 words, " to promote the increase of natural know- 
 ledge and to forward the application of scientific 
 methods of investigation to all the problems of life." 
 His family life was thoroughly happy. He was 
 devoted to his children, and they to him. " The 
 love our children show us," he said in one of his 
 letters, " warms our old age better than the sun." 
 
 Nor can I conclude without saying a word about 
 Mrs. Huxley, of whom her son justly says that she 
 was " his help and stay for forty years, in his 
 struggles ready to (counsel, in adversity to comfort ; 
 the critic whose judgment he valued above almost 
 any, and whose praise he cared most to win ; his first 
 care and his latest thought, the other self, whose 
 union with him was a supreme example of mutual 
 sincerity and devotion." 
 
 At a time of deep depression, and when his 
 prospects looked most gloomy, he mentions a letter 
 from Miss Heathorn as havinix jjiven him " more 
 comfort than anything for a long while. I wish to 
 Heaven," he says, " it had reached me six months 
 ago. It would have saved me a world of pain and 
 error." 
 
 Huxley had two great objects in life, as he has 
 himself told us, " There are," he said, " two things 
 I really care about one is the progress of scientific 
 thought, and the other is the ))cttering of the con- 
 dition of the masses of the people by bettering them
 
 Huxley's Life and Work 43 
 
 in the way of lifting themselves out of the misery 
 which has hitherto been the lot of the majority of 
 them. Posthumous fame is not particularly attractive 
 to me, but, if I am to be remembered at all, I would 
 rather it should be as ' a man who did his best to 
 help the people' than by any other title." 
 
 It is not only because we, many of us, loved him 
 as a friend, not only because we all of us recognise 
 him as a great naturalist, but also because he was a 
 great example to us, a man who did his best to 
 benefit the people, that we are here to do honour to 
 his memory to-day.
 
 II 
 
 JOHN KUSKIN^ 
 
 I ACCEPTED with pleasure the honour of the Presi- 
 dency which you have been good enough to confer 
 on me for several reasons, but especially because I 
 was glad of the opportunity of expressing my admira- 
 tion and affection for the great man in whose honour 
 your association has been founded. 
 
 He was a friend for a great many years past; I 
 am an intense admirer of his writings, especially of 
 his great power of word painting for he was as 
 great an artist with the pen as with the pencil. I 
 was warmly attached to him personally. His opinions 
 were not always mine, but I think we agreed more 
 often than not, and our differences never in any way 
 formed a cloud or a shadow between us. 
 
 I remember, for instance, receiving a great shock 
 when, some years ago, having ventured to draw up a 
 list of a hundred books which I thought every one 
 might read with advantage, I suddenly found two 
 nights afterwards, in the Pall Mall, ;i criticism by 
 Mr. Ruskin, condemning what he called " the rubbish 
 
 ' Adilress as Prcsidfiit of the Kiiskin Society of llirmiiigliam. October 21. 
 1902. 
 
 44
 
 John Ruskin 45 
 
 and poison " I recommended. But I confess to 
 being somewhat relieved when, on looking through 
 the books which he had struck out of my list, I 
 found they included, amongst others, Marcus Aurelius, 
 Aristotle, Confucius, Thomas a Kempis, Kingsley, 
 Thackeray, Macaulay, and Emerson, so that I hope 
 I had not done so much harm after all. 
 
 Another subject on which we entirely differed 
 was on the relations of insects to flowers. Once 
 when he was with us on a visit I endeavoured to 
 convince him on the point, but only succeeded in 
 making him rather unhappy, and left him entirely 
 unconverted. Some time afterwards, however, in his 
 volume of letters published as Hortus Inclusus, I was 
 very much interested and rather pleased to find the 
 following account of that discussion. " I have been 
 made so miserable by Sir John Lubbock's views on 
 flowers and insects, that I must come and whine with 
 you. He says, and really as if he knew it, that insects, 
 chiefly bees, entirely originate flowers ; that all scent, 
 colour, pretty form, is owing to bees ; that flowers 
 which insects do not care for have no scent, colour, 
 nor honey. It seems to me, that it is likelier that 
 the flowers which have no scent, colour, nor honey, 
 don't get any attention from the bees. But the man 
 really knows so much about it, and has tried so 
 many pretty experiments, that he makes me miser- 
 able." I am very sorry that I made him miserable, 
 but do not quite understand why he was so. 
 
 During the siege of Paris, as Euskin mentions in 
 Fors Clavigera, Cardinal Manning, Prof. Huxley,
 
 46 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Mr. Kiiowles, Ruskin, and I formed ourselves into a 
 committee and prepared to send relief into the great 
 city. When it seemed that the proper moment had 
 arrived we approached the then Lord Mayor, and a 
 representative committee was formed, under whose 
 auspices large supplies were eventually forwarded. 
 
 Nor can I ever forget a memorable day spent with 
 him many years ago at Avebury. He was not 
 prepared for the w^onder and interest of that classical 
 spot, not having any idea that we possessed in this 
 country so marvellous a monument, and his wonder 
 and enthusiasm were delightful 1 
 
 But I must not allow myself to wander further 
 into personal reminiscences. 
 
 Ruskin's childhood does not seem to have been 
 happy. It is true that his father and mother were 
 most worthy people, and kind to him in their way, 
 but they do not seem to have realised that children 
 cannot be really happy unless love is shown as well as 
 felt. " My parents were," he says, " visible jiowers 
 of nature to me, no more loved than the sun and the 
 moon ; only I should have been annoyed and puzzled 
 if either of them had gone out (how much, now, when 
 both are darkened !) still less did I love Ood ; not 
 that I had any (|uarrel with Him, or fear of Him ; 
 but Kim})ly found what people told me was His service, 
 disagreeable ; and what people told me was His book, 
 not entertaining."^ " I had nothing animate to care 
 for, in a childish way, but myself, some nests of 
 ants, which the gardener would never leave undis- 
 
 ' Fors, V. \\ 1G6.
 
 John Ruskin 47 
 
 turbed for me, and a sociable bird or two ; though I 
 never had the sense of perseverance to make one 
 really tame." ^ 
 
 Nor does he appear to think that his health was 
 very wisely watched. As he pathetically observes : 
 "And if only then my father and mother had seen 
 the real strengths and weaknesses of their little 
 John, if they had given me but a shaggy scrap of 
 a Welsh pony, and left me in charge of a good Welsh 
 guide, and of his wife, if I needed any coddling, they 
 would have made a man of me there and then, and 
 afterwards the comfort of their hearts, and probably 
 the first geologist of my time in Europe." ^ 
 
 Considering, however, how delicate he was, it is 
 quite possible that his father and mother were right. 
 
 Nor did he get that knowledge of himself which 
 boys acquire from one another, and which is one of 
 the most valuable elements of a public school educa- 
 tion. He was thrown back upon himself, without 
 finding his own level, and, being clever, well-meaning, 
 and with great powers of expression, he gradually 
 developed the conviction, as he himself tells us, that 
 he had " an instinct of impartial and reverent judg- 
 ment, which fits me for the final work to which, if to 
 anything, I am appointed." 
 
 This judgment, it is fair to admit, this " im- 
 partial and reverent," but somewhat stern and severe 
 judgment, he exercises throughout his writings, with 
 unswerving confidence ; and as Mr. F. Harrison tells 
 us in his admirable life of Ruskin, in the full per- 
 
 ' Fors, V. p. 160. - Praiteritd, i. p. 157.
 
 48 Essays and Addresses 
 
 suasion that he was always right and " everybody 
 else was always wrong." 
 
 Though much interested in natural history, he had 
 no great opinion of naturalists. " The only piece of 
 natural history," he says, " worth the name in the 
 English language, that I know of, is in the few lines 
 of Milton on the Creation. The only example of a 
 proper manner of contribution to natural history is in 
 White's letters from Selborne." 
 
 In the seventh volume of Fors, p. 91, he quotes 
 with approval a letter of Carlyle's, in which he says 
 with contemptuous superiority, " A good sort of man 
 is this Darwin, and well-meaning, but with very little 
 intellect." Neither Cnrlyle, however, nor Ruskin 
 seem to have ever rightly grasped the theory of Evolu- 
 tion. Ruskin says, for instance, " We might safely, 
 even sufficiently, represent the general manner of 
 conclusion in the Darwinian system by the statement 
 that if you fasten a hair-brush to a mill-wheel, with 
 the handle forward, so as to develop itself into a neck 
 by moving always in the same direction, and within 
 continual hearing of a steam-whistle, after a certain 
 number of revolutions the hair-brush will fall in love 
 with the whistle, they will marry, lay an e^g, and 
 the produce will be a nightingale." ^ This is an 
 amusing skit, but Mr. Darwin would, I need not say, 
 have been much astonished to find himself credited 
 with such a theory. 
 
 Ajjain, thouj^h he has criticised botanists with 
 some severity, he admits that " 1 haven't the least 
 
 ' Loves Meinu, p. 30.
 
 John Ruskin 49 
 
 idea, for instance, myself, what an oak blossom is 
 like."^ 
 
 On Political Economy he was especially severe. 
 " I have told you, elsewhere, we are always jfirst to 
 study national character in the highest and purest 
 examples. But if our knowledge is to be complete, 
 we have to study also the special diseases of national 
 character. And in exact opposition to the most 
 solemn virtue of Scotland, the domestic truth and 
 tenderness breathed in all Scottish song, you have 
 this special disease and mortal cancer, this woody- 
 fibriness, literally, of temper and thought : the con- 
 summation of which into pure lignite, or rather black 
 Devil's charcoal the sap of the birks of Aberfeldy 
 become cinder, and the blessed juices of them, deadly 
 gas you may know in its pure blackness best in the 
 work of the greatest of these ground-growing Scotch- 
 men, Adam Smith." ^ 
 
 He would have entirely sympathised with Mr. 
 Gladstone in the attempt to banish Political Economy 
 to Jupiter and Saturn a policy the results of which in 
 Ireland have not yet been crowned with much success. 
 
 Turning from Science to Commerce, he instructs 
 his pupils that " capitalists are many of them rogues, 
 and most of them stupid persons, who have no idea 
 of any object of human existence other than money- 
 making, gambling, and champagne-bibbing."^ 
 
 He is especially severe on what he calls " usury," 
 by which he means not unduly high interest, but any 
 interest at all. It is no question of degree ; " the 
 
 ' Proserpina, p. 75. - Rid. p. 138. * Fors, vi. p. 205. 
 
 E
 
 50 Essays and Addresses 
 
 first farthing they take more than their hundred, be 
 it sooner or later, is usury." ^ 
 
 Commerce, moreover, in his eyes is robbery and 
 fraud. " Our merchants," he tells us, " say openly 
 that no man can become rich by honest dealing." - 
 
 You who belong to a prosperous and energetic 
 business community will, I am sure, agree with me 
 that our merchants would say nothing of the 
 kind. 
 
 Speaking of his own father, he says in his touching 
 epitaph, " He was an entirely honest merchant, and 
 his memory is to all who keep it, dear and hope- 
 ful." Ruskin would have been juster to English men 
 of business, and, I am convinced, nearer to the truth, 
 if he had been guided in his judgment more by his 
 memory of his father and less by the melancholy, 
 but happily exceptional, literature of the Bankruptcy 
 Courts. 
 
 He pours scorn on the maxim that you should sell 
 in the dearest, and buy in the cheapest, market ; not 
 realising that by doing so you sell to those most in 
 need of your goods, and buy from those most in need 
 of your money. 
 
 Ruskin seems to have been under the not un- 
 common impression that in business, if one man 
 makes a profit, another must make a loss : that if one 
 man lends money, and is the richer for receiving 
 interest, the borrower must be impoverished by 
 paying it. 
 
 You will, however, I think, agree with me that no 
 
 ' Fors, vi. p. 247. - /'"'</. vii. p. .'..
 
 John Ruskin 51 
 
 business can be permanent which is not advantageous 
 to both buyer and seller. 
 
 Some men, no doubt, have enriched themselves, 
 temporarily, by speculation or unfair dealing, but 
 such persons almost always overreach, and, finally, 
 ruin themselves, and I believe it to be very rare for 
 any one to make a fortune for life except by fair and 
 honest dealing. 
 
 Of railways he would make short work. " I should 
 like," he says, " to destroy most of the railroads in 
 England, and all the railroads in Wales." ^ 
 
 But railway directors must not complain. They 
 form part, if not of a good, at any rate of a large 
 company. Others are quite as severely, if not more 
 severely, handled. 
 
 " Have the Arkwrights," he asks, " and the 
 Stephensons then done nothing but harm ? Nothing." 
 That is surely very hard on the Stephensons and the 
 Arkwrights. On the other hand, they are in no 
 worse case than others, for he continues : " The root 
 of all the mischief is not in Arkwrights or Stephensons, 
 nor in rogues or mechanics. The great root of it is 
 the crime of the squire."^ . . . "The action of 
 the squire for the last fifty years has been, broadly, 
 to take the food from the ground of his estate, and 
 carry it to London."^ . . . This is all the worse, 
 because " all the land in England was first taken by 
 force, and is now kept by force." * 
 
 I share to some extent his views on education, 
 
 ' For.^, i. p. 5. - Ibid. iv. p. 173. 
 
 " Ibid. vii. p. 5. * Ibid. vii. p. ^.
 
 52 Essays and Addresses 
 
 though they are, to say the least, somewhat vigorously 
 expressed. 
 
 "Modern education," he tells us, "for the most 
 part signifies giving people the faculty of thinking 
 wrong on every conceivable subject of importance to 
 them." Sir Walter Scott, he tells us, "had the 
 blessing of a totally neglected education." ^ 
 
 " There is, indeed," he admits, " much difference 
 in this respect between the tendencies of different 
 branches of knowledge ; it being a sure rule that 
 exactly in proportion as they are inferior, nugatory, 
 or limited in scope, their power of feeding pride is 
 greater. Thus philology, logic, rhetoric, and the 
 other sciences of the schools, being for the most 
 part ridiculous and trifling, have so pestilent an 
 effect upon those who are devoted to them, that 
 their students cannot conceive of any other sciences 
 than these, but fancy that all education ends in the 
 knowledge of words : but the true and great sciences, 
 more especially natural history, make men gentle 
 and modest in proportion to the largeness of their 
 apprehension and just perception of the infiniteness 
 of the things they can never know."" 
 
 Political economists are classed with the Press, and 
 he strongly condemns " the lies which, under the title 
 of ' Political Economy,' have been taught by the ill- 
 educated and mostly dishonest commercial men who 
 at present govern the press of the country," while 
 literary men, he aflirms, " say anything they can get 
 paid to say."^ 
 
 ' S. and L. \>. 32. ^ Stonr.s of Fcnic-, p. 59. Lor. dt. p. 205.
 
 John Ruskin 53 
 
 The clergy are, perhaps, most severely handled 
 of all. They " preach as hirelings," ^ and, what is 
 worse, " as a body, teach a false gospel for hire." 
 He does not make sufficient allowance for the diffi- 
 culties inherited by the present generation, from 
 their ancestors having endeavoured to reconcile the 
 two Testaments Judaism and Christianity. 
 
 Some of the difficulties indeed are inherent in 
 language. Ruskin is not himself always consistent 
 with himself. 
 
 Any one who took all Ruskin's sayings literally 
 would soon become a puzzled, saddened, and sus- 
 picious man. But it would not be reasonable to do 
 so. I sometimes think that every sect in Christendom 
 could prove their tenets out of the Bible, if you omit 
 to consider other passages. But the text must be 
 taken with the context, the spirit is more important 
 than the letter. 
 
 In Ruskin's writings the expressions are some- 
 times extravagant, the facts incorrect, the opinions 
 contradictory ; but the spirit is always true and 
 noble : his counsels, as Mr. Collingwood says, were 
 counsels of perfection ; his warnings are in many 
 cases just, and the more we take them to heart the 
 better for us. 
 
 Moreover, against these severe and even harsh 
 judgments may be set many other genial and generous 
 passages. For instance, though, as we have seen, he 
 has spoken very severely of scientific students, in 
 another passage he protests nobly against the neglect 
 
 1 Fors, V. p. 183.
 
 54 Essays and Addresses 
 
 and even cruelty with which scientific men were 
 treated during the dark ages, 
 
 "The man who discovered the telescope, and 
 first saw Heaven, was paid with a dungeon ; the man 
 who invented the microscope, and first saw Earth, 
 died of starvation, driven from his home." 
 
 In one or two places he speaks somewhat severely 
 of Professor Tyndall. These I will not quote, but 
 elsewhere the writer says : " Let me, in thanking 
 Professor Tyndall for the true wonder of this piece 
 of work, ask his pardon, and that of all masters in 
 physical science, for any words of mine, either in 
 the following pages or elsewhere, that may ever seem 
 to fail in the respect due to their great powers of 
 thought." ^ 
 
 Again, speaking in one place of capitalists, he says : 
 " Employers ! It is a noble title. If, indeed, they 
 have found you idle, and given you employment, 
 wisely let us no more call them ' Men ' of Business : 
 quite the best sort of Guardian Angel ! " " 
 
 Again, he qualifies his previous statements as 
 regards usury and rent, by saying : " All rent is 
 usury, but it may often be right and wise to receive 
 rent, and so long as our National Debt exists it is 
 well that the good Saint (St. George) should buy as 
 much stock of it as he can."^ None of us can do 
 more ! 
 
 As regards usury, and the evil done by ])ankers, 
 I was amused to find that he was himself the 
 fortunate possessor of some thousands of pounds of 
 
 ' (^\iefn of th" Air, vii. I'refacc. - For^, i. \>. r>. ^ Ihid. vii. y. '239
 
 John Ruskin 55 
 
 Bank of England stock ; so that I was able to claim 
 him as a brother banker after all. He has, however, 
 justified his position by saying : "I hold bank stock 
 and I take the interest of it, because, though taking 
 interest is in the abstract as wrong as war, the 
 entire fabric of society is at present so connected 
 with both usury and war, that it is not possible 
 violently to withdraw, nor wisely to set an example 
 of withdrawing, from either evil." 
 
 This position is not, it seems to me, quite 
 logical. He says : " All interest is usury ; but there 
 is a vital difference between exacting the interest of 
 an already contracted debt, and taking part in a 
 business which consists in enabling new ones to be 
 contracted. As a banker, I derange and corrupt the 
 whole system of the commerce of the country ; but 
 as a stock-holder I merely buy the right to tax it 
 annually which, under present circumstances, I am 
 entirely content to do." ^ 
 
 So that a private banker who works for his living 
 is, in his view, " deranging and corrupting the whole 
 system of commerce of the country," while the share- 
 holder who sits at home and takes his dividends is 
 open to no such criticism. 
 
 His dicta about land, however, are perhaps those 
 which are most likely to be taken literally and 
 seriously. By far the largest part of the land of 
 England has been bought by the present owners and 
 their ancestors. Their right to it is as good as any 
 one's right to any other property. Ruskin himself 
 
 ' Fors, vii. p. 236.
 
 56 Essays and Addresses 
 
 says : " The true answer, in this matter, as in all 
 others, is the best. Some land has been bought; 
 some, won by cultivation, but the greater part, in 
 Europe, seized : originally by force of hand. You 
 may think, in that case, you would be justified in 
 trying to seize some yourselves, in the same way. 
 If you could, you, and your children, would only 
 hold it by the same title as its present holders. If 
 it is a bad one, you had better not so hold it ; if a 
 good one, you had better let the present holders 
 alone." ^ 
 
 In this answer I do not think he sufficiently dwells 
 on the very large amount which the present owners 
 hold by right of purchase. 
 
 He himself is one of the number. He bouoht his 
 beautiful place at Brantwood, and the property in 
 Marylebone, so admirably managed by Miss Hill. 
 
 Moreover, his ideal body, the St. George's Guild, 
 were to hold land, which was to be let on lease, and 
 the tenantry were to have no voice whatever "as to 
 the use made of the rent." " 
 
 Ruskin, it is hardly necessary to say, was a strong 
 advocate of freedom, or perhaps I should rather say, 
 of deserving freedom. " Indeed, the first point we 
 have all to determine is not how free we are, but 
 what kind of creatures we are. It is of small import- 
 ance to any of us whether we get liberty ; but of the 
 greatest that we deserve it. Whether we can win it, 
 fate must determine ; but that we will be worthy of 
 it, we may ourselves determine ; and the t^orrowfullest 
 
 ' Fors, i. }i. 4. '-' Ibid. v. p. '-'77.
 
 John Ruskin 57 
 
 fate of all that we can suffer, is to have it, without 
 deserving it." ^ 
 
 He did not, however, realise that freedom was 
 incompatible with much Government interference. 
 
 His ideal of Government was that "the first duty 
 of Government is to see that the people have food, 
 fuel, and clothes," ^ but a previous duty is to " see 
 that every man has done his day's work before he 
 gets his dinner ! " ^ " And it is the duty of magis- 
 trates, and other persons in authority, but especi- 
 ally of all bishops, to know thoroughly the numbers, 
 means of subsistence, and modes of life of the poorest 
 persons in the community, and to be sure that they 
 at least are virtuous and comfortable." ^ 
 
 In that case the number of maoristrates must be 
 greatly increased, and the bench of bishops must be 
 lengthened ! Some think that Government inspection 
 is already carried quite far enough. A paternal 
 Government makes a childish people. 
 
 I will not presume to criticise Ruskin's views on 
 Art, but may say something with reference to his 
 admiration of Nature. 
 
 The love of beaut)^ was almost a religion with 
 him, and he has certainly done much to educate 
 others to enjoy it. He strongly opposes the state- 
 ment by Schiller, in his letter on ajsthetic culture, 
 that the sense of beauty never furthered the per- 
 formance of a single duty. " Although this gross 
 and inconceivable falsity will hardly be accepted by 
 
 ^ The Queen of the Air, p. 181. - Fors, vi. p. 220. 
 
 ' Loc. cit. p. 222.
 
 58 Essays and Addresses 
 
 
 any one in so many words, seeing that ... it is not 
 possible for a Christian man to walk across so much 
 as a rod of the natural earth, with mind unagitated 
 and rightly poised, without receiving strength and 
 hope, from stone, flower, leaf, or sound." 
 
 " It is to be noted, also, that it ministered as 
 much to luxury as to pride. Not to luxury of the 
 eye ; that is a holy luxury : Nature ministers to that 
 in her painted meadows, and sculptured forests, and 
 gilded heavens ; the Gothic builder ministered to 
 that in his twisted traceries, and deep- wrought foliage, 
 and burnino^ casements." ^ 
 
 From the same point of view he maintains that 
 the use of the seed is to produce the flower ; not that 
 of the flower to produce the seed. 
 
 " But the flower is the end of the seed not the 
 seed of the flower. You are fond of cherries, perhaps ; 
 and think that the use of cherry blossom is to produce 
 cherries. Not at all. The use of cherries is to 
 produce cherry blossom ; just as the use of bulbs is 
 to produce hyacinths not of hyacinths to produce 
 bulbs." " 
 
 He even seemed to think that usefulness was 
 fatal to beauty. " Thus, when we are told that the 
 leaves of a plant are occupied in decomposing carbonic 
 acid, or preparing oxygen for us, we begin to look 
 upon it with some such indift'erence as upon a 
 gasometer. It has become a machine ; some of our 
 sense of its happiness is gone ; its emanation of in- 
 herent life is no longer pure. The bending trunk, 
 
 ' Stones of Venice, p. 70. - I'ro<ier})ina, p. 73.
 
 John Ruskin 59 
 
 waving to and fro in the wind above the waterfall, is 
 beautiful because it is happy, though it is perfectly 
 useless to us. The same trunk, hewn down and 
 thrown across the stream, has lost its beauty. It 
 serves as a bridge, it has become useful ; and its 
 beauty is gone." 
 
 On such a question I would not venture to put 
 my opinion against Ruskin's, but if usefulness is not 
 an element in beauty, surely it is no flaw. 
 
 However this may be, to his love of beauty we 
 are indebted for his exquisite descriptions of Nature. 
 Mountains appear to have been his greatest delight. 
 " To myself," he says in Modern Painters, " moun- 
 tains are the beoinning and the end of all natural 
 scenery ; in them, and in the forms of inferior land- 
 scape that lead to them, my afl'ections are wholly 
 bound up ; and though I can look with happy 
 admiration at the lowland flowers, and woods, and 
 open skies, the happiness is tranquil and cold, like 
 that of examining detached flowers in a conservatory, 
 or reading a pleasant book." Mountains " seem to 
 have been built for the human race, as at once their 
 schools and cathedrals ; full of treasures of illumi- 
 nated manuscript for the scholar, kindly in simple 
 lessons to the worker, quiet in pale cloisters for the 
 thinker, glorious in holiness for the worshipper. And 
 of these great cathedrals of the Earth, with their 
 gates of rock, pavements of cloud, choirs of stream 
 and stone, altars of snow, and vaults of purple 
 traversed by the continued stars." 
 
 Of water he speaks with equal beauty and
 
 6o Essays and Addresses 
 
 enthusiasm. " Of all inorganic substances, acting in 
 their own proper nature, and without assistance or 
 combination, water is most wonderful. If we think 
 of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty 
 which we have seen in the clouds ; then as the 
 instrument by which the earth we have contemplated 
 was modelled into symmetry, and its crags chiselled 
 into grace ; then as, in the form of snow, it robes the 
 mountains it has made, with that transcendent light 
 which we could not have conceived if we had not 
 seen ; then as it exists in the foam of the torrent, in 
 the iris which spans it, in the morning mist which 
 rises from it, in the deep crystalline pools which 
 mirror its hangino; shore, in the broad lake and 
 glancing river ; finally, in that which is to all human 
 minds the best emblem of unwearied, unconquerable 
 power, the wild, various, fantastic, tameless unity of 
 the sea ; what shall we compare to this mighty, this 
 universal element, for glory and for beauty ? or how 
 shall we follow its eternal cheerfulness of feeling ? 
 It is like trying to paint a soul." 
 
 I do not wonder at his impatience with technical 
 descriptions of animals and plants. Vivid, however, 
 as his own are, they would be useless for natural 
 history purposes. Speaking, for instance, of the 
 swallow, he says : " You can only riglitly describe 
 the bird by the resemblances and images of what 
 it seems to have clianged from then adding the 
 fantastic and beautiful contrast of the unimajxinable 
 change. It is an owl that has been trained by the 
 Graces. It is a bat that loves the mornin<j liMit. It
 
 John Ruskin 6i 
 
 is the aerial reflection of a dolphin. It is the tender 
 domestication of a trout." 
 
 This is charming, fairy-like, and fantastic. Know- 
 ing swallows as we do, we see the truth and beauty 
 of the description, but if we had not seen the bird, I 
 doubt whether the description would give us any idea 
 of what it was like, and it would certainly not help 
 us to identify it. 
 
 For its own purpose, however, it is admirable. 
 Take again the following picture of the common 
 house fly. " I believe that we can nowhere find a 
 better type of a perfectly free creature than in the 
 common house fly. Nor free only, but brave ; and 
 irreverent to a degree which I think no human 
 republican could by any philosophy exalt himself to. 
 There is no courtesy in him ; he does not care whether 
 it is king or clown whom he teases ; and in every step 
 of his swift mechanical march, and in every pause of 
 his resolute observation, there is one and the same 
 expression of perfect egotism, perfect independence 
 and self-confidence, and conviction of the world's 
 having been made for flies. Strike at him with your 
 hand, and to him the mechanical fact and external 
 aspect of the matter is what to you it would be if an 
 acre of red clay, ten feet thick, tore itself up from the 
 ground in one massive field, hovered over you in the 
 air for a second, and came crashing down with an aim. 
 . . . He steps out of the way of your hand, and 
 alights on the back of it. You cannot terrify him, 
 nor govern him, nor persuade him, nor convince him. 
 He has his own positive opinion on all matters ; not
 
 62 Essays and Addresses 
 
 an unwise one, usually, for his own end ; and will ask 
 no advice of yours. He has no work to do, no 
 tyrannical instinct to obey. The earthw'orm has his 
 digging ; the bee her gathering and building ; the 
 spider her cunning network ; the ant her treasury 
 and accounts. All these are comparatively slaves, or 
 people of vulgar business. But your fly, free in the 
 air, free in the chamber a black incarnation of 
 caprice wandering, investigating, flitting, flirting, 
 feasting, at his will, ... he rises with an angry 
 republican buzz what freedom is like his ? " ^ 
 
 Or the following of a serpent : "That rivulet of 
 smooth silver how does it flow, think you ? It 
 literally rows on the earth, with every scale for an 
 oar ; it bites the dust wuth the ridges of its body. 
 Watch it when it moves slowly : a wave, but without 
 a wind I a current, but with no fall ! all the body 
 moving at the same instant, yet some of it to one 
 side, some to another, or some forward, and the rest 
 of the coil backwards ; but all with the same calm 
 will and equal way no contraction, no extension ; 
 one soundless, causeless march of sequent rings, and 
 spectral procession of spotted dust, with dissolution 
 in its fangs, dislocation in its (;oils. Startle it ; the 
 winding stream will iiccome a twisted arrow ; the 
 wave of poisoned life will lash through the grass like 
 a cast lance. It scarcely breathes with its one lung 
 (the other shrivelled and abortive) ; it is passive to 
 the sun and shade, and is cold or hot like a stone : 
 yet 'it can out-climb the monkey, out-swim the fish, 
 
 ' The Qtcrn of Oik Air. )>. 17!'.
 
 John Ruskin 63 
 
 out-leap the zebra, out-wrestle the athlete, and crush 
 the tiger.' It is a divine hieroglyph of the demoniac 
 power of the earth of the entire earthly nature. As 
 the bird is the clothed power of the air, so this is the 
 clothed power of the dust ; as the bird the symbol of 
 the spirit of life, so this of the grasp and sting of 
 death."^ 
 
 None, however, is more charming than his picture 
 of the squirrel : there is no animal " so beautiful, so 
 happy, so wonderful, as the squirrel." " Innocent in 
 all his ways, harmless in his food, playful as a kitten, 
 but without cruelty, and surpassing the fantastic 
 dexterity of the monkey, with the grace aud the 
 brightness of a bird, the little dark-eyed miracle of 
 the forest glances from branch to branch more like a 
 sunbeam than a living creature : it leaps, and darts, 
 and twines, where it will (a chamois is slow to it, and 
 a panther clumsy ; grotesque as a gnome, gentle as a 
 fairy, delicate as the silken plumes of the rush, 
 beautiful and strong like the spiral of a fern) ; it 
 haunts you, listens for you, hides from you, looks for 
 you, loves you, as if the angel that walks with your 
 children had made it himself for their heavenly play- 
 thing." " 
 
 I might quote many other delightful descriptions ; 
 as, for instance, that of the nightshade as a " primrose 
 with a curse upon it," the comparison of the grape 
 hyacinth of Southern Europe to a " cluster of grapes 
 and a hive of honey distilled and compressed together 
 into one small boss of celled and beaded blue," the 
 
 ' The Queen of the Air, p. 87. * Deucalio7i, p. 235.
 
 64 Essays and Addresses 
 
 large Alpine gentian, " which makes the earth as much 
 like heaven as it can," 
 
 In Modern Painters he says that *' the greatest 
 thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see 
 
 o 
 
 something, and tell what it saw in a plain way." 
 This he has himself done in a way which is plain and 
 very beautiful. He has shown us many things which 
 we might never have seen for ourselves, and for this 
 we owe him a deep debt of gratitude. 
 
 But even more than for these glorious descriptions 
 of scenery, these vivid pictures of animals and plants, 
 we owe him a deep debt of gratitude for his lessons in 
 charity, faith, and conduct. 
 
 " The strength of a nation does not depend on the 
 extent of territory, nor on the number of people. 
 The strength is in the men in their unity and 
 virtue." 
 
 " Our danger in life is, not death, but temptation." 
 
 " You do not learn that you may live ; but live 
 that you may learn." 
 
 " What we think, or what we know, or what we 
 believe, is in the end of little consequence. The only 
 thing of consequence is what we do." 
 
 " A true wife in her husband's house is his 
 servant ; it is in his heart that she is Queen." 
 
 " That rest which is indeed glorious is that of the 
 chamois couched breathless on its granite bed, not of 
 the stalled ox over its fodder." 
 
 "Joy should come from our own hearts." 
 
 " If for any rebuke that we utter of men's vices, 
 we put forth a claim on their hearts, . . . there
 
 John Ruskin 65 
 
 would be fewer deaf children sitting in the market 
 place." 
 
 " Whenever in any religious faith, dark or bright, 
 we allow our minds to dwell upon the points in which 
 we differ from other people, we are wrong, and in the 
 devil's power." ^ 
 
 If ever disposed to speak harshly to those we love, 
 it would be well to bear in mind his warning that 
 "he who has once stood beside the grave, to look 
 back on the companionship which has been for ever 
 closed, feeling how impotent there are the wild love 
 and the keen sorrow to give one instant's pleasure to 
 the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to 
 the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will 
 scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart 
 which can only be discharged to the dust," 
 
 Some people seem to think that this world is 
 necessarily a place of trouble and anxiety, of turmoil 
 and unrest. But as Shakespeare well said 
 
 All places that the eye of Heaven visits 
 
 Are, to the wise man, ports and happy havens. 
 
 That was also Ruskin's view. All men, he says, 
 " may enjoy, though few can achieve." And in one 
 of his most exquisite passages with which I will 
 conclude he tells how we may secure peace, if we 
 really care for it. 
 
 We complain, he says, " of the want of many 
 things we want votes, we want liberty, we want 
 amusement, we want money. Which of us feels, or 
 knows, that he wants peace ? 
 
 ^ Sesame and Lilies, p. 170.
 
 66 Essays and Addresses 
 
 " There are two ways of getting it, if you want it. 
 
 " The first is wholly in your own power ; to make 
 yourselves nests of pleasant thoughts. . . . None of 
 us yet know, for none of us have yet been taught in 
 youth, what fairy palaces we may build of beautiful 
 thought proof against all adversity. Bright fancies, 
 satisfied memories, noble histories, faithful sayings, 
 treasure-houses of previous and restful thoughts ; 
 which care cannot disturb, nor pain make gloomy, 
 nor poverty take away from us houses built without 
 hands, for our souls to live in."
 
 Ill 
 
 RICHARD JEFFERIES^ 
 
 Richard JefFeries was born the 6th November, 
 fifty-four years ago, in the little hamlet of Coate. 
 Sir Walter Besant, in his charming Eulogy of 
 Richard Jefferies, has gently twitted Swindonians 
 with being indifferent to the works of their native 
 author. I do not know whether that could fairly be 
 said when it was written, but at any rate it can be 
 said no longer after to-day's ceremony. It is little 
 more than fifty years since Jefferies was born, and 
 
 1 At a meeting of the North Wilts Field and Camera Club, the then 
 Mayor of Swindon (Aid. L. L. Morse) sur;gested to the members that they 
 would do well to take in hand the work of raising funds and erecting a 
 memorial in Swindon to the memory of Richard Jefferies, the great Wiltshire 
 prose poet, who passed away, after years of suffering, in 1887. The happy 
 idea was at once warmly taken up, and at the further suggestion of Mr. 
 Morse it was resolved to invite subscriptions for the purpose of getting a 
 memorial tablet affixed to the house. No. 22 Victoria Street, Swindon, where 
 Jefferies lived from 1875 to 1877, and then, at a later date, when sufficient 
 funds were in hand, to erect a similar tablet at the house where Jefferies was 
 born at Coate. 
 
 A committee was formed, with Mr. H. Bottomley Knowles, M.A., as 
 President, and ^Ir. T. C. Davison as the energetic Hon. Sec., and with the 
 assistance of the President of the Club (Mr. N. Story Maskelyne), the work 
 was heartily taken up and a ready response obtained to the appeal put forth. 
 Permission was obtained from the owner (Mr. E. C. Boniface) and the tenant 
 (Mr. W. Drew) of the house in (question to erect the memorial, and the tablet, 
 which is of Scotch grey granite, was prepared by Messrs. Saunders and 
 Sainsbury. 
 
 Lord Avebury was invited by the Committee to unveil the memorial. 
 
 67
 
 68 Essays and Addresses 
 
 it is not twenty years since his first great book 
 appeared. What seems to me really remarkable is, 
 in the first place, how quickly, considering the 
 nature of his work, his genius has been recognised, 
 and, secondly, that he should have done so great 
 an amount of work in so short a time, and under 
 such unfavourable conditions. Jeflferies' best work 
 was all done in ten years, the last six of which were 
 years of illness and suffering, almost torture. His 
 boyhood was lonely, and if not actually unhappy, 
 he had little of the brightness and joy of childhood. 
 He was the son of a fiirmer, and though his parents 
 were kind, and no doubt he imbibed in the atmo- 
 sphere of home that close knowledge of country life 
 to which he owed his great success, yet he never 
 thought of adopting his father's occupation. What 
 he saw and learnt while at home he put in his books, 
 which we now read with so much delight. Jefferies 
 read and thought, and took long walks. He has 
 himself told us that " it was when he roamed the 
 long rolling downs that he felt his life most full, 
 his thoughts most clear, his spirit most exalted, and 
 yet most at rest." Jeflferies specially loved to sit 
 by a certain barrow or tumulus on the Downs, and 
 has some interesting pages on its history, and on the 
 possible adventures and condition of the ancient 
 chief who was buried in it. If Jefieries was lonely, 
 it was not his fault, neither was it the fault of his 
 family or his neighbours. He loved solitude. He 
 did not work with his hands, but his brain was 
 never idle. No one, however, could wonder that his
 
 Richard Jefferies 69 
 
 neighbours sometimes thought him lazy. He has 
 told us that he had no intimate confidences, except 
 with wild nature, his books, and his own soul. He 
 had few human friends. Indeed, it has even been 
 said that his first and only friendship was with the 
 man in the tumulus ! This, of course, was an 
 exaggeration. His friends, if not numerous, were 
 warmly attached to him. He was anything but 
 lazy. If his hands were idle, his brain was hard 
 at work, and his heart was full of sympathy. He 
 had many gifts, amongst them being his great con- 
 fidence in his powers and his destiny, though he did 
 not at first recognise in which direction his strength 
 lay. The first results of his boyish meditations were 
 a series of novels, which, it must be admitted, were 
 failures, and which would have discouraged any 
 man with less energy and perseverance. They were 
 generally declined by the publishers, and if he 
 published them himself at his own expense, it was 
 at a loss, because no one read them. Jefferies' first 
 real success w^as a remarkable letter to TJie Times, 
 which showed his close knowledge of country 
 life. If he had followed this up energetically, 
 it w^ould probably have been all the better for 
 him financially, though not probably as regards his 
 ultimate reputation. 
 
 For in 1878 there appeared his Gamekeeper at 
 Home, the first of a series which have steadily risen 
 in popularity, and the very titles of which, well 
 chosen and accurately describing the contents, w^ere 
 themselves charming. Among these I might men-
 
 JO Essays and Addresses 
 
 tion Wild Life in a Southern County, The Amateur 
 Poacher, Hodge and his Masters, Round about a 
 great Estate, Nature near London, Red Deer, 
 The Life of the Fields, TJie Open Air, and Tlie 
 Story of my Heart. I hope one result of our meet- 
 ing this day may be the introduction of these books 
 to a larger circle of readers. These works, however, 
 exquisite as they were, did not at first appeal to a large 
 circle of readers, nor did they bring in any considerable 
 pecuniary return. This was all the more unfortunate 
 because in 1881 his health broke down, and he had 
 to undergo a series of painful operations. Although 
 his friends did all they could for him, he would 
 not allow himself to be effectively helped. He 
 absolutely refused any appeal to the public, or even 
 recourse to the Literary Fund, assistance from which, 
 he said, " humiliates the recipient beyond all bounds." 
 We can all respect his independence and pride, 
 however much we may deplore the result. But 
 certainly a man producing such noble, though un- 
 remunerative, work, and stricken down by illness 
 through no fault of his own, might well have accepted 
 the assistance which I am confident his country- 
 men would gladly have given him, had they only 
 been allowed to know how great was the need of 
 it. This, however, he would not permit, though his 
 nature was not proud in the ordinary sense of the 
 word. His last years were spent in poverty and 
 suffering, aggravated In' anxiety of mind. It is 
 sad to feel now, when it is too late, that if he 
 had been able to rest, to spend a winter or two
 
 Richard Jefferies 71 
 
 in the sunny south, in the fresh air which he loved 
 so much, he might still have been with us. For, 
 after all, he would not have been sixty years of age 
 even now. It was during his last years that his 
 best work was accomplished writings which gave 
 one the impression of health and strength. Yet that 
 splendid work was written in poverty, depression, and 
 suffering. There was no wonder that notes of sad- 
 ness cropped up now and again throughout his works, 
 though it was more for others than himself, and 
 it is pleasant to feel that he faced his sufferings and 
 anxieties with courage and buoyancy, and really 
 seemed to have enjoyed life. " The great sun," said 
 Jefferies, " burniug with light, the strong earth, the 
 warm sky, the pure air, the thought of ocean, the 
 inexpressible beauty of all, filled me with rapture." 
 He spoke sometimes indeed, who did not from 
 imperfect observation, and, it might be added, with- 
 out sufficient consideration. There might be said to 
 be two principal theories as regards the present 
 condition of the universe : one referred it mainly to 
 design, the other mainly to evolution. Jefferies 
 unhesitatingly rejected both. Darwin, he said, 
 " proceeds on assumption alone " a statement which 
 amazes me, and one which I should have much liked 
 to have discussed with him. I may, for instance, 
 quote the passage from The Story of My Heart. 
 " Nothing," he said, " is evolved. There is no evolu- 
 tion any more than there is any design in Nature. 
 By standing face to face with Nature, and not from 
 books, I have convinced myself that there is no
 
 72 Essays and Addresses 
 
 design and no evolution. What there is, what 
 was the cause, how and why, is not yet known. 
 Certainly it was neither of these." Another question 
 as to which I could not agree with Jefferies is his 
 bitter condemnation of the Poor Law. He said, 
 " Food and drink, roof and clothes, are the inalienable 
 right of every child born into the light." Yes, 
 certainly their moral right, but their legal right 
 was given by the very Poor Law which Jefferies 
 denounced. Further, Jefferies was very severe on 
 the Charity Organisation Society, which I feel sure 
 he would have approved of if he had understood 
 it thoroughly, and known more of its operations. 
 At the present time much money given in charity 
 is too often appropriated and misappropriated by im- 
 postors. Considerable Associations have even been got 
 up which were mainly, if not entirely, fraudulent. 
 The objects of the Charity Organisation Society are 
 to administer alms wisely, to prevent clever rogues 
 from misappropriating funds which were intended 
 to alleviate real distress, and to help men to help 
 themselves, so as to make them less dependent and 
 more independent. 
 
 Then, again, there has been a great deal of 
 difference of opinion with regard to Jefferies' religious 
 views. Wliile full of reverential feeling, profoundly 
 impressed by the great mystery of existence, 
 and cordially recognising tlie great and noble 
 work done by the clergy, " the j^ractical Christianity 
 of brotherhood and goodwill," as he expressed 
 it in Ilochje and his Masters, he (Jefferies),
 
 Richard Jefferies 73 
 
 like many others more, perhaps, than is generally 
 supposed found himself unable to accept the 
 current theological views. So difficult is this sub- 
 ject, and so profoundly different are the opinions 
 entertained with reference to these great problems, 
 that there is nothing with reference to which 
 infinite charity is more urgently required, and yet 
 there is no subject as to which it has been 
 more absolutely, and more unfortunately, wanting. 
 To judge from the discussions on the Education Bill, 
 many of our countrymen assume as a self-evident 
 truth that all religion must be dogmatic. Dean 
 Stanley tells us that once, when he was Dean 
 of Westminster, he endeavoured to prove to Lord 
 Beaconsfield that a man might be very religious 
 and yet withhold his judgment on dogmas. Lord 
 Beaconsfield replied, " Oh, Mr. Dean, that is all very 
 well, but you must remember no dogmas, no Deans." 
 If all the Deans were like Dean Stanley, I should be 
 sorry to lose them, but we might give up a good 
 deal of the dogma without any great disadvantage. 
 For, after all, as a matter of fact, there is very little 
 dogma in the New Testament, and none in the 
 Sermon on the Mount." Unfortunately, as Jefferies 
 thought, theologians had not been satisfied with the 
 Sermon on the Mount, but thought they could 
 improve upon it ! Dr. A. K. H. Boyd, of St. 
 Andrews, used to tell a story of a young minister 
 who came one Sunday to assist him, and who had 
 an objection to written prayers. Knowing, however. 
 Dr. Boyd's admiration for our church service, he said,
 
 74 Essays and Addresses 
 
 " I am most auxious to conform in every way to 
 your views, Dr. Boyd, but should you object to my 
 commencing with an extempore prayer ? " " Oh," 
 said Boyd, " I generally begin with the Lord's 
 Prayer. If you can give us anything better than 
 that, pray do so." And the young curate replied, 
 " Oh, thank you, then I certainly will ! " 
 
 As Professor Jowett wisely said, " Theology is 
 full of undefined terms which have distracted the 
 human mind for aoes. Mankind have reasoned from 
 them, but not to them : they have drawn out the 
 conclusions without proving the premises ; they have 
 asserted the premises without examining the terms. 
 The passions of religious parties have been roused to 
 the utmost about words of which they could have 
 given no explanation, and which had really no 
 distinct meaning." The church, however, is really a 
 place for prayer and thanksgiving, not for argument 
 and disputation. JefFeries was one of the continually 
 increasinor number of thinkers who realised that we 
 had really no definite conception of many of the 
 words which we continually use as if their meaning 
 were self-evident. Time and space are familiar 
 expressions, but directly we begin to think of them 
 we lose ourselves. What are the boundaries of 
 space ? How did time begin ? And how will it 
 end ? As long as we are not expected to express a 
 reasoned opinion, we are satisfied, and wisely satisfied, 
 to leave such ([uestions alone. But a man like 
 Jefferies, writing expressly on them, was bound to 
 point out the ditHculties. " There may be time for
 
 Richard JefFeries 75 
 
 the clock," said JefFeries, " the clock may make time for 
 itself, but there is none for me. . . . Time has never 
 existed, and never will ; it is a purely artificial 
 arrangement. It is eternity now, it always was 
 eternity, and always will be. By no possible means 
 could I get into time if I tried." 
 
 It is not always easy to feel sure what JefFeries' 
 own view really was. In some places he spoke of 
 Matter, Mind, and Soul as if they were three different 
 things, but in another place he more accurately said 
 that " natural things are known to us only under two 
 conditions, viz. matter and force, or matter and 
 motion." On many of these questions JefFeries was 
 content to suspend his judgment. Nay, he went 
 further. So far from wishing to lay down the law, 
 he wisely advised us, " Never, never rest contented 
 with any circle of ideas, but always be certain that a 
 wider one is still possible." It has been suggested 
 that towards the end of his life JefFeries modified his 
 views on religion. We have been told that he died 
 " listening with faith and love to the words con- 
 tained in the Old Book," But he would have done 
 that at any time. The Sermon on the Mount 
 appeals to many who do not admit that there can 
 be no religion except what is based on dogmatic 
 theology. Doubt does not exclude faith. 
 
 Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, 
 At last he beats his music out. 
 There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
 Believe me, than in half the creeds. 
 
 As Goethe said, metaphysics should come after
 
 76 Essays and Addresses 
 
 
 physics, and we must know much more about physical 
 science before we can expect to make much progress 
 in metaphysics. If Jefferies has not thrown much 
 further light on these difficult problems, we must 
 remember that his writings were at least very 
 suggestive. To him, as he told us, " the sun was more 
 than science ; the hills than philosophy." Every man 
 should be judged by his best work. Jefferies' strength 
 lay in his power of minute observation, and of 
 describing what he saw. Gilbert White, Ruskin, and 
 Thoreau had the same great gifts, and few others 
 can be compared to them. Jefferies resembled 
 Thoreau in his love of solitary meditation : Ruskin 
 in his love of beauty. " To be beautiful, and to be 
 calm, without mental fear, is the ideal of nature. 
 If I cannot achieve it, at least I can think it.'"' 
 " Might we not," says Sir Walter Besant, who 
 himself possessed no mean portion of the same 
 power, *' say, indeed, that never any man has hereto- 
 fore spoken of nature as this man speaks ? He has 
 given new colours to the field and hedge ; he has 
 filled them with a beauty which we never thought 
 to find there ; he has shown in them more riches, 
 more variety, more fulness, more wisdom, more 
 Divine order, than we common men ever looked for 
 or dreamed of" 
 
 Jefferies loved liis native Downs, ])Ut lie loved 
 woods and fields also. 
 
 Living as we do in a prosaic age, when, from 
 the very necessities of the case, we are oblii^ed to 
 devote much of our time to the business and
 
 Richard Jefferies 77 
 
 ordinary avocations of life, we owe a deep debt of 
 gratitude to men wlio, like Jefferies, carry us away 
 into the country and teach us how to enjoy Nature. 
 The exquisite beauty and delight of a fine summer's 
 day in the country have never, perhaps, been more 
 truly, and therefore more beautifully, described, 
 than by Jefferies in his truly magnificent Pageant 
 of Suminer, which every one ought to read. " I 
 linger," he says, " in the midst of the long grass, 
 the luxury of the leaves, and the song in the very air. 
 I seem as if I could feel all the glowing life the sun- 
 shine gives and the south wind calls to being. The 
 endless grass, the endless leaves, the immense strength 
 of the oak expanding, the unalloyed joy of finch and 
 blackbird, from all of them I receive a little. ... In 
 the blackbird's melody one note is mine ; in the 
 dance of the leaf shadows the formed maze is for me, 
 though the motion is theirs ; the flowers with a 
 thousand faces have collected the kisses of the 
 morning. Feeling with them, I receive some at least 
 of their fulness of life. Never could I have enough ; 
 never stay long enough. . . . The hours when the 
 mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we 
 really live, so that the longer we can stay among these 
 things so much the more is snatched from inevitable 
 time. . . . These are the only hours that are not 
 wasted those hours that absorb the soul and fill it 
 with beauty. This is real life, and all else is illusion, 
 or mere endurance." I should have liked to call your 
 attention to many other beautiful passages, but must 
 resist the temptation. I am grateful to you for
 
 7 8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 giving me the pleasure of being present, and of 
 expressing my warm admiration of your, may I say 
 our, gifted neighbour, Richard Jefferies. We owe 
 him much indeed ; and in grateful recognition of his 
 brilliant writings, his wise counsels, his beautiful 
 descriptions of nature, and last, but not least, of the 
 example of his gallant struggle against poverty and 
 suffering, we have met to-day to dedicate this monu- 
 ment to his memory.
 
 IV 
 
 MACAULAY CEREMONIAL^ 
 
 AVe have met here to-day to do honour to a great, 
 wise, and good Englishman. For such recognitions 
 there are three excellent reasons. They are a just 
 acknowledgment of what w^e owe to the dead, they 
 are a satisfaction to the living, and let us hope that 
 they will be an encouragement and a stimulus to 
 our children. 
 
 Macaulay's father, Zachary Macaulay, was himself 
 a remarkable man. He was one of those who con- 
 tributed most to the abolition of the Slave Trade. 
 At home he was an excellent husband and a kind 
 father ; but his love, though deep, was a well rather 
 than a spring ; his manner was cold and unsym- 
 pathetic ; but he commands our respect for his 
 domestic virtues and his unselfish devotion to the 
 great cause of freedom. To-day, however, we are 
 perhaps more concerned with his mother. She w^as 
 the daughter of a Bristol bookseller, wdio built the 
 street still, I believe, known as Mills Place, and her 
 brother for some time edited a Bristol paper. They 
 were married on August 26, 1799. 
 
 ^ Bristol, April 21, 1903, 
 79
 
 8o Essays and Addresses 
 
 Lord Macaulay was born on October 25, 1800, at 
 Rotbby Temple in Leicestershire, but I may claim 
 him as a Londoner, for his infancy was passed in 
 Birchin Lane, which runs out of Lombard Street, 
 and the only open space to which he could be 
 taken for fresh air was the garden of the Drapers' 
 Company, to which in after years he made many 
 pilgrimages. Thence the family went to Clapham, 
 where they remained till in 1818 they migrated to 
 London. Even as a child books were his toys, and 
 he was not contented to read only, but soon began to 
 write, in which he was judiciously encouraged by his 
 parents. His first schoolmaster was Mr. Greaves, 
 from whom he was sent to a Mr. Preston at Little 
 Shelford, near Cambridge. 
 
 When he was eighteen he went to Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, and though Sir G. Treveiyan quotes a 
 letter to his mother in which he expresses his 
 " abomination of mathematics," and his longing to 
 " change Cam for Lsis," this was but a transient 
 feeling, and Cambridge had no more loyal son. He 
 went to his old University whenever he could, never 
 left it willingly, and always returned with delight. 
 
 His intense enjoyment of university life perhaps 
 somewhat interfered with what he might otherwise 
 have secured in university honours. He twice, 
 indeed, srained the Chancellor's medal for English 
 verse, the prize for Latin declamation, and a Craven 
 University Scliolarship, but he did not throw himself 
 into the regular course of study, and when the 
 Tripos of 1822 made its appearance his name did not
 
 Macaulay Ceremonial 8i 
 
 occur he was wliat is known as "gulphed." The 
 triumphs of a college career are, however, as Sir G. 
 Trevelyan justly observes, sometimes of less value 
 than its failures. His disappointment, moreover, was 
 only temporary, and two years later he was elected a 
 Fellow of Trinity. 
 
 In 1826 he was called to the Bar, and joined the 
 Northern Circuit, but he never seriously looked to 
 the law as a profession. From a pecuniary point of 
 view this did not seem necessary. In August 1825 
 the first of his great series of essays, that on Milton, 
 appeared in the Edinburgh Review. The effect was 
 instantaneous, Macaulay woke and found himself 
 famous. He was also at once placed in a position of 
 independence, though he wrote, not because his 
 pockets were empty, but because his head was 
 full. 
 
 The phenomenal popularity of the Essays is most 
 satisfactory. Sir G. Trevelyan has told us in his 
 admirable biography, that besides the great sale in 
 this country, the publishers in the United States 
 have issued " many thousands at a time, and in 
 British India, and on the continent of Europe, these 
 productions, which their author classed as ephemeral, 
 are so greedily read and so constantly reproduced 
 that, taking the world as a whole, there is probably 
 never a moment when they are out of the hands of 
 the compositor. The market for them in their native 
 country is so steady, and apparently so inexhaustible, 
 that it perceptibly falls and rises with the general 
 prosperity of the nation ; and it is hardly too much 
 
 G
 
 82 Essays and Addresses 
 
 to assert that the demand for Macaulay varies with 
 the demand for coals." ^ 
 
 The Essay on James Mill struck Lord Lans- 
 downe so much that he offered Macaulay a seat in 
 Parliament for Calne, stating at the same time that 
 he did not wish iD any way to influence his votes. 
 On this understanding, so honourable to both, he 
 entered the House of Commons in 1830, and 
 spoke for the first time on April 5, in favour of 
 the removal of Jewish disabilities. In the followino- 
 year he warmly approved, and made several admir- 
 able speeches in support of, the Eeform Bill ; he was 
 appointed one of the Commissioners of the Board of 
 Control, and when the Reform Bill became law, was 
 elected for Leeds. 
 
 In the following year he went out to India as 
 Legal Member of Council, and took the leading part 
 in constructing the great Indian Law Code ; returning 
 in 1838. In one of his letters from India he says : 
 " I often wonder what strange infatuation leads men 
 who can do something better to squander their 
 intellect, their health, their energy, on such subjects 
 as those which most statesmen are engaged in j^ur- 
 suing. . . . That a man," he says, " before whom the 
 two paths of literature and politics lie open, and who 
 might hope for eminence in either, should choose 
 politics and quit literature, seems to me madness. 
 On the one side is health, leisure, peace of mind, the 
 search after truth, and all the enjoyments of friendship 
 and conversation. On the other side is almost certain 
 
 ' Tn'Vtilvim's Life of Macaulay, ii. ]k 1127.
 
 Macaulay Ceremonial 83 
 
 ruin to the constitution, constant labour, constant 
 anxiety. Every friendship which a man may have 
 becomes precarious as soon as he engages in politics. 
 As to abuse, men soon become callous to it, but the 
 discipline which makes them callous is very severe. 
 And for what is it that a man who might, if he chose, 
 rise and lie down at his own hour, engage in any 
 study, enjoy any amusement, and visit any place, 
 consents to make himself as much a prisoner as if he 
 were within the rules of the Fleet ? " 
 
 This, however, was written in India, and he adds, 
 " What I might feel if I again saw Downing Street and 
 Palace Yard is another question." The House of 
 Commons must always have an intense attraction for 
 any one of whom it can be said, as Trevelyan says of 
 Macaulay, that his first sentence hushed the House 
 into silence, and the first five minutes filled it to 
 overflowing. Macaulay's very first speech, indeed, 
 placed him in the first rank of orators. Moreover, 
 the success was due more to the matter than to the 
 manner. 
 
 Soon after his return a vacancy occurred for 
 Edinburgh. He was invited to stand, w^as elected, 
 and shortly afterwards joined the Whig Ministry as 
 Secretary of State for War. The post was then 
 comparatively eas^, but it did not last long, for in 
 1841 the Ministry were turned out. Personally, 
 this was not a matter of regret to Macaulay. Now 
 he wrote to Napier : " Now I am free. I am in- 
 dependent. I am in Parliament, as honourably 
 seated as man can be. My family is comfortably ofi'.
 
 84 Essays and Addresses 
 
 I have leisure for literature ; yet I am not reduced to 
 the necessity of writing for money. If I had to 
 choose a lot from all that there are in human life, I 
 am not sure that I should prefer any to that which 
 has fallen to me. I am sincerely and thoroughly 
 contented." 
 
 In 1842 appeared the Lays of Ancient Rome. 
 They were, as they deserved to be, a great success. 
 Trevelyan tells us that 18,000 were sold in ten years, 
 40,000 in twenty, and that by 1875 upwards of 
 100,000 had passed into the hands of readers. 
 
 Macaulay was essentially a statesman, not a 
 politician. He preferred not to be in office, and 
 only accepted it as a duty. He felt he could, under 
 most circumstances, be more useful as a private 
 member, because he could be more independent. 
 
 " It is not necessary to my happiness that I should 
 sit in Parliament ; but it is necessary to my happi- 
 ness that I should possess, in Parliament or out of 
 Parliament, the consciousness of having done what is 
 right." 
 
 In 1847 his independence lost him his seat for 
 Edinburgh, and that same night he composed an 
 exquisite little fairy poem on his own life. " The 
 day," he says 
 
 The day of tunmlt, strife, defeat, was o'er. 
 
 Worn out with toil, and noise, and scorn, and spleen, 
 I slumbered, and in slumber saw once more 
 
 A room in an old mansion, long unseen. 
 
 He fancied he was again lying in bis cradle, and he 
 pictures a succession of " the Fairy Queens who rule
 
 Macaulay Ceremonial 85 
 
 our birth." The gorgeous Queen of Gain swept 
 careless by : more scornful still the Queen of Fashion 
 passed : the Queens of Power and of Pleasure were 
 equally indifferent. But then came one, the last, the 
 mightiest, and the best 
 
 Oh glorious lady, with the eyes of light, 
 
 And laurels clustering round thy lofty brow, 
 
 Who by the cradle's side didst watch that night, 
 Warbling a sweet strange music, who wast thou ? 
 
 " Yes, darling ; let them go," so ran the strain ; 
 
 " Yes, let them go, gain, fashion, pleasure, power, 
 And all the busy elves to whose domain 
 
 Belongs the nether sphere, the fleeting hour. 
 
 " Without one envious sigh, one anxious scheme, 
 The nether sphere, the fleeting hour resign. 
 
 Mine is the world of thought, the world of dream, 
 Mine all the past, and all the future mine. 
 
 The decision of the Edinburgh electors was a 
 greater loss to Parliament than to Macaulay. He 
 thoroughly appreciated his leisure, and enjoyed the 
 most delightful society in London. He was working 
 hard at his History. As it went on he read it aloud 
 in the evenings to his sister and Sir C. Trevelyan, 
 his brother-in-law, and mentions with triumph that 
 " Hannah cried and Trevelyan kept awake." The 
 first volume was issued in 1848. The success was 
 great and immediate. It is said that there had been 
 no such sale since the publication of Waterloo. 
 Thirteen thousand copies were sold in six months. 
 
 Some of the marks of admiration which he received 
 were very amusing. Hotel-keepers, we are told, often 
 sent him up a better dinner than he had ordered, and 
 declined payment !
 
 86 Essays and Addresses 
 
 The first hippopotamus ever seeu iu England since 
 our predecessors hunted them in prehistoric times 
 was brought over in 1850, and, like every one else, 
 he went to see it. Thackeray tells us that two girls 
 were just at the door when some one mentioned that 
 Macaulay was in the gardens. " Oh, come back,'' 
 said one of them, " come and see Mr. Macaulay ; never 
 mind the hippopotamus ! " He seems, indeed, to 
 have succeeded in the object of his ambition, to " pro- 
 duce something which shall for a few days supersede 
 the last fashionable novel on tables of young ladies." 
 
 Men have disputed, says Sir G. Trevelyan, and 
 " will long continue to dispute, whether or not his fame 
 was deserved " ; but no one who himself has written 
 books will doubt that at any rate it was hardly 
 earned. " Take at hazard," says Thackeray, " any 
 three pages of the Essays or Histo7^y, and, glimmer- 
 ing below the stream of the narrative, you, an 
 average reader, see one, two, three, a half-score of 
 allusions to other historic facts, characters, literature, 
 poetry, with which you are acquainted, . . . indicat- 
 ing, not only the prodigious memory and vast learn- 
 ing of this master, but the wonderful industry, the 
 honest, humble previous toil of this great scholar. 
 He reads twenty books to write a sentence ; he 
 travels a hundred miles to make a line of description." ' 
 
 But though Macaulay spared himself no pains in 
 preparing his work, he was ready and quick enough 
 on an emergency. During one of the Cambridge 
 elections a man made a bad shot with a dead cat, and 
 
 ^ Lift uf Macaulmj, ii. pp. 219, 231.
 
 Macaulay Ceremonial 87 
 
 hit him in the face. The man apologised and asked 
 to be excused because the unsavoury missile had been 
 intended for Mr. Adeane. " I wish, however," said 
 Macaulay, " you had meant it for me and hit Mr. 
 Adeane." 
 
 In 1852 there was another general election. Edin- 
 burgh had repented of its mistake of 1847, and there 
 was a general wish that Macaulay should stand again. 
 He declined to go down, to issue any address, to 
 make any speech, or answer any questions ; but to 
 his great honour, and that of Edinburgh also, he was 
 returned at the head of the poll. 
 
 All over the country, says Mr. Arnold in his Life, 
 " the news of his election was received with a burst 
 of joy. Men congratulated each other as if some 
 dear friend or relation of their own had received so 
 signal an honour. People who had never seen his 
 face shook hands with one another in an unreasoning 
 way on the receipt of such glorious news." 
 
 Unfortunately his health now began to fail, and 
 he cannot, indeed, be said to have been ever well 
 again, though he worked hard at his History, and 
 made some very effective speeches in the House of 
 Commons. The subsequent volumes of his History 
 were even more successful than the first. 
 
 In 1856 he found it necessary to resign his seat 
 for Edinburgh, and in 1857 he was given a peerage, 
 to the general satisfaction of the country. 
 
 His health gradually declined, and the last public 
 business to which he devoted himself was the trustee- 
 ship of the British Museum.
 
 88 Essays and Addresses 
 
 In 1859 Sir C. Trevelyan was appointed Governor 
 of Madras, and Lady Trevelyan was to follow him in 
 the spring of 1860. Devotedly attached to his sister 
 as he had always been, this was a great blow to him. 
 In December he became rapidly worse, and on the 
 28th died peacefully and without suffering in his 
 library, sitting in his usual chair and with a book 
 open before him. He left, as Sir G. Trevelyan justly 
 says, " a great and honourable name, and the memory 
 of a life every action of which was as clear and trans 
 parent as one of his own sentences." He was buried 
 in Westminster Abbey, in Poets' Corner, near Johnson 
 and Goldsmith, Gay and Addison, and as his epitaph 
 says, 
 
 His name liveth for evermore. 
 
 Macaulay was not only a great man, an eloquent 
 orator, a charming writer, but he was also a delight- 
 ful companion. 
 
 " While on a visit to Lord Lansdowne at Bo wood, 
 years after they had left Cambridge, Austin and 
 Macaulay happened to get upon college topics one 
 morning at breakfast. When the meal was finished 
 they drew their chairs to either end of the chimney- 
 piece, and talked at each other across the hearth-rug 
 as if they were in a first-floor room in the old court 
 of Trinity. The whole company, ladies, artists, 
 politicians, and diners -out, formed a silent circle 
 round the two Cantabs, and, with a short break for 
 lunch, never stirred till the bell warned them that it 
 was time to dress for dinner." ' 
 
 ' Trevelyau's Lif( and Lrttcrs vf Macaulay, i. ji. 81.
 
 Macaulay Ceremonial 89 
 
 In later life he even improved. Sydney Smith 
 said that " he is certainly more agreeable since his 
 return from India. His enemies might perhaps have 
 said before (though I never did so) that he talked 
 rather too much ; but now he has occasional flashes 
 of silence that make his conversation perfectly 
 delightful." 
 
 Though Macaulay lived in the centre of the literary 
 and political world, and took an active part in the 
 stress and turmoil of London life, he may also be said 
 to have enjoyed a peaceful existence. La Bruyere 
 has said that many men spend much of their time in 
 making the rest miserable. Macaulay had his own 
 sorrows, as all must, but he brought none on himself. 
 We may say of him, as he himself said of Sir James 
 Mackintosh, that " the rare moderation and calmness 
 of his temper preserved him alike from extravagant 
 elation and from extravagant despondency." ^ 
 
 The calm and even tenor of his life is well illus- 
 trated by the fact that one of his greatest troubles 
 arose from a trifling circumstance which in most 
 lives would have passed almost unnoticed. It so 
 happened that when he took office in 1839 he was 
 on a short visit to Her Majesty at Windsor Castle, 
 and having to address his constituents, he thought- 
 lessly, but not unnaturally, used a sheet of the Castle 
 paper. This brought on him not merely much good- 
 natured chaff", but also many absurdly savage attacks. 
 Of course it was not the banter nor the abuse which 
 rankled he had been much more bitterly reviled 
 
 ^ Essays, ii. p. 431.
 
 90 Essays and Addresses 
 
 about other matters, but, as he felt, unjustly. In 
 this case he recognised that he had slipped into a 
 mistake, and years afterwards he says he still felt " a 
 twinge at the name. Was ever man so persecuted 
 for such a trifle ! Yet my life must be allowed to 
 have been a very happy one, seeing that such a perse- 
 cution was among my greatest misfortunes." It 
 must indeed. And he well deserved to be happy. 
 He had indeed all that wealth and fame, rank and 
 talents, can give, and yet he tells us he derived his 
 greatest happiness from books. 
 
 " These are the old friends who are never seen 
 with new faces, who are the same in wealth and in 
 poverty, in glory and in obscurity. With the dead 
 there is no rivalry. In the dead there is no change. 
 Plato is never sullen. Cervantes is never petulant. 
 Demosthenes never comes unseasonably. Dante never 
 stays too long. No difference of political opinion can 
 alienate Cicero. No heresy can excite the horror of 
 Bossuet."' 
 
 I cannot say that my favourite authors are in all 
 cases the same as his. Next to Shakespeare he places 
 Miss Austen. I should prefer Scott. For Plutarch 
 he " entertains a peculiar aversion." The heroes of 
 Livy, he says, " are the most insipid of all beings, 
 real or imaginary, the heroes of Plutarch always 
 excepted." Seneca he speaks of as " an affected, 
 empty scribbler " ; reading him, he says, is like 
 "dining on anchovy sauce." While strongly con- 
 demning the plays of Wycherley and Congreve, he 
 
 ' E-i.^aijs, ii. p. 499, ou Lord Bacou.
 
 Macaulay Ceremonial 91 
 
 yet approved of their being reprinted (iii. 336). 
 He denies that Herodotus, " the father of history," 
 has any claim to be regarded as a historian at all. 
 " He has written an incomparable book. He has 
 written something better perhaps than the best 
 history ; but he has not written a good history ; he 
 is from the first to the last chapter an inventor. . . . 
 The great events are, no doubt, faithfully related. 
 So probably are many of the slighter circumstances, 
 but which of them it is impossible to ascertain. 
 The fictions are so much like the facts, and the 
 facts so much like the fictions, that, with respect 
 to many most interesting particulars, our belief is 
 neither given nor withheld, but remains in an 
 uneasy and interminable state of abeyance. We 
 know that there is truth ; but we cannot exactly 
 decide where it lies." ^ 
 
 Though it is scarcely fifty years since Macaulay's 
 death, it is curious how much our ide.as have changed. 
 For instance, he says : " Nothing is more natural 
 than that, in a monarchy where a constitutional 
 opposition exists, the heir -apparent of the throne 
 should put himself at the head of that opposition. 
 He is impelled to such a course by every feeling 
 of ambition and of vanity. He cannot be more 
 than second in the estimation of the party which 
 is in. He is sure to be the first member of the 
 party which is out. The highest favour which 
 the existing administration can expect from him is 
 that he will not discard them. . . . An heir-apparent, 
 
 1 Essays, i. p. 170.
 
 92 Essays and Addresses 
 
 therefore, who wishes to enjoy, in the highest perfec- 
 tion, all the pleasure that can be derived from 
 eloquent flattery and profound respect, will always 
 join those who are struggling to force themselves 
 into power." ^ 
 
 " Macaulay's outward man was," says Sir G. 
 Trevelyan, " never better described than in two 
 sentences of Praed's Introduction to Knight's 
 Quarterly Magazine. * There came up a short, 
 manly figure, marvellously upright, with a bad 
 neckcloth, and one hand in his waistcoat pocket. 
 Of regular beauty he had little to boast ; but in 
 faces w^here there is an expression of great power 
 or of great good - humour, or both, you do not 
 regret its absence.' This picture, in which every 
 touch is correct, tells all that there is to be told. 
 He had a massive head, and features of a powerful 
 and rugged cast, but so constantly lit up by every 
 joyful and ennobling emotion that it mattered little 
 if, when absolutely quiescent, his face was rather 
 homely than handsome." " 
 
 And he has elsewhere been described as " knittins^ 
 his great eyebrows if the subject was one which had 
 to be thoujrht out as he went alons^, or brightening 
 from the forehead downwards when a burst of humour 
 was coming ; his massive features and honest glance 
 suited well with the manly, sagacious sentiments 
 which he set forth in his pleasant, soTiorous voice, 
 and his racy and admirably intelligible language,"^ 
 
 ' A'sfaiif. ii. p. 373. - Trcvclyan's Life >/ Maaiuluii, i. 122. 
 
 - Ibid. h. ]i. 204.
 
 Macaulay Ceremonial 93 
 
 It seems to me that no man could be described 
 as truly great who was cruel or mean, vain or 
 irritable. Macaulay was none of these. 
 
 As Mr. Cotter Morison says : "In his own home 
 as a son, as a brother, and an uncle it is only 
 the barest justice to say that he appears to have 
 touched the furthest verge of human virtue, sweet- 
 ness, and generosity."^ 
 
 As a statesman he was wise and cautious, 
 consistent and independent. He was great as a 
 statesman, historian, and poet, and good as a man. 
 
 The more we study his writings, the more we 
 take to heart his wise counsels ; the more we copy 
 his blameless life and follow his excellent example, 
 the better it will be for us and for those around us. 
 
 ^ C. Morison's Macaulay, p. 18.
 
 V 
 
 MANCHESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY JUBILEE^ 
 
 I FEEL it a very great honour to have been invited 
 to take a part on this important and interesting 
 occasion, and am the more sensible of it when I 
 remember the illustrious men Thackeray, Dickens, 
 Bulwer Lytton, John Bright, Monckton Milnes, Sir 
 James Stephen, and others who attended the 
 ceremony fifty years ago, the Jubilee of which we 
 are now celebrating. 
 
 If I make an appeal for your indulgence, it will 
 not surprise those who remember that Thackeray 
 himself on that occasion was so nervous that he 
 actually broke down, appalled, as Mr. Edwards 
 suggests, by the sight of 20,000 books, but rather, 
 I think, by the great audience before him. There 
 arc other names, however, more closely associated 
 witli the lil)rary movement in Manchester even than 
 those of Thackeray, Dickens, and Bulwer Lytton. 
 First and foremost, it is fitting that we should do 
 honour to AVilliam Ewart, member for Liverpool, to 
 whom we owe the Public Libraries Act, which has 
 
 ' Speech in tlie Free Trailc Hall, Maiichester, Ajiril 3, 1!*03, as Cliair- 
 inaii of the meeting; to cek'hrate the Jubilee of the Manchester Public Library. 
 
 94
 
 Manchester Public Library Jubilee 95 
 
 done so much for the education, the happiness, and 
 the moral improvement of our people ; to whom 
 we owe it that we have now public houses, not for 
 the sale of beer, but for the free use of books. 
 And secondly, we recall with gratitude Sir John 
 Potter, Chairman of your first Library Committee, 
 Mayor of Manchester, and son of a Mayor of 
 Manchester ; to whose energy and foresight you 
 owe it that Manchester has the honour of having 
 taken the lead in the movement. Other names 
 connected with the recent history of public libraries 
 will occur to us all for instance, Edward Edwards, 
 Thomas Greenwood, Passmore Edwards, Carnegie, and 
 Mr. Rylands. 
 
 Manchester had the first of the great public 
 libraries now happily spread so widely over the 
 length and breadth of the land. The good example 
 you set was at first but slowly followed. The Act 
 passed in 1850. It is not easy to ascertain the 
 exact figures, but by 
 
 1870 about 50 places had adopted the Act. 
 
 1880 100 ., 
 
 1890 200 
 
 Now ,, 450 ,, have ,, 
 
 Not only have the libraries increased in number, 
 but they have also increased in size. The number 
 of books has risen much more rapidly than the 
 population. 
 
 In 1851 the population of Manchester was . 308,000 
 1901 it was . . . . . . 540,000
 
 96 
 
 Essays and Addresses 
 
 A great increase, but not double, 
 libraries ? 
 
 How about your 
 
 In 1852 
 
 the number of books was 
 
 23,000 
 
 1862 
 
 it was 
 
 60,000 
 
 1872 
 
 ,, ... 
 
 119,000 
 
 1882 
 
 ,, ... 
 
 160,000 
 
 1892 
 
 >) ... 
 
 233,000 
 
 1902 
 
 1 ^ 
 
 )) ... 
 .1 1 . 1 
 
 305,000 
 
 1 11 
 
 So that while the population has not doubled, the 
 books have increased more than tenfold. 
 
 The total number of books in rate - supported 
 libraries is now more than 6,500,000. It may be 
 interesting to add that if we include other public 
 libraries the number is raised to 18,500,000. 
 
 Then, again, the books are more used. The 
 
 number issued in 
 
 1852-3 was 
 1872-3 
 1892-3 
 1902-3 
 
 . 138,000 
 . 785,000 
 1,712,000 
 2,295,000 
 
 I remember hearing a story many years ago of a 
 Manchester woman who was taken to Southport. 
 When she saw the sea she was delighted. She said 
 it was the first time in her life she had ever seen 
 anything of which there was enough for everybody. 
 I have somewhat the same feeling when I look round 
 at these shelves. No doubt you will add many more 
 books, but even now there are more than any one of 
 you will ever read. Not only will you not do so, 
 but every year you would find that you were being 
 more and more left behind. Your library began
 
 Manchester Public Library Jubilee 97 
 
 witli 23,000 volumes : it now contains over 300,000. 
 Reading, indeed, is a pleasure as to which wealth gives 
 scarcely any advantage. Oliver Wendell Holmes 
 wittily says 
 
 I care not much for gold or land ; 
 
 Give me a mortgage here and there, 
 Some good bank stock some note of hand 
 
 Or trifling railway share. 
 1 only ask that Fortune send 
 
 A little more than I can spend. 
 
 But no one can read all the books in a public 
 library. In this respect Fortune showers upon us 
 more than we can possibly use. You have admirable 
 schools for the young in Manchester, and these 
 libraries are schools for the grown-up. 
 
 There are still some who object to public libraries 
 on account of the expense. But I think they make 
 a mistake, even from their own point of view, and 
 that public libraries tend to lighten, not to raise, rates. 
 You know that the most that can be spent on a 
 public library is Id. in the . But I believe they 
 have saved us much more. Ignorance costs a country 
 more than education. Out of every 100 persons who 
 go to prison, not above 5 can be called fairly well 
 educated. 
 
 In 1870 our paupers were 46 in the 1000, now 
 
 they are 22 in the 1000. In 1850 our population 
 
 was under 20,000,000. Now it is over 40,000,000. 
 
 But the number of persons prosecuted for indictable 
 
 offences was 14,000, now it is 5000. The number of 
 
 persons in prison was about 30,000, now they are 
 
 H
 
 98 Essays and Addresses 
 
 less than one-half. Then there were over 100 prisons, 
 all full, now there are about 50, half empty. Victor 
 Hugo said : " He w^ho opens a school closes a prison." 
 I do not say that this is all due to education, or to 
 public libraries, but I cannot doubt that they have 
 contributed to it. The fact is, that only a fraction 
 of the crime of the country arises from irresistible 
 temptation or deliberate wickedness ; the great sources 
 are drink and ignorance. Drink, again, is often due 
 to dulness and the craving for excitement. Books, 
 however, are exciting without being intoxicating : 
 with a choice of books nobody can be dull. 
 
 No one can read a good and interesting book for 
 an hour without being the better for it ; happier and 
 better, not merely for the moment, but the memory 
 remains with us stores of bright and beautiful 
 thoughts which we can call up when we will. " The 
 ink of the student," says an Arab proverb, " is as 
 precious as the blood of the martyr." 
 
 But then, I think I hear some one say, " Oh, but 
 probably the books read were mere rubbishy novels." 
 I do not deny that there are many worthless novels, 
 which come, as Ruskin said, fresh from the printers, 
 " wet with the last and latest spray from the fount of 
 folly." But many novels are as important and instruc- 
 tive as they are interesting. Without mentioning living 
 authors, we cannot overrate the value of Scott and 
 Thackeray, of Dickens and Kingsley, and many more. 
 But is the proportion of novels read so excessive ? 
 Your report gives some very interesting jjarticulars as 
 to the classes of books issued. The total was a little
 
 Manchester Public Library Jubilee 99 
 
 over 1,500,000. Of these, works on theology and 
 philosophy accounted for over 20,000 ; history, 
 biography, and travels, 91,000; politics and commerce, 
 36,000 ; science and art, 212,000 ; literature, 130,000 ; 
 fiction, 890,000. If we omit the reference libraries 
 and take the books issued, the works of fiction 
 are in the proportion of about 4 J to 1. This, 
 however, does not of course imply that four hours 
 out of five devoted to reading will be devoted to 
 fiction. A work on science or history will take five 
 or perhaps ten times as much thought and time as a 
 story, and I quite believe from the figures that your 
 readers actually spent less time on works of fiction 
 than they do on other subjects. Moreover, it is 
 interesting to see that here as elsewhere the demand 
 for solid books grows gradually in proportion. 
 
 It is indeed most important that those who use a 
 library should use it wisely. Do we make the most 
 of our opportunities ? It is a great mistake to 
 imagine that every one knows how to read. ' On the 
 contrary, I should say that few do so. Two things 
 have to be considered : how to read and w^hat to read. 
 
 Every one thinks he knows how to read and write. 
 This is, I believe, quite a delusion. I will not enter 
 into the eccentricities of handwriting, but as to read- 
 ing there seem to be two very common mistakes. 
 The first is that many people seem to think that they 
 will get the greatest enjoyment from reading by 
 reading that which they enjoy most. That this is 
 quite a fallacy can, I think, easily be shown. 
 
 Suppose and I think this rather an extreme case
 
 loo Essays and Addresses 
 
 that a story book is five times as entertaining as, 
 let us say, a history. For the first day there is no 
 doubt a considerable balance in favour of the story, 
 but in six months the balance will be turned, and 
 will soon be heavily in favour of the history. I am 
 here, moreover, speaking merely of the pleasure, 
 without considering the solid advantages. 
 
 A second error is to suppose that a real reader can 
 be passive. Passive reading, however, is of very 
 little use. It is not enough to run the eyes 
 mechanically over the lines, to recognise the words, 
 and to turn over the leaves. We must exercise the 
 reason and the imagination ; endeavour to call up 
 the scenes depicted, to realise the characters described, 
 to picture them in the gallery of the imagination. 
 Thus only can we do justice to a really good book. 
 
 Among: all the o;reat discoveries of the nineteenth 
 century, one of the greatest was the importance of 
 education. Even so wise and good a man as Dr. 
 Johnson was afraid that if every one learnt to read 
 there would be no one willing to do the manual 
 work of the world. He did not realise the dignity 
 and interest of labour. 
 
 An appreciation of literature is now more general, 
 but the wisest of men have always fully recognised 
 its value. 
 
 " Happy," said Solomon 
 
 H;ij)py is tlie iiiuii tliat limlctli wisdom, 
 
 And the iiiitu lIiaL i^'ettcth iiiidcrHtandiii;^' : 
 For tlie inercliandise of it is lictter tlian the nuTili.i!idi,-r ot silver, 
 
 And tlie j,'ain thereof tiiaii tine gold. 
 She is more precious than nil'ies :
 
 Manchester Public Library Jubilee loi 
 
 And all the things thou canst desire 
 
 Are not to be compared unto her. 
 Length of days is in her right hand ; 
 
 And in her left hand riches and honour. 
 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, 
 
 And all her paths are peace. 
 
 " Of all treasures," says the Hitopodesa, another 
 great Eastern authority, " knowledge is the most 
 precious, for it cannot be stolen, given away, nor 
 consumed." 
 
 " Education," said Plato, " is the fairest thing 
 that the best of men can ever have." Coming to our 
 own country, Shakespeare tells us that 
 
 Ignorance is the curse of God ; 
 Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. 
 
 In the words of an old English song 
 
 Oh for a booke and a shadie nooke, 
 
 Eyther in doore or out ; 
 
 With the grene leaves whispering overhead, 
 
 Or the streete cryes all about, 
 
 Where I maie reade all at my ease, 
 
 Both of the newe and old ; 
 
 For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke 
 
 Is better to me than golde.^ 
 
 " When I look back," said the late Sir J. Fitch, 
 " on my own life, and think on the long-past school 
 and college days, I know well that there is not a fact 
 in history, not a formula in mathematics, not a rule 
 in grammar, not a sweet and pleasant verse of poetry, 
 not a truth in science which I ever learned, which 
 has not come to me over and over again in the most 
 
 ^ Aseham.
 
 I02 Essays and Addresses 
 
 unexpected ways, and proved to be of greater use 
 than I could ever have believed. It has helped me 
 to understand better the books I read, the history of 
 events which are occurring round me, and to make 
 the whole outlook of life larger and more interesting." 
 
 If people understood better the art of reading 
 what to read and how to read their lives would be 
 much happier, brighter, and more useful. We cannot 
 be too thankful for the blessing of books. Lamb 
 remarked that we say grace before dinner, but he 
 thought we ought to do so before beginning a good 
 book. 
 
 Macaulay had wealth and fame, rank and power, 
 and yet he tells us in his biography that he owed the 
 happiest hours of his life to books. In a charming 
 letter to a little niece, he says, " Thank you for your 
 very pretty letter. I am always glad to make my 
 little girl happy, and nothing pleases me so much as 
 to see that she likes books, for when she is as old as I 
 am she will find that they are better than all the 
 tarts and cakes, toys and plays and sights in the 
 world. If any one would make me the greatest king 
 that ever lived, with palaces and gardens and fine 
 dinners, and wines and coaches, and beautiful clothes, 
 and hundreds of servants, on condition that I should 
 not read books, I would not be a king. I would 
 rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books 
 than a king who did not love reading." 
 
 Knowledge lights up the history of the world, and 
 makes it one bright path of progress ; it enables us 
 to appreciate the literature of the world ; it opens
 
 Manchester Public Library Jubilee 103 
 
 for us the book of Nature, and creates sources of 
 interest wherever we find ourselves. 
 
 Let us just consider how much better off we are 
 than our ancestors were in ancient times. In the 
 first place, to say nothing of the advantages of print, 
 how much cheaper books are. For the price of a 
 little beer, or one or two pipes of tobacco, a man can 
 buy as much as he can read in a month ; in their 
 day, on the contrary, books were very expensive. 
 Again, while our books are small and handy, theirs 
 were ponderous and immense very inconvenient 
 either to hold or to read. Even our most learned 
 books are in one sense lio;ht reading;. 
 
 Again, how many of the most interesting books 
 are by modern, many by living, authors. 
 
 Books are peculiarly necessary to the working men 
 in our towns. Their life is one of much monotony. 
 The savasre has a far more varied existence. He 
 must watch the habits of the game he hunts, their 
 migrations and feeding - grounds ; he must know 
 where and how to fish ; every month brings him 
 some fresh occupation and some change of food. He 
 must prepare his weapons and build his own house ; 
 even the lighting of a fire, so easy now, is to him a 
 matter of labour and skill. The agricultural labourer 
 turns his hand to many things. He ploughs and 
 sows, mows and reaps. He plants at one season, 
 uses the bill-hook and the axe at another. He looks 
 after the sheep and pigs and cows. To hold the 
 plough, to lay a fence, or tie up a sheaf, is by no 
 means so easy as it looks. It is said of Wordsworth
 
 I04 Essays and Addresses 
 
 that a stranger having on one occasion asked to see 
 his study, the maid said, " This is master's room, but 
 he studies in the fields." The agricultural labourer 
 learns a great deal in the fields. He knows mucli 
 more than we give him credit for. It is field-learning, 
 not book-learning, but none the worse for that. 
 
 On the other hand, the man who works in a shop 
 or manufactory has a much more monotonous life. 
 He is confined to one process, or, perhaps, even one 
 part of a process, from year's end to year's end. He 
 acquires, no doubt, a skill little short of miraculous, 
 but, on the other hand, very narrow. If he is not 
 himself to become a mere animated machine, he must 
 generally obtain, and in some cases he can only 
 obtain, the necessary variety and interest from the 
 use of books. 
 
 There is an Oriental story of two men : one was 
 a king, who every night dreamt he was a beggar ; the 
 other was a beggar, who every night dreamt he was 
 a prince and lived in a palace. I am not sure that 
 the king had very much the best of it. Imagination 
 is sometimes more vivid than reality. But, however 
 this may be, when we read, we may not only (if we 
 wish it) be kings and live in palaces, but, what is far 
 better, we may transport ourselves to the mountains 
 or the seashore, and visit the most beautiful and 
 interesting spots on the earth, without fatigue, in- 
 convenience, or expense. 
 
 English literature is the birthriglit of our race. 
 We have produced and are producing some of the 
 greatest of poets, of pliilosophers, of men of science.
 
 Manchester Public Library Jubilee 105 
 
 No race can boast of a better, purer, or nobler litera- 
 ture richer than our commerce, more powerful than 
 our arms. It is the true pride and glory of our 
 country, and we cannot be too thankful for it. It is 
 no exaggeration to say that books endow us with an 
 enchanted palace of bright and happy thoughts. A 
 library has been said to be a true university ; it is 
 also a fairyland, a haven of repose from the storms 
 and troubles of the world. 
 
 We hear much about Enfjlish commerce and manu- 
 factures ; although there seems no reason for despond- 
 ency, there is every reason for exertion, and we must 
 not throw away a chance. Many and great as have 
 been the discoveries of the last century, the resources 
 of science are not exhausted. No doubt some of the 
 discoveries of the future will be made by great philo- 
 sophers. But I doubt not that the workman, and, as 
 I hope, the British workman, will bear his part in the 
 years to come, as he has in those that are gone by. 
 
 Watt was a mechanical engineer ; Henry Cort, 
 whose improvements in manufiictures are said to 
 have added more to the wealth of England than the 
 whole value of the National Debt, was the son of a 
 brickmaker ; Huntsman, the inventor of steel, was a 
 watchmaker ; Wedgwood was a potter ; Crompton 
 was a weaver ; Brindley, Telford, Mushet, and Neilson 
 were working men ; George Stephenson began life as 
 a cowboy at twopence a day, and could not read until 
 he was eighteen. Dalton w\as the son of a weaver ; 
 Faraday, of a blacksmith ; Newcomen, of a black- 
 smith ; Arkwright began as a barber ; Sir Humphrey
 
 io6 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Davy was an apothecary's apprentice ; Boulton, " the 
 father of Birmingham," was the son of a button- 
 maker ; Watt, of a carpenter. To these men, and 
 others like them, the world owes a deep debt of 
 gratitude. We ought to be as proud of them as of 
 our great generals and statesmen. 
 
 Is it not also delightful to think how many happy 
 hours have been, and how many we may safely hope 
 will be, spent within these walls how much these 
 volumes will have added to the happiness of your 
 homes ? A library is a true paradise in which every- 
 thing is open to us, especially the fruit of the tree of 
 knowledo:e, for which we are told that our first mother 
 sacrificed all the delights of the Garden of Eden. 
 
 You will have no doubt times of sorrow, of suffer- 
 ing, and of anxiety. Even in such cases the treasures 
 on your shelves may do much to relieve, to comfort, 
 and to console. But there is one unnecessary trouble 
 in life from which many suffer much that of dulness 
 and monotony, and at least I may congratulate you 
 that no one in Manchester need ever be dull. 
 
 My Lord Mayor, I congratulate you on your great 
 libraries, I thank you for the good example set by 
 Manchester to the rest of the country, and I join 
 cordially with you in celebrating the Jubilee of your 
 Public Library, and in doing honour to the memory 
 of your distinguished citizens by whom the library 
 was founded.
 
 VI 
 
 THE ORDER OF MERIT 
 
 The occasion ^ which has brought us together this 
 evening'-^ is a memorable and unique event in the 
 history of the Club. 
 
 The institution of the Order of Merit has been 
 very favourably received, not only on its own 
 account, but because of the admirable selection 
 which has been made. We in the Athenaeum may 
 well be proud that out of the twelve members, 
 no less than nine are colleagues of our own, and we 
 feel it therefore as an honour to the whole Club. 
 
 Adequately to propose the health of any one of 
 our guests, a whole evening would be insufficient. In 
 
 ^ In 1902 His Majesty founded a new Order, the Order of Merit. The 
 first members were : 
 
 Lord Roberts. 
 Lord Wolseley. 
 Lord Kitchener. 
 Lord Rayleigh. 
 Lord Kelvin. 
 Lord Lister. 
 
 The RiciHT Hon. John Morley. 
 The Right Hon. W. H. Lecky. 
 Admiral Sir H. Keiu'EL. 
 Admiral Sir E. Seymour. 
 Sir W. Huggins, Bart. 
 Mr. Watts. 
 
 Of these twelve no less than nine were members of the Athenaium Club, 
 and their fellow -members determined to give them a dinner. They all 
 attended on the occasion, except Lord Wolseley, who was abroad. 
 
 Lord Avebuiy, as senior trustee, took the chair at the dinner, and it foil 
 to him to propose the toast of the evening. 
 
 '^ July 22, 1902. 
 
 107
 
 io8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 proposing the twelve it is impossible even to indicate, 
 however briefly, all their claims to our gratitude and 
 admiration. Nor is it necessary, for their name and 
 fame are household words among their fellow-country- 
 men. 
 
 Lord Roberts 
 
 Lord Roberts served with great distinction through 
 the Indian Mutiny, and received the Victoria Cross 
 in 1858. In the Abyssinian War he was Assistant 
 Quartermaster-General. He held the chief command 
 in Afghanistan, where he captured Cabul and 
 defeated Ayoob Khan. He was Commander-in- 
 Chief in India, and led the Burmese Expedition. 
 
 In the darkest hours of the late war, when we 
 were all anxious lest our troops should be over- 
 whelmed by superior numbers before sufficient rein- 
 forcements could reach them, we were cheered 
 and delighted to hear that Lord Roberts had been 
 appointed to the chief command. Our confidence 
 was founded on his earlier achievements, and as the 
 result showed, was fully justified ; and his recent 
 victories are a fitting crown tf) a great career. I 
 must, however, say a word with reference to Lord 
 Roberts from another point of view. His Forty -one 
 Ycdrs m, India is not only a marvellous record of 
 one part of his n>markable life, but is also n(,bl(' as 
 a j>iece of literature; it inspires contidcncc in our 
 country and pride in our race, and is a work which 
 every young Englishman, and Englishwoman too, 
 would do well to read.
 
 The Order of Merit 109 
 
 Lord Wolseley 
 
 Lord Wolseley is unfortunately unable to be 
 present. We shall, however, none the less, couple 
 his name with the toast. Lord Wolseley was at the 
 taking of Sebastopol and of Lucknow^ ; he com- 
 manded the successful expedition to the Red River 
 in 1867 ; that to Coomassie in 1873 ; the Egyptian 
 Expedition in 1882, and in 1884 that to Khartoum; 
 he has been Commander-in-Chief, and has twice 
 received the thanks of Parliament. Lord Wolseley 
 is also an author, and I must not omit to mention 
 his Life of Marlborough, w^hich is a masterpiece of 
 research and skill. 
 
 Lord Kitchener 
 
 Lord Kitchener entered the army in 1871. In 
 1884 he was Adjutant-General in the Nile Expedition, 
 and was afterwards Governor-General of the Red Sea 
 Littoral. In 1888 he was appointed to command a 
 division of the Egyptian Army, in 1892 became 
 Sirdar, and in 1898 captured Khartoum and annihi- 
 lated the tyranny of the Mahdi. He accompanied 
 Lord Roberts, and succeeded him as Commander-in- 
 Chief at the Cape, where the success of his military 
 tactics has only been equalled by his tact and happy 
 diplomacy. It has been said that peace has her 
 victories as well as war. Lord Kitchener has com- 
 bined both ; he has not only brought the South 
 African War to a glorious termination, but, as we
 
 1 10 Essays and Addresses 
 
 hope, has converted many of our former foes into 
 firm friends and loyal fellow-countrymen. 
 
 Lord Rayleigh 
 
 In Lord Rayleigh we have one of our greatest 
 men of science. He was senior wrangler and Smith's 
 prizeman thirty -seven years ago. To teach our 
 children something of everything, and everything of 
 something, was Lord Brougham's ideal of education 
 a good one, were it only possible. If there were 
 anything about which we might have been supposed 
 to know everything, it would be our atmosphere. 
 Yet Lord Rayleigh, among other important discoveries, 
 found a new element in the air we breathe one of 
 the most remarkable chemical discoveries of modern 
 times. 
 
 Lord Kelvin 
 
 Lord Kelvin was second wrangler and Smith's prize- 
 man in 1845. At the early age of seventeen he wrote 
 a remarkable paper, " On tlie Uniform Motion of 
 Heat in Homogeneous Solid Bodies," and ever since 
 he has poured forth a series of remarkal)le and pro- 
 found memoirs. His inventions, especially in tele- 
 graphy and navigation, have also been most useful, 
 and he contributed greatly to the laying of the first 
 Atlantic cable. He has l)een President of the British 
 Association, and has also received the two greatest 
 honours which -the Royal Society has to confer the 
 Copley Medal and tlie Presidency of the Society.
 
 The Order of Merit 1 1 1 
 
 Lord Lister 
 
 Few branches of science have advanced more of 
 late years than surgery, and to no one has that 
 progress been more due than to Lord Lister. His 
 antiseptic treatment of wounds has rendered many 
 operations possible, enormously diminished pain of 
 recovery, and saved hundreds of lives. It must be 
 a supreme consolation to him in hours of suffering, 
 wdiich we must all expect, to feel how much he has 
 done to mitigate and to diminish the sufferings of 
 others. He also has been President of the Royal 
 Society. 
 
 Admiral Sir Harry Keppel 
 
 Admiral Sir Harry Keppel entered the navy 
 nearly eighty, and rose to the rank of captain more 
 than sixty, years ago. He served with distinction 
 in the Chinese War of 1842; he commanded the 
 Naval Brigade before Sebastopol in the Crimean 
 War; in 1860 he was Naval Commander-in-Chief 
 at the Cape, and in 1867 Vice- Admiral on the China 
 Station. He became Admiral of the Fleet in 1877. 
 He may justly be called the Father of the British 
 Navy. 
 
 The Right Hon. John Morley 
 
 We all recognise Mr. Morley as one of our greatest 
 writers. We have read with admiration his vivid
 
 112 Essays and Addresses 
 
 history of the French Revolution, his graphic judicial 
 biographies of English statesmen. If we cannot all 
 share his political views, we recognise his consistency, 
 his courage and courtesy, and offer him our hearty 
 conofratulations. 
 
 The Right Hon. W. H. Lecky 
 
 The University of Dublin deserves well of the 
 country for sending Mr. Lecky to assist in the 
 councils of the nation, and if we wonder at some of 
 the members whom the sister island sends to represent, 
 or misrepresent, her, the presence of Mr. Lecky does 
 much to redress the balance. If votes were weighed 
 as well as counted, Ireland could perhaps not be said 
 to be in favour of Home Rule. Our children will not 
 go far wrong if they take as a guide his Maj) of Life. 
 
 Admiral Sir Edward Seymour 
 
 Admiral Sir Edward Seymour was present at the 
 l)oml)ardmcnt of Sebastopol. He took part in the 
 capture of Canton in 1857. In 1897 he became 
 Commander-in-Chief on the China Station. It is 
 remarkable that Sir Edward has three times com- 
 manded in China, and three times taken the Tiiku 
 Eorts. We shall not soon forget our anxiety for the 
 safety of our countrymen shut up in the Lefration at 
 Peking, and their release was to a great extent due 
 to the energy of Sir Edward Seymour, and afforded 
 another instance in which our gallant navy has 
 served us well not only afloat but ashore.
 
 The Order of Merit 113 
 
 Sir W. Huggins 
 
 Next comes the President of the Royal Society. 
 Comte laid it down as an axiom that while astronomers 
 might determine the position, magnitude, and move- 
 ments of the heavenly bodies, it was beyond the 
 possibilities of human genius ever to ascertain their 
 chemical composition. What Comte pronounced little 
 more than half a century ago to be impossible, Sir 
 William has already in part accomplished ; and the 
 man who has thrown so much light on the stars 
 certainly deserves a place among the twelve. 
 
 Mr. Watts 
 
 As long ago as 1843 Mr. Watts' cartoon of 
 Caractacus raised hopes for his future career which 
 time has fully justified. For over fifty years we 
 have admired his pictures in the Royal Academy. 
 Twenty years ago an exhibition of his works was 
 held at the Grosvenor Gallery, and he has executed 
 some of the beautiful frescoes at Westminster. He 
 has bequeathed to the nation a number of portraits 
 of our most distinguished countrymen, and fitly 
 represents British Art. 
 
 We offer our cordial congratulations, and wish long 
 life, health, and happiness to our honoured guests.
 
 VII 
 
 ON BANK HOLIDAYS^ 
 
 During the Middle Ages there were in England, as 
 in other European countries, a large number of Saints' 
 days, which were more or less religiously kept as 
 holidays. These were probably too numerous ; but, 
 on the other hand, at the Reformation we went 
 certainly into the opposite extreme, and "Merrie 
 England," at the bidding of the Puritans, gave up 
 holidays altogether, excepting indeed Christmas Day 
 and Good Friday, which were retained not, however, 
 as holidays, but as holy days. 
 
 Gradually, however, the common -sense of the 
 people rebelled against this state of things, and 
 Easter Monday, Whit Monday, and Boxing Day 
 were kept, at any rate partially, as holidays. I say 
 partially, because those who really needed them 
 most those whose avocations were sedentary de- 
 rived little advantage from them. 
 
 It was impossible, for instance, for bankers or 
 merchants to avail themselves of these days, because 
 they were bound, during business liours, to meet all 
 claims legally made upon them. Any bill due and 
 
 ' Reprinted by the kind {icnnission of the editor uf the Ninrlcenth Century. 
 
 114
 
 On Bank Holidays 115 
 
 not paid would have been, and must have been, pro- 
 tested, and as a matter of fact all commercial offices 
 were open. Excepting for a week's or a fortnight's 
 holiday once in the year, the only days on which a 
 clerk could reckon were Christmas Day and Good- 
 Friday. Even if he was kindly given one or two 
 more, he probably did not know long beforehand, and 
 could therefore make no arrangements. Moreover, it 
 was improbable that other members of his family or 
 his special friends would be free on the same day. 
 
 When I was invited in 1865 to stand as one of 
 the Liberal candidates for West Kent, I naturally 
 asked myself what I should do if I were elected, and 
 one of the reasons which influenced me was the hope 
 of securing, on behalf of our people, a few days for 
 rest and recreation. 
 
 The holidays already in existence were all of 
 religious oriojin. It is remarkable that the Bank 
 Holidays created by the Act of 1871 were the first 
 ever instituted by any Legislature for the purposes 
 of rest and enjoyment; all previous were either 
 religious fasts or festivals. The Act also authorises 
 the Queen in Council to proclaim any other day to 
 be a holiday under the Act. Previously a holiday 
 might be proclaimed, but only as a fast or day of 
 national humiliation. There was no power to pro- 
 claim a holiday for thanksgiving or rejoicing. 
 
 It has often been asserted that the Bank Holidays 
 were originally intended for bank clerks only. This 
 is entirely a mistake. The Act expressly provides 
 that " no person shall be compellable to do any act
 
 ii6 Essays and Addresses 
 
 on a Bank Holiday which he would not be com- 
 pellable to do on Christmas Day or Good Friday " ; 
 and I always believed that, coming as it does in the 
 splendid summer weather, the August holiday would 
 eventually become the most popular in the whole 
 year. 
 
 It may be asked, then, Why did we call these 
 days Bank Holidays ? 
 
 The reason is rather technical. According to 
 immemorial custom the payer of a bill in England 
 has three days' grace, so that an acceptance which 
 comes due nominally on the first of the month is not 
 really payable till the fourth. If, however, the third 
 day of grace should fall upon Christmas Day, Good 
 Friday, or a Sunday, then it is not thought fair the 
 payer should have a fourth day's grace, and such 
 bills are due the day before that is to say, they are 
 due on the Saturday or the day before Good Friday 
 or Christmas Day. 
 
 Now, in considering the Bank Holidays it was 
 thought that it might act unjustly if a person were 
 called upon to provide for his acceptances the day 
 before they would otherwise have fallen due. And 
 after some consideration, therefore, we suggested that 
 bills falling due upon these days should be payable, 
 not tlie day before the last day of grace, but on the 
 day after ; so that a bill falling due on a Bank 
 Holiday becomes really payable a day later than 
 would be the case if it were due on a Sunday, Good 
 Friday, or Christmas Day. 
 
 Under these circumstances it was necessary to use
 
 On Bank Holidays 117 
 
 some special name for the new holidays in our Bill. 
 If we had called them National Holidays or General 
 Holidays this would not have distinguished them 
 from the old holidays, and, moreover, we thought 
 that it would perhaps call too much attention to the 
 proposed change. They were therefore called " Bank 
 Holidays," and this is the real origin of a word which 
 has now become so familiar. But it was never 
 intended that these holidays should be applicable 
 exclusively to banks. 
 
 Bank Holidays have not, indeed, escaped criticism. 
 A writer in this Keview has attacked them with 
 much severity. " Let Parliament," he says, " abolish 
 Bank Holidays altogether. . . . The institution has 
 been tried. It has signally and disastrously failed." 
 
 Is this the case ? It must be remembered that 
 the holidays are purely permissive. In many places 
 they were at first almost ignored. In London and 
 some other towns they were partially availed of 
 from the first, but everywhere they have gradually 
 become more and more popular and generally adopted. 
 
 Even on the first August Bank Holiday, the 
 Times told us that " cyclists of both sexes covered 
 the roads. River steamers and pleasure boats carried 
 their thousands to Kew and the upper reaches of the 
 Thames. The London parks were crowded. The 
 Botanic Gardens and the Zoological Gardens formed 
 great attractions, and the flowers of Battersea Park 
 drew large crowds all day. The India and Ceylon 
 Exhibition was visited by an enormous crowd." 
 
 I took out the numbers carried by the railway
 
 1 1 8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 companies from their London stations for the August 
 Bank Holiday of 1896, as far as I was able to ascer- 
 tain them : 
 
 Great Rastern ..... 
 
 South Eastern ..... 
 
 London and Brighton .... 
 
 London, Chatham, and Dover 
 
 South Western ..... 
 
 Great Western ..... 
 
 North Western ..... 
 
 Midland ...... 
 
 Great Northern ..... 
 
 North London ..... 
 
 London, Tilbury, and Southend 
 
 City and South London .... 
 
 The visitors to Kew Gardens were 
 
 To the British Museum and National Gallery 
 To the Crystal Palace .... 
 
 To the Zoological Gardens 
 
 To Windsor Castle .... 
 
 To Madame Tussaud's .... 
 
 Those on Hampstead Heath Avere estimated at 
 
 130,000 
 81,000 
 30,000 
 41,000 
 35,000 
 41,000 
 14,000 
 22,000 
 18,000 
 20,000 
 22,000 
 26,000 
 73,000 
 25,000 
 80,000 
 22,000 
 17,000 
 27,000 
 
 120,000 
 
 In other cities also the holiday was very generally 
 observed. 
 
 But tlien the same writer makes this very fact the 
 basis of his attack. 
 
 Four times in every year [he says] do . . . peojjle set tliem- 
 selves to look for anuiscment, and find it usually in the public 
 house. Four times in every year . . . the various police 
 magistrates (lisj)ose of interminable lists of more or less serious 
 offences arising out of the etrorts of the State and Sir John 
 Liibbock to j)rocur(! rest and recreation for the peoi)lo. . . . 
 Since on lijink Iloliflay from a fourth to an eighth of the adult 
 poorer classes of Fngland are drunk before the end of the day, 
 it is not astonishing that the following nu)rning should display 
 a goodly number of broken heads and beaten wives. . . . The
 
 On Bank Holidays 119 
 
 women are generally at least as drunk as the men on St. 
 Lubbock's festal days. 
 
 I was at first indignant at this attack on our 
 poorer countrymen and countrywomen ; but it is 
 really so extravagant and absurd as to be beneath 
 contempt. 
 
 The writer does not bring forward a tittle of 
 evidence in support of his assertion that " from a 
 fourth to an eighth " of our poorer fellow-countrymen 
 and countrywomen get drunk on Bank Holidays, nor 
 indeed could he prove his assertion. The Home 
 Secretary, Sir Matthew White Ridley, has been so 
 kind as to give me the number of charges in the 
 whole metropolis for the last August Bank Holi- 
 day and the days which immediately preceded and 
 followed. They were as follows : 
 
 Saturday . . 202 ; Tuesday. . . 240 
 
 Sunday . . . 107 ! Wednesday . .140 
 
 Monday. . . 214 | 
 
 It will be seen, therefore, that the charges on the 
 day after the Bank Holiday were very slightly above 
 the average. 
 
 Most of the cases, moreover, are said to have been 
 trivial, and the number is infinitesimal in a popula- 
 tion of 5,000,000. Indeed, Sir John Bridge, the late 
 senior magistrate for London, who speaks of course 
 with unrivalled authority, authorises me to say that 
 in his experience " the days after Bank Holidays are 
 days on which we have remarkably few charges." ^ 
 
 ^ Speaking of last Easter Monday l>ank: Holiday the Times (April 21. 1897) 
 says: "At most of the police courts the Bank Holiday charges were below 
 the average in number, and very few of them were serious."
 
 I20 Essays and Addresses 
 
 People in fact quarrel and break the law not when 
 they are happy and enjoying themselves, but when 
 they are suffering and miserable. 
 
 The writer of the article in this Review goes on to 
 say that 
 
 If everybody did things at different times we should all get 
 twice the value out of life ; . . . but this unhappily is impos- 
 sible. Man is a gregarious animal, and as the school holidays 
 must take place in August, the parents' holiday must take place 
 in August too. . . . 
 
 Is it absolutely necessary that everybody's Bank Holiday 
 should fall on the same day ? That is the real problem. Would 
 it be possible to alter the present arrangement, and spread the 
 four public holidays over other days in the year? This seems 
 the only conceivable solution. . . . We might divide up our 
 poorer classes by trades, and assign different days to each trade 
 for its holiday. . . . But there are probably practical difficulties 
 in the way of such an arrangement. 
 
 The State might abolish the present Bank Holidays, . . . 
 and content itself with enacting that every employe should claim 
 from his employer four separate days. 
 
 But this would probably be found extremely inconvenient. 
 
 As he admits that one of his alternatives would 
 probably be impracticable, and the other " extremely 
 inconvenient," it is perhaps unnecessary to discuss 
 them. But the suggestions show that he has not 
 grasped the conditions of life of those for whom Bank 
 Holidays were sj)ecially designed. He is evidently 
 not a father, or he would not assert that we should 
 "get twice the value out of life" if we did not take 
 our holidays with our ehildren. Bank Holidays are 
 popular because every one knows wlien they are 
 coming and can make arrangements beforehand. 
 Husbands and wives, parents and cliildien, brothers
 
 On Bank Holidays 121 
 
 and sisters, and friends, are, in thousands of 
 cases, engaged in different businesses, but under 
 the Act they can reckon on getting four holidays 
 at any rate all together. To withdraw this benefit 
 would deprive the holidays of half their advantage. 
 
 But the writer denies the advantage altogether, 
 and says that they have entirely failed. 
 
 So far from this, as I have shown above, the 
 evidence is conclusive and overwhelming that they 
 are immensely popular, that they are being more 
 and more wisely used, and that, in the opinion of 
 those for whom they were intended, they have 
 splendidly fulfilled the purpose for which they were 
 established. 
 
 The question, indeed, arises whether one more at 
 any rate might not be granted with advantage. 
 Easter Monday, and even Whit Monday, come gener- 
 ally somewhat early in the year, when the weather 
 is uncertain and often unpropitious. The Christmas 
 holiday falls of course in the depth of winter. 
 
 The new August holiday is therefore the only one 
 which enables our people to enjoy the " pageant of 
 summer." It is the only break between Whit Monday 
 and Christmas Day. A day in July would be an 
 inestimable boon. 
 
 Many suggestions have been made as to the best 
 way of commemorating the deep debt of gratitude 
 we owe to our late Queen. June 22 was constituted 
 a Bank Holiday in 1897. But why for that year 
 only ? I have suggested that it should be added to 
 our short list of red-letter days.
 
 122 Essays and Addresses 
 
 By many of those most concerned the idea was 
 enthusiastically welcomed. For instance, the Scottish 
 Shopkeepers' and Assistants' Union, the most im- 
 portant representative of the Scotch shopkeeping 
 community, with branches all over Scotland, and the 
 West Yorkshire Federated Chamber of Trade, passed 
 and sent me unanimous resolutions in its favour. I 
 ought, indeed, to admit that two Working Men's 
 Associations in Sheffield and Birmingham sent me 
 resolutions in the opposite sense. It must be re- 
 membered, however, that artisans do not need 
 another holiday so much as others less fortunately 
 situated. They have secured for themselves short 
 (I do not say too short) hours and a weekly half- 
 holiday. The so-called working man, in fact, works 
 less than almost any other class of the community. 
 He is employed say fifty hours per week ; shopkeepers 
 and shop assistants work in many places over eighty. 
 Clerks, of course, are not employed so long, but their 
 duties are sedentary, and a greater strain on the 
 nervous system. 
 
 Moreover, as these holidays are not compulsory 
 it would still l)e open to the artisans of IJirmingham 
 and Sheffield to 2:0 on workinsf if thev wished. I 
 <loubt, liowevcr, if they would wish long. 
 
 In any case a Bank Holiday in commemoration of 
 the Queen's roiuni would be received by thousands as 
 an inestimabh; boon ; it would increase, not diminish, 
 the national output ; it would prol)ably be adopted 
 in the Colonies, and wouhl be anotlicr link binding 
 the Empire together.
 
 On Bank Holidays 123 
 
 It would be difficult, I believe, to propose anything 
 which would add more to the health and happiness 
 of our people, or more contribute to preserve the 
 memory of Her Majesty's long, wise, and glorious 
 reign, than the institution in the middle of our 
 beautiful summer weather of a "Victoria Day."
 
 VIII 
 
 ON THE EARLY CLOSING BILL 
 
 It may be asserted with confidence that no class of 
 our fellow-countrymen or countrywomen work for 
 longer hours than shop assistants and small shop- 
 keepers. During the last thirty years I have brought 
 the subject frequently before the House of Commons, 
 having introduced the first Bill dealing with the 
 subject in 1873, but without any success until 1886, 
 when the Shop Hours Regulation Bill, which deals 
 with young persons under eighteen, became law. 
 It was referred by the House of Commons to a 
 Select Committee, which took a great deal of 
 evidence, and so impressed were they with the 
 magnitude and gravity of the evil, that besides 
 passing the Bill they ])resented to the House a 
 Special Report suggesting legislation on the lines of 
 the present Early Closing Bill. 
 
 The Iiej)ort, which I may say was adopted unani- 
 mously, called attention to the fact that " the 
 practice of keeping o])en shops until a late hour of 
 the evening prevails extensively ; " " that the hours 
 of shop assistants range, in many })laces, as high as 
 
 eighty-four per week ; that such hours must be 
 
 124
 
 On the Early Closing Bill 125 
 
 generally injurious, and often ruinous, to health ; 
 that the great majority of witnesses expressed their 
 opinion that little could be expected from voluntary 
 action in the poorer neighbourhoods ; " and they 
 ended by expressing their opinion that " nothing 
 short of legislation would be effective, and that your 
 Committee believe that employers are not indisposed 
 to such limitation, provided it takes the form of a 
 general Early Closing of Shops." 
 
 This Report was brought to the attention of the 
 Presidents of the two great Colleges the College of 
 Physicians and the College of Surgeons, and they 
 were so convinced of the gravity of the evil, that in 
 conjunction with Sir James Paget, Sir W. Priestley, 
 Sir S. Wilks, Sir R. Quain, Sir A. Clark, and Dr. 
 Play fair, representing, as I am sure every one will 
 admit, the very highest possible medical authority, 
 they issued a circular inviting the opinion of London 
 medical men to the subject, and the result was a 
 memorial technically, a petition signed by over 
 300 of the London doctors, stating that, " having 
 had our attention called to the very late hours to 
 which shops are open, and being satisfied that such 
 prolonged hours of labour are grievously injurious to 
 health, especially in the case of women, pray your 
 Honourable House to enact the Early Closing Bill 
 introduced by Sir J. Lubbock." 
 
 The then Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Benson) 
 and the Bishop of London (Dr. Temple) issued a 
 similar circular from a moral and religious point of 
 view, and a petition in support of the Bill was
 
 126 Essays and Addresses 
 
 presented by a large majority of the clergy of 
 London. 
 
 No doubt the injury is greatest in the case of 
 women, and a similar memorial was presented, signed 
 by some 400 of the nurses in our great Metropolitan 
 hospitals. 
 
 A great deal has been done of late to improve 
 the moral and intellectual condition of our London 
 people, but what use are evening schools, or poly- 
 technics, or public libraries, to shopkeepers and 
 assistants w^ho are at work till nine, ten, or eleven 
 o'clock every night 1 
 
 The House of Commons Committee reported that 
 in many places the hours of labour in shops amount 
 to eighty-four in the week, or about thirty hours 
 a week more than artisans ; and, having made a 
 special study of the question, I confidently assert 
 that matters are, on the whole, no better than they 
 were then. Competition is, indeed, perhaps even 
 keener, and the hours longer than ever. Eighty-four 
 hours a week is fourteen hours a day ; if we allow 
 eight for sleep -little enough under such circum- 
 stances there remain two hours out of the twenty- 
 four for dressing and undressing, for going to and 
 from tlic work, for Ijreakfast and supper. Not an 
 hour, not a moment, is left for amusement, for fresh 
 air, for self-improvement or family interc(3urse. No 
 wonder their health ])reaks down, no wonder our 
 medical men made their solemn protest. 
 
 In 1888 we brought in a IViW to enact a fixed 
 hour of closing, which, liowevcr, was thrown <jut, the
 
 On the Early Closing Bill 127 
 
 House of Commons being of opinion that the require- 
 ments of different places, of different seasons, and 
 of different trades rendered it impossible to fix 
 any definite hour applicable to all circumstances, all 
 trades, all seasons, and the whole Kingdom. More- 
 over, the hours in some parts of London are so 
 terribly late that whenever the change comes it must 
 be gradual. 
 
 Under these circumstances, in March 1893 I 
 moved in the House of Commons, and the House 
 unanimously resolved, " that in the opinion of this 
 House, the excessive and unnecessarily long hours of 
 labour in shops are injurious to the comfort, health, 
 and well-being of all concerned ; and that it is 
 desirable to give to local authorities such powers as 
 may be necessary to enable them to carry out the 
 general wishes of the shopkeeping community with 
 reference to the hours of closing." 
 
 In pursuance of this resolution we introduced a 
 Bill, on which the present measure is founded, and 
 in 1895 we succeeded in securing the second reading, 
 and it was referred to a Select Committee, which 
 approved it with a few verbal amendments. We 
 were, however, prevented by the opponents from 
 being on the Report stage on the third reading. 
 In 1896 it was again read a second time, and referred 
 to the Grand Committee on Trade. The Committee 
 approved it, but again the opponents succeeded in 
 preventing us from securing a day for the Report 
 and third reading. 
 
 In 1900 I brought it on in the House of Lords,
 
 128 Essays and Addresses 
 
 but it was thrown out. In 1901 we moved for and 
 secured a Committee. It consisted of Lord Salisbury, 
 the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Stamford, Lord 
 Romney, Lord Verulam, Lord Hardwicke, the 
 Bishop of Winchester, Lord Brassey, and Lord 
 Avebury. This was, I believe, the last House of 
 Lords Committee on which Lord Salisbury sat, and 
 it afforded a remarkable instance of his candour and 
 fairness. In Q-rantino; the Committee he threw cold 
 water on the whole inquiry. But having granted it, 
 he looked into the subject, and to my surprise 
 offered himself to sit on the Committee. Of course 
 I was very glad that he should do so. The evidence 
 was overwhelming, and to my great satisfaction 
 Lord Salisbury approved my report, which was 
 unanimous, and from which I subjoin the main 
 passages. 
 
 " The evidence has satisfied the Committee that the 
 subject is one of urgent importance, and that the 
 existing evils show no general or sufficient sign of 
 amendment. In many places the hours during which 
 shops are open range as high as eighty to ninety per 
 week, in addition to which some time is occupied in 
 clearing up, putting away the goods, and packing up 
 the articles purchased. 
 
 " Eighty-four hours per week of six days amount 
 to fourteen hours a day, and it is almost self-evident 
 that such long hours, especially when the shops arc 
 crowded, ill-ventilated, and lighted by gas, must (as 
 pointed out by the House of Commons Committee
 
 On the Early Closing Bill 129 
 
 of 1886) be injurious, and often ruinous, to health, 
 especially in the case of women. 
 
 " We are able, however, to appeal to the highest 
 medical testimony as to the injury thus caused. In 
 1888 the Presidents of the two great medical Colleges, 
 with some of the other leaders of the medical 
 profession, Sir James Paget, Sir Andrew Clarke, Dr. 
 Matthews Duncan, Mr. John Marshall, Dr. Playfair, 
 Dr. Priestley, Sir Richard Quain, Sir William Savory, 
 Sir Samuel Wilks, called the attention of Parliament 
 to the subject and urged the passing of the Early 
 Closing Bill. 
 
 " Considering the weight which belongs to that 
 memorial, and the fact that its statements have never 
 been seriously challenged, the Committee did not 
 deem it necessary to multiply medical evidence on 
 the subject. The Presidents, however, both of the 
 College of Physicians and of the College of Surgeons 
 have come before us and spoken strongly on the 
 great and increasing evils of the present long hours. 
 Sir W. MacCormac stated that ' there is no doubt in 
 my mind that such long hours must contribute to 
 the incidence of disease ; that it must lower the 
 general vitality of persons so engaged, and render 
 them more liable than they otherwise would be to 
 attacks of different forms of disease, and most 
 especially on account of the long hours at night 
 which such a period of work during the week entails. 
 These hours, too, for the most part are worked in an 
 atmosphere very prejudicial to health, and we know 
 how largely the air so contaminated contributed to
 
 130 Essays and Addresses 
 
 the production of various forms of disease in which 
 tubercule, for instance, and the manifold forms of 
 disease in which tubercule manifests itself, and that 
 other disease of great cities (rickets) has some parts 
 of its origin from this cause. I think, as we have 
 called attention to it, women, more especially growing 
 women women who have not reached the full growth 
 of their sex are most prone to suffer from such long 
 hours.' 
 
 " Furthermore, he urged on us that the evil is one 
 which increases as time runs on ; 'it is gradual and 
 progressive in its effects, and it goes on, I am afraid, 
 in a cumulative degree.' 
 
 "Sir W. Selby Church, the President of the 
 College of Physicians, gave similar evidence. 
 
 " Such serious warnino's from the heads of the 
 medical profession cannot in our judgment safely be 
 disregarded. We have, however, endeavoured to 
 ascertain whether there are any, and if so what, 
 objections to legislation on the subject. 
 
 " In the first place, we have endeavoured to ascer- 
 tain the views of the shopkeepers themselves. By 
 evidence, petition, or resolution we have had before us 
 the views of a lars^e number of tradesmen's associa- 
 tions, formed for the pur])Ose of trade, in all parts of 
 the country. Of these over l390^ are in favour of 
 the general provisions of the Early Closing Bill, and 
 many would wish to see it made more stringent, 
 while the only tradesmen's associations which have 
 petitioned, or desired to i^ivc evidence, ai^ainst the 
 
 ' Thia number hab since been considerably iiicreastd.
 
 On the Early Closing Bill 131 
 
 Bill were the Off License Holders and the London 
 Pawnbrokers. 
 
 " The witnesses were generally of opinion that 
 though matters would be worse if it had not been 
 for the exertions of Early Closing Associations, little 
 more could be expected from voluntary action, and 
 that nothing short of legislation would be effective. 
 
 "While deploring the long hours, they explained 
 clearly that for fear of losing custom, shopkeepers 
 were unwilling to shut their doors while their 
 neighbours were open, though they were anxious to 
 do so provided the closing were general. 
 
 " The evils of late closing press with especial 
 severity on the owners of small shops, and although 
 it is undoubtedly more difficult to ascertain the views 
 of the very small shopkeepers than of those who are 
 more fully organised, we were assured by the large 
 majority of witnesses conversant with the facts that 
 the small tradesmen were as anxious as, or even more 
 anxious than, the richer shopkeepers for some legisla- 
 tion which would enable them to shorten hours. 
 No Act which merely regulated the hours of labour 
 of shop assistants would benefit or satisfy them. 
 This evidence is amply supported by the petitions 
 we have received during the sittings of the Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 "It is sometimes alleged that although the shop- 
 keepers and their assistants are in favour of earlier 
 hours of closing, any change in that direction would 
 inflict hardship on the poorest class of purchasers or 
 consumers. It is true that little evidence has been
 
 132 Essays and Addresses 
 
 heard which, strictly speaking, can be considered to 
 represent the opinions of such purchasers. Owing 
 to the necessary want of organisation, and the well- 
 known reluctance of private persons amongst the 
 working classes to appear before public Committees 
 of Inquiry, any large body of evidence from small 
 purchasers could only have been obtained by such 
 a prolongation of the sittings of the Committee as 
 would necessarily have involved its reappointment 
 next year. In these circumstances, we have made 
 it our endeavour to ascertain, by the secondary or 
 indirect evidence of those conversant with the 
 subject, whether a reasonable curtailment of hours 
 would inflict any serious inconvenience on any class 
 of the community. The co-operative stores even 
 those which endeavour to cater for the very poor we 
 find invariably close early, and their representatives 
 assured us that this was in no way inconvenient to 
 their customers. The representatives of trades unions, 
 speaking as, or on behalf of, working-class purchasers, 
 all expressed the same opinion. There are, moreover, 
 some towns where the hours are even now reasonably 
 short, and we were assured that there were no 
 complaints on this score. Among the instances of 
 possible hardship which were suggested to us, special 
 stress was laid upon tlie cases of waiters, carmen, and 
 cabmen. These all have, however, trade unions in 
 London, and in each case the secretaries appeared 
 before us, repudiated the idea that earlier closing 
 would be injurious to those whom they represented, 
 and expressed a hope that the Early Closing Bill
 
 On the Early Closing Bill 133 
 
 would become law. Many witnesses also expressed a 
 strong desire that the law relating to Sunday trading 
 should be strengthened by applying to it the scale of 
 fines contained in the present Early Closing Bill. 
 
 " The evidence has convinced us that earlier clos- 
 ing would be an immense boon to the shopkeeping 
 community, to sho^^keepers and shop assistants alike ; 
 that the present hours are grievously injurious to 
 health, especially in the case of women ; and under 
 these circumstances we recommend that town councils 
 should be authorised to pass Provisional Orders, 
 making such regulations in respect to the closing of 
 shops as may seem to them to be necessary for the 
 areas under their jurisdiction ; and these Provisional 
 Orders should be submitted to Parliament in the 
 usual manner before acquiring the force of law. 
 Special enactments for restraining the outlay in- 
 volved, and providing for its discharge, may be 
 necessary." 
 
 We had proposed that two-thirds of the shopkeepers 
 in any locality should be authorised to memorialise 
 the local authority, and that the local authority 
 should then be empowered to close the shops (with 
 one or two specified exceptions) at the hour named ; 
 and that with some safeguards the local authority 
 should be empowered to enact a half-holiday. In 
 accordance, however, with Lord Salisbury's suggestion, 
 which for the sake of unanimity was adopted by the 
 Committee, the assent of the local authority must be 
 approved by the Home Office. It must then be
 
 134 Essays and Addresses 
 
 submitted to Parliament, and becomes operative unless 
 an address is carried against it. The two last 
 provisions seem to me unnecessary, but I do not 
 think they would be found to present any serious 
 difficulty. 
 
 It would be easy to occupy many pages or even 
 volumes with harrowing details of the terrible 
 sufferings involved in these terribly long hours. But 
 indeed they are self-evident. Eighty-four hours are 
 fourteen a day, if we allow eight for sleep little 
 enousch under such circumstances and two for 
 dressing, undressing, and going to and from the 
 shop, and not a moment is left for fresh air and 
 exercise, for recreation or self-improvement, for visiting 
 friends and relations. 
 
 I will only quote one bit of evidence. Mr. 
 Wallauer appeared before us on behalf of the London 
 Master Bakers' Society, representing over 6000 shops 
 and employing from 18,000 to 20,000 women, of whom 
 he told us " 90 per cent are employed from 7 in the 
 morning till 10 at night, and 12 on Saturdays." That 
 makes ninety-two hours a week, and on behalf of his 
 trade ^Ir. Wallauer supported this Bill, which indeed 
 he would have liked to see more stringent, because 
 they see no hope of improvement by voluntary action. 
 The hours, he said, " are unnecessarily long and ex- 
 cessively cruel, and as a matter of fact, it is white 
 slavery for the 18,000 to 20,000 females in our own 
 one trade." 
 
 They have the Sunday a blessed day of rest, but 
 under such circumstances of rest and nothing more.
 
 On the Early Closing Bill 135 
 
 Men so overworked cannot be useful citizens ; women, 
 as the greatest medical authorities have pressed on 
 Parliament over and over again, gradually fade away ; 
 they can never become the mothers of healthy and 
 vigorous children. This is a most serious considera- 
 tion, and imposes on us a great responsibility. 
 
 Indeed, the fact being admitted that thousands and 
 thousands of shop assistants were being worked four- 
 teen hours a day and sixteen on Saturdays, surely there 
 was an overwhelming case for legislation. When the 
 Factory Acts were proposed their supporters w^ere 
 never expected to prove that manufacturers them- 
 selves were in their favour. But in this case the 
 shopkeepers themselves are in favour of legislation, 
 strengthening the case immensely. 
 
 I may perhaps be asked in fact I often have been 
 asked why, if shopkeepers are in favour of shorter 
 hours, they do not close earlier. The reason is that 
 they are kept open by the keenness of competition. 
 Every one is afraid that if his neighbour remained 
 open after he himself was closed, he would lose some 
 of his customers. Let me give a case in point. 
 Some years ago the drapers of South London agreed 
 to close at 8. They did so, and w^hat happened ? A 
 new man came and opened a shop in the middle of 
 the district on purpose to get the late trade. Those 
 in the same street at once broke away and kept open 
 also, then those in the surrounding streets, and 
 within a month the whole district was as late as ever. 
 Then they held a meeting and passed a unanimous 
 resolution that nothinoj but legislation would cure the
 
 136 Essays and Addresses 
 
 evil. Over and over again it has happened that one 
 or two obstinate or selfish men keep a whole district 
 open late. 
 
 One argument often used against the Bill is that 
 it would injure the small shopkeepers. But the 
 answer is that the small shopkeepers would fix the 
 hour for themselves. As they are the most numerous, 
 and nothing can be done without the consent of two- 
 thirds of the shopkeepers, they have the matter in 
 their own hands. In fact they are the backbone of 
 the movement. 
 
 One of the most active members of the House of 
 Commons Committee of 1886 was Mr. Tborold Eogers, 
 then member for Southwark. He entered on the 
 inquiry with the impression that I was fighting the 
 battle of the assistant against the shopkeeper. But 
 after hearing the evidence of the first day or two he 
 came to me and said that he intended to devote some 
 days to visiting the small shops in his constituency. 
 At the end of the time he came and told me that he 
 was quite surprised. When he explained what we 
 proposed, they were delighted. They said they would 
 save doctors' bills, gas, and time ; would have more 
 leisure, get to bed earlier, and do just as much 
 business ; that nothinrr wliich Parliament could do 
 would add so much to their health and happiness. 
 
 The small shopkeepers have, in fact, alwavs 
 been our warmest supporters. And wliy ? Tliey 
 believe that they will get more rest and leisure, 
 that their healtli will be better, that they will save 
 in gas and other ex])enses, and last, not least, that
 
 On the Early Closing Bill 137 
 
 they will do more business. I have always main- 
 tained that they would do as much, but there is 
 amongst them a general belief, for which I must 
 say they give good reasons, that they will do more. 
 They give two reasons : firstly, that if shops shut 
 earlier people will buy what they want nearer home ; 
 and secondly, that more will be spent in the shop 
 and less in the public-house. 
 
 The classes primarily affected by the Bill are the 
 assistants, the customers, and the shopkeepers, and 
 the Bill has the support of all three. 
 
 I may just also observe in passing that the measure 
 has the general support of Early Closing Associa- 
 tions throughout the country. They have, of course, 
 studied the question most carefully, and this Bill is 
 the result. 
 
 Nor is it probably necessary to convince any one 
 that the shop assistants are anxious for shorter hours. 
 The Amalgamated Union of Assistants indeed oppose 
 our Bill as not going far enough, but so far as 
 I know they are alone in this view, and the Grocers' 
 Assistants' Association, and indeed all the other 
 Assistants' Associations, support us cordially. 
 
 As regards customers, we rely partly on public 
 meetings. In almost every great city one or more 
 public meetings, with the Mayor in the chair 
 Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Edin- 
 burgh, Glasgow, and many more have been held in 
 support of the Bill, and I believe, with a single ex- 
 ception, there has never been one against it, and in 
 this case every one w^as in favour of legislation, but
 
 138 Essays and Addresses 
 
 the meeting by a small majority preferred a Bill with 
 a fixed hour for the whole country. This proposal, 
 however, which I myself made in 1888, was rejected 
 by Parliament, on the ground that the differences of 
 trades, of seasons, and of localities, render it im- 
 practicable. 
 
 Again, petitions with thousands of signatures have 
 been presented for the Bill, and scarcely any against 
 it. The Trades Councils of London, Manchester, 
 Liverpool, Bristol, Hull, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, 
 and other places, may fairly be taken to represent 
 the views of working men, and they have passed 
 unanimous resolutions in favour of legislation. 
 
 Lastly, I come to the shopkeepers themselves. 
 Happily this is no case of the masses against the 
 classes, or of class against class. The shopkeepers 
 are I say it to their credit warm supporters of the 
 Bill. It is, in fact, the shopkeepers' Bill. They only 
 ask Parliament to grant them the power and they 
 will soon shorten the hours. The petitions in favour 
 of the Bill were to a great extent signed by shop- 
 keepers. As regards London, I presented a petition 
 in its favour signed by more than half the shop- 
 keepers affected. Tlie Bill has also been considered 
 clause by clause, and line by line, and approved by 
 two important Congresses of Shopkeepers one held 
 at Nottinfjham and one at Glasixow. But the 
 strongest evidence is the action of Shopkeepers' 
 Associations. We are supported by over three 
 hundred Shopkeepers' Associations in all parts of the 
 country. At the end of 1897 1 introduced a deputa-
 
 On the Early Closing Bill 139 
 
 tion to Sir M. White Ridley, representing the 
 principal Tradesmen's Associations who came up to 
 support the Bill, and he admitted that they 
 represented the great shopkeeping interest of the 
 country. On the other hand, so far as the Lords 
 Committee could ascertain, only tvv'o Shopkeepers' 
 Associations oppose the Bill. 
 
 We claim, then, to have shown the strong medical 
 opinion as regards the necessity of some such measure 
 in the interest of health ; the practically unanimous 
 clerical opinion in the interests of morals and educa- 
 tion; that the working men support legislation from 
 their generous sympathy with the most overworked 
 class of the community ; and last, not least, that we 
 are supported by an overwhelming majority of the 
 shopkeepers themselves. Considering the attention 
 which has been devoted to protecting the health and 
 shortening the hours of labour of those who work in 
 factories and workshops, it seems extraordinary that 
 no Government has yet given any attention to the 
 case of shop assistants and small shopkeepers. I 
 firmly believe that there is no measure which 
 Parliament could enact which would do more to 
 promote the well-being, the health and happiness, of 
 the people of our great cities.
 
 IX 
 
 ON THE PRESENT POSITION OF BRITISH 
 COMMERCE 
 
 We hear from time to time very diverse opinions as 
 to the present position of English manufactures and 
 commerce, and in some quarters the most gloomy 
 apprehensions are entertained both as to their present 
 condition and future prospects. 
 
 The facts do not seem to me to justify these 
 melancholy forebodings. 
 
 Let us see how they really stand. 
 
 So far as the jTeneral condition of trade is con- 
 cerned the amount of our exports and imports last year 
 attained the gigantic total of 878,000,000, and is 
 the largest volume of commerce ever transacted in a 
 single year by any country in the history of the world. 
 
 The value of our total exports and imports was, in 
 
 1855 
 
 . 260,000,000 
 
 1860 
 
 378,000,000 
 
 1870 
 
 547,000,000 
 
 1880 
 
 697,000,000 
 
 1890 
 
 749,000,000 
 
 lit 00 
 
 S 7 7,000,000 
 
 1902 
 
 878.0n0,^t00 
 
 Moreover, the period uf increase coincided remarkably 
 
 ' This ami tlu' t'ollowing chaiittr were written brfore tlic rtcciit speeclies 
 by Mr. CliaiiilH-riaiii ;iiul otlurs. Tliey liavc ncit >!i,ikeii my faith in Free 
 'I'rade, but I liave taki'ii (ionie tiling's for f^'raiitci whitli, to my surjirise, I 
 now see art qiifstioiie'i. Octobfr 30, I'jOS. 
 
 140
 
 Position of British Commerce 141 
 
 with the adoption of our free trade policy. For 
 the first fifty years of the last century our trade 
 showed but slow progress. After free trade was 
 adopted it went up by leaps and bounds. 
 
 Those, however, who take a gloomy view of our 
 commercial position generally complain that our ex- 
 ports are falling off compared with those of other 
 countries. Have we then in this respect any reason 
 for discouragement ? 
 
 The average value of our domestic exports in the 
 five years ending 1805 was 39,000,000, and in the 
 five years ending 1850 was 61,000,000, an increase 
 of about 22,000,000 in fifty years. In the five 
 years ending 1900 they were 253,000,000, an in- 
 crease in the next fifty years of no less than 
 192,000,000. Moreover, if we take the figures 
 every five years the result comes out even more 
 clearly. At the beginning of the century, as already 
 mentioned, our exports were 39,000,000. The Corn 
 Laws were abolished in 1846, and our average exports 
 during the preceding five years were 54,000,000. 
 In the five years ending 
 
 1850 
 
 they were 
 
 61,000,000 
 
 1855 
 
 )) 
 
 89,000,000 
 
 1860 
 
 H 
 
 124,000,000 
 
 1865 
 
 
 144,000,000 
 
 1870 
 
 
 188,000,000 
 
 1880 
 
 
 201,000,000 
 
 1890 
 
 
 227,000,000 
 
 1900 
 
 
 253,000,000 
 
 The great rise followed, therefore, very closely the 
 free trade policy. But it is often said that other
 
 142 Essays and Addresses 
 
 countries are making greater progress. Let us, then, 
 compare our own figures with those of other countries. 
 The following table gives our statistics as com- 
 pared w^ith those of France, Germany, Russia, and 
 the United States. 
 
 IMPORTS AND EXPORTS OF CERTAIN COUNTRIES, 
 
 EXCLUDING BULLION AND SPECIE 
 
 Special Trade, 1895-1900. 
 
 (OOO's are omitted. The figures up to 1809 do not 
 year ainonuted to ^'. 
 
 include shiiii 
 ,2W,0(K>.) 
 
 , the value of which that 
 
 Calendar 
 Years. 
 
 United 
 Kingdom. 
 
 France. 
 
 Germany. 
 
 Russia. 
 
 United 
 
 StaUis, 
 
 years ending 
 
 30th June. 
 
 1895 
 Imports . 
 Exports . 
 
 Total . 
 
 1896 
 Imports . 
 Exports . 
 
 Total . 
 
 1897 
 Imports . 
 Exports . 
 
 Total . 
 
 1S9S 
 Imports . 
 Exports . 
 
 Total . 
 
 1 soy- 
 Imports . 
 Exports . 
 
 Tot^il . 
 
 1900 
 Imjiorts . 
 Exports . 
 
 Total . 
 
 
 356,986 
 226,128 
 
 583,114 
 
 
 148,796 
 134,952 
 
 
 206,035 
 165,895 
 
 
 53,851 
 68,908 
 
 122,759 
 
 
 149,547 
 165,290 
 
 314,837 
 
 283,748 
 
 371,930 
 
 215,360 
 176,255 
 
 385,575 
 246,146 
 
 151,944 
 136,036 
 
 287,980 
 
 58,981 
 68,993 
 
 158,400 
 179,833 
 
 631,721 
 
 391,615 
 
 127,974 
 
 338,233 
 
 391,075 
 234,220 
 
 158,240 
 143,920 
 
 234,035 
 181,750 
 
 56,000 
 72,612 
 
 155,363 
 215,002 
 
 625,295 
 
 302,160 
 
 415,785 
 
 128,612 
 
 370,365 
 
 409,890 
 233,360 
 
 178,902 
 140,436 
 
 254,032 
 
 187,828 
 
 59,324 
 
 74,828 
 
 128,343 
 252,144 
 
 643,250 
 
 319,338 
 
 441,860 
 
 134,152 
 
 380,487 
 
 419,991 
 264,492 
 
 180.732 
 166,105 
 
 259,850 
 199,571 
 
 62,745 
 63,507 
 
 126,252 
 
 145,2.39 
 250,819 
 
 396,058 
 
 684,486 
 
 340,837 
 
 459,421 
 
 277,900 
 220,700 
 
 498,600 
 
 460,5.'n 
 291,451 
 
 176,341 
 163,121 
 
 60,430 
 72,680 
 
 133,110 
 
 177,024 
 285,516 
 
 462,540 
 
 7.'il,985 
 
 339,462 
 
 Special Tratje. 
 Exports are Ex\K)TXi 
 
 iVclc S]i<'cial IiTiporls are Imp Tts for IJomf Cdiisuii^pti 'ii. Siiecial 
 of Domestic Produce.
 
 Position of British Commerce 143 
 
 
 United 
 Kingdom. 
 
 France. 
 
 Germany. 
 
 Russia. 
 
 United 
 
 States. 
 
 Total Trade: Excess 
 of 1900 over 1895 
 
 Exports : Excess of 
 1900 over 1895 . 
 
 168,800 
 65,000 
 
 55,714 
 28,169 
 
 126,670 
 54,805 
 
 10,351 
 3,772 
 
 147,703 
 120,226 
 
 Thus, then, if we take our trade for 1900 as com- 
 pared with 1895, the figures are as follows : Russia, an 
 increase of 10,000,000 ; France, 56,000,000 ; Ger- 
 many,127,000,000; the UnitedStates,148, 000,000; 
 and the United Kingdom, 169,000,000. 
 
 Many, however, may say that the imports merely 
 show our requirements ; that for the comparison of 
 the condition of our manufacturing interests we must 
 look, not at the whole trade, but rather at the 
 exports. 
 
 Let us, therefore, take the "special" exports in 
 the same way, comparing those last year with 
 1895. The differences are: Russia, an increase of 
 4,000,000 ; France of 28,000,000 ; Germany 
 of 55,000,000; and the United Kingdom of 
 65,000,000. 
 
 The figures, therefore, certainly do not justify the 
 pessimistic views as to our commerce. 
 
 Moreover, the figures are the more remarkable if 
 we bear in mind the great falling off" in prices. The 
 President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Gerald Balfour) 
 has recently stated (Times, 11th and 19th August) 
 that if the figures were computed at the j^rices of 
 1873 our total commerce for 1902 w^ould have been 
 over 1,200,000,000, and our exports at 418,000,000.
 
 144 Essays and Addresses 
 
 In fact, for some purposes the weight would be a 
 better criterion of trade than the value. 
 
 It is not, indeed, possible to obtain such figures 
 with any accuracy. Mr. John Williamson, of Liver- 
 pool, has, however, calculated, for the Chamber of 
 Shipping, the total weight represented by the exports 
 and imports, and his results may, I think, be taken 
 as being approximately correct. 
 
 He estimates the total weight of our exports and 
 imports as having been, for 
 
 1880 . 
 1890 . 
 1900 . 
 
 53,000,000 tons. 
 76,500,000 
 102,500,000 
 
 So that they have practically doubled in twenty 
 years. 
 
 Takinor another test the total tonnag^e, steam 
 and sailing, entered and cleared, with cargoes or 
 ballast, at ports in the United Kingdom Sir John 
 Glover, in a most interesting paper read before the 
 Statistical Society, gives the following figures : 
 
 1850 
 
 32,634,000 tons 
 
 1860 
 
 58,707,000 
 
 1870 
 
 73,198,000 
 
 1880 
 
 133,250,000 
 
 1890 
 
 164,340,000 
 
 1900 
 
 208,777,000 
 
 These figures, moreover, are exclusive of the 
 tonnage of British vessels employed by Government 
 in connection with the South African War. 
 
 Not only are the figures for 1900 enormous, and 
 the greatest on record, but they show the largest
 
 Position of British Commerce 145 
 
 increase of any of the five decades, with one ex- 
 ception. 
 
 Moreover, as Sir John points out, though it is 
 true that the growth of foreign tonnage in our ports 
 has been large, " the corresponding growth under our 
 own flag has been such that the proportion of 34*89 
 per cent in 1850 is only 36-35 in 1900." This result 
 is the more surprising when we remember the bounties 
 and other artificial advantages by which foreign 
 Governments have attempted to foster theij mer- 
 cantile marine. Take France, for instance. Sir 
 John says 
 
 It would appear that the British tonnage in French ports 
 exceeds by one-half all other foreign tonnage put together, and 
 by about the same proportion does it exceed the tonnage under 
 the national flag. ... It is difficult to see what benefit the 
 French Government and people have derived from the large 
 sums paid in postal subsidies and in bounties for construction 
 and navigation. 
 
 Between 1890 and 1900, he continues, 
 
 French imports and exports increased only 12 million 
 pounds sterling, from 327 to 339 million pounds. That is a 
 poor result, seeing that the French Government paid during the 
 ten years 1891-1900 in bounties for construction and navigation 
 nearly 5| million pounds sterling, in addition to over 10 million 
 pounds sterling in subventions for postal services. It is also 
 significant that the total entries and clearances of French shipping 
 at French ports in 1890 was 9,254,879 tons, and in 1899 only 
 10,137,277 tons, and that the percentage of tonnage entered 
 and cleared under the French flag in French ports fell from 31 "9 
 in 1890 to 28-4 in 1899. The total tonnage of the French 
 mercantile marine is given at 932,735 for 1889, and 957,755 
 for 1899. These cannot be regarded as encouraging facts for 
 States which are contemplating the adoption of the bounty 
 system against ua. 
 
 L
 
 146 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Sir John appears rather surprised that the bounties, 
 subsidies, and other advantages given to French 
 shipping have had so little effect. 
 
 Is not the explanation that, while the French 
 shipowners have enjoyed substantial advantages, on 
 the other hand they have been burdened by bounties, 
 subsidies, and protection given to beetroot sugar, 
 wheat, textiles, coal, metals, and various other in- 
 dustries ? I know of no figures enabling us to 
 estimate these ; but is not the problem whether the 
 advantages they receive equal the disadvantages and 
 burdens imposed on them by the bounties and pro- 
 tection granted to other trades ? 
 
 If our shipowners receive no bounties, they are, at 
 any rate, not burdened by contributions to bolster 
 up other trades. 
 
 The French wine-growers, I understand, are now 
 agitating for bounties. They i>rge, not unnaturally, 
 that if they are taxed to support other trades 
 they should themselves receive corresponding treat- 
 ment. 
 
 But if all trades are equally protected, our manu- 
 facturers and merchants will pny with one hand what 
 they receive with the other. Or rather they will pay 
 more and receive less, because they will have to 
 support an army of officials and custom-houses, with 
 all the t'xpcuse and loss of time of declaring values, 
 official examinations, and all the tedious routine 
 which is such an impediment to commerce. 
 
 No doubt if one trade is unduly favoured, in- 
 dustry may be diverted into directions where full
 
 Position of British Commerce 147 
 
 benefit cannot be taken of the special advantages of 
 the country. 
 
 The United States have unfortunately embarked on 
 the same unwise course. No doubt the coddled indus- 
 tries have benefited. But will other United States 
 interests remain permanently passive ? Will not the 
 unprotected trades claim similar privileges ? Will 
 the Western farmer be content to be taxed for ever 
 for the benefit of the manufacturer ? No doubt the 
 United States have made great progress, not, how- 
 ever, as I believe, in consequence of, but in spite of 
 their policy, and mainly owing to their immense 
 tracts of virgin soil, the rapid increase of population, 
 and the energy of their people. 
 
 Many people are alarmed because our imports so 
 greatly exceed the exports. The explanation, how- 
 ever, is really very simple. The average difference 
 for the last five years is 180,000,000. Now the 
 Board of Trade estimate, and give good reason for 
 estimating, the earnings of our ships at, in round 
 figures, 90,000,000, and the interest on our foreign 
 and colonial investments at another 90,000,000, 
 which, therefore, together would just account for the 
 difference. 
 
 But then the question arises. Has our trade been 
 profitable ? Is the country prosperous, or are wc 
 bleeding to death, as some alleo;;e ? Here also the 
 answer seems conclusive. 
 
 The Commissioners of Inland Revenue in their 
 last report ^ say, that " the growth of income in 
 
 ' 1903, Cd. 1717, p. 172.
 
 148 Essays and Addresses 
 
 recent years, as indicated by the Income Tax returns, 
 has indeed been so remarkable that we venture to 
 offer a few observations upon the subject. 
 
 "Taking the series of eight years ending 1901-02 
 (final figures are not available for 1902-03), and 
 comparing it with an equal series in the period of 
 greatest prosperity in past times, viz. the eight years 
 from 1868-69 to 1875-76, we obtain the following 
 results : 
 
 Gross Income 
 brought under view 
 of the Department. 
 
 1868-69 398,794,000 
 
 1875-76 544,376,000 
 
 1894-95 657,097,000 
 
 1901-02 866,993,000 
 
 showing an increase in thirty - three years of 
 468,000,000, or, in other words, that our income 
 has more than doubled. 
 
 " Six years ago, the assessment for Income Tax 
 under Schedule D that which comprises profits of 
 trade was 254,000,000 ; but last year it was 
 347,000,000, showing an increase of over90,000,000 
 in six years. Or take the death-duties, which Mr. 
 Gladstone used to regard as perhaps the best criterion 
 of prosperity. The value of the estates liable to 
 duty of which the Department had notice was in 
 1897 247,000,000; in 1902 it was 270,000,000, 
 showing an increase of 23,000,000." ' 
 
 Moreover, they continue, " it must be remembered 
 that iu the years 1868-69 to 1875-76 an abnormal 
 
 ' l'.>03, Cd. 1717, p. 86.
 
 Position of British Commerce 149 
 
 impetus had been given to our trade by various cir- 
 cumstances ; by the enormous demands of the United 
 States of America for steel and iron in connection 
 with the extension of her railways, and other works 
 of rehabilitation following on the Civil War ; by the 
 interruption of continental competition due to the 
 Franco -Germ an War ; and by the numerous foreign 
 loans raised in this country, and of which much was 
 expended on products and manufactures of the 
 United Kingdom." 
 
 Protectionists are in the habit of comparing the 
 German and British commerce of 1872 with that 
 of 1902. It must, however, be remembered that 
 in 1872 German trade was injuriously affected by 
 the Franco-German war, while in 1902 we were in 
 the middle of the South African trouble. 
 
 It is possible that some part of the increase in 
 the proceeds of the Income Tax may be due to more 
 careful collection, but it cannot be doubted that the 
 figures show a remarkable progress during the very 
 period when we are assured that we have been 
 " bleeding to death " under a system of " one-sided 
 Free Trade." 
 
 The Atlantic Combine 
 
 Much has been said about the so-called purchase 
 of some of the Atlantic lines. It is, however, rather 
 a combination than a purchase. The money received 
 by the shareholders has been raised by debentures, 
 for which their shares are responsible. It is not really
 
 150 Essays and Addresses 
 
 a sale, but a return of capital. The ships, it is under- 
 stood, will remain under the British flag. Whether the 
 arrangement will eventually be for the advantage of 
 the shareholders will depend on whether the economies 
 will or will not make up for the expenses involved. 
 The position is rather complex, for the combination 
 is an American company, though the ships are under 
 the British flag. Some of our friends are very 
 anxious alDout our food supply in time of war. The 
 arrangement seems to me, in that important aspect, 
 very satisfactory, as we may feel confident that the 
 United States could never permit the ships of an 
 American company to be interfered with on the high 
 seas. 
 
 But while I fail to see in the present position of 
 our commerce and manufactures any reason for de- 
 spondency or discouragement, we can only retain our 
 position by the continued exercise in the future of 
 the qualities by which it was created in the past. 
 
 Much might be done by 
 
 (1) A wiser system of education, and especially 
 more attention to 
 
 1. Modern Lan2;uno[es. 
 
 2. Science and Technical Education. 
 
 (2) Strict economy in our national expenditure. 
 
 (3) Better relations between capital and la1)our. 
 Among otluT difliculties with whicli we have to 
 
 contend might be mentioned our complex and peculiar 
 system of weights an<l measures, the int(>rference of 
 national and municipal authorities, and unfair restric- 
 tions imposed by foreign countries.
 
 Position of British Commerce 151 
 
 Consul-General MiclielP of St. Petersburg says, 
 "One of the things that strikes nearly all travellers 
 in Russia is the large number of travellers met, 
 German, French, or American, and the remarkably 
 small number of British representatives. . . . Another 
 reason of the success of the Germans is the thorough 
 way in which each traveller works his district, the 
 fact that he generally has certainly two languages at 
 his command, the fact that he never accepts ' No ' as 
 an answer, and also the amount of useful information 
 about the country he already possesses before landing 
 in the country itself. As an instance of this, I 
 should like to quote a case I myself saw last winter. 
 This was a young German travelling for a large 
 German printing concern. He came of a good 
 family, and was always very well turned out. He 
 spoke, besides German, English and French fluently, 
 and had a very fair command of Spanish and Danish, 
 as also a smattering of Polish and Russian. His 
 working hours were from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. As soon 
 as he arrived he got a good teacher and worked hard 
 at the Russian language in the evenings. He came 
 over with a list of most of the big Moscow houses 
 and their standing. He stayed in Moscow three 
 months, and when he left he told me he had 
 an order from nearly every big house in Moscow, 
 whence he proceeded to St. Petersburg, Riga, etc., to 
 carry on the same work. This is but one example 
 that happened to come under my personal notice, 
 
 1 "Report on the Foreign Commerce of llussia," Dip. and Cons. Reports, 
 No. 3062, 1903, p. 40.
 
 152 Essays and Addresses 
 
 but it serves to illustrate the mauner in which the 
 Germans work Russia. I need hardly add that he 
 always quoted in kilos, and in roubles, prices lauded 
 in Moscow." 
 
 Education 
 
 Our educational system will be dealt with in a 
 subsequent chapter, and I will here only express my 
 deep sense of the loss to our commerce which results 
 from the neglect of modern lanoruao^es and science. 
 
 It is no use sending commercial travellers into a 
 country unless they know the language, and as long 
 as our schools persist in neglecting, I might almost 
 say ignoring, modern languages, it will be impossible 
 for mercantile manufacturing houses to find suitable 
 representatives. 
 
 No doubt in some important respects the recent 
 advance of Germany is very remarkable. 
 
 To a great extent this must, I think, be attributed 
 to the great advance they have made in technical 
 science, an enquiry of great interest, as we cannot 
 expect to hold our own unless our system of educa- 
 tion is greatly modified. To compete in commerce 
 without technical education would be like fighting 
 a battle with bows and arrows against rifles and 
 cannon. 
 
 We hear a great deal al)out " things made in 
 Germany." Let us sec whether we can in any 
 way realise what technical instruction has done for 
 Germany. AVe have some interesting figures in the 
 Diplomatic and Consular reports issued by our
 
 Position of British Commerce 153 
 
 Foreign Office, especially those by Consul - General 
 Oppenheimer, C. G. Schwabach, and especially in 
 that by Dr. Eose of Stuttgart. 
 
 In the case of sugar the strontium process seems 
 to be a great improvement, and no less than 90 per 
 cent of the sugar is now obtained by it. Among 
 artificial sweetening substances I may refer to 
 saccharine. 
 
 Liebig's discovery, as it may fairly be called, of 
 superphosphate of lime in 1840 has created a great 
 industry. In 1867 the production was 1000 tons; 
 in 1899 it was no less than 750,000. Another result 
 is the application of the ground slag of the Thomas 
 Gilchrist steel process to manuring purposes. 
 
 As regards colouring matters, aniline was dis- 
 covered by Runge ; and Mansfield, working in Hoff- 
 mann's laboratory devised a process by which benzol 
 could be produced from coal-tar on a large scale, thus 
 rendering the production of aniline a commercial 
 success. Perkin discovered mauveine in 1856, and 
 we might have hoped to retain the industry which 
 thus originated here, and which we have unfortu- 
 nately lost. It is now most important. The artificial 
 alizarine colour has practically replaced madder. In 
 1870 France produced 25,000 tons of madder, which 
 gradually fell to a few hundred, and now even the 
 trousers of the French troops are dyed with artificial 
 red " made in Germany." The value of the organic 
 dyes made in Germany in 1898 was no less than 
 6,000,000. A new method of making artificial 
 indigo, said to be in every respect as good as the
 
 154 Essays and Addresses 
 
 natural Indian dye, threatens the very existence 
 of that great industry. The German dye-works 
 employ about 20,000 men, over 500 academically 
 trained chemists, several millions of capital, and are 
 very profitable. 
 
 Perfumery is a smaller industry, but has made 
 great strides, though full statistics are not available. 
 I may mention, however, that the cost of vaniline 
 has been reduced from 350 per kilo, to 6, and that 
 the export of essential oils amounted to over 100,000. 
 In medicines chloral and chloroform were discovered 
 by Liebig, antipyrine by Knorr, and sulphonal by 
 Baumann. Germany now produces 70 per cent of 
 the quinine of the world and exports 65 per cent, 
 valued at 350,000. Of smokeless powder she ex- 
 ported 260,000, and of other explosives, cartridges, 
 etc., 650,000; of cellulose 1,600,000; of soluble 
 glass 6000 tons ; of ultramarine 3000 tons ; of stearic 
 acid 10,000 tons ; of glycerine 5000 tons ; of matches 
 1600 tons; of oxalic acid 650,000; of oils 70,000 
 tons; of white lead 218,000. I will only mention 
 one other ])roduct which is specially interesting, 
 namely, li(]uefied carl)onic acid. This remarkable 
 industry only conmienced practically in 1884, when 
 100 tons were pro<luf'ed ; in 1891 this had risen to 
 3000, in 181)7 to 1 1,000, and in 1898 to 16,000 tons, 
 of whi<'h Berlin alone (-onsumed 1800 tons, or 2 lbs. of 
 lir|U('fied ciirbonic acid per head ! Fifteen years ago 
 the pri('e was Is. ;i pound, from which it fell to about 
 2d. The export for 1890 amounted to 4000 tons, 
 valued at 375,000.
 
 Position of British Commerce 155 
 
 Taken altogether these chemical industries reached 
 a value of over 50,000,000, and the results of the 
 discoveries in electricity, metallurgy, etc., must also 
 be placed to the credit of science and scientific 
 education. 
 
 It is evident, then, that the technical instruction 
 of Germany has been a very remunerative investment ; 
 in the first instance a great national advantage, hut 
 a boon also to the world as a whole. 
 
 The powers of enchanters were nothing to those of 
 science. Science turns every stone into a philosopher's 
 stone turns everything into gold. 
 
 A development of commerce, won, and fairly won, 
 by science and skill, cannot be met by protection. 
 To technical education Germany owes much, and if 
 we wish to hold our own we must follow her example. 
 But I believe her success would have been even more 
 striking if her trade were free as well. In the long- 
 run Germany will inevitably have to pay dearly for 
 her protective policy. 
 
 National and Municipal Expenditure 
 
 The enormous increase in our national and muni- 
 cipal expenditure is another great difficulty. It 
 does not, indeed, handicap us in relation to France, 
 Germany, or Kussia, for they are as heavily burdened 
 as we are ; but unless great reductions are made we 
 cannot expect our manufacturers to compete success- 
 fully with those of the United States or of our 
 Colonies.
 
 156 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Labour Disputes 
 
 Our foreign consuls in their interesting reports 
 frequently call attention to the fact that our mauu- 
 facturers have lost valuable orders because they 
 cannot undertake to complete contracts so quickly 
 as foreign firms. This applies especially to ironwork, 
 bridges, locomotives, etc. 
 
 It is due in some cases to the fact that our 
 manufacturers were full of orders, and so far may 
 be regarded as a matter of congratulation, but un- 
 fortunately in others the reason has probably been that 
 the danger of strikes compels them to allow a larger 
 margin of time than would otherwise be necessary. 
 Strikes have unquestionably exercised, and the fear 
 of them is exercising, a disastrous influence on our 
 manufacturers, and though in some cases the im- 
 mediate effect may have been a rise in the rate of 
 wages, it has been dearly bought. There has been 
 a great loss while the men have been standing idle 
 besides which, strikes have driven much capital 
 abroad. They handicap our manufacturers, and I 
 am convinced that if we had had no strikes there 
 would have been more capital engaged in manu- 
 factures, more employment, and greater demand for 
 men tliat, in fact, the permanent effect has been not 
 to raise, but to lower, the rate of wages. 
 
 It is satisfactory from this point of view that, for 
 the moment at all events, labour disputes appear to 
 be diminishing. The total number for 1902^ was 
 comparatively small, and tliough a larger number of 
 
 ' Hi purt an Slrikcs caul Lwks-Out in tfu Unikd Kingdom in 1902.
 
 Position of British Commerce 157 
 
 work-people were affected than in the five preceding 
 years, the aggregate number of working days lost, 
 which is the best test of the importance of a dispute, 
 was not only less than in 1901, but was below the 
 average for the five years covered by the Report. 
 Altogether there were 442 new disputes in 1902, 
 involving about 260,000 work-people, or about 2*9 
 per cent of the industrial population of the United 
 Kingdom. With respect to the results of the 
 disputes, omitting those disputes which broke out 
 between different classes of work-people and in 
 which employers were only indirectly interested, 
 the balance of results in the remainder was distinctly 
 on the side of the employers. 
 
 As usual, the mining and quarrying trades were 
 marked by more disturbance than any other industry, 
 and in these trades more than 200,000 persons were 
 affected by disputes, or 81 per cent of the total 
 number of persons involved in disputes during the 
 year. Questions of wages were the most frequent 
 cause of disputes, though not to quite such a marked 
 degree in 1902 as in preceding years. Thus, of the 
 total of 442 disputes in 1902, 267, or 60 per cent, 
 arose under this head, but these embraced only 48 '6 
 per cent of the persons directly concerned in disputes. 
 Disputes resulting from demands for increased wages 
 embraced 26*8 per cent of all the persons involved 
 in wages disputes, w^hile resistance to reductions 
 in wages included 45 "9 per cent. Altogether rather 
 more than 56,000 work-people were involved in 
 wages disputes affecting 5525 persons ; and the
 
 158 Essays and Addresses 
 
 percentage settled in favour of the employers was 
 30 per cent ; in favour of the workmen, 31 per cent ; 
 compromised, 30 per cent. Thus far the two previous 
 years bore about the same proportion. 
 
 It is to be remarked that many labour disputes 
 are not between employers and employed, but arise 
 from refusals to work with non-union men and other 
 questions of trade -union principles, the proportion 
 so involved being 21 '8 per cent of all those directly 
 engaged in the whole of the disputes of the year. 
 The great bulk of the disputes were, as has been the 
 case in previous years, ultimately settled by direct 
 negotiation between the parties concerned or their 
 representatives. Thus out of 442 disputes, 316, or 
 7 1' 5 per cent, were settled in this way, embracing 
 86*7 per cent of all the persons involved ; only six- 
 teen disputes were settled by arbitration, and these 
 affected only 175 per cent of the work-people in- 
 volved in disputes, while thirteen disputes were settled 
 by conciliation, in which 278 per cent of work-people 
 were returned to work on the employers' terms with- 
 out negation, and in forty- seven cases they were 
 replaced by other workers.^ 
 
 But though the number of disputes has diminished, 
 the loss is still considerable. j\Ir, Ijlewellyn Smith in 
 his Itcport estimates the number of days lost in 1902 
 as 3,479,255, which we make roughly as representing 
 a loss of wages of considerably over 500.000. He 
 also informs us that the balance of the results was 
 distinctly in favour of tlie employers. 
 
 ' Chnrity Organisation licvicic, Au^'iist 1'JOIj, ji. 70.
 
 Position of British Commerce 159 
 
 We cannot, moreover, take the loss to employers at 
 less than that to the employed, so that we may safely 
 estimate the total loss to the country as considerably 
 over 1,000,000. Matters might, however, have 
 been worse, and it is satisfactory to hear that " Boards 
 of Conciliation and Arbitration are known to have 
 settled 673 cases during the year, in nine only of 
 which had a stoppage of work taken place." 
 
 Strikes are certainly the worst way of settling 
 such disputes, and I am convinced that their net 
 result has been to drive away trade, and, on the 
 whole, to lower wages. In the interests alike of 
 employers and employed it will be well if wiser and 
 more conciliatory counsels prevail in the future. 
 
 Foreign unfair Arrangements 
 
 In the following chapter will be found some illustra- 
 tions of unfair regulations made by foreign govern- 
 ments. To these might indeed be added the cases 
 in which they exclude our goods by the imposition 
 of high duties. Still so far as they do this at home 
 they injure themselves, and we have perhaps no right 
 to complain. 
 
 On the other hand, the case is different in such 
 cases as the annexation of Madagascar by France, and 
 of parts of China by Russia. Before this was done we 
 had a fair field in these countries. Now the Mala- 
 gasy and the people of North China are compelled 
 to take French or Russian goods respectively. This 
 is not only unfair to us ; it is an injury also to
 
 i6o Essays and Addresses 
 
 Germany, Japan, the United States, and other coun- 
 tries. Their interests are the same as ours. We may 
 point out that in India and the Crown colonies we 
 place French and Russian commerce at no dis- 
 advantajie. The treatment we accord to them in our 
 territories surely we may fairly claim in theirs. 
 
 I trust our Government will hold fast by the policy 
 of the open door ; and in the case of North China, for 
 instance, will urge the United States, Japan, and other 
 countries to join us in insisting that the commerce of 
 the world shall have fair play. 
 
 Consul-General Michell ^ of St. Petersburg says, the 
 " dependence on our part on the most-favoured-nation 
 clause of our treaty with this country does not in 
 many cases effectually serve as a protection of our 
 commercial interests in Russia, for in regard to several 
 classes of goods which Germany does not produce 
 and export, but which the United Kingdom does, 
 no special agreement was concluded under the Com- 
 mercial Convention still in force between Germany and 
 Russia, and consequently the duties leviable on such 
 goods would be those imposed at comparatively higher 
 rates under the general customs tariff of the Empire. 
 Thus the most- fixvoured- nation clause of our treaty 
 becomes inoperative where German interests are not 
 concerned." 
 
 Weights and Measures 
 
 As rcfjards our weis^lits and measures, a committee 
 has been appointed by the Associated C)i ambers of 
 
 ' " Rc])ort on the Foreign Coiiiniercc of Russia," Dip. and Cons. Report*, 
 No. 3062, 1903, i>. 14.
 
 Position of British Commerce i6i 
 
 Commerce to consider in what way the metric system 
 can be adapted to British traditional usages, and 
 what steps can be taken to introduce the system into 
 practical use. A very useful table has been adopted 
 by the committee, and they are in communication in 
 the first instance with the London Chamber, with the 
 view of obtaining expert evidence from different 
 trades on the subject. 
 
 Government and Municipal Interference 
 
 Have we not carried the system of government 
 and municipal supervision perhaps too far ? Personally 
 I have found inspectors merciful, but their powers are 
 tremendous ! In another chapter I have dealt with 
 the question of municipal trading. 
 
 Those connected with the electrical industry 
 especially complain of the manner in which it is 
 being hampered, and indeed in some respects almost 
 strangrled. 
 
 The Nature of Trade 
 
 It is often said that we are a nation of shop- 
 keepers. Yet our countrymen and countrywomen 
 seem to have very vague ideas as to the nature of 
 business. 
 
 They seem to think that our great cities are paved 
 with gold, and that we have nothing to do but to go 
 there and pick it up ; whereas successful business 
 means hard work, however able a man may be. 
 
 They seem to think that speculation is business ; 
 
 M
 
 1 62 Essays and Addresses 
 
 while we know that successful business means moderate 
 profits, while speculation almost always ends in the 
 bankruptcy court. 
 
 They seem to think, like the proverbial apple- 
 woman, that any business which is large enough is 
 sure to leave a profit. 
 
 They seem to think that if one person makes a 
 profit some one else must sufi'er a loss ; while we know 
 that if a business is to last it must be advantageous 
 to both sides. 
 
 They seem to think that the requisites to make a 
 efood man of business are cleverness, and smartness 
 almost amounting to a want of scruple; while we know 
 perfectly well that the requisites for success in busi- 
 ness are tact and energy, prudence and honesty. 
 
 They seem to think that the palmy days of English 
 commerce are past and gone, that we are being 
 undermined and ruined by foreign competition ; while 
 we know that on the whole we are doing pretty 
 well, and have little to complain of. 
 
 Commercial Morality 
 
 We often hear unfavourable opinions expressed as 
 to commercial morality. In this respect the com- 
 mercial community contrasts very favourably with 
 Governments. It may well liappen that from un- 
 favourable liarvests, or defeat in war, a country may 
 be compelled to appeal to the forbearance of its 
 creditors. Such, for instance, has been tlie case with 
 Argentina and Brazil, but they have fulfilled their
 
 Position of British Commerce 163 
 
 obligations as soon as circumstances permitted. Turkey 
 and Egypt found themselves unable to pay in full, but 
 made reasonable arrangements with their creditors to 
 which they have honourably adhered. 
 
 But unfortunately there is a long list of other 
 countries Portugal, Greece, Peru, Colombia, Costa 
 Rica, Equador, Guatemala, Honduras which have 
 grossly robbed those who trusted them. 
 
 No respectable firm or company would, I believe, 
 have acted so dishonestly. 
 
 No doubt there are, unfortunately, disgraceful 
 failures of firms and companies. But it must be 
 remembered that successful concerns pursue the even 
 tenor of their way, while bankrupt concerns at once 
 figure in the newspapers. Many of our firms and 
 companies are more than a century old. That to 
 which I have the honour of belonging dates back to 
 1770. 
 
 Moreover, it will be found that with the worst 
 failures our real men of business have had nothing to 
 do. No bankers, merchants, or shopkeepers figure 
 on their Boards. Designing speculators and unwary 
 dupes form speculative, or even fraudulent, companies, 
 and then, forsooth, we are told that commercial morality 
 is at a low ebb ! 
 
 Some years ago the London Chamber appointed a 
 committee on this subject of secret commissions. 
 They went carefully into the subject, and made a 
 most valuable report, the result of which was that 
 Sir E. Fry drew up a Bill which was introduced into 
 the House of Lords by the late Lord Russell. The
 
 164 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Lord Chancellor thought it too drastic, and preferred 
 a shorter and simpler Bill, which would, I believe, go 
 far to meet the evil. It has been carried through 
 the House of Lords, and it is greatly to be hoped 
 that the Government will realise the importance of 
 the subject and make time to carry it through the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 Commerce, Literature, and Science 
 
 It is sometimes supposed that men of business are 
 indiflferent to literature and science. On the contrary, 
 I believe that they have contributed fully their fair 
 proportion to our illustrious list of authors and dis- 
 coverers. No doubt business is absorbing, but is not 
 Sir W. Hoggins, the present President of the Royal 
 Society, a brewer, and the late treasurer. Sir John 
 Evans, a paper- maker. Without mentioning more 
 among the living, George Grote and Hodgkin the 
 historians, Rogers and Praed the poets, and my father, 
 were bankers, Lassell was a brewer, and Prestwich 
 was a wine-merchant before he became Professor of 
 Geology at Oxford. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 On the whole, then, I think we have no reason 
 either to be alarmed about or ashamed of British 
 commerce and manufactures. Foreign manufacturers 
 all proclaim that unless protected by heavy duties 
 they cannot hope to compete with ours successfully. 
 That very protection, however, tends to sluit foreign
 
 Position of British Commerce 165 
 
 goods out of neutral markets, and the result of such 
 a policy is to injure the protective country more 
 than us. 
 
 At the same time, I have made some suggestions, 
 and indicated certain changes which seem to me well 
 worth considering in the interests of our merchants 
 and manufacturers.
 
 X 
 
 OUR FISCAL POLICY 
 
 In the previous chapter I have discussed the present 
 position of British commerce and manufactures, and 
 endeavoured to show that there is no serious reason 
 for discouragement. We ought, however, to do all 
 in our power to stimulate and develop them, and 
 many think that this might be effected by a change 
 in our fiscal system. 
 
 It seems curious that so many of those who desire 
 protection announce themselves as convinced free 
 traders. Indeed Dr. Cunningham, in his paper 
 read before the British Association at Southport,^ 
 announced that it was "because he was attached to 
 free trade that . . . he was eajjer for Enofland to 
 reconsider her fiscal policy." He spoke of our 
 present system as " exhausting us." 
 
 This problem now before the country must be 
 considered from two different aspects. It is partly 
 commercial, and partly political. There are some 
 who, while they w(juld regret on fiscal grounds any 
 change in our system, are ready to consider in a 
 friendly spirit any wishes expiessed by the colonies, 
 
 ' Timr.i, 8ei>f. Ifi, 1903. 
 1 66
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 167 
 
 and who may be willing to make some concession of 
 their economical convictions if by doing so they can 
 induce the colonies not, indeed, to erect additional 
 barriers against foreign countries, but to make some 
 substantial progress in the direction of free, or at any 
 rate freer, trade with the mother country. I confess 
 I have been much surprised to see in the Press, and 
 to hear in conversation, doubts so often expressed 
 as to the wisdom of our free trade policy, and 
 lugubrious apprehensions as to the present position 
 and future prospects of our commerce and manu- 
 factures.^ No doubt competition is very severe, and 
 if we are to hold our own we must throw away no 
 opportunity. While, however, there is every reason 
 for industry and exertion, there seems to me no 
 ground for despondency, nor any economic reason 
 for changing the fiscal policy of the country. Our 
 manufacturers are sometimes criticised for a want 
 of energy and adaptiveness, but at any rate foreign 
 manufacturers do not venture, if they can help it, 
 to compete with ours without claiming protection. 
 Now what is the present position ? How does our 
 commerce stand ? The total of our exports and 
 imports last year was the largest volume of com- 
 merce ever transacted by either our own or any 
 other country in the history of the world. The 
 policy of free trade must, indeed, it seems to me, 
 stand or fall by general considerations. The problem 
 
 ^ This was of course written before Mr. Chamberlain's recent speeches. 
 I sympathise with his desire for closer relations with the Colonies, but his 
 views as to the unsatisfactory position of our commerce seem to me (luite 
 inconsistent with the official statistics.
 
 1 68 Essays and Addresses 
 
 
 is extremely complex ; allowances must be made for 
 increase of population, for new processes, for im- 
 provements in the steam-engine, economies in manu- 
 facture and transport, and the figures are liable to 
 many considerations from other points of view. For 
 instance, rise or fall of Jd. a pound in the average 
 price of raw cotton imported annually into the 
 country makes a difference in our imports of 
 3,500,000, and since 1870 the price has varied 
 from lOd. to 3d. a pound.^ Still, the statistics given 
 in the preceding chapter are remarkable, and they 
 seem to me conclusive. 
 
 Another test is to take the figures per head. The 
 special exports per head for the last five years 
 were : United Kingdom, 5:19:5; France, 3 : 15s. ; 
 Germany, 3:7:2; United States, 2:18:4. But 
 then the question arises : Has the trade been profitable? 
 Here also the figures already quoted seem conclusive. 
 
 Mr. Balfour tells us" that, "judged by all avail- 
 able tests, both the total wealth and the diffused 
 well-being of the country are greater than they have 
 ever been. We are not only rich and prosperous in 
 appearance, but also, I believe, in reality. 1 can 
 find no evidence that we are ' living on our capital,' 
 though in some respects we may be investing it 
 badly. Why, then, it is asked, do we trouble our- 
 selves to disturlj a system which has been so fruitful 
 in happy results ? " 
 
 Why indeed ! It is not, he tells us, that we are 
 
 ' Thr Cotton Trade and I'rvtection, ji. L'. 
 "^ Economic Notes mi Irviular Frrc Trade, p. 2.'-.
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 169 
 
 suffering now ; indeed he admits that we are pros- 
 perous. Well, then, why not leave well alone ? He 
 continues, " The source of all the difficulty being 
 protective tariffs " ; but I must interrupt him to ask, 
 " What difficulties ? " He has just admitted that 
 there is none now, but he fears there may be. 
 
 That is no doubt true, but would protection help 
 us ? What is his remedy ? The only alternative, 
 he says, "is to do to foreign nations what they 
 always do to each other, and instead of appealing to 
 economic theories in which they wholly disbelieve, 
 to use fiscal inducements which they thoroughly 
 understand." 
 
 Certainly it is well to look ahead, he continues, 
 and " the source of all the difficulty being protective 
 tariffs imposed by fiscally independent communities, 
 it is plain that we can secure no concession in the 
 direction of a freer exchange except by negotiation, 
 and that our negotiations can but appeal to self- 
 interest or, in the case of our colonies, to self-interest 
 and sentiment combined." 
 
 This plan, however, has been tried by Germany, 
 France, Russia, and other protectionist countries, but 
 has completely failed. If, however, any of them did 
 succeed we should, under the favoured nation clause, 
 secure the same advantage. Whatever concession 
 they got for themselves they would get for us also. 
 
 I must, however, admit that Russia has not 
 carried out in the spirit the undertaking to give us 
 "favoured nation" treatment. She makes a differ- 
 ence between goods coming by land and those
 
 170 Essays and Addresses 
 
 arriving by sea. As our goods naturally arrive by 
 sea, and those of Germany by land, this by a side 
 wind deprives us of our right. 
 
 The valuable Report which has recently been 
 issued by the Board of Trade, under the able super- 
 vision of Sir A. E. Bateman, includes the following 
 table, ^ which has been frequently copied, but which 
 does not, I think, bear out the conclusions which 
 have been drawn from it : 
 
 
 i Principal 
 1 Protected 
 1 Countriesand 
 Colonies. 
 
 All other 
 Countries 
 
 and 
 Colonies. 
 
 Total to all 
 Countries 
 
 and 
 Colonies. 
 
 A. Exports of all Articles 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 
 
 of British Produce. 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 1850 
 
 1 56 
 
 44 
 
 100 
 
 1860 
 
 1 51 
 
 49 
 
 100 
 
 1870 
 
 1 53 
 
 47 
 
 100 
 
 1880 
 
 1 49 
 
 51 
 
 100 
 
 1890 
 
 1 46 
 
 54 
 
 100 
 
 1900 
 
 1 45 
 
 55 
 
 100 
 
 1902 
 
 42 
 
 58 
 
 100 
 
 B. Exports of manufac- 
 
 
 
 
 tured and partly manu- 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 factured Articles. 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 1850 
 
 57 
 
 43 
 
 100 
 
 18G0 
 
 50 
 
 50 
 
 100 
 
 1870 
 
 50 
 
 50 
 
 10(1 
 
 1880 
 
 47 
 
 53 
 
 100 
 
 1890 
 
 42 
 
 58 
 
 100 
 
 1900 
 
 38 
 
 62 
 
 100 
 
 1902 
 
 
 
 
 The tal>le show.^, what no one wcnild deny, tliat 
 
 protection duties tend to check im])()rts. It docs 
 
 not, however, indicate that cur commerce with pro- 
 
 ' Page If).
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 171 
 
 tectionist countries has diminished. Take, for in- 
 stance, Germany, France, and Belgium. 
 
 The total value of our British produce exported was 
 as follows : ^ 
 
 Germany 
 
 1892 
 
 17,600,000 
 
 1902 
 
 22,900,000 
 
 France 
 
 )) 
 
 14,700,000 
 
 )) 
 
 15,600,000 
 
 Belgium 
 
 )5 
 
 6,900,000 
 
 5J 
 
 8,400,000 
 
 Eussia 
 
 )) 
 
 5,400,000 
 
 )) 
 
 8,600,000 
 
 Italy 
 
 )) 
 
 5,600,000 
 
 5) 
 
 7,400,000 
 
 50,200,000 62,900,000 
 Increase 12,700,000 ~ 
 
 62,900,000 
 
 The increase therefore has been large, though not all 
 that could be desired. 
 
 The Prime Minister does not, as I understand, 
 propose the imposition of protective duties on food 
 or raw materials. 
 
 This, then, only leaves manufactured and semi- 
 manufactured articles. 
 
 Many things which, however, are classed under 
 the head of "manufactured and semi-manufactured 
 articles " are in reality raw materials. For instance, 
 the class includes sawn timber, yarns, and pig-iron. 
 
 These are really raw materials. The Board of 
 Trade Report gives interesting particulars showing 
 how in many cases these German protection duties 
 injure Germany and benefit us. They quote - 
 a remark by M. Sayous in his work on German 
 
 1 Statistical Abstracts for the United Kingdom, 1903, p. 107. 
 - Patre 302.
 
 172 Essays and Addresses 
 
 trade that foreigners i.e. foreigners to Germany 
 " are able to purchase from the German mines, 
 blast-furnaces, and steel works at prices materially 
 lower than we {i.e. Germans) can buy, and on the 
 basis of these purchases of materials the state of 
 the foreign market for our (German) finished manu- 
 factures becomes increasingly bad." 
 
 So in regard to the paper - making trade, M. 
 Raffalovich relates that "in order to clear the 
 home market of stocks, the Kartell presses the 
 export trade ; paper is offered for export at 10 
 to 1 5 per cent less than the home trade price ; the 
 wholesale dealers at Hamburg get for 19 or 20 
 pfennigs what is sold at 22 or 23 to German buyers 
 in the home trade. But since some of these German 
 buyers are manufacturers of paper goods, who export 
 one-half of their out|)Ut, they find themselves in a 
 condition of inferiority in foreign markets which are 
 supplied by the Kartell on better terms than them- 
 selves." 
 
 The German manufacturers who work up half- 
 finished steel products complain " that sales had been 
 made abroad at very low prices, far below the prices 
 ruling in Germany (e.fj. blooms f.o.b. 80. and, subse- 
 quently, 72 marks), which made it possible for the 
 Beltrian and Enfdish rollinfj- mills to lower their 
 prices, and quite ruined the (German) foreign market, 
 with consequent evil results to the German manu- 
 facturers who work up half-finished metal products." 
 
 One result of this has been tliat " the buildine: of 
 boats for the Rhine river navigation has passed over
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 173 
 
 almost entirely to Holland, because the works in the 
 Rhenish- Westphalian district producing heavy plates 
 deliver in Holland at lower prices than in the interior 
 of Germany." 
 
 And the Report concludes this part of their 
 enquiry by the remark that our makers of tin 
 plates and sheets " would at certain times have 
 been placed in a position of some difficulty if they 
 had not been able to reckon on foreign supplies for 
 keeping their works in full activity." 
 
 Again, the report for 1902 of the Cologne Chamber 
 of Commerce complains that German half-manufactured 
 wire goods " are sold in the trade centres of England 
 at 10s. a ton less than in Germany," and the result is 
 that " the German finished wires cannot be exported 
 to Great Britain," and of course are heavily handi- 
 capped elsewhere. So also " the members of the 
 Kartell of the heavy plate trade, who buy steel from 
 the Kartell of the half-finished steel trade, complain 
 ' that their Belgian rivals, who are working up 
 German materials, have a cost of production lower 
 than their own by 10 marks.' " ^ 
 
 Thus, as the Report points out,^ 
 
 One striking result of the dumping policy of the Kartells, of 
 which some examples have already been given, but which deserves 
 further illustration, is that by supplying manufacturers abroad 
 with materials at low prices, the German syndicates make it 
 possible for these foreigners to compete on very favourable 
 terms with their rivals in Germany in regard to the sale of 
 finished products. 
 
 Thus, while their artificial and elaborate system 
 
 ' Report, loc. eit. p. 305. " Reiiort, loc. cit. p. 304.
 
 174 Essays and Addresses 
 
 has artificially fostered and coddled some of their 
 trades, it has injured and practically destroyed 
 others. 
 
 The effect of the German system on our manu- 
 facturer is more fully dealt with in a subsequent part 
 of the report, which is most interestiug. For instance, 
 the writer quotes^ RylancVs Circular of November 9, 
 1901, as expressing the opinion that "we require all 
 the steel and pig-iron they are sending us, as it is 
 impossible to get from our own blast-furnaces and 
 steel works sufficient ingots, blooms, or forge pig- 
 iron to keep our works going. Competition could 
 not have come at a better time, and we can rely 
 upon the German steel as well as we can upon our 
 make." 
 
 In the summary for 1901 the Circular says : 
 
 During the months of August, September, October, and 
 November, large quantities of German steel were sent into the 
 country at prices which left a good profit for our manufacturers 
 here when they were rolled down. This German steel found its 
 way to every steel-making centre. . . . Many sheet mills would 
 have had to have stopped in consequence of the high price of 
 pig-iron if it had not been for German steel, and it cannot be 
 said that the late advent of German steel has done any harm, 
 but that it has actually supplied a want.- 
 
 On January 11, 1902, the Circular complains that 
 the steel sheet branch " bids fair to be troubled on 
 account of the withdrawal of the German slieet bar 
 makers." On December 27, 19(2, it reports that 
 " German steel luus continued to })lay a prominent 
 part in bars, sheet and other rolled sections, and 
 
 ' Report, loe. cit. p. Sup. - Report, /'". cit. ]>. 345.
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 175 
 
 has been profitably worked up in nearly every district 
 in England." 
 
 I have dwelt upon this because it is so important 
 to realise the real effect of these semi-manufactured 
 articles, and I might quote other passages which are 
 given in the report, but the above are sufiicient to 
 show that our manufacturers and consumers have in 
 some directions greatly benefited by the cheap half- 
 manufactured materials with which Germany has 
 supplied us. I have already quoted a remark as to 
 the effect on the Rhine shipbuilding trade, and as 
 regards shipbuilding in general the figures are a 
 striking comment on the protectionist policy of 
 Germany, France, and the United States. 
 
 The importance of these considerations is well 
 shown in the magnitude of the figures. The Board 
 of Trade tells us that in consequence partly of getting 
 "semi-manufactured" articles cheaply we built in 
 1901 over 980,000 tons of shipping, against 102,000 
 built in Germany, 106,000 in France, and 469,000 in 
 the United States ; so that we built more than Germany, 
 France, and the United States put together.^ 
 
 It is sometimes asserted that by permitting com- 
 plete freedom in commerce a country may be under- 
 sold in all its industries. This is, however, as Mr. 
 Armitage Smith has clearly pointed out, " an impossi- 
 bility, since it would imply importing without ex- 
 porting ; but trade is exchange, the nation that buys 
 must sell : the one fact is the correlative of the other. 
 A nation with nothing to offer cannot buy, and if 
 
 1 Board of Trade Report, Cd. 1771, p. 379.
 
 176 Essays and Addresses 
 
 foreign goods come into a country some other articles 
 must go out in exchange." ^ 
 
 Then again, it is said that we import some things 
 which we might produce at home. This is true, 
 no doubt, to some extent. Machines invented in 
 America, chemical products discovered in Germany, 
 might no doubt be reproduced here, and it is to 
 be hoped that in time they will be. 
 
 But, with one exception namely, the trade which 
 Germany owes to her technical education if any class 
 of goods are largely and continuously imported, it 
 will almost invariably be found that this is because 
 the country from which they come has some natural 
 advantage. 
 
 Under these circumstances, to produce them here 
 would be no benefit. It is best for all that every 
 country should produce those articles for which it is 
 best suited. Free trade secures this. Protection, on 
 the contrary, forces some of the capital and labour of 
 a country into less profitable channels at the expense 
 of the community. 
 
 Suppose, for instance, a country A exports 
 5,000,000 of goods {y) to B, and imports 5,000,000 
 of other goods (2) from B in payment. It may be 
 assumed that A and B have each some advantage as 
 regards the goods which they respectively export. 
 It is said that A would be better off" if it pro- 
 duced for itself the 5,000,000 of goods {z). Is 
 this so ? 
 
 The capital and labour required to produce the 
 
 ' Fr<e Trad'. Movement arui its Renults, p. 103.
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 177 
 
 goods (z) would by the hypothesis produce less in 
 the country A. 
 
 Let us suppose they produced 4,500,000, or 
 nine-tenths. 
 
 The result would be, then, that in the first case 
 we should, by the expenditure of a certain amount of 
 capital and labour on things for which the country 
 was suitable, produce goods (y) which would purchase 
 5,000,000 of goods (2;). In the second case, by the 
 same expenditure of capital and labour, we should 
 ourselves produce goods (z) to the amount of 
 4,500,000. Therefore we should be worse off to 
 the extent of 500,000. 
 
 If, indeed, there were no imports, we should be 
 giving away our exports, which nobody would propose. 
 
 But while I maintain that there are no grounds 
 for the melancholy jeremiads we often hear with 
 reference to our commerce, there is every reason 
 to do all we can to maintain and improve it, and 
 the question remains Can this be done by legis- 
 lation, by an alteration of our fiscal system, or by 
 retaliation '? 
 
 There are certainly some respects in which, it 
 seems to me, we have serious reason to complain. 
 
 Bounties, cartels, and syndicates have raised prob- 
 lems which did not exist in the time of Cobden and 
 Bright. Sir E. Grey admits that " he could not 
 imagine a case in which some foreign country might 
 mete out to us treatment that was so obviously hostile 
 and unfair that it would be impossible for us to sit 
 still under it." 
 
 N
 
 178 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Cases have, it seems to me, arisen which give good 
 ground of complaint, and would amply justify re- 
 taliation, though I should only advocate it as a last 
 resort, hoping that our grievances may be redressed 
 without our taking any such extreme step. 
 
 For instance, the House of Commons Committee 
 on " Steamship Subsidies " report ^ that 
 
 One great contribvitory cause, with foreign subsidies, affecting 
 British trade is the reservation by foreign nations of their 
 coasting trade to their own ships. This may be regarded as 
 an indirect subvention or subsidy. Although British coasting 
 trade is absolutely open to vessels of all nations, many nations 
 reserve the trade between their own ports to their own vessels. 
 The United States extend the doctrine so as to declare a voyage 
 from New York round Cape Horn to San Francisco, or from 
 San Francisco to Honolulu, a " coasting voyage," and as such 
 they restrict it to vessels carrying the United States flag. 
 France refuses to allow any but French vessels to trade between 
 French ports and Algeria. Russia, in reserving its coasting 
 trade to its own flag, includes in this restriction the navigation 
 between liussian ports in the Baltic and the Black Sea, and 
 between all Russian ports and Vladivostok in the far east of 
 Siberia. Such restrictions do seriously affect British trade. 
 
 The Committee came to the conclusion " that the 
 occasion has come when the question . , , should be 
 considered by His Majesty's Government, with a view 
 to reserving the British and Colonial coastwise trades 
 and the Imperial coasting trade within the British 
 Empire to British and Colonial ships, and to vessels 
 of those nations who throw open their coasting trade 
 to British and Colonial ships." 
 
 The Cerman position is put (dearly enough 
 
 ' Report of Committee on Steamship .Subsiilifs, July 2S, 1902.
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 179 
 
 by a recent writer in the Neue Hamhurgische Bbr- 
 senhalle. He points out that the law of May 22, 
 1881 provides that "The right to ship merchandise 
 at a German seaport and convey it to another Ger- 
 man seaport (the coastwise-carrying trade) is reserved 
 exclusively for German ships." 
 
 But it is followed by the provision : " This 
 privilege may be granted to foreign ships by a State 
 treaty or by an Imperial ordinance, with the sanction 
 of the Federal Council." An Imperial ordinance of 
 this kind was issued on December 29, 1881, of 
 which the following was the text : " The right to 
 ship merchandise at a German seaport and carry it 
 to another German seaport (the coastwise-carrying 
 trade) is granted to the vessels of Belgium, Brazil, 
 Denmark, Great Britain, Italy, Sweden, and Norway." ^ 
 This is fair, and I can hardly doubt that other 
 countries will adopt the same course. 
 
 Again, the United States have imposed a duty of 
 about thirty shillings on hemp shipped from the 
 Philippine Islands. So far we have no right to 
 complain. But this duty is returned on hemp shipped 
 direct to the United States and employed by the 
 United States manufacturers. 
 
 The hemp shipped from the Philippine Islands is 
 known in the trade as Manilla hemp, and is largely 
 employed in the manufacture of cordage and of 
 binder twine. 
 
 Oar manufacturers in the United Kingdom of 
 
 ^ " Shipping and Subsidies," by Benjamin Taylor, North American Review, 
 April 15, 1903.
 
 i8o Essays and Addresses 
 
 cordage and binder twine made from Manilla hemp 
 have to compete with the United States manufac- 
 turers both in our home market and in neutral 
 markets, handicapped by the preference of 30s. per 
 ton enjoyed by the latter.^ 
 
 These and other similar grievances require the 
 attention of Government. They ought to be, and I 
 trust will be, redressed. If not, the Foreign Govern- 
 ments concerned cannot complain if we think it 
 necessary to take retaliatory measures. They should, 
 however, only be adopted as a last resort. 
 
 Before adopting retaliation, however, it would 
 surely be wise to consider whether it would be effective. 
 The Board of Trade have a very interesting discus- 
 sion on this point. It will be seen, they say," " that 
 490,000 tons (or 36 per cent of the total) belong to 
 countries having distant or over-sea possessions, and 
 that of these 59,000 tons (or 4 per cent of the total) 
 belong to the two countries which exclude, and 431,000 
 tons (or 32 per cent) to the five countries which permit, 
 the participation of British ships in their colonial trade. 
 " It follows that if ' reciprocity ' were a test for 
 the admission of foreign vessels to our colonial trade, 
 about 5 per cent of the foreign tonnage now engaged 
 in that trade would be excluded.'' 
 
 The two most highly protected countries are 
 Russia and the United States, Now, as Mr. Sydney 
 Buxton has pointed out, out of our total imports from 
 Russia, amounting to '25 millions, 23 (;r eleven- 
 
 ' See a Iftter from Messrs. Malcolm ami Co., July '27, IS^Ol', publisheri in 
 the Tillies. '^ Paire 187.
 
 Our Fiscal Policy i8i 
 
 twelfths consist of food or raw materials ; while in 
 the case of the United States, out of 127 millions 
 (1902), 118 or over six-sevenths were also food stuffs 
 or raw materials. 
 
 So far as o-eneral trade arrang-ements are concerned, 
 foreign countries may be divided into two categories. 
 Some Holland, Denmark, and Turkey, for instance 
 treat us fairly. They impose certain specified rates of 
 charge on all countries and all goods. Other countries, 
 however, while ostensibly giving us the favoured-nation 
 clause, and in fact imposing equal duties on all nations, 
 place high, and sometimes prohibitive, rates on just 
 those articles which we produce. Directly our manu- 
 facturers establish a trade in any article the duties on 
 it are raised against them. Suppose we acted in the 
 same way. Suppose, for example, we raised the duty 
 on claret or hock theoretically it would apply to 
 the whole world, practically it would affect France or 
 Germany alone. From this point of view we have, 
 I submit, a weapon in our own hands which in the 
 last resort we might use without affecting free trade. 
 If we have nothing to give, we have much that we 
 might take away. A special duty on hock or claret 
 would no doubt be undesirable, and is not lightly 
 to be contemplated ; but it would not be protection. 
 Protection is no remedy, and would only do harm. 
 
 We are told, indeed, that protectionist countries 
 are far more prosperous than we are. 
 
 Let us, then, compare our exports and population ^ 
 with those of protectionist countries. 
 
 1 Stat. Abs. 1903, p. 11.
 
 1 82 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Population. Exports. 
 
 Under Free Trade 
 Britain . . 42,000,000 280,000,000 
 
 Under Protection 
 
 France . . 39,000,000 161,000,000 
 
 Germany . . 58,000,000 222,000,000 
 
 United States . 79,000,000 304,000,000 
 
 Kussia . . 135,000,000 76,000,000^ 
 
 Thus if we take Germany, of which we hear so much, 
 though they have 16,000,000 more people, their 
 exports are 58,000,000 less than ours. The 
 Germans are an intelligent, capable, and hard work- 
 ing people. We might well be satisfied if, man for 
 man, our exports were equal to theirs ; but as a fact, 
 while our population is much smaller, our exports are 
 much greater ; and yet we are invited to abandon 
 our own system and adopt theirs. 
 
 Suppose, for instance, that in consequence of any 
 action by Germany we in retaliation put a heavy 
 duty on toys, and induced capitalists to manufacture 
 them here. Our capital and labour is all employed, 
 so that the first eff"ect would be to divert a certain 
 portion of each from more remunerative employment. 
 Suppose then that Germany gave way. The grounds 
 on which we took action being removed, I presume 
 the duties would be taken off, but the manufacturers 
 wlio had been induced by the duties to set u]* works 
 and machinery would be lieavy losers, and would 
 certainly consider that they had reason to complain. 
 Moreover, when we speak of foreign countries shut- 
 ting out our manufactures by protective duties, we 
 
 ' statistical Abstract, fonij^'n Couutrios (C'l. ll'M]), pp. 11, }9, 50.
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 183 
 
 must remember that, after all, these duties only refer 
 to a part of the trade. Sir R. Giffen has brought this 
 out very clearly. How small, he says, " the protected 
 portion is in some cases is shown by the calculations 
 of American statisticians that protected industries in 
 the United States do not employ 5 per cent of the 
 occupied population." ^ Moreover, some at least of 
 the protective duties fail in their effect, because the 
 industries do not as a matter of fact exist. Even in 
 our colonies the protected industries are small. The 
 colonies suffer by their policy more than we do. 
 Protection is advocated on two inconsistent grounds. 
 Even Mr. M'Kinley, for instance, in his message on 
 the occasion of his taking office, spoke of " checking 
 deficiencies in revenue by protective legislation, which 
 is always the firmest prop of the Treasury," and yet 
 extolled " the reciprocity law of 1890, under which a 
 stimulus was given to foreign trade." Evidently, 
 however, so far as it increases the revenue it does not 
 serve as protection ; and if it serves as protection it 
 must evidently check, not encourage, foreign trade, 
 so that it cannot give revenue. 
 
 Moreover, taxes on food are the worst of all. 
 Taxes on food are, as Adam Smith said long ago, 
 " a curse equal to the barrenness of the earth, or the 
 inclemency of the weather." We are now, indeed, 
 assured that protection would raise wages ; but, 
 writinof in 1878, Sir James Caird" estimated that 
 the wages of the ao-ricultural classes had risen 60 
 per cent since the repeal of the corn laws ; and 
 
 1 Nineteenth Century, July 1903. ' "The Landed Interest."
 
 184 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Sir R. GifFen, in a paper on " The Progress of the 
 Working Classes," read before the Statistical Society 
 in December 1883, made a similar statement/ 
 
 Wages, in fact, were lower in the past when there 
 were taxes on food. But suppose they did tend to 
 raise wages, such a change would necessitate a rise in 
 prices, and a rise in prices would, of course, seriously 
 cripple our manufactures in the competition of 
 the world. A difference has, I see, been drawn 
 between raw materials and food. It is understood 
 that the Government would not, under any circum- 
 stances, consent to tax raw materials. But, in the 
 long run, a tax on food would hamper our manufac- 
 tures in the same way as a tax on raw materials. 
 The word Protection sounds well, but it is misleading. 
 The fact is that a country can only protect one trade 
 at the expense of the others. Germany, for instance, 
 is held out to us as an example, because she subsidises 
 her shipping, gives bounties to sugar-growers, pro- 
 tection to farmers, to metals, to textile and various 
 other industries. But who pays ? Germany cannot 
 tax France, or Russia, or the British Empire. Her own 
 Deople have to bear the expense. The unfortunate 
 German manufacturer finds the food of his family and 
 work-people raised by the protection of agriculture ; his 
 children have had to pay more for their sugar in con- 
 sequence of the sugar bounties ; his clothing, and that 
 of those dependent on him, is dearer on account of 
 the taxes on foreign tissues ; he has to pay more than 
 
 ' Quoted in The Free. Trad'- Movi^iaent and its J^esuKs, by Aruiita^^e .Smith, 
 I). 170.
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 185 
 
 he need for any manufactures or machinery he has to 
 buy ; and he is taxed to promote canals and to subsi- 
 dise steamship companies. Last, but not least, he has 
 to watch and often to fight in the Reichstag, or there 
 is no knowing what additional burdens might be 
 imposed upon him. And, over and above all the 
 other uncertainties of commerce, he never knows 
 whether his own Government may not ruin him, 
 either by subsidising some rival industry, or by 
 depriving him of some special privilege. 
 
 In France, as we are told by M. Yves Guyot, who 
 speaks with so much knowledge and authority, 
 
 The whole art of M. Meliiie, who has been the Protectionist 
 leader for close 25 years, has consisted in uniting groups of often 
 contradictory interests, paying court to them, effecting bargains 
 between this and that party, always to the detriment of the 
 consumei', who is the general public. The policy of studying 
 the general interest is left out of account. " Betroot strikes a 
 bargain with wine ; cotton and iron come to an understanding." 
 There in a nutshell you have the role which Protectionism plays 
 in Parliamentary life.^ 
 
 Protection, in fact, introduces a subtle and most 
 dangerous form of bribery. 
 
 The result is that time and energy, which might 
 otherwise be given to the business itself, is wasted, or 
 worse, in the attempt to put pressure on Ministers or 
 to influence Legislatures. The best thing Govern- 
 ment can do for commerce is to let it alone. Trade 
 is uncertain enough without these artificial compli- 
 cations. Under protection, in addition to all other 
 problems, the merchant and manufacturer have to 
 
 ^ -'Mr Chamberlain's Programme in tlie Light of French Exjieriencu," by 
 Yves Guyot, The Fortnightly lieoiew, July 1903, ]>. 4.
 
 1 86 Essays and Addresses 
 
 consider the intentions of Government and of Parlia- 
 ment. Parliament itself is distracted, and tempted 
 by the claims of rival industries. The temptations 
 to " log rolling " are greatly increased. 
 
 Moreover, it is far from effecting the object aimed 
 at. The French have long been anxious to develop 
 their mercantile marine, and with this object in view 
 have given heavy subsidies. 
 
 As Mr. Armitage Smith says : 
 
 France gives a bounty of some 65 frs. per ton on iron and 
 steel ships. These vessels could be bought from the United 
 Kingdom and the whole bounty saved ; but for the satisfaction 
 of building them in France the nation is taxed to nearly half 
 their cost, shipbuilders alone being the gainers. Yet, according 
 to Lloyd's Register, in 1895 the United Kingdom launched 
 merchant shipping to the amount of 950,967 tons, while in the 
 same period France launched only 22,000 tons, and in 1896 
 Great Britain completed 1,159,751 tons of merchant shipping, 
 as against 365,000 tons by all other nations.^ 
 
 In explanation of this remarkable fact it must be 
 remembered that the French shipowner is handi- 
 capped by having to assist the sugar industry, iron 
 and steel manufactures, agriculture, the textile and 
 many other protected industries. 
 
 This is the reason,! believe, why the French ])ounties 
 have (lone so little to increase French shipping. 
 
 We hear a creat deal about the iron and steel 
 industry of the United States, l)ut a distinguished 
 American economist, Mr. E. Atkinson, tolls us that 
 tlie result of tlie duties on iron and steel in the 
 United States was, tliat in the ten years 1880-1890 
 
 Frf Tr(ulf Mnvmnit nnil it^ J!esu/fs, by Aiiiiitagi' Smith, p. 126.
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 187 
 
 the railway companies, the iron-founders, machinists, 
 and other consumers of iron in the United States paid 
 for iron, in excess of the prices paid by their com- 
 petitors in Europe in ten years, a sum greater than 
 the capital value of all the iron and steel works, 
 furnaces, and rolling mills existing in 1890 in the 
 whole country. This sum stands for the cost of 
 protection to iron and steel for ten years of largest 
 consumption to that date/ 
 
 Moreover, these duties have crippled American 
 industry in various ways. For instance, the " Atlantic 
 Transport Line" recently had four similar ships built 
 two in Belfast and two in Philadelphia. The 
 American-built ships cost 380,000 each, while the 
 Belfast ones cost 292,000.' 
 
 As we hear so much about "things made in 
 Germany," let us consider a moment our trade wdth 
 that country. 
 
 We exported to Germany in 1902 goods to the 
 value of 22,850,000 that country being one of our 
 best customers. We also carried a vast quantity of 
 German goods in British ships much more than she 
 carried of ours. No one, I presume, would suggest 
 that we should supply these goods and perform these 
 services gratis, and the more highly paid we are in 
 reason, the better for us. This payment we receive 
 in goods. If w^e received fewer goods, we should be 
 less well paid. Why then should we complain of receiv- 
 ing so much in other w^ords, of being so well paid ? 
 
 1 Retro- Active Influence of Duties upon Imports, by E. Atkinson (Boston). 
 ^ " Shipping and Subsidies," by Boujamin Taylor, North Avierkan Reviev:, 
 April 15, 1903.
 
 1 88 Essays and Addresses 
 
 
 Canning once wrote 
 
 In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch 
 Is giving so little and asking so much 
 
 but the complaint now made is that the Dutch and 
 other foreigners will insist on paying us too much ! 
 
 The principal complaints we hear are about woollen, 
 cotton, and iron manufacturers. But if it be an 
 injury to us to receive from Germany 1,500,000 
 of woollen manufactures, 1,100,000 of cotton do. and 
 600,000 of iron, we retaliate by dumping down on 
 them 4,100,000 of woollen manufactures, 2,250,000 
 of cotton, and 1,000,000 of iron. Surely then from 
 this point of view we have nothing to complain of? 
 
 Germany has no doubt made wonderful strides, 
 owing in great measure, as I shall attempt to show, 
 to her scientific progress ; but her commercial position 
 is artificial, and far from being satisftictory in all 
 respects. She will inevitably find that her com- 
 plicated system of bounties, and subsidies, and pro- 
 tection, helping one trade at the expense of a second, 
 and then the second at the expense of the first 
 giving bounties to manufacturers at the expense of 
 agriculturists, ;ind protection to agriculturists at the 
 expense of manufacturers will lead her into more and 
 more intricate embarrassments. 
 
 As our able consul at Frankfort, Mr. C>ppenheimer, 
 says in a recent report, 
 
 Under cover of the protectionist duties the syndicates Avere 
 enabled to keej) up i)rices at home in spite of the limited de- 
 mand, w}ierei)y the several works were y)laced in a ])osition to 
 reduce their prices for thf world's market, and were enabled 
 more easily to com})etc. The diflVrence of ]>rices, however,
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 189 
 
 fixed by the same works for sales at home and sales abroad 
 became so great that it produced very strong comments even 
 in the Diet. . . . They sold raw material and half finished 
 goods abroad at low prices, so that the home industries which 
 worked off such raw materials, etc., were severely handicapped. 
 These asserted (and not without reason) that the consumers of 
 German material in foreign countries, especially in Holland and 
 Belgium, were by these prices placed in such an advantageous 
 position that it was most difficult, if at all possible, to compete 
 against their prices. 
 
 Some cases actually transpired in which German " finishing " 
 manufacturers had to decline orders owing to the exorbitant 
 prices of raAV material, which orders subsequently passed to 
 Holland, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.^ 
 
 But it is often said tliat while Free Trade would 
 be good if adopted generally, it is a disadvantage if 
 other countries are protectionists. On the contrary, 
 Free Trade is best in any case. The more a country 
 shuts up its own market, the more it excludes itself 
 from others. Of this I have already given an in- 
 structive illustration from our shipbuilding trade (see 
 pp. 175-187). By their heavy duties, France, Ger- 
 many, and the United States have so raised the cost of 
 the materials employed, that their shipbuilders find 
 it impossible to compete with ours. 
 
 Look again at our trade with protectionist coun- 
 tries as against theirs with one another. In 1901 - 
 we sent 24,000,000 into France as against 
 15,000,000 from the protectionist country Ger- 
 many; and 18,000,000 from the United States. 
 Into the protected market of the United States of 
 America we sent 28,000,000 as against 20,000,000 
 
 ^ Diplomatic aud Consular Re[)Oits, No. 3042. Trade of the Consular 
 District of Frankfort-on-Main for 1902, p. 8. 
 - Stat. Abs. 1903, Table 21.
 
 190 Essays and Addresses 
 
 from Germany, and 15,000,000 from France. Lastly, 
 into Germany nearly twice as much as France. Pro- 
 tection, therefore, has not given France, Germany, 
 or the United States any advantage in each other's 
 markets as against us. 
 
 Is the trade of other countries, on the whole, at the 
 present moment more prosperous than ours ? As regards 
 Germany, the Times correspondent at Berlin recently 
 reported (Nov. 13, 1902) that "the memorial which 
 was recently presented to the Imperial Chancellor by 
 the Commercial Treaties Association with reference to 
 the tariff question is published this evening. . . . The 
 association, which has only been in existence for two 
 years, numbers 17,000 members and 19,000 adherents, 
 who almost all belong to the industrial and mercantile 
 classes. . . . They give employment to about 
 1,500,000 persons, on the earnings of whom it is 
 estimated that 3,500,000 persons depend, so that the 
 association may actually be said to represent the 
 economic interests of 5,000,000 persons. Regarding 
 the present economic condition of Germany, the 
 memorial speaks as follows : ' For two and a half 
 years the whole economic life of Germany has been 
 in a condition which bears the character of a crisis. 
 Althoiigli tliis crisis did not originate solely in the 
 uncertainty witli regard to commercial policy . . . 
 that uncertainty has, nevertheless, beyond the possi- 
 bility of a doul)t, greatly contributed to intensify and 
 prolong the crisis.' They, therefore, urgently request 
 that, in view of ' the present altogether intolerable 
 situation,' the existing treaties of commerce should be
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 191 
 
 prolonged for ten, or at least for five years, and they 
 incidentally observe that a mere prolongation from 
 year to year would simply be tantamount to the 
 proclamation of a ' crisis in permanence.' "... 
 
 Most of our colonies also have unfortunately adopted 
 the policy of taxing the farmer and the grazier to 
 bolster up manufactories which can only be made to 
 pay at the expense of the agricultural interest. 
 
 They sacrifice a guinea to make 1. We often 
 hear complaints that we have only one-sided free 
 trade, but free trade is good for a country whether 
 other countries are wise enough to adopt it or not. 
 Protectionist nations, in endeavouring to exclude 
 foreign goods, tend to exclude themselves from foreign 
 markets. The favoured-nation clause is the real sheet- 
 anchor of our commerce. On that we must, and may 
 fairly, insist both for ourselves and for our colonies. 
 So far, moreover, is there any evidence that we are 
 losing ground in India and the colonies ? Not at all. 
 In four years our imports into India have increased 
 10,000,000 tens of rupees; those of the whole of the 
 rest of the world 5,600,000. Sir A. Bateman, in his 
 admirable Memorandum,^ says that the figures " do 
 not show any displacement of the export trade of the 
 United Kingdom in the period in question (fifteen 
 years to 1900) by any one of our three principal 
 competitors." 
 
 Lord Northbrook, in his interesting speech in the 
 House of Lords on 10th July last (1903), showed 
 
 1 Memo, on the Comp. Statistics of Populatiou, Industry, and Coninierce 
 in the United Kingdom and some leading foreign countries, 1902, Cd. 1199.
 
 192 Essays and Addresses 
 
 clearly that India could gain little by a preferential 
 tariff, and the same opinion has recently been ex- 
 pressed by the present Secretary of State for India 
 (Lord George Hamilton). The same may be said with 
 reference to the trade of this country with India. Our 
 exports to India amount to no less than 37,500,000, 
 against 9,200,000 from foreign countries. Of these, 
 one-fifth, or 2,000,000, come from Austria-Hungary ; 
 of this, one-half, or 1,000,000, consists of sugar, which 
 we do not produce here. The next largest importer 
 into India is Russia, with 1,900,000, and out of 
 that sum 1,870,000 consists of mineral oils, which 
 we do not produce. The imports from Russia into 
 India, therefore, with the exception of mineral oils, 
 are practically nzY. Germany's imports into India 
 are 1,700,000, but over 300,000 consists of sugar, 
 and a large portion of the rest is made up of other 
 substances and products which we do not produce. 
 The imports of the United States into India are 
 830,000, and there, again, 300,000 consists of 
 mineral oils, so that the whole importation from the 
 United States, except mineral oils, is only about 
 500,000. Of the 10,000,000 imported into India 
 from foreign countries, 5,000,000 at least consists of 
 articles whicli we do not produce. 
 
 It seems clear, then, from the figures that nei^ther 
 the trade of India, nor that of this country with India, 
 would be substantially benefited by preferential trade. 
 
 Now let us take the case of Australasia. Into 
 New Zealand and Australia our imports have in 
 fifteen years increased 8,000,000, those of other
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 
 
 193 
 
 countries 6,000,000. If we compare our increase 
 in Australia and New Zealand with that of a single 
 country, even Germany, we find 8,000,000 against 
 a German increase of 1,000,000. In fifteen years, 
 with our colonies as a whole, the increase has been 
 for the United Kingdom, 15,000,000 ; for Germany, 
 6,000,000 ; for France, 1,000,000. In fact, our 
 competition in colonial markets is not so much with 
 foreign manufacturers as with colonial producers. 
 Moreover, what are the goods which foreign countries 
 import into our colonies ? As in the case of India, 
 we shall find that they are mainly goods which we 
 ourselves do not produce. 
 
 If we except Canada, which has naturally a large 
 trade with the United States, even the whole imports 
 of our colonies from foreign countries are compara- 
 
 tively small, 
 table ' : 
 
 This is well shown in the following: 
 
 Imports in Millions Sterling (Statistical Abstract 
 FOR 1901). 
 
 
 United 
 
 Other European 
 
 United 
 
 
 Kingdom. 
 
 Countries. 
 
 States. 
 
 New South Wales . 
 
 10-1 
 
 1-7 
 
 2-8 
 
 Victoria 
 
 7-2 
 
 1-4 
 
 1-5 
 
 South Australia 
 
 2-2 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 Western Australia . 
 
 2-6 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 Tasmania 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 Queensland . 
 
 2-5 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 New Zealand 
 
 6-9 
 
 3 
 
 1-4 
 
 Natal . 
 
 6-6 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 Cape of Good Hope 
 
 14-2 
 
 1-8 
 
 1-9 
 
 Canada 
 
 8-9 
 
 3-6 
 
 22-7 
 
 See Sir R. Giffen, Nineteenth Century. July 1903.
 
 194 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Evidently, therefore, any trade which a preferential 
 tariff could transfer to us from other European countries 
 is but small. 
 
 One central question on which the electors will 
 have to make up their minds is. Can any country 
 tax the foreigner ? I believe not to any substantial 
 extent. It seems to me clear that as a general rule 
 the existence of a duty raises the price rather more 
 than the mere amount of the duty. It has been 
 said, indeed, that the price of wheat in France, where 
 there is a duty, is sometimes no higher than in 
 England, where there is none. 
 
 The answer is clearly given in the Board of Trade 
 " Memoranda." ^ 
 
 " The degree of dependence of France," it is 
 pointed out, " on foreign wheat supplies varies very 
 greatly from year to year." It is therefore desirable 
 to classify the years of the twenty-year period into 
 two groups (1) years of "minimum" importation, 
 and (2) other years. 
 
 Even when the importation was at a minimum 
 the price in France was substantially above that in 
 England. When, however, France had a bad harvest, 
 and consequently a considerable importation, the price 
 was enhanced even more tlian the amount of the 
 duty. The Report gives the following table : 
 
 ' Taw 125.
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 
 
 195 
 
 
 Excess of France over United 
 
 
 
 Kingdom. 
 
 Difference between 
 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 A and B. 
 
 
 Excess of Average 
 
 Excess of Import 
 
 
 
 Price of Wheat 
 
 Duty on Wheat 
 
 
 
 per quarter. 
 
 per quarter. 
 
 
 II. All other 
 
 
 
 
 years of the 
 
 
 
 
 series.! 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 1883 
 
 2 8 
 
 1 1 
 
 -\ 7 
 
 1884 
 
 5 8 
 
 1 1 
 
 -4 7 
 
 1886 
 
 7 6 
 
 5 2f 
 
 -2 3^ 
 
 1888 
 
 11 11 
 
 8 9| 
 
 -3 U 
 
 1889 
 
 12 4 
 
 8 9| 
 
 -3 6| 
 
 1890 
 
 12 2 
 
 8 9h 
 
 -3 41 
 
 1893 
 
 11 5 
 
 8 9| 
 
 -2 7| 
 
 1897 
 
 13 7 
 
 12 21 
 
 -1 4^ 
 
 1898 
 Average 
 
 11 8 
 
 12 2i 
 
 + 6i 
 
 9 11 
 
 7 5| 
 
 -2 b\ 
 
 ^ JVoie. The years 1885, 1887, 1891, 1892, 1894, and 1902 are excluded, 
 because changes of duty either in France or the United Kingdom took place 
 in those years. 
 
 Thus " in every year but one in which the im- 
 ports of wheat exceeded the above limit (30 per cent) 
 the difference of price was greater than that of duty, 
 the average difference of price being 9s. lid., and of 
 import duty 7s. 5^d." The average difference of 
 price was therefore 2s. 5|-d. more than the duty. 
 
 It seems evident, therefore, that taxes on food 
 and manufactures must raise the prices of both. 
 This is, of course, the free trade view, and it is also 
 the view on which protection is based, for the object 
 of protective duties is to shut out foreign goods, thus 
 raising prices at the expense of the consumer for the 
 benefit of the manufacturer.
 
 196 Essays and Addresses 
 
 What, then, will be the effect of the new policy ? 
 
 Firstly, we shall have the expense of additional 
 officials and custom-houses, which will involve no 
 slight expense. 
 
 Secondly, it will be a considerable impediment to 
 trade, because not only must bales, etc., containing 
 the taxed articles be examined, but others also to see 
 that they do not contain taxed goods. Besides which 
 difficult questions will arise as to smuggling. 
 
 Thirdly, the agriculturists and other consumers 
 will have to pay heavily for the benefit of the 
 manufacturers. 
 
 Fourthly, the manufacturers and other consumers 
 will have to pay heavily for the benefit of the 
 agriculturists. 
 
 Fifthly, as the advantage or disadvantage to any 
 class will depend on the amount of the protective 
 duties they have to receive, as compared with those 
 they have to pay, there will be a constant struggle in 
 Parliament, and we have an alarming vista of bribery 
 and corruption. 
 
 And sixthly, we shall raise acute and probably 
 angry questions with foreign countries and our own 
 colonies, some of which are amongst the countries 
 with liigh protective duties. 
 
 So far then as the fiscal side of the question is 
 concerned, though we have certain just grounds of 
 complaint which, if unredressed, would fully justify 
 retaliation, there is, 1 submit, no reason for any 
 departure from the policy under which our commerce 
 and manufactures have so greatly flourished.
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 197 
 
 The advantages of free trade are well illustrated 
 by a story told of Mr. Bonar when he was negotiating 
 the Austrian treaty of commerce. The Scotch were 
 very anxious that the duty on British herrings should 
 be reduced, and Mr. Bonar was instructed to urge 
 this strongly on the Austrian Chancellor. The 
 Chancellor said he was anxious to meet the views of 
 our Government, but he asked, " In that case, Mr. 
 Bonar, what will you do for us ? " " Oh," said Mr. 
 Bonar, "we will send you many more herrings." 
 
 The policy which would really benefit our country 
 is not a return to Protection, but a better system 
 of education, a reduction in military, naval, and 
 municipal expenditure, and in more harmonious 
 relations between capital and labour. 
 
 Coming to the political aspect of the fiscal problem, 
 the desire for closer relations between different parts 
 of the Empire is important and satisfactory. Canada 
 has shown her friendly feeling to the mother country 
 by granting our trade a preference, and we greatly 
 appreciate this evidence of goodwill. Moreover, I am 
 very pleased to see that Canada has herself benefited 
 by the reduction. Our trade has increased 3,000,000 
 with Canada, and the result to Canada has been that 
 her people have got an increased supply of cheap 
 goods, her agriculture has benefited, farmers are flock- 
 ing in from the United States and settling up the far 
 west. If she would pursue the same policy further 
 she would, I feel sure, inaugurate a period of immense 
 progress and prosperity. Her farmers would save in 
 the price of clothing, implements, machinery, and, in
 
 198 Essays and Addresses 
 
 fact, in all the manufactured articles they use, while 
 they would get the same or even a better price for 
 the produce of their land. But, unfortunately, the 
 duties are in many cases still so high that even with 
 the reduction of 25 per cent they are almost pro- 
 hibitive. Now, if those on our goods are prohibitive, 
 it does not help our trade to make those on foreign 
 countries still higher. Before we can judge we must 
 know, not only the difference between the duties on 
 our goods and those of foreign producers, but also 
 that between the duties on our goods and those of 
 colonial producers. 
 
 I regretted a statement attributed, I hope, and 
 cannot but think erroneously, to Mr. Seddon, that if 
 we spurned the offer from New Zealand she would 
 make overtures to other countries. AVe have, I need 
 not say, spurned no offer from New Zealand. We 
 are not yet aware that any offer has been definitely 
 made, or, if so, what it is. But what have we done 
 with reference to New Zealand ? We have admitted 
 her produce free, while she has taxed ours.^ 
 
 We greatly appreciate the kindly feeling shown by 
 Canada to the mother country in the preference given 
 to British goods, and many are surprised that the result 
 has not l)een greater. But this is easily explained. 
 
 There appears to be a general impression that 
 Canada has favoured our commerce l)y admitting 
 British goods at a rate 33 per cent l)elow those 
 of other countries. This is true, but it is not 
 
 ' Sinci' tliis was writliTi tin' Nrw Zcilaiid (iovcrniiicnt Iiavi- proposed t.o 
 impose afiditioiial (liitifs as against IbreicrinTs, leaving the {)res(;nt rates as 
 against the Mother Country.
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 
 
 199 
 
 the whole truth. Canada admits some goods free, 
 some at a light, and others at very heavy duties. 
 The classes of goods which we import are unfortu- 
 nately just those on which heavy duties are imposed. 
 
 Though it may seem a contradiction in terms, we 
 may be given preferential rates, and yet duties might 
 be so imposed as to fall specially on British goods. 
 For instance, Canada has given us a preference, and we 
 recognise it gratefully ; but her fiscal system presses 
 with special severity on British goods, and even after the 
 preference we pay a higher rate than other countries. 
 
 This is clearly brought out in the Memorandum 
 drawn up by the Board of Trade for the consideration 
 of the Colonial Conference. They say : 
 
 Although British goods enjoy a preference compared with 
 the same goods imported from other countries, the average 
 ad valorem rate of duty on British imports taken as a whole is 
 still higher than the average duty levied on all imports, and 
 much higher than the average duty levied on imports from the 
 United States.-^ 
 
 And they give the following figures for 1900- 
 1901, bringing out this fact. 
 
 i Value of 
 Imports. 
 
 i 
 
 Custom Duty 
 collected. 
 
 Ad 
 
 valorem 
 
 E(iuivaleiit. 
 
 Imports from United ^ 
 Kingdom . . . 8,839,000 
 
 Imports from United 
 
 States . . . 22,702,000 
 
 All Imports . . . 37,241,000 
 
 
 1,612,000 
 
 2,735,000 
 5,981,000 
 
 Per cent. 
 18 
 
 12 
 16 
 
 Thus, in spite of the preference, our goods j^ay on 
 
 ' Blue-book, Colonial Conference, 1902, Cd. 1299, 1902, p. 85.
 
 200 Essays and Addresses 
 
 an average 18 per cent of their value; those of the 
 United States, on the contrary, only 12 per cent ! 
 
 To estimate the value of a preference we must 
 therefore know what the general tariff is to be. 
 
 Is the preference to be given by lowering the 
 duties on our manufactures, and if so, at what are 
 they to stand, or are the duties to remain at the 
 present rate on our produce and to be raised as 
 against foreigners ? The effect in the two cases will 
 be, of course, very different, and if the latter course 
 were adopted the benefit to our trade would be very 
 slight. Again, what articles were to be affected ? I 
 take it for granted that there cannot be one ad 
 valorem rate. Foreign gold, for instance, cannot 
 be taxed. As to future changes, the statements 
 in the Blue-book are not definite cnouo^h to enable 
 us to estimate their probable effect. For instance, 
 the Cape and Natal foreshadow a difference of 25 
 per cent, but suggest that this is to be arrived 
 at, not by lowering duties on our produce, but 
 by raising those on produce from foreign countries ; 
 Australia says, "preferential treatment not yet 
 defined as to nature or extent " ; New Zealand 
 suggests "a general preference of 10 per cent, either 
 by reduction of the present duties, or by raising those 
 on foreign produce " ; but it is evident that it will 
 make an immense difl'erence to us which of these 
 courses is ado])ted, C^anada promises a further reduc- 
 tion, but does not say how much. 
 
 Do the colonies really wisli to promote trade with 
 the mother country ? If so, they must entirely change
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 201 
 
 their policy, which has hitherto been to check it. 
 We have given them long ago a free market for all 
 their produce, while they almost all endeavour to 
 exclude our manufactures by very high duties. We 
 do not ask them to exclude foreign manufacturers. 
 What we wish is that they should treat us as we 
 treat them. Do their wisest statesmen ask us to do 
 more than we have done ? Sir Wilfrid Laurier has 
 said that Canada gave us a preference because " We 
 looked carefully round the world, and we found England 
 to be the only country which receives our products 
 freely. We desired to show England our gratitude." 
 
 In his Liverpool speech Sir Wilfrid Laurier also 
 said " It is no intention of ours to disturb in any 
 way the system of free trade which has done so much 
 for England." 
 
 And in Canada he said that preferential treatment 
 might be an advantao^e. " But we cannot have it so 
 long as we have a protective tariff in Canada. . . . 
 But the moment we are ready it may take a long 
 time, but I hope that some day it will come to 
 discard our tariff, the moment we come to the doctrine 
 of free trade, then it is possible to have a commercial 
 mutual preference based on free trade in the Empire." 
 
 Mr. Cook, in an interesting article on the subject, 
 has quoted another speech of the same distinguished 
 statesman. He was asked whether he was in favour 
 of our imposiug differential rates on foreign produce, 
 and he said : 
 
 Well, no, perhaps not. If England were willing to give us a 
 preference over other nations, taking our goods on exceptionally
 
 202 Essays and Addresses 
 
 favourable terms, I would not object. It would not be for 
 Canada to shut herself out from the advantage. It would be a 
 great boon for the time. But for how long would it last 1 
 Would it be an advantage in the long run ? That is what men 
 who think beyond the passing moment have to ask themselves. 
 Suppose England did such a thing, and abandoned her free trade 
 record. She Avould inevitably curtail the purchasing power of 
 her people. And do you not think we should suffer from that, 
 we who alone have natural resources enough to feed your 
 millions from our fertile lands 1 I have too great a belief in 
 English common-sense to think that they will do any such thing. 
 What we have done in the way of tariff preference to England 
 we have, as I said, done out of gratitude to England, and not 
 because we want her to enter upon the path of protection. We 
 know that the English people will not interfere with the policy 
 of free trade, and we do not desire them to do so. We know 
 that buying more goods from England she will buy more from 
 us, and so develop trade, and the moment trade is developed 
 Canada is benefited.^ 
 
 One difficulty as regards a preferential treatment of 
 Canada is that, as Mr. Carnegie has pointed out," for 
 five months in the year, when Canadian ports are 
 ice-bound, Canadian shipments reach Britain over 
 American territory and through American ports." 
 
 To this it has been replied that Halifax and St. 
 John are open all the winter, but Mr. Carnegie calcu- 
 lates in a subsequent letter^ that the extra cost of 
 transit would be " eight shillings a quarter as com- 
 pared with exports and imports through Montreal or 
 American ports." Unless, therefore, the preference 
 amounted to a larger sum, tlie extra cliarge for freight 
 woukl be prohibitive. 
 
 ' Sir W. Lauricr (Canadian Picinier; Answer to an Interviewer, 1897; 
 quoted in "The Colonial Vii;w." by E. T. Cook, T/i< \rw Lihrral J'^vict/j, 
 .July 190.'5, p. 760. 
 
 - Times, July 25, l'.>0;j. ' Tiw^i, August G, 190.3.
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 203 
 
 Mr. Seddon, also, though he is reported as having 
 since expressed a somewhat different opinion, speak- 
 ing at the New Zealand dinner, assured us that the 
 New Zealand Government, in proposing to grant pre- 
 ference to the mother country, did so "in the spirit 
 and desire to help to give, and not a desire to take. 
 They felt it was an opportunity to assist the mother 
 country ; it was love, and not sordid motives, that 
 prompted the sending of the resolution." 
 
 The resolution adopted by the Colonial Prime 
 Ministers at the Colonial Conference was, "That the 
 Prime Ministers of the colonies respectfully urge on 
 His Majesty's Government the expediency of grant- 
 ing in the United Kingdom preferential treatment to 
 the products and manufactures of the colonies, either 
 by exemption from or reduction of duties now or 
 hereafter imposed." ^ 
 
 Excepting, however, in the case of alcohol, tobacco, 
 tea, and sugar, there are practically no such duties ; 
 nor do these affect most of our colonies. A prefer- 
 ence on tea would benefit parts of India and Ceylon ; 
 on sugar the West Indies and Queensland ; but most 
 of India and Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and 
 most of our other colonies would remain unaffected. 
 
 Our Government is enquiring, and it will be in- 
 teresting to hear the final result, but it is still more 
 important to ascertain the views of the colonies. 
 Are they prepared to abandon protection and adopt 
 free, or at any rate freer, trade within the Empire ? II 
 they are, it may be worth our while to meet them to 
 
 Colonial Conference (Cd. 1299), 1902.
 
 204 Essays and Addresses 
 
 some extent. But if they are not, how can they 
 expect us to depart from our present policy ? It 
 would be most unwise and ungracious to throw cold 
 water on any real proposals for closer trade connection 
 with the colonies. An appeal to the country on such 
 an issue would be most unfortunate. On the other 
 hand, how can the country be asked to abandon the 
 policy of fifty years without knowing what is to be 
 adopted in its stead ? And yet, if we decide to 
 maintain the existing system, we shall seem to flaunt, 
 and shall certainly be told that we are flaunting, the 
 colonies. 
 
 The Government are amply justified in negotiat- 
 ing. They have as I have said done so already. 
 
 Yet I confess I view with some alarm the prospect 
 of bargaining with our colonies. We may seem to 
 favour one colony, or one interest ; and may find that, 
 instead of closer union, we have roused jealousies, 
 suspicions, and animosities. The colonies propose 
 to give the mother country a preference. We welcome 
 their intention. It is impossible it would be most 
 ungracious and unwise to meet them by a simple 
 non jjossumus. We must face the (juestiou. The 
 Unionist Party feel, and are justified in feeling, 
 great confidence in the Prime Minister, in the Duke 
 of Devonshire, in Mr, Cliamberlain, and the other 
 Ministers,^ If they could negotiate an arrangement 
 with the colonies wliich, in their judgment, was fair 
 and wise, 1 believe it would be one which the 
 
 ' Tliis was written before Mr. I'alfour's aiui Mr. Cliamlierlain's speeche?, 
 and before the recent niiuisterial cluinj^es.
 
 Our Fiscal Policy 205 
 
 country might and would accept ; but to go to the 
 country on a mere question of preferential trade in 
 the abstract would surely be unfair and unsatisfactory. 
 We ought not, it seems to me, to be expected to 
 commit ourselves to any vague resolutions. For my 
 own part, I am prepared to examine any proposals 
 which would tend to develop our commerce with the 
 colonies, and to strengthen the bonds which unite 
 the various parts of the Empire. But till we know 
 what the proposals are, we shall be wise to 
 suspend our judgment, and to maintain our free 
 trade policy. To promote closer union with the 
 colonies is a great and noble object. The difficulties 
 are great they may be insuperable ; but while the 
 colonies may feel sure that we shall consider their 
 suggestions in a friendly and sympathetic spirit, still 
 as men of business they cannot expect us to do any- 
 thing which will cripple or endanger that magnificent 
 commerce on which the comfort and prosperity of our 
 people so greatly depends.
 
 XI 
 
 ON MUNICIPAL TRADING 
 
 The duties entrusted to our Local Authorities are 
 of great complexity, difficulty, and importance. Not 
 content, however, with the functions necessarily fall- 
 ing within their province, some municipalities have 
 of late years launched out into extensive commercial 
 operations. 
 
 The objections felt to this new departure are not 
 founded in any way on mistrust of, or opposition 
 to, municipal institutions. We fully recognise how^ 
 admirably the members of municipal bodies have 
 fulfilled the arduous and important duties which are 
 entrusted to them, and the wish that they should 
 have time fully to think out the various problems 
 which come before them is one of the stronij reasons 
 which induce us to regret the course they have 
 adopted. AVhile, however, admitting to the full tlie 
 abilities of those who belong to our municipal bodies, 
 it does not necessarily follow that they liave the 
 special knowledge which is recjuired to conduct maiiu- 
 facturinsT and business uudertakincfs to a successful 
 issue. 
 
 One result of the recent change in policy has 
 
 206
 
 On Municipal Trading 207 
 
 been an enormous increase of municipal indebtedness, 
 wbicb has of late years risen, and is rising, by a far 
 higher ratio than the rateable value. As a whole, 
 the indebtedness of the local authorities of England 
 and Wales has risen from 198,000,000 in 1889-90 
 to 300,000,000 in 1900-1901, an increase in ten 
 years of over 100,000,000. 
 
 It will be generally admitted to be most desirable 
 that Municipal Councillors should be men of " light 
 and leading " men well informed and of experience. 
 
 But it will be found more and more difficult 
 to secure such candidates if too heavy demands 
 are made on their time, and especially if they 
 are expected to carry on gratis immense business 
 concerns. 
 
 Lord Eosebery long ago laid it down as one of 
 the conditions of successful working of the London 
 County Council that you " should not break the back 
 of the Council." But have you not done so ? In the 
 debate on the London Education Bill, Sir H. Campbell- 
 Bannerman spoke of " the overworked County 
 Council," adding that " the duties are more trying 
 than those undertaken by any other such body on 
 the face of the earth." Again, in the same debate. 
 Sir Edward Grey said, " No man could touch the 
 work of education in London and do it properly, and 
 give any attention whatever to the other work falliug 
 within the province of the County Council." 
 
 No wonder that Municipal Councillors change so 
 frequently. So overwhelming is the work that, out 
 of 140 original Councillors, after thirteen years only
 
 2o8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 twenty-nine remain I and it is becoming more and 
 more difficult to obtain good candidates. 
 
 Coming to the financial aspect of the problem, 
 there are no doubt many who honestly think that 
 municipalities, by undertaking various businesses, 
 may make a profit, and thus benefit the community 
 in two ways by supplying the necessaries and con- 
 veniences of life at low prices, and by reducing rates. 
 
 Others believe, on the contrary, that our munici- 
 palities have their hands full enough, that individual 
 enterprise and the stimulus of individual interest 
 enable private enterprise to work more economically 
 than governments or municipalities, and that munici- 
 pal interference will inevitably check the progress of 
 discovery and invention. 
 
 The supporters of Municipal Trading speak con- 
 temptuously of '* private speculators." To my mind, 
 there is a wide distinction between legitimate enter- 
 prise and anything which can correctly be called 
 " speculation." But if speculation is the right word, 
 then I submit that speculative investments ought not 
 to fall within the limits of municipal duties, or to be 
 made with ratepayers' moneys. But though not 
 necessarily speculative, the development of new in- 
 dustries and the purchase of patents are attended with 
 many risks. Trustees are veiy properly precluded 
 from any sucli investments, and local authorities, being 
 essentially, though not perhaps technically, trustees 
 for the ratepayers, ought not to embark on enter- 
 prises which necessarily involve considerable risk of 
 loss.
 
 On Municipal Trading 209 
 
 There are two ways in which we may bring the 
 subject to the test: (l) by general considerations; 
 and (2) by figures and statistics. The whole subject 
 is so complex that the former argument weighs most 
 with me, but the figures also point very clearly to 
 the desirability of restraining Municipal Trading 
 within the narrowest possible limits. 
 
 Members of municipal bodies are elected on general, 
 often on political, grounds, without any reference to 
 these industrial undertakings ; moreover, they cannot 
 give that close personal attention to details which is 
 absolutely necessary if business is to be carried on 
 profitably. No doubt in time they would acquire the 
 necessary knowledge, but in the meanwhile great 
 mistakes might be made and great sums of money 
 might be wasted. 
 
 These new principles are now urged in the 
 name of progress, but they are entirely contrary 
 to the old traditions of the Liberal party, to the 
 teaching of Cobden and Bright, of Mill and of 
 Fawcett. 
 
 Of course I do not doubt that in some cases profits 
 have been made. When a municipality has had a 
 monopoly, and been able to charge what it likes, it is 
 easy, of course, to show a profit on paper, I may 
 give as an illustration a statement from Saturday's 
 Times. " Mr. Eobert Donald says that Manchester 
 reduced its rates in 1900-1901 by 7d. in the pound, 
 through Municipal Trading. This is the way it was 
 done. The Corporation wanted a subsidy of 50,000 
 in relief of rates from the gas undertaking, and, as
 
 2IO Essays and Addresses 
 
 there was no surplus, the price of gas was raised 3d. 
 per 1000 feet in order to yield it." ^ 
 
 The return recently obtained by Sir Henry Fowler 
 is generally quoted as showing a profit of about half 
 per cent on the outstanding capital ; of course after 
 payment of interest on the capital borrowed. But 
 while I do not question the accuracy of the accounts, 
 I do doubt very much whether the full amount has 
 been written off for rent, law expenses, salaries of the 
 general stafi*, and, above all, for depreciation. The 
 fact that those who support Municipal Trading have 
 resisted any further enquiry into the subject shows 
 that they dread the light. I have little doubt that 
 examination by competent accountants would show 
 that there has been a loss instead of a profit. Nor is 
 it clear that allowance has in all cases been made for 
 the rates which would have been received if the 
 property had been in private hands. For these 
 reasons the statements we often see of supposed 
 profits made by municipalities seem to me al)Solutely 
 untrustworthy. 
 
 That governments and municipalities should, as 
 far as possible, abstain from entering into business 
 was almost an axiom amongst economists when I was 
 young. It was the opinion of C()l)den and Bright, of 
 Fawcett and John Stuart Mill. Cobden, for instance, 
 in his great si)eech against governments and munici- 
 palities entering into commercial and manufacturing 
 business said : 
 
 " I find that you can never make the conductors 
 
 ' Tinus, .lanuary 17, M'03.
 
 On Municipal Trading 211 
 
 of these establishments understand that capital they 
 have to deal with is really money. It costs them 
 nothing, and whether they make a profit or loss they 
 never find their way into the gazette. Therefore, to 
 them it is a myth it is a reality only to the tax- 
 payers." Since then we have had a good deal of 
 dear bought experience, and it has quite borne out 
 the wisdom of Mr. Cobden's views in this respect. 
 But we are told that these great men were all " old 
 fogies," and that we know better now. 
 
 I am confident, however, that those best qualified 
 to judge are still of the same opinion. 
 
 Lord Alverstone, for instance, the Chairman of the 
 Council of the Society of Arts, as the result of his 
 great experience, expressed the opinion a short time 
 ago that 
 
 " Whatever might be said as to the profit made 
 out of undertakings, such as gas or tramways worked 
 by corporations, his belief was that the burden on the 
 ordinary ratepayer was less where no such risks were 
 undertaken." 
 
 Mr. Balfour Browne, the leader of the Parliamentary 
 Bar, who speaks with great authority on such a sub- 
 ject, has told us " 1 think, in this connection, it is 
 obvious that, while it is wise and right that muni- 
 cipalities should incur debts for such essential matters 
 as sewage disposal, street improvements, and water 
 supply, they should be prevented from entering upon 
 speculative undertakings, in which in the case of 
 success the gains may be great, but in which in the 
 case of failure the loss would be deplorable . . .
 
 212 Essays and Addresses 
 
 *' I know there is a new school which disbelieves 
 in the efficacy of competition. We learn that, when 
 a combination is possible, competition cannot be per- 
 manent, and many people are in favour of State 
 regulation instead of the higgling of the market. I 
 do not agree with them. I have seen a great deal, 
 perhaps as much as any one, of attempts upon the 
 part of the State to manage and regulate railways, 
 and, after a not unprofitable experience, I pronounce 
 these efforts to be a failure. ... I believe that 
 competition braces the producer to enterprise and 
 caution, and that it is one great means of sending 
 useless things to the scrap heap, which would, in the 
 hands of monopoly, still be continued in use to the 
 detriment of Society. I think fair competition is the 
 fresh air of trade. But I do not think it is fair 
 competition for a Corporation with the rates behind 
 it to compete in the open market with a private 
 individual." ^ 
 
 Moreover, I should like to ask whether it is 
 intended to buy up every business which pays 
 three per cent, and if not, why some and not 
 others ? Bread is necessary, as well as water and 
 gas, and bakers make far more than three per 
 cent. 
 
 It is chiimed by the supporters of Municipal 
 Trading that the result has been a substantial profit. 
 Of course, when municipalities have a monopoly 
 and can charge wliat they like, it is easy to make 
 a certain profit. 
 
 ' SiKjech at Mechanics' Institute, Duinfrins, January 20, 1903.
 
 On Municipal Trading 213 
 
 The Town Clerk of Liverpool at a recent meeting 
 said : - 
 
 "Municipalities have been encouraged and assisted 
 by Parliament to borrow large sums of money for 
 electric lighting undertakings, and it has always been 
 on the understanding that there should be no com- 
 petition." 
 
 Monopolies are bad ; but especially Government 
 and municipal monopolies, because they are the most 
 difficult either to control or to abolish. 
 
 In expressing doubt whether the profit which 
 municipalities claim to have made has any real exist- 
 ence, I do not for a moment suggest that there is 
 any intentional inaccuracy in the accounts. There is, 
 however, a general impression amongst experts that 
 the accounts are misleading. In the first place, it 
 is believed that a considerable amount of clerical and 
 accountancy work, and some of the rent of the head 
 office applicable to the various undertakings, is, in 
 many cases, charged to the general municipal account. 
 This work corresponds to what in a company is paid 
 for the secretary, solicitor and accountants, and a 
 portion of the rent, and it is obvious that a proper 
 allowance must be made for these items before the 
 real profit, if any, is arrived at. 
 
 In the second place, the amount allowed for de- 
 preciation seems much too small. 
 
 It may be hoped that the Parliamentary Com- 
 mittee now sitting will appoint some accountant to 
 investigate the accounts from this point of view, 
 and tell us how the balance really stands. I confess
 
 214 Essays and Addresses 
 
 I greatly doubt whether any bahmce of profit will 
 remain. 
 
 The accounts are very difficult to follow, and in 
 some cases are deliberately so dealt with as to show 
 paper profits. 
 
 For instance, in one case, the London County 
 Council in 1901 ^ bought some land in and near 
 Long Lane valued at 2875, handed it over to the 
 Housino^ Committee for Workmen's Dwellino^s, but 
 only charged them 1432 for it. Please observe 
 that I am not charging either the Council or the 
 Committees with any fraudulent intention. I will 
 read the actual report of the Committee. They 
 said: "The value of the land was 2875 and the 
 Housing Committee could afford only to pay 1432 
 for it. Re-housing was a statutory obligation, and 
 ought to form part of the cost of the improvement. 
 Under those circumstances the Improvements Com- 
 mittee had agreed to let the Housing Committee 
 have the land at the reduced price of 1432, in 
 order to remove the estimated deficiency from the 
 Housing Account and to make it a charge upon 
 the Improvement Account." They recommended: 
 "That the action of the Improvements Committee 
 in fixing the value of the necessary land for re- 
 housing purposes at 1432 l)e confirmed." 
 
 Another case reported on the same day is ev^en 
 more extraordinary. " The Improvements Com- 
 mittee further reported that the Council had ac- 
 quired a site in London Fiekls, Hackney, for 
 
 ' Tfic Times, November 20, 1902.
 
 On Municipal Trading 215 
 
 re-housing about 486 persons who would be displaced 
 by the Mare Street improvement. The value of 
 the land was 1250, but the Housing Committee 
 could not afford to pay anything for it ; and, for 
 reasons similar to those in the Southwark case, the 
 Improvements Committee recommended the Council to 
 fix the value of the land for rehousing purposes at nil." 
 
 Now, though, I say again, I do not impute any 
 intention to deceive, it is obvious that when accounts 
 are thus dealt with it is difficult to draw conclusions 
 from them. 
 
 Take, again, the question of gas. Does the 
 possession of gas-works by municipalities benefit 
 the community ? The facts seem to show that they 
 do not. The circumstances of towns differ indeed, 
 so that it is not possible to arrive at an absolute 
 proof, but the figures are significant. 
 
 In cities where the municipality provides the gas, 
 the charges were as follows per thousand feet in 
 January this year : 
 
 Birmingham 2s. 9d. to 2s. 3d., according to consumption. 
 
 Manchester. 2s. 9d. 
 
 Salford . 2s. 8d. and 2s. 7d., according to consumption. 
 
 Nottingham 2s. lOd. to 2s. 4d., according to consumption. 
 
 Bolton . 2s. 6d. 
 
 Hull . . 2s. 8d. 
 
 Leicester . 2s. 4d. 
 
 Bradford . 2s. 3d. to Is. Hid., according to consumption. 
 
 Leeds . 2s. 3d. 
 
 In cities supplied by companies the charges are: 
 
 Liverpool . 2s. 8d. 
 Bristol . 2s. 3d.
 
 2i6 Essays and Addresses 
 
 York. . 2s. 2d. to Is. lid., according to consumption. 
 
 Newcastle . 2s. Id. 
 
 Hull . . 2s. Od. 
 
 Plymouth . Is. 9d. 
 
 Sheffield . 2s. Od. to Is. 8d., according to consumption. 
 
 Thus, in places supplied by companies, gas is sub- 
 stantially cheaper than where it is in the hands of 
 the municipality. 
 
 So far as I can judge, Nottingham and Sheffield 
 give a fair test. In Nottingham it is supplied by the 
 municipality, in Sheffield by a company. Fifteen 
 years ago the price was the same in both ; in Not- 
 tingham it has gone up, and in Sheffield it has gone 
 down, till now it is in Nottingham, on an average, 
 about 2s. 8d. per 1000 feet, and in Sheffield only Is. 8d. 
 
 The case, however, is not so simple as it might 
 seem. Besides the price of gas there are several 
 other points to be considered. All gas has not the 
 same illuminating power. For instance, that of 
 Manchester, I am informed by Sir George Livesey, 
 is 19 candle-power, while that of Liverpool is 20 
 candle-power, and, he considers, so much more rigidly 
 tested that the diffi^rence is equivalent not to one 
 candle, but really to three candles. Again, most of 
 the companies are subject to severe restrictions and 
 testing ill regard to sulphur compounds (other than 
 sulphuretted hydrogen, which is always removed), 
 while, on the contrary, out of over 200 cor])oratious, 
 very few are under any such restrictions. Where 
 municipalities take over gas-works tliey almost invari- 
 ably succeed in getting these }rovision:^ removed.
 
 On Municipal Trading 217 
 
 It is, I think, an important consideration that 
 where the gas is supplied by companies the munici- 
 palities watch jealously, I do not say too jealously, 
 over the quality. But where it is supplied by the 
 municipality we have no such guarantee. On the 
 whole, it seems to me that the sliding scale arrange- 
 ment, such as we have in London, where the company 
 must lower their dividend if they raise the price of 
 the gas, and may raise it if they lower the price, is 
 the best arrangement for the public. 
 
 Take again the proposed purchase of the London 
 Water Companies. A prominent supporter of Muni- 
 cipal Trading has recently argued in favour of purchase 
 because " it would mean, to begin with, a more gener- 
 ous supply of water at lower prices, and the community, 
 instead of paying 10 or more per cent in perpetuity to 
 water companies, would wipe the original capital out 
 of existence in fifty or sixty years." 
 
 Of course, if the capital on which 10 per cent is 
 paid could be bought at ^par it would be a very good 
 business, but every one knows that we shall have to 
 buy at a valuation which would giA^e the shareholders 
 about their present income. To talk of 10 per cent 
 is, therefore, most misleading. Lord Landaff's Com- 
 mission has been quoted as being in favour of purchase. 
 Their report is a very curious document, but their 
 conclusion was that, even without " the more generous 
 supply " or the " lower prices " which have been 
 promised, the result of purchase would be a deficit 
 in the income " which can only be met by increasing 
 the water charges or coming on the ratepayers.
 
 2 1 8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 That has always been my coutention, and I have, 
 therefore, always opposed purchase. Why we should 
 take a course which must involve either a higher rate 
 or a higher charge for water, I cannot see. The 
 future, however, is always to some extent a matter 
 of doubt. The past, however, is matter of history. 
 In 1879 Mr. Smith was deputed to negotiate with the 
 water companies, and he had actually arranged a price. 
 I opposed the purchase then, as I do now. Eventually 
 it was rejected, and what has been the result ? The 
 Water Committee of the London County Council, in 
 1891, went carefully into the figures, and in a report, 
 signed by the late Lord Farrer, they say : " The 
 aggregate of Mr. Smith's annuities to the shareholders 
 for 1880 to 1890 would have been .9,555,719, whilst 
 the actual profits earned by the same shareholders 
 during that period have been 8,498,180," so that if 
 that purchase had l)een carried out there would have 
 been a loss of 1,057,539. 
 
 Look, again, at the result of the Works Committee 
 of the London County Council. Here is an immense 
 business, controlled by gentlemen who know very 
 little about it. The Chairman was asked some time 
 ago how many l)ricks were laid by a London County 
 Council l)ri('klayer in a day. He said he would 
 inquire. When pressed again, he said the question 
 was (litHcult to answer, but it was something over 
 300. In America the average per day is, I am 
 informed, 2000, rising to 2700. No wonder the 
 Works Committee often greatly exceed the esti- 
 mates. But that is not all. How about the estimates
 
 On Municipal Trading 219 
 
 themselves ? If you put your own estimates high 
 enough, it is easy to do the work for less. Let me 
 give you a case in point. The following letter is 
 from Mr. R. Glutton, the great land agent. He 
 writes : 
 
 Dear Lord Avebury Kef erring to our conversation the 
 other day, the facts as to the estimate given by the Works 
 Department of the London County Council for constructing 
 vaults at Knightsbridge, in connection with the widening there, 
 are as follows : The estimate of the Works Department for the 
 brickwork for these vaults was 28 per rod (on cement). The 
 Office of Works jobbing contract for the same description of 
 work, whether in the basement or on the top of a high building, 
 is 19 : 2s. per rod. This, in my opinion, would make 18 per 
 rod a very good price for vaults, but even taking the 19 : 2s. 
 as a basis the difference is quite absurd. Yours very truly, 
 
 Ralph Clutton, 
 
 9 Whitehall Place, London, December 24, 1902. 
 
 Now what has been the result of the working of 
 the London tramways by the London County 
 Council ? 
 
 After various negotiations the tramways north of 
 the river were leased to a company, while the Council 
 determined itself to work those of the south. The 
 capital value is approximately the same : 850,000 
 on the north, 896,000 on the south, but the mileage 
 on the north is about 18 miles greater. 
 
 In 1900 the profits on the northern side were 
 39,000, and on the south 43,000, those on the 
 south being therefore rather the larger of the two ; 
 in 1901 they were on the north 40,000, on the 
 south 14,325 ; in 1902 they were on the north
 
 2 20 Essays and Addresses 
 
 still 39,000, but those on the south had fallen to 
 9000. 
 
 Thus the result of working, instead of leasing, the 
 southern tramways has involved to the ratepayers 
 a difference of over 40,000 in the year. Part of 
 this no doubt is due to a reduction in fares, which 
 raises the question how far it is right to use capital 
 belonging to the whole metropolis for the benefit of 
 a certain section of ratepayers.^ 
 
 The working of railways by Governments is a very 
 instructive object-lesson. In Victoria, for instance, 
 the working of the railways by the State proved so 
 disastrous that the Government appointed a Board 
 
 ' As Mr. Benn has questioned, not indeed tlie actual figures, but the 
 conchision wliich I have drawn from tliem, it may be interesting to quote the 
 following : 
 
 " The London Manual for 1903 states, with regard to the electrification of 
 the southern lines, that 'the work was commenced in April 1902,' and in 
 the Municipal Journal of May 9, 1902, it is announced that a report of the 
 Highways Committee was submitted to the London County Council on May 6, 
 on the tender for cables for the Council's tramways between Westminster 
 and Tooting. Before the Parliamentary Committee to consider the Thames 
 River Steamboat Service Bill of the London County Council, on May 13, 
 1902, Mr. H. E. Haward, their rontroller, gave evidence as to the profits on 
 the tramways in South London since the London County Council took them 
 over in January 1899. The surjilus profits for the year ended March 1900 
 were 51,774, the next year .14,32.5, the diminution being due to an increase 
 by the Coumil in tlie rates of jiayment of its c/uploi/i's and tlie establishment 
 of a ten-hours day, to certain reductions in fares, and increased cost of forage. 
 In the year ended March 1902 the surjilus })rofits fell to 9062, the decrease 
 being due to a furtlnr i i^( in the cost of forage, to an increase in the rates 
 impo.sed on tlic j)ermanent way, and to a slight increase in the income-ta.x. 
 The accounts for tlie yc;u ended March 1903 were not yet published, Mr. 
 Haward said, but he and the manager of the tramways had, in February, 
 preparecl an estimate in whieli they expressed the opinion tliat the southern 
 system wouhl, in tljai year, sliow a loss of .t-l7UI, due entirely to a los.s of 
 receipt.s, estimated at 14.000. <'onsequent on the dislocation of traffic 
 through the eleetrilication of the lines. ... In cross - examination Mr. 
 Haward stated that the London County Council started the South London 
 tramways with a net protit of 04,000." J/m; Time.\ .Inly 14, 1903. 
 
 The loss on the southern system for the year ending March 1903 has 
 since been stated to V)e 2250.
 
 On Municipal Trading 221 
 
 of Inquiry, which reported " That the service is 
 disorganised, and that political influence is noticeable 
 throughout. It recommends the complete separation 
 of the railways from the State, and the placing of 
 them under a board of five trustees with a general 
 manager. If this is done, the report states that an 
 annual saving of 365,000 is indicated, including a 
 general reduction in wages," ^ The loss, indeed, was 
 in six years over 2,000,000, and the Committee 
 reported that it was due to the employees being 
 overpaid and over numerous. For the reasons to 
 which I will shortly allude, no adequate reforms were 
 made, and there is still a loss. Indeed, the workins; 
 
 
 Northern System. 
 Leased to a Company. 
 
 Southern System. 
 Worked by the Council, 
 
 
 
 Rental. 
 
 Profits. 
 
 1900 
 
 
 39,000 
 
 51,774 
 
 1901 
 
 
 40,151 
 
 14,325 
 
 1902 
 
 
 39,450 
 
 9,062 
 
 Total 
 
 
 118,601 
 75,161 
 
 75,161 
 
 alance of Profit on 
 
 Leased 
 
 
 System . 
 
 
 43,440 
 
 
 The Electrical Review discussed the question in a careful article (July 17), 
 and said that the figures "conclusively prove the case put forward by Lord 
 Avebury. . . . 
 
 "Mr. Benn explains that the diminishing figures in the south are due to 
 the process of reconstruction for electric traction, high price of forage, etc. ; 
 but if the business had been in the hands of a private company these causes 
 of interruption would have been the same, but the profit to the Council would 
 not have been affected. . . . 
 
 "The falling off in earnings during reconstruction, and increased cost of 
 working due to high price of forage, is applicable to both Council and com- 
 pany alike, and is no explanation. 
 
 "That the financial results may be unfavourably affected by the con- 
 ditions under which the business is worked may be readily understood. If 
 the employes are paid better wages for less work, and halfpenny fares estab- 
 lished, which do not pay, it is not an argument which will commend itsell 
 to business men although it may accord with the views of those who aim at 
 the transfer of all trading business to labour-governed municipalities." 
 1 Times, September 18, 1895.
 
 222 Essays and Addresses 
 
 of the Australasian railways generally has been un- 
 remunerative, and has resulted in a large loss to the 
 State. For the year 1901-1902 the figures were : 
 
 In Queensland, a loss of 450,000 
 
 Victoria, 
 
 
 291,000 
 
 New Zealand, 
 
 
 123,000 
 
 Tasmania, 
 
 
 116,000 
 
 South Australia, 
 
 
 74,000 
 
 New South "Wales, 
 
 
 33,000 
 
 
 1,087,000 
 
 Against which is a profit in 
 
 West 
 
 
 Australia of 
 
 ear of 
 
 12,000 
 
 Leaving a net loss for the y 
 
 
 no less than 
 
 
 1,075,000 
 
 I do not, however, object to Municipal Trading 
 mainly l^ecause I believe the corporations will lose 
 money. There are other and even stronger objec- 
 tions. In the first place, if municipalities are allowed 
 to trade, the time which ought to be devoted to the 
 real business of municipalities will be frittered away 
 on trading and manufacturing details. In the second, 
 very difiicult labour (juestions will be raised. Town 
 (Councillors will have to regulate the wages of their 
 electors. Just think of the tendency to set the 
 wages against tlu^ votes. Our municipal governors 
 will be placed in a difficult, if not an impossible 
 position. Is this an imaginary danger ? Look at 
 New York. The defenders of Tammany deny that 
 there is actual corru})tion, but the electors support 
 candidates who will support them, who will multiply
 
 On Municipal Trading 223 
 
 posts and appoint their nominees. Must not this 
 have a tendency to deter honest men from coming 
 forward as candidates ? 
 
 In the case of the Victorian railways, to which I 
 have already referred, the Board of Inquiry, ap- 
 pointed by Government, reported in favour of various 
 economies, which are mentioned in an instructive 
 article in the Economist. But the writer says : 
 "It is already clear that these proposals will meet 
 with the strenuous opposition of the employees who, 
 unlike the department itself, which is described as 
 ' disorganised, if not demoralised,' are closely organ- 
 ised. The Board report in connection with this 
 matter that there are seven associations established 
 amongst the employees, the avowed object of the 
 members of all being to protect their rights and 
 privileges. Against the deadweight of the associa- 
 tions, including in their ranks the very men who 
 ought to give effect to the railway policy of the 
 country, but who take side against every attempt 
 to reform, which may mean the curtailment of 
 fancied rights and privileges, the Government will 
 contend in vain, unless it has the courage to risk a 
 general strike. The Secretary of the Association 
 (an engine-driver), in the course of a long speech, 
 denounced the report of the Board in unmeasured 
 terms, calling its statements ' lies ' ; that a ' principal 
 and valuable witness was a cast-ofi" expert in another 
 colony ' ; that the Board had proved ' an abomination 
 and a shame,' and so on. All this stuff was punctu- 
 ated by 'loud and prolonged cheering,' etc.; the
 
 2 24 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Speaker of the Legislative Assembly assured the 
 audience that, ' as ever, the working classes of the 
 colony had his full sympathy ' ; and ' other Members 
 of Parliament talked ambiguously, one inciting the 
 
 men to prepare for the ordeal that would be sure to 
 
 ' " 1 
 come. 
 
 So serious has the evil proved, that the Victorian 
 Government has proposed to disenfranchise all Govern- 
 ment employees ; creating for them, as I understand, 
 a special constituency. 
 
 Again, where are you to stop ? We know the 
 views of Socialists. If any one doubts the road on 
 which we are entering, the inclined plane on 
 which we shall find that every step makes it more 
 difficult to stop, let me quote Mr. John Burns, 
 M.P. In the discussion at the Society of Arts, 
 Lord Wemyss said : " He should like to ask Mr. 
 Burns whetlier it was his view that all private 
 property, what he called the instruments of pro- 
 duction, shoukl be in the hands of the State or 
 the Municipality ? " Mr. Burns replied " Yes." '" 
 
 It is sometimes said that the line should be drawn 
 at necessaries. But if so, to Light, Gas, Water, and 
 Tramways, we should have to add Bread, Meat, Fire 
 Insurance, Clothes, Salt, Vegetables, Papers, Pens, 
 etc., etc., while many would also add Tobacco, Tea, 
 and P>eer. 
 
 I agree that in some cases the water sup})ly should 
 be undertaken by the Municipality, but only, I think, 
 
 ' Victorian Railway Aiirninistratioii. Alelhouriit; coiresponiieiit, AVtwioxiJv/, 
 November '.>, 189.''.. 
 
 - Journal of SocifJ'j of Arts, No. 2413, vol. \lvii. 269, '270.
 
 On Municipal Trading 225 
 
 if there is no private enterprise ready to undertake it 
 on reasonable terms. 
 
 The possession of gas-works by municipalities has, 
 I believe, in some cases checked the introduction of 
 the electric light. 
 
 One circumstance which has encouraged municipal 
 expenditure has been the fact that under the com- 
 pounding system many persons who have votes pay 
 no rates. 
 
 Expenditure benefits them at the expense of 
 others. " The tenants on our estate," Sir Richard 
 Farrant has stated in regard to Noel Park, " have 
 hitherto paid their rent to our rent collector, and 
 have never seen any tax collector. The consequence 
 is that they have ceased to take any interest in 
 public affairs. They do not care who represents 
 them, what the rates are, or anything at all about 
 the details of local administration." ^ 
 
 I now come to the next objection, the check to 
 private enterprise. 
 
 Mr. Dixon Davies, in an elal)orate paper read at 
 the Society of Arts a few years ago, summed up the 
 question that " the encroachment of municipal gover- 
 nors into the domain of commercial enterprise must 
 restrict, and undoubtedly it does restrict, and repress 
 individual enterprise." Speaking of our railways, he 
 tells us that they have attained a pitch of convenience 
 incomparably superior to those of France, where they 
 were installed under Government auspices, a state- 
 
 1 Sir Richard Farrant, The Artisans', Labourers', and General Dwelling* 
 Company, Limited.
 
 2 26 Essays and Addresses 
 
 ment in which he will be supported, I think, by any 
 one who has travelled in France, except, perhaps, as 
 regards a few of the main express trains. As to the 
 result of Government interference with railways, I 
 might also quote the disastrous results in Russia, but 
 as it might be said that this is due to mismanagement 
 by Russian officials, I will take the case of India. 
 
 There was not long ago a very interesting paper 
 read at the Society of Arts by Mr. Horace Bell, who 
 was in the railway department of the Government 
 of India. He was at first very much in favour of 
 the management of railways by the Government, 
 but the result of his experience was to convince 
 him that " the only means of introducing a new 
 and vigorous life into Indian railways is by induc- 
 ing a free and unrestricted flow of private capital 
 to India, and that this implies the gradual, but 
 eventually complete, a])andonment of State adminis- 
 tration." He continues, " I have laid stress on 
 what I should call the pernicious element of the 
 present policy of the Government, i.e. the retention 
 of the idea that the State must continue to exercise 
 direct action in both the construction and working 
 of railways. I have implied that this cannot coexist 
 with really vigorous life in j)rivate enterprise, and 
 that it is the latter to which we should look as the 
 ultimate and sole agency for such operations." Sir 
 Juland Danvers, who also acted for the Indian 
 Government as regards the railways from their in- 
 fancy, and speaks with j)erhaps unrivalled experience, 
 in the course of the discussion ex})ressed his opinion
 
 On Municipal Trading 227 
 
 ** that the agency of companies was upon the whole 
 the most satisfactory mode of carrying out railway 
 enterprise. That seemed to be now the opinion of 
 the Government. Railways, being commercial con- 
 cerns, were better in the hands of those who could 
 manage them on commercial principles. If the 
 choice was between a State and a Company, the 
 latter was, on the whole, most desirable." ^ 
 
 The results indeed have been so unsatisfactory 
 that the Government recently selected Mr. Thomas 
 Robertson to make a "Report on the Administration and 
 Working of the Indian Railways." After an elaborate 
 inquiry he came to the conclusion that the " working 
 of the Indian railways cannot be regarded as at all 
 satisfactory. But I attribute this more to the system 
 than to any particular individual action on the part 
 of the Railway or Government officers. . . . But 
 after long and anxious consideration, the conclusion 
 forced on me is that root-and-branch reform alone will 
 be productive of lasting good, and that if the develop- 
 ment of railways in India is not to be hampered, and 
 if they are to render that full and efficient service to 
 the country of which they are capable, they must be 
 permitted to be worked more as commercial enter- 
 prises than they have been in the past." He points 
 out that the average speed " is not as high as might 
 have been expected"; that it "is so slow as seriously 
 to interfere with the proper development of the 
 traffic"; and that "before the rates and fares in 
 
 ^ " Recent Railway Policy in India." Horace Ikll, iM. Inst. C.E. Jvvrnal 
 of Society of Arts, No.;2371, vol. xlvi. 537.
 
 22 8 Essays and Addresses 
 
 India can be regarded, relatively, as even eqinl to 
 those in England, the former will require to be lower 
 than the rates now charged 
 
 For passengers by about from 18 per cent to 40 per cent; 
 For general merchandise by about from 30 per cent to 60 per 
 cent ; and 
 
 For coal by about 40 per cent to 60 per cent." 
 
 An even more important and unfortunate result 
 is the effect which the Government policy has had in 
 checking the construction of railways in India. 
 
 As to the result of Government construction of 
 railways, we have an object-lesson if we compare 
 India, where Government interferes, and Argentina, 
 where the Government trusts to private enterprise. 
 The population of India is over 290,000,000, and 
 the miles of railway 25,000, or one mile to every 
 12,200 people. In Argentina the population is mainly 
 Spanish, and the country is agricultural. The 
 Government has been in great financial troubles. 
 Nevertheless, with a population of four millions and 
 a half, they have over 10,000 miles of railway 
 (mostly made with English capital), or a mile to 
 every 470 persons. If India had the same mileage 
 of railways in proportion to population, she would 
 have not 25,000 miles of railway, but 640,000 
 miles. Now, why does English capital go to make 
 railways in a foreign country, and not to India, a 
 part of our Empire ? Because, as the Govern- 
 ment interfere, others are deterred from enter- 
 ing the field. They naturally say, if any line is 
 proposed l)y private enterprise, that, if it was likely
 
 On Municipal Trading 229 
 
 to pay, the Government would make it. I cannot 
 doubt that the policy of successive Governments in 
 this respect has had a serious and unfortunate effect 
 on the prosperity of India. 
 
 Again, we often hear complaints that our telephone 
 system is backward. Why is this ? The Times, in 
 an interesting article, long ago pointed out that 
 " The action of the Post Office has been so directed 
 as to throw every possible difficulty in the way of 
 the development of the telephone and of its constant 
 employment by the public. We say, advisedly, 
 ' every possible difficulty,' because the regulations 
 under which licences have been granted to the tele- 
 phone companies are, in many respects, as completely 
 prohibitory as an absolute refusal of them. ... It 
 appears that the telephones can only be used under 
 restrictions which are as absurd as they are vexa- 
 tious." And further on it says: "The conduct of 
 the office, although not legally dishonest, is, at least, 
 morally indefensible. There can be no just ground 
 for a claim to possess the telephone by virtue of 
 words introduced into an Act of Parliament before 
 the telephone was thought of; and the effijcts of this 
 claim are nearly as disastrous to the public as to the 
 inventors and owners of the instruments." ^ . . . 
 
 The Telephone Company has only been allowed to 
 use the patents it purchased on condition of paying 
 to the Government 10 per cent not of the profits 
 but of the gross receipts. The licence, moreover, 
 only extends to about 1919. I say about, because it 
 
 1 Times, June 13, 1884.
 
 230 Essays and Addresses 
 
 varies somewhat in different places. Now where 
 would have been our railway system if railways had 
 been treated in the same way ? if concessions had 
 been refused, except for a very limited number of 
 years, and 10 per cent, of the gross receipts had had 
 to be handed over to the Government? 
 
 Those connected with the electrical industry 
 complain bitterly of the manner in which the 
 development of electricity is being hampered, and in 
 some respects almost strangled. For instance, it is 
 of course most important for manufacturers to obtain 
 power as cheaply as possible. For this purpose they 
 have combined in several places to form companies 
 for the supply of electrical energy on a large scale, 
 and, I regret to say, have met with determined oppo- 
 sition in more than one case from municipal officials. 
 
 A large number of towns have applied for Provi- 
 sional Orders for electric lightino;, and it is difficult 
 to resist the conclusion that, in many cases, they 
 have done so merely to prevent private enterprise 
 from occupying the field. Mr. Madgen, in an inter- 
 esting paper read before the Institution of Electrical 
 Engineers, has called attention to the remarkable 
 fact that " Under a Provisional Order the time within 
 which a supply should be available is two years from 
 the date of the Order, but of the 212 towns referred 
 to a large proportion have exceeded that j)eriod, some 
 of the dates tailiu^j back so far as 18!>1, 1892, and 
 1893.'" 
 
 Tin Elfclrioil I'ourr Hills of 190u, by Wni. L. Madgen. M.I.E.E. 
 Institution of Electrical Kngineers, Fcbruarj- "Jl, 1900, p. 9.
 
 On Municipal Trading 231 
 
 The question has often been discussed whether 
 animals have any vestige of reason, and strong 
 reasons to the contrary have been given. If T were 
 an ant instead of a man and wished to reverse the 
 argument, I should quote our extraordinary policy 
 as regards the telegraph and telephone. We have 
 lost over 10,000,000 by Government management 
 of the telegraph. Last year the deficit was 651,000, 
 so that if we had been presented w'ith the system as 
 a free gift we should still have lost heavily. It is 
 sometimes said that this is due to the lowerinor of 
 
 o 
 
 the charge from a shilling to sixpence. But the 
 Committee appointed by the Treasury reported that 
 it was mainly due to more expensive working. 
 
 On the other hand, the sum paid over to the 
 Government by the Telephone Company for its licence 
 now amounts to over 150,000 a year and is steadily 
 increasing. Yet we do everything we can to check 
 and discourage the company w'hich is paying us this 
 magnificent annuity. We are stopping the system 
 which gives us a large and growing profit, in order to 
 develop that which leaves us a heavy and ever-increas- 
 ing loss. The Minister who was mainly responsible for 
 this was Mr. Hanbury. Now what did ]\Ir. Hanbury 
 say himself? In 1899, a deputation waited on him 
 on the subject, and here is the report of what he 
 said : " Mr. Hanbury hardly thought the deputation 
 had given full weight to the serious difficulties in the 
 way of nationalisation. He doubted whether it w\is 
 expedient to increase the amount of work done by 
 the State generally. The Post Office was being over-
 
 232 Essays and Addresses 
 
 burdened with work in every direction, and he did 
 not think that it was capable of taking this enormous 
 additional burden. If the telephone service was 
 cast upon the Post Office, it would be to the detri- 
 ment of both the postal and telegraph services. 
 Then, again, it would increase enormously the Govern- 
 ment staff. He need only appeal to the Members 
 of Parliament present to say whether they would 
 like to have the weekly appeals for increase of wages 
 from those State servants still further extended." ^ 
 There you have his opinion. But what did he do ? 
 Exactly the reverse. He did the very thing he so 
 clearly condemned. I fear we shall pay dearly for 
 the course Mr. Hanbury has adopted. So far as 
 municipal telephones are concerned, Tunbridge Wells 
 has wisely given them up, while in Glasgow, Mr. 
 Murray has pointed out in the Times of May 4, that 
 the expenditure, which was estimated at 98,000, 
 already amounts to 300,000, and the cost per 
 instrument, which was estimated at 19 : 1 : 3, and 
 on which these municipal calculations were based, has 
 come to over 30. 
 
 As regards the telegraphs, it is sometimes said 
 that though we have paid dearly for it, at any rate 
 we have a more effective system. This is, of course, 
 a matter of opinion, but 1 doul)t it. My belief is 
 that competition would have given us a better system. 
 This cannot })e proved, but 1 may give an illustra- 
 tion. Messrs. Cunningham and Company, of Liver- 
 pool, having important business in London, tele- 
 
 ' Timcn, May 4, 1899.
 
 On Municipal Trading 233 
 
 graphed to London both direct and at the same time 
 via New York, requesting their London friends to do 
 the same. The answer via New York both ways, 
 came a little sooner than that which went both ways 
 direct. 
 
 Lastly, I should like to point out that in many 
 cases our municipalities are defeating the very object 
 they wish to attain. Let me take the housing of 
 the poor question. Lord Rosebery recently went to 
 Shoreditch to open some workmen's dwellings, erected 
 by the borough council, and made, as he always does 
 on such occasions, a charming and interesting speech. 
 He complimented the Borough Council, but his speech, 
 if carefully read, was a crushing indictment of their 
 policy. "You have," Lord Rosebery said, "accom- 
 modated 300 families, dispossessing perhaps many 
 more than that." The actual number of persons, 
 it appears, who were displaced was 533, and those 
 who were provided for was 472. This seems 
 a curious way of " housing the poor " ; dishousing 
 would seem a more appropriate expression. It is 
 evident that the more poor are " housed,'' under this 
 system, the more would be houseless. But did the 
 472 who were housed belong to the same class as 
 those who were displaced ? Not at all. Lord Rose- 
 bery went on to say : " You build admirable buildings, 
 but the inhabitants of those new dwellings are not 
 the people you dispossessed. . . . These buildings 
 are so superior that in some cases they are occupied 
 by a class for whom they were not intended." That 
 was to say, under this curious plan of housing the
 
 2 34 Essays and Addresses 
 
 poor, they turned out 533 poor people and housed 
 472 people, many of whom were richer and better 
 off. That, again, can hardly be called "housing" 
 the poor. But Lord Rosebery went on to say that 
 "there would have been in those buildings none at 
 all of the class for whom they were intended, if the 
 Borough Council had not exercised a wise discrimina- 
 tion in refusins^ tenants who offered much more than 
 the rents which you are prepared to accept." That 
 is to say, the vestry has spent thousands of pounds 
 of the ratepayers' money in building houses, and then 
 has exercised a wise discrimination in letting them 
 below their value. Surely sucli a system offers a 
 wide vista of jobbery and corruption. 
 
 But even that is not all. When the London 
 County Council proposed to adopt a similar policy, 
 1 wrote to the great companies which had housed 
 thousands of the working classes, and asked them 
 what would be the effect upon their operations. They 
 said that they should erect no more dwellings if the 
 County Council were going to do so ; they should 
 stop. My belief is that if the London County 
 (Council and the Borough Councils had not put up 
 any buildings at all, there would be at the ])ivsent 
 moment just as many, or even more, workmen's 
 dwellings than is actually the case. On the other 
 iiand, if what has been done by the London County 
 Council and the Borough Councils is right, it is a 
 mere tinkering with a vast subject. London has a 
 population of 5,000,000, of whom a large proportion 
 are very poor, an<l to house a few thousands of them
 
 On Municipal Trading 235 
 
 is really nothing. If it is to be done, it should be 
 done thoroughly, and as it cost 30,000 to house 
 500, it is easy to see what a gigantic sum would be 
 required to carry out such a policy. The system 
 seems to be one that would be frauo-ht with disas- 
 trous results. Lord Rosebery went to bless, but the 
 effect of what he said was to condemn the policy of 
 the Shoreditch Council. That policy, moreover, ought 
 not to masquerade under a false name. It would be 
 less tempting if it were called what it is a policy, 
 not to house, but to dishouse, the poor. Perhaps 
 then, it would not be quite so attractive. The facts 
 at least, I think, show that the subject requires very 
 careful consideration, and that with the best inten- 
 tions, the councils and municipalities may defeat the 
 very object they have in view.^ 
 
 Miss Octavia Hill, who speaks with so much 
 authority on such a subject, in a letter to the Times, 
 has pointed out that " 1. The work will be done ex- 
 pensively. No body like the London County Council 
 can be an economical one. The cost must be met in 
 one form or another. Why should we prefer to pay 
 in rates rather than in rent ? The mode of payment 
 by rates will press heavily, being inexorable and not 
 elastic. 
 
 " 2. The London County Council, which ought to 
 be the supervising authority, will itself be pecuniarily 
 interested in the houses to be supervised. 
 
 " 3. The electorate will be, in large measure, com- 
 posed of tenants of the body to be elected. 
 
 ' Contemporary Revieic, July 1900.
 
 236 Essays and Addresses 
 
 " I doubt if the duties of a landlord, or of a 
 governing body, can be fulfilled well under these cir- 
 cumstances." ^ 
 
 Mr. Cunningham, the General Manager of the 
 Central London Railway, has expressed the opinion, 
 and I believe he is right, that " Perhaps nothing 
 has done so much to prevent the relief of over- 
 crowding and congestion as the Tramways Act of 
 1870. Its provisions in rigidly limiting the term of 
 the concession to twenty-one years, and practically 
 fixing the price at which the municipality may take 
 over the undertaking at something far below its 
 value, have effectually checked the growth of electric 
 systems." ^ 
 
 I regret, then, the present tendency to Municipal 
 trading mainly on five grounds : 
 
 Firstly, the legitimate functions and duties of our muni- 
 cipalities are already enough, if not indeed more than enough, 
 to tax all their energies, and fill up all their time. 
 
 Secondly, it will involve an immense increase in municijial 
 debt. 
 
 Thirdly, it will involve municipalities in labour disputes. 
 
 Fourthly, as there will not be the same stimulus to economy 
 and attention, there will be a great ]>robability, not to say cer- 
 tainty, that one of two things will happen : either there will be 
 a loss, or the service will cost more. 
 
 l''ifthly, it will be a serious check to progress and discovery. 
 
 ' Timfs, Juue IP, 189.'3. 
 
 - Th^ KUctrir.il Pun-er Jrills of 1900, by Wm. L. Madgcn. iM.I.E. 
 Iiislilution of Electrical Kiii^niieers, February '1\. 1901, }>. (i.
 
 XII 
 
 ON EDUCATION^ 
 
 I HAVE to thank you, which I do very cordially, for 
 the honour you have done me in electing me your 
 first Warden. This being the earliest of, I hope, a 
 long succession of your meetings, I have no precedent 
 to guide me as to the subject of an address. 
 
 I am glad, however, of an opportunity to call 
 attention to certain aspects in the present position of 
 the higher education of the country, with reference to 
 which I feel considerable anxiety. 
 
 Among the discoveries of the last century, the 
 importance of education is certainly not one of the 
 least, but it may well be doubted whether we have 
 yet adopted the best system. 
 
 The subject is one to which I have given much 
 careful thought, having served on three Royal Com- 
 missions, on the Public School Commission of 18G8, 
 on the late Duke of Devonshire's Commission on 
 scientific instruction of 1874, and Lord Cross's Edu- 
 cation Commission, having been nearly forty years 
 a member of the Senate of the University of London, 
 
 ^ An Address delivered as Warden of the Guild of Undergraduatt-s of the 
 University of Birmingham, May 22, 1903. 
 
 237
 
 238 Essays and Addresses 
 
 eight years Vice-Chancellor, and twenty years their 
 representative in Parliament. I have the more reason 
 for taking the opportunity you have so kindly given 
 me, because though so much has been done I am 
 gravely anxious about the present state of education. 
 
 The system adopted is all the more important 
 because it is so much more thoroughly carried out. 
 When I was at a public school we were much more 
 left to ourselves. We had plenty of spare time. 
 Idle boys were idle indeed ; but those who wished to 
 work could do so, and those who had special tastes 
 could follow them up in leisure hours. Now, we 
 might almost say, there are no leisure hours. Masters 
 and head -masters are thoroughly in earnest; they 
 throw themselves into their important duties with an 
 energy and devotion for which we cannot be too 
 grateful. In many respects our schools are all that 
 can be desired. The general tone is excellent, the 
 moral training is admirable, the boys are worked but 
 not overworked, and a judicious amount of time 
 is devoted to fresh-air and exercise. But the very 
 fact that the system is so thorough and so energetic- 
 ally carried out renders it all the more important 
 that it should be complete. 
 
 Perhaps the country where education is most 
 honoured, where most time is given to it, and where 
 honours and rewards, offices and a])pointments are 
 most dependent upon the result of study, is the great 
 empire of China. 
 
 On the other hand, it will be also admitted that 
 tlie stagnation of that great empire, and the backward
 
 On Education 239 
 
 condition of that clever and cultivated people, is 
 greatly due to the fact that the Chinese idea of edu- 
 cation consists of a knowledge of the Chinese classics, 
 and does not include any study of foreign languages, 
 or any knowledge of the world in which we live. 
 
 Are we not ourselves making a somewhat similar 
 mistake, especially in the case of higher education ? 
 
 I do not attempt now to lay before you a scientific 
 classification of secular subjects, but, speaking roughly, 
 we may mention classics, mathematics, science, modern 
 languages, history, and geography as all very import- 
 ant and even necessary. 
 
 We cannot but ask ourselves, do they all receive 
 sufficient attention ? What has been the history 
 of education in this country ? When public schools 
 were first established natural science could hardly 
 be said to exist. Schools and Grammar Schools 
 were almost synonymous. Latin was the great 
 medium of inter-communication between scholars, and 
 boys were taught to speak Latin, which alas I is 110 
 longer the case. 
 
 What should be our object in education ? 
 
 " I call a complete and generous education," said 
 Milton, " that which fits a man to perform justly, 
 skilfully, and magnanimously all the ofiices, both 
 private and public, of peace and war." ^ 
 
 " That man," said Huxley 
 
 That man, I think, has had a liberal education who hin 
 been so trained in youth that his body is the readj' servant of 
 his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a 
 
 1 Ttte Use of Life, p. 101.
 
 240 Essays and Addresses 
 
 mechanism, it is capable of ; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic 
 engine, with all its parts of equal strength and in smooth 
 working order ; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any 
 kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors 
 of the mind ; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the 
 great and fundamental truths of nature and the laws of her 
 operations ; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, 
 but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous 
 will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love 
 all beauty, whether of nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and 
 to respect others as himself.^ 
 
 Huxley's view was, that 
 
 Education should enable an average boy of fifteen or sixteen 
 to read and write his own language with ease and accuracy, and 
 with a sense of literary excellence derived from the study of our 
 classic Avriters ; to have a general acquaintance with the history 
 of his own country and with the great laws of social existence ; 
 to have acquired the rudiments of the physical and psychological 
 sciences, and a fair knowledge of elementary arithmetic and 
 geometry. He should have obtained an acquaintance with logic 
 rather by example than by precept ; while the acquirement of 
 the elements of music and drawing should have been pleasure 
 rather than work.'- 
 
 The excessive amount of time allotted to Latin and 
 Greek has been criticised and deplored ever since the 
 time of Milton, who, in his letter to Master Samuel 
 Hartlib on education, tersely snys : " We do amiss to 
 spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together 
 so much miserable Latin and Greek as might be 
 learnt otherwise easily and delightfully in one year" ; 
 for, as he truly observes, " though a linguist should 
 pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft 
 the world into, yet if he have not studied the solid 
 
 ' Huxley. - The Use of Life, p. 103.
 
 m 
 
 On Education 241 
 
 things in them as well as the words and lexicons, he 
 were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man 
 as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his 
 mother dialect only." 
 
 Without, however, going so far back, what has 
 been our educational history during the last half 
 century ? There have been five Commissions specially 
 appointed to inquire into, or to deal with, educational 
 matters. Let us see whether the evil deplored so 
 graphically and so long ago by Milton have been 
 removed. The Commissions all make the same com- 
 plaint, and the same suggestions. 
 
 The first of these Commissions was appointed in 
 the year 1861 to inquire into the management of our 
 great public schools Eton, Winchester, Westminster, 
 Charterhouse, St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors', Harrow, 
 and Shrewsbury. This Commission, after a careful 
 inquiry, expressed a strong opinion that more time 
 should be devoted to the study of modern languages, 
 while as regards science they reported with regret 
 that it was " practically excluded from the education 
 of the higher classes in England." Education, they 
 say, is, in this respect, narrower than it was three 
 centuries ago, whilst science has prodigiously extended 
 her empire, has explored immense tracts, divided 
 them into provinces, introduced into them order and 
 method, and made them accessible to all. 
 
 This exclusion is, in our view, a plain defect, and a great 
 practical evil. 
 
 We believe that many pass through life without useful mental 
 employment, and without the wholesome interest of a favourite 
 
 R
 
 242 Essays and Addresses 
 
 
 study, for want of an early introduction to one for which they 
 are really fit. It is not, however, for such cases only that an 
 early introduction to natural science is desirable. It is desirable, 
 surely, though not necessary, for all educated men. 
 
 To clergymen, and others who pass most of their lives in the 
 country, or who, in country and town, are brought much into 
 contact with the middle and lower classes, an elementary know- 
 ledge of the subject, early gained, has its particular uses ; and 
 we believe that its value as a means of opening the mind and 
 disciplining the faculties is recognised by all who have taken 
 the trouble to acquire it, whether men of business or of 
 leisure." . . . 
 
 Again, in 1864, another Commission was appointed 
 to inquire into the management of our endowed 
 schools. This Commission consisted of Lord Taunton, 
 Lord Derby, Lord Lytteltou, Sir Stafford Northcote, 
 Dr. Hook, the Bishop of Exeter, Sir Thomas Acland, 
 Mr. Forster, Dr. Storrar, and others. They also re- 
 ported in favour of teaching French and German in 
 our public schools, and spoke even more strongly 
 with reference to science : 
 
 Of the witnesses (they say) whom we examined on this point 
 almost all who were not schoolmasters desired the adoption in 
 schools of some branch of natural science, though as a rule they 
 did not aim at the deposition of any existing subject ; they 
 thought natural science should have its due place, without inter 
 fering with the other studies. They judged it desirable for 
 various reasons as a means of cultivating tlie faculties of obser- 
 vation ; as an important agent in mental discipline ; as providing 
 useful knowledge, capable of l)cirig aj)plied to the pur])ose of 
 life ; and some recommended it on all these grounds. 
 
 We cannot (they continue) consider any scheme of education 
 complete which omits ;i subject of such higli importance. 
 
 We think it estalilished that the study of natural science 
 develops, ])etter than any other studies, the observing faculties ; 
 disciplines the intellect by teaching induction as well as deduc-
 
 mmmmmmmmmmmam 
 
 On Education 243 
 
 tion ; supplies a useful balance to the studies of language and 
 mathematics, and provides much instruction of great value for 
 the occupations of after-life. 
 
 Nor would it be wise, in a country whose continued pros- 
 perity so greatly depends on its ability to maintain its pre- 
 eminence in manufactures, to neglect the application of natural 
 science to the industrial arts, or overlook the importance of 
 promoting the study of it, even in a special way, among its 
 artizans. 
 
 I have quoted these opinions at length, both on 
 account of the force and clearness with which they 
 are expressed, and also on account of the weight 
 which naturally attaches to the opinion of the eminent 
 men who constituted these Commissions. 
 
 In consequence of these reports, two executive 
 Commissions were subsequently constituted. One, 
 consisting of Dr. Thompson, the then Archbishop of 
 York, Lord Salisbury, Lord Coleridge, Mr. Russell 
 Grurney, Sir John Lefevre, Mr. C. S. Parker, and 
 myself, was appointed to deal with the seven great 
 public schools ; the other, the well known and little 
 appreciated Endowed Schools Commission, to re- 
 organise the endowed schools. Both these Com- 
 missions did all in their power to promote the study 
 of modern languages and of science, thereby clearly 
 indicating their opinion that, until now, science and 
 modern languages have been unduly neglected in our 
 public school system. Lastly, in the year 1874, yet 
 another Commission, which was appointed under the 
 presidency of the Duke of Devonshire, to inquire into 
 the state of scientific instruction in this country, has 
 reported that we are compelled " to record our
 
 244 Essays and Addresses 
 
 opinion that, though some progress has been made, 
 . . . still no adequate effort has been made to 
 supply the deficiency of scientific instruction pointed 
 out by the Commissions of 1861 and 1864"; and 
 that "... the present state of scientific instruction 
 in our schools is extremely unsatisfactory. 
 
 " The omission from a liberal education of a o^reat 
 branch of intellectual culture is of itself a matter for 
 serious regret ; and, considering the increasing im- 
 portance of science to the national interests of the 
 country, we cannot but regard its almost total exclu- 
 sion from the training of the upper and middle 
 classes as little less than a national misfortune." 
 
 These Commissions, then, all agreed in deploring 
 the neglect o+' science, and they appear to have 
 been all unanimous. Have their recommendations 
 been carried into effect ? How science fares may be 
 judged by the fact that one great public school, with 
 over 900 boys, has five science masters, and another 
 with over 500 only three. Modern languages are 
 equally neglected. 
 
 Moreover, the same holds good even in preparatory 
 schools. 
 
 In the special report on English schools which has 
 recently been issued as a Blue Book by the Education 
 De])artment, it is shown that in our preparatory 
 schools modern languages and science arc almost 
 completely ignored. This is nsally deplorable. I am 
 sure we none of us wish classics to be neglected, nor 
 do we desire that special commercial subjects should 
 be taught to boys. But we do wish them to know
 
 On Education 245 
 
 some foreign language, and something of the world 
 we live in. 
 
 The present education, or rather half education, 
 is not the fault of the preparatory schools. They 
 are dominated by the great public schools, and the 
 great public schools again by the Universities. The 
 Universities must bear the responsibility. They have 
 indeed excellent science schools and eminent professors, 
 but they treat the knowledge of nature as an extra 
 an ornamental, but not an integral part of education, 
 not necessary for the degree. The lion's share of the 
 prizes exhibitions, scholarships, and fellowships 
 goes to classics and mathematics. Naturally, therefore, 
 the great public schools feel that they can spare but 
 little time for science and modern languages, and as 
 it is neglected in the public schools it is almost ignored 
 in preparatory schools. 
 
 A great deal of nonsense is, it seems to me, talked 
 about the necessity of knowing things " thoroughly." 
 In the first place, no one knows anything thoroughly. 
 To confine the attention of children to two or three 
 subjects is to narrow their minds, to cramp their 
 intellect, to kill their interest, and in most cases make 
 them detest the very thing you wish them to lov^e. 
 
 Would you teach a child all you could about 
 Europe, and omit Africa, Asia, and America, to say 
 nothing of Australasia ? Would that be teaching 
 geography ? Would you teach him one century, and 
 omit the rest ? Would that be history ? 
 
 And in the same way, to teach one branch of 
 science and ignore the rest is not teaching science.
 
 2^6 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Let me give the opinion of a great authority on 
 education, the late Bishop of London, Dr. Creighton. 
 In his Thoughts on Education he says : 
 
 In your own regulations for matriculation I am glad to see 
 that science is included. But I am rather sorry to see that the 
 expression is " a science," the prescribed sciences being mechanics, 
 chemistry, and physiography. Suppose then that chemistry is 
 taken. A man may get a degree without knowing the difference 
 between a planet and a star, or why the moon goes through 
 phases. At this early stage of education should not science be 
 treated as one subject, and a general knowledge of the rudiments 
 be required 1 ^ 
 
 Perhaps, however, you will say that the picture I 
 have drawn of our schools is too dark. 
 
 Let me then read you the opinion of the same 
 authority. 
 
 Since 1870 we have talked about educational progress. I 
 fear that I am not able to believe that we have made any real 
 educational progress during that time. I am not even sure 
 whether we have not gone back. 
 
 And again : 
 
 The more subjects people can study at the same time, the 
 better they will get on with every one of them. By increasing 
 your religious knowledge you gain a larger background, and 
 then your other work will .surely go on better.-' 
 
 Mr. E. Lyttelton, who was recently selected by 
 the Educati(jn Department to report on Preparatory 
 Schools, and who speaks with such high authority, 
 admiral)ly sums up tlie situation. He tells us that 
 " the request prottered again and again by Association 
 of Head-masters of Preparatory Schools, that some 
 change be made in the entrance scholarship examina- 
 
 * J^laiulell ('leii^htoii, T/oitghts mi 3hicii/ion, p. 21. - fbid. j). 1.
 
 ^^PliNHIIPBaHHBHHiHHHBHm 
 
 On Education 247 
 
 tions, allowing due recognition of other subjects than 
 the one for which the scholarships are now awarded, 
 seems to have much sense in it. The head-masters take 
 their stand on what one would imagine to be an in- 
 controvertible principle, viz., that specialisation in 
 the preparatory school age (i.e. under fourteen) is un- 
 desirable. They then point out that under present 
 arrangements it is absolutely unavoidable, the con- 
 straining cause being the value set on classics. . . . 
 This means that a boy barely twelve years old will 
 discontinue all but a modicum of mathematics and 
 other subjects, and be pressed on in Latin verses 
 and Greek sentences and the construing of difficult 
 classical authors, till by the time he is thirteen and a 
 half he is able to reproduce remarkably skilful bits of 
 translation, but is contentedly ignorant of English 
 and other history, and has no knowledge whatever of 
 the shape, size, and quality of the countries of the 
 habitable globe, and, perhaps more injurious still, 
 does not know whether the Reform Bill came before 
 Magna Charta, or the sense of either. The result is 
 not only that a false ideal of learning is set upon 
 the pupils from their earliest years, but that the 
 hurry and scurry of the preparation forbids patient, 
 thorough, and gradual grounding, even in classics." 
 This is surely a very serious statement. 
 
 Nobody wishes scientific men would certainly 
 not wish to exclude classics. What we plead for is 
 that science, the knowledge of the beautiful world in 
 which we live, should not be excluded. 
 
 We may assume, say, 40 hours of study per week.
 
 248 Essays and Addresses 
 
 and if 8 are given to modern languages, 8 to arith- 
 metic, 8 to science, say 2 to political geography, this 
 would leave 14 for the classics, and if they cannot be 
 taught in 14 hours they cannot be taught at all. As 
 a matter of fact, we sacrifice everything to the dead 
 languages, and yet our sons do not learn them after 
 all. You cannot be said to learn a language if you 
 do not learn to speak it. But our children are not 
 taught to speak either Latin or Greek, and are made 
 to pronounce them differently from the ancient Greeks 
 and Romans and unlike any other nation in the world. 
 Classics are an important part of education, no doubt, 
 but they are not the whole. An education which 
 excludes science is a one-sided education, and the 
 most learned classical scholar, if he knows nothing of 
 science, is but a half-educated person after all. 
 
 For practical life, moreover, I am not sure that it 
 is not the wrong half ! 
 
 The President of the Royal Society in his last 
 annual address spoke very strongly as to the deplor- 
 able effect of the present system on the progress of 
 scientific discovery." 
 
 The Reports from which I have quoted were drawn 
 up by the most eminent statesmen and educational 
 authorities, and, as we have seen, their recommenda- 
 tions were most emphatic, and all of the same tenor. 
 
 The opinion of practical men of lousiness is shown 
 
 ' The Ci)Uii'il of tlie Society li.is rrceiitly uiianiiii.Mi'^ly j.assol tlif foUow- 
 ini^ resolution : "That tlit^ Universities \)p re.s|)ectrnlly iirjjrd to c()iisider the 
 (.k'sirability "f taking micii steps in rps|ic(t to tlieir ]t(i;ulations as will, so far 
 :is possible, ensure that :i knowledge of sciinci' is reco;,'nise(l in schools and 
 elsewhere as an essential part of Kt'iK'al ed\i.ation.
 
 On Education 249 
 
 by the following resolution which has recently been 
 adopted, on the motion of the London Chamber of 
 Commerce, bv the Associated Chambers : 
 
 That this Association greatly regrets the deplorable neglect 
 of modern languages and science in our great public schools, and 
 that a memorial be addressed to the Lord President of the 
 Council urging him to take such steps as may be necessary to 
 give effect in this respect to the wise regulations and statutes 
 made by the Royal Commission on Public Schools, which was 
 presided over by the late Archbishop of York, and of which the 
 late Prime Minister was himself a member. 
 
 One result of our present system is that English 
 firms are compelled to employ foreign clerks. 
 
 A facetious young German employed by a mercan- 
 tile firm in London is reported to have written home 
 to his family : 
 
 You will be sorry to hear that there are still some English- 
 men employed in our office. 
 
 This, of course, is not to be taken seriously, but it 
 is very serious that English firms should be compelled 
 to employ foreigners because our schools so sadly 
 neglect the study of foreign languages. 
 
 How many parents are there who find a difiiculty 
 in providing for their sons ! The young men them- 
 selves are strong and healthy, intelligent, and well- 
 conducted, having passed through our best schools 
 with credit and care, and being most anxious to earn 
 an honest livelihood for themselves. Under these 
 circumstances the father applies perhaps to some 
 friend who is engaged in business, and asks him to 
 find a clerkship for his son. The young man would
 
 250 Essays and Addresses 
 
 have no objection to go abroad ; but then comes the 
 question, What are his qualifications ? There are 
 railways all over the world owned by English com- 
 panies, but the young man has not the slightest know- 
 ledge of physics, and can speak no foreign language. 
 There are gas companies, mines, and manufactures, 
 but he is totally ignorant of chemistry. There are 
 banks and mercantile establishments, but he probably 
 knows no foreign language, excepting perhaps a few 
 words of French. English companies would naturally 
 prefer to employ Englishmen, but in too many cases 
 they find it impossible under the circumstances to do so. 
 This, therefor*^., is really a parent's question, and I 
 would urge parents to move in the matter. The 
 present state of things really involves a great national 
 loss. It is a serious misfortune to those who have 
 moderate means and large families. I fear that I 
 may seem to be pressing this unduly. Yet I can 
 truly say that I would not have done so were I 
 expressing my own opinion only. But when we find 
 Royal Commission after Commission, after careful 
 and patient enquiry, one after the other, and always 
 with unanimity, pointing to the neglect of science 
 and of modern lantruafjes in our educational svstem 
 as a grave evil, when we find these views enforced 
 and em})liasied by the C-hamber of Commerce and the 
 leaders of science, it must surely l)e worth while to 
 enquire whether these warnings have been taken to 
 heart, and how far tiiese recommendations liave been 
 complied with ; for our system of education cannot 
 be satisfactory while Nature is shut out of the school-
 
 ^K^wmmmm^sn^rmt^wmmm 
 
 On Education 251 
 
 room, and while we leave our children to grow up so 
 entirely ignorant of the world in which they live. 
 
 The Science Commissioners did not, I think, ex- 
 aggerate the evil when they stated that in their 
 opinion the almost total exclusion of science, to which 
 I would add the neo-lect of modern languao:es, in so 
 many of our schools is " little less than a national 
 misfortune." 
 
 That is the misfortune from the parent's point of 
 view. But when we come to look at it from the 
 manufacturing and commercial side the matter is 
 equally serious. 
 
 We have millions of capital invested abroad in 
 railways, mines, and other undertakings, but what is 
 the use of sending out managers or agents who do 
 not understand the language ? 
 
 Our manufactures are cheap and good, but it is no 
 use for manufacturers or merchants to send repre- 
 sentatives abroad if the only language which they 
 have learnt besides their own is Latin, which more- 
 over they cannot speak ! 
 
 I would therefore more strongly urge on the 
 heads of our great educational institutions that 
 specialisation in education at too early an age is a 
 mistake. Every one should know the elements of 
 mathematics, of physics, of astronomy, of geography, 
 enough natural history to make the country interest- 
 ing, and something about our own bodies, especially 
 the simple rules of health. It is astonishing how little 
 many people know about the world in which we live. 
 
 Surely it is most important that the general educa-
 
 252 Essays and Addresses 
 
 tion of the country should lay a sound and broad 
 foundation on which special instruction can after- 
 wards be built up. 
 
 A young relative of mine, who had passed with 
 credit through a great public school, was sent to 
 study engineering, and was asked to define a theodo- 
 lite. A theodolite, he said, is a hater of God. 
 
 From the point of view of Chambers of Commerce 
 the knowledge of modern languages is one of the 
 most, if not the most, important branch of technical 
 education. From an educational point of view 
 languages and physical science stand on very different 
 footing. Every one should be grounded in science 
 generally before taking up any branch specially. 
 But in language it is quite different. It is important 
 to know one or two well ; to take up many would be 
 a serious mistake. There are, however, many languages 
 which are of great importance, but which can never 
 become an integral j)art of general education such 
 as Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Hindustani, Chinese, 
 Japanese. 
 
 It would, however, be most important to us as a 
 nation that every year, say, some fifty students should 
 he turned out well trained in one or other of these 
 languages. They would readily find employment, 
 and would be most useful. 
 
 In Germany this is being done. 
 
 During the first five years of the School for 
 Oriental Languages in the University of Berlin, from 
 October 1887 to 1892, the number of students who 
 passed through was 853, divided as follows :
 
 ^ 
 
 mm 
 
 On Education 
 
 253 
 
 In Chinese .... 
 
 . 202 
 
 Japanese .... 
 
 . 127 
 
 Hindustani .... 
 
 31 
 
 Arabic .... 
 
 . 222 
 
 Persian .... 
 
 27 
 
 Turkish .... 
 
 . 135 
 
 Suahili ..... 
 
 . 109 
 
 853 
 
 I doubt not that for all these young men places will 
 easily be found, and that they will be useful pioneers 
 of German influence and German commerce. 
 
 Before any attempt is made to specialise, a boy 
 should, I think, have, and might have, the power 
 of speaking and writing English accurately, a fair 
 knowledge of arithmetic and of mathematics up to 
 quadratic equations, Latin enough to read Virgil and 
 Horace with ease, some Greek and one modern 
 language, a general acquaintance with history, 
 especially that of his own country, a good foundation 
 in science, especially geography, geology, astronomy, 
 chemistry, and physics, some power of drawing, which 
 is almost as important as writing, and a knowledge 
 of the elements of music. 
 
 You will say, perhaps, that this is rather a long 
 list, and yet what subject could you omit ? Of course, 
 in every subject you could not go far, but you might 
 know the rudiments you might have, not a smatter- 
 ing, which is useless, but a good foundation, which is 
 most important. 
 
 Much of this you must teach yourselves. " Every 
 one," said Gibbon, " has two educations one which
 
 2 54 Essays and Addresses 
 
 he receives from others, and one, more important, 
 which he gives himself." 
 
 I have not mentioned natural history, but this 
 boys will pick up for themselves, if they are only 
 encouraged to do so. Many of you must have felt 
 with John Hunter, the great anatomist, and could 
 say that " as a boy I wanted to know about the 
 clouds and the grasses, and why the leaves changed 
 colour in the autumn. I watched the ants, bees, 
 birds, tadpoles, and caddis-worms. I pestered people 
 with questions about what nobody knew or cared 
 anything about." 
 
 We are sometimes told indeed that Latin grammar 
 is pre-eminent as a training for the mind. In some 
 cases, however, I think it has deadened the mind. A 
 great admiral once said that it filled the navy I At 
 any rate I claim for science at least an equal rank 
 and place with grammar as an intellectual stimulus. 
 But I do not desire to pit one branch of education 
 against another, 
 
 " When I look back," says Sir J. Fitch, " on my 
 own life, and think on the long-past school and 
 college days, I know well that there is not a fact in 
 history, not a formula in mathematics, not a rule in 
 grammar, not a sweet and pleasant verse of poetry, 
 not a truth in science wliich I ever learned, which 
 has not come to me over and over again in the 
 most unexpected ways, and provcid to l)e of greater 
 use than i could ever have believed. It lias helped 
 me to understand better the books I read, the 
 history of events which are occurring round me, and
 
 m 
 
 On Education 255 
 
 to make the whole outlook of life larger and more 
 interesting." 
 
 We must so adapt our education that what we learn 
 from books does not prevent us learning from Nature. 
 
 Science, moreover, stimulates the imagination, in 
 which, perhaps, we English are just a little deficient. 
 Tyndall used to dwell much on the scientific use of 
 the imagination. 
 
 Moreover, in addition to its value as a training to 
 the mind, science is not only of great, but almost of 
 paramount importance to us as a nation. 
 
 I must not, however, confine my remarks to our 
 system as a system. You will perhaps wish me be- 
 fore I sit down to give you individually some hints 
 derived from the experience of a long life. 
 
 The true method of self- education, says John 
 Stuart Mill, is "to question all things : never to turn 
 away from any difficulty ; to accept no doctrine either 
 from ourselves or from other people without a rigid 
 scrutiny by negative criticism ; letting no fallacy, or 
 incoherence, or confusion of thought, step by unper- 
 ceived ; above all, to insist upon having the meaning 
 of a word clearly understood before using it, and 
 the meaning of a proposition before assenting to it. 
 These are the lessons we learn." And these lessons 
 we might all learn. 
 
 Pray do not suppose that, in advocating a wider 
 and broader education, I wish to curtail or undervalue 
 the time given to fresh air, exercise, and recreation. 
 Epictetus said that he was a spirit dragging about a 
 corpse. I do not wish any of you to drag about a
 
 2^6 Essays and Addresses 
 
 corpse. On the contrary, I wish you strong and 
 healthy bodies, carrying your minds and learning 
 lightly. 
 
 Dr. Eadclitfe is said to have told William III. that 
 he would not have his Majesty's two legs for his 
 Majesty's three kingdoms. 
 
 Some })eople, no doubt, are born with a bad con- 
 stitution with the seeds of diseases for which they 
 are not responsible. But it is probably not an ex- 
 aggeration to say that for nine-tenths of what we 
 suffer we are ouiselves responsible. 
 
 Mr. Taylor in his work on golf tells us that 
 
 To maintain anything approaching his best form, a golfer 
 must of necessity live a clean, wholesome, and sober life. . . . 
 A man must live plainly, but well, and he must be careful of 
 himself. If he uses up the reserve force, or abuses himself in 
 any way, then he has cast his opportunities aside, and he drops 
 immediatelj' out of the game. There are no half measures. You 
 must do one of two things : be careful of yourself in everything, 
 or forsake the game altogether. A man who lives a careless or 
 a vicious life can never succeed in golf, or hope to keep his 
 nerves and his stamina. 
 
 What applies to golf is equally true of life 
 generally. 
 
 We all know that we van make ourselves ill, but 
 .scarcely reali.se how much we can do to keep our- 
 selves well. Moderation is all-important : moderation 
 in catimx as well as in drinkiiiGf. The daufjers of 
 alcohol 1 need hardly impress on you, but those of 
 over eating are also very common. Probably nine 
 people (mt of ten eat more than they need more 
 than is good for them. An occasional feast matters
 
 On Education 257 
 
 little ; it is the continual daily overloading ourselves 
 with food which is so injurious, so depressing. It is 
 easy to eat too much : there is no fear of eating too 
 little. 
 
 A light stomach, moreover, makes a light heart. 
 High feeding means low spirits, and many people 
 suffer as much from dyspepsia as from all other ail- 
 ments put together. 
 
 As we are now situated, scarcely any time spent 
 in the open air can be said to be wasted. Such hours 
 will not only not be counted in life, but will actually 
 add to it will tend to make " your days long in 
 the land." The Romans had an excellent proverb, 
 " In aere salus," and you can hardly be too much out 
 of doors. 
 
 I do not, however, dwell on the question of health 
 nor on other important matters such, for instance, as 
 the choice of friends, because I am dealing especially 
 with education. Nor would I suggest that during 
 your own time your reading should be all study. We 
 hear of a new disease, " fictionitis." No doubt, too 
 much fiction, as indeed too much of anything, is bad; 
 but fiction in moderation is a valuable item in educa- 
 tion. It gives us a knowledge of human nature 
 which in real life may save us many a mistake. 
 
 In many cases, unfortunately, the error of a moment 
 may entail suff'ering for life. But if you have need 
 for caution, if it is well, perhaps, to put in a word of 
 warning, -I would rather dwell on the bright hopes of 
 life, the prospects of happiness which wait those who 
 deserve them. You have your future in your own
 
 258 Essays and Addresses 
 
 hands ; you cau make yourselves almost what you 
 choose to be. 
 
 Man is man, and master of his fate. 
 
 Turning back for a moment to science. Xo doubt 
 the progress in the last century has been simply 
 marvellous. It has enabled us not only to weigh 
 and measure, but even to analyse, the stars ; to 
 descend to the recesses of the earth, and the abysses 
 of the ocean ; to watch the rise of mountains and the 
 formation of valleys ; it has relieved suffering and 
 found remedies for pain ; it has enabled us to span 
 great rivers ; it has sjiven us a o-uide over the track- 
 less ocean ; it has increased the speed of travel, and 
 annihilated distance so far as communication is con- 
 cerned ; it has o;iven us litrht ; it has leno-thened life, 
 and added immensely to the interest of existence ; 
 to it we owe our knowledoe of the bvo:one ao;es 
 of the past, and the very idea of progress in the 
 future. 
 
 Renan has described the last as a most amusing 
 century. I should rather have described it as most 
 interesting, full of unexpected and far - reaching 
 discoveries and inventions ; railways and steamers, 
 telegraphs and photography, gas, petroknim, and 
 electric light, spectrum analysis and the Iviintgen 
 rays, the tele{)hon(,' and the phonograph, the lifjue- 
 faction tf air aiul even of hvdrogen, the far- 
 reaching discoveries of Darwin, the fonndation of 
 geology, the discovery of ana-sthetics, c(jnstitute a 
 galaxy of marvelhjus discoveries to which no other 
 century can atibrd a paralh'l. And what is true of
 
 On Education 259 
 
 material or physical science holds good with almost 
 equal force in the realms of theory and of morals. 
 We may almost include in it the proof of free trade 
 and of the importance of education, the purification 
 of religion, the abolition of the belief in witchcraft, 
 which hung so long like a black pall over the intellect 
 of Europe, the contributions to art and literature. 
 It is sometimes said that science is prosaic, but 
 geologists have shown us more wonderful things in 
 the depths of the earth than Homer or Virgil ever 
 imagined, and the modern views of the origin of 
 volcanoes have revealed to us much more marvellous 
 conceptions than the mere workshop of Vulcan. 
 
 And we cannot but ask ourselves whether the 
 century which is now commencing is likely to endow 
 us with results as far-reaching. The late Lord Derby 
 certainly one of our wisest statesmen thought that 
 this could not be hoped ; but though I differ from 
 so great an authority with much hesitation, still I 
 cannot help thinking that there are strong reasons 
 for looking forward to the future with hope. If, 
 indeed, the world was fairly well known to us, if our 
 knowledge bore any considerable proportion to what 
 we do not know but have still to learn, the case would 
 be very different. But what we know is an abso- 
 lutely infinitesimal fraction of what we do not know. 
 There is no single substance in Nature the uses and 
 the properties of which are yet completely known to 
 us. There is no animal or plant the whole life- 
 history of which we have yet unravelled. We are 
 surrounded by forces and influences of which we
 
 26o Essays and Addresses 
 
 understand nothing, and which we are as yet but 
 dimly commencing to perceive. We live in a world 
 of mystery, which we darken rather than explain 
 by the use of a number of terms which we can neither 
 define nor explain. Then, amongst others, there are 
 three special reasons which seem fully to justify 
 the hopes which inspire me. In the first place, the 
 continual improvements in our instruments and 
 apparatus, and the invention of new instruments of 
 research ; secondly, the increased number of workers, 
 though we may still say that the harvest truly is 
 plenteous, but the labourers are few ; and thirdly, 
 that as the sunshine of discovery bursts through the 
 clouds of io-norance, as the bright lij^ht of science 
 pierces through the mist and mystery which surround 
 us, with the continually increasing circle of light, so 
 the possibilities of future progress are continually 
 increasinsf. Everv discovery which is made sufifo-ests 
 fresh lines of inquiry, opens the door and paves 
 the way to still more marvellous and unexpected 
 triumphs. You, gentlemen, are now commencing 
 your career under eminent teachers, and you have 
 great advantages and opportunities ; most sincerely 
 do I hope and indeed believe that in the triumphaj 
 progress of science which I foresee. whicli you, 1 
 hope, will see, many of you, whom I have the 
 honour of addressing to-dav, may take ;in honourable 
 and distinguished part.
 
 XIII 
 
 THE STUDY OF NATURE ^ 
 
 The subject on which I have been asked to address 
 you is "The Study of Nature." This appears to 
 imply that Nature is worth studying. It would 
 indeed almost have seemed as if this was a self- 
 evident proposition. We live in a wonderful and 
 beautiful world, full of interest, and one which it is 
 most important to understand, and dangerous, if not 
 fatal, to misunderstand. Yet until lately our element- 
 ary schools were practically confined to reading, 
 writing, and arithmetic ; our grammar schools mainly, 
 as the very name denotes, to grammar; while our 
 great public schools even now omit the study of 
 Nature altogether, or devote to it only an hour 
 or two in the week, snatched from the insatiable 
 demands of Latin and Greek. The result is, in 
 many cases, the most curious ignorance of common 
 things. The state of our elementary schools will 
 be considered to-morrow, and I will therefore ad- 
 dress myself on the present occasion to secondary 
 schools. 
 
 We have all met persons who have taken a uni- 
 
 ^ A discourse given at the Nature Study Exhit>ition in London, r.02. 
 
 261
 
 262 Essays and Addresses 
 
 versity degree, and yet do not understand why the 
 moon appears to change its form, who think that 
 corals are insects, whales fish, and bats birds, w^ho 
 do not realise that England has been over and over 
 again below the sea, and still believe that the world 
 is not more than 6000 years old. 
 
 Two great faults in our present system of educa- 
 tion are that it is too narrow, and not sufiiciently 
 interesting. We cannot all care about grammar, or 
 even about mathematics. Those wdio love natural 
 science, for instance, find little at school which 
 appeals to them, and even those with literary tastes 
 are surfeited by the monotony of classics ; so that 
 comparatively few keep up their studies after leaving 
 school. Thus our system of education too often 
 defeats its owni object, and renders odious the very 
 things we wish to make deliorhtful. 
 
 Children are inspired wdth the divine gift of 
 curiosity sometimes inconveniently so. They ask 
 more questions than the wisest man can answer, 
 and \vant to know the why and the wherefore of 
 everything. Their minds are bright, eager, and 
 thirstino; for knowledcre. We send them to school, 
 and what is too often the result ? their intellect 
 is dulled, and their interest is crushed out ; they may 
 have learnt much, but they have too often lost what 
 is far more important the wish to learn. 
 
 No doubt both Oxford and Cambridge have ad- 
 mirable science schools. A man can study there 
 with many advantages, and under excellent teachers. 
 But the prizes and fellowships are still given mainly
 
 The Study of Nature 263 
 
 to classics and mathematics. Moreover, natural 
 science is not yet regarded as a necessary part of 
 education. Degrees are given without requiring any 
 knowledge of the w^orld in w^hich we live. Our 
 universities give excellent teaching : they prepare 
 learned specialists, but are places of instruction rather 
 than of education. The most profound classical 
 scholar, if he knows nothing of science, is but a half- 
 educated man after all a boy in a good elementary 
 school has had a better education. The responsibility 
 rests, as it seems to me, mainly wdth the universities. 
 The public schools tell us that they must conform to 
 the requirements of the universities, the preparatory 
 schools are governed by the public schools, and hence 
 the tendency is to specialise the education of boys 
 from the very beginning of school life. These are no 
 peculiar views of mine. They have been reiterated 
 by students of education, from Ascham and Milton to 
 Huxley, and they have been urged by one Koyal 
 Commission after another. 
 
 University authorities seem to consider that the 
 elements of science are in themselves useless. This 
 view appears to depend on a mistaken analogy with 
 lanfjuage. It is no use to know a little of a number 
 of languages, however well taught, unless indeed one 
 is going into the countries where they are spoken. 
 But it is important to know the rudiments of all 
 sciences, and it is in reality impossible to go far in 
 anv one w^ithout knowdnof somethino- of several 
 others. So far as children are concerned, it is a 
 mistake to think of astronomy and physics, geology
 
 264 Essays and Addresses 
 
 and biology, as so many separate subjects. For the 
 child, nature is one subject, and the first thing is 
 to lay a broad foundation. We should, as Lord 
 Brougham said, teach our children something of 
 everything, and then, as far as possible, everything 
 of something. Specialisation should not begin before 
 seventeen, or at any rate sixteen. 
 
 Every one would admit that it is a poor thing to 
 be a great ichthyologist or botanist unless a man has 
 some general knowledge of the world he lives in, and 
 the same applies to a mathematician or a classical 
 scholar. Before a child is carried far in any one 
 subject, it should at least be explained to him that 
 our earth is one of several planets, revolving round 
 the sun ; that the sun is a star ; that the solar systeu) 
 is one of many millions occupying the infinite 
 depths of space ; he should be taught the general 
 distribution of land and sea, the continents and 
 oceans, the position of England, and of his own 
 parish ; the elements of physics, including the use 
 and construction of the thermometer and barometer ; 
 the elements of geology and biology. Pari jmssu 
 with these should be taken arithmetic, some know- 
 ledge of language, drawing, which is almost, if not 
 (juite, as inijiortant as writing, and perhaps nuisic. 
 When a chiKl has thus ac(|uired some general con- 
 ception of the world in which we live, it will be time 
 to begin specialising and concentrating his attention 
 on a few subjects. 
 
 I submit, then, that some study of Nature is an 
 essential part of a complete educati(jn ; that just as
 
 The Study of Nature 265 
 
 any higher education without mathematics and classics 
 would be incomplete, so without some knowledge of 
 the world we live in, it is also one-sided and unsatis- 
 factory a half education only. 
 
 In the study of natural history, again, we should 
 proceed from the general to the particular. Com- 
 mence with the characteristics in which animals and 
 plants agree, their general structure, and the neces- 
 sities of existence. Animals, again, agree together on 
 some points, as regards which they differ from plants. 
 
 A general idea should then be given of the prin- 
 cipal divisions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. 
 In many respects, though animals are perhaps more 
 interesting, plants present greater facilities for study. 
 They are easier to find, to handle, and to examine. 
 Specimens of the principal divisions can be more 
 readily obtained and studied ; the structure also 
 can be more pleasantly demonstrated. Almost all 
 children are born with a love of natural history and 
 of collecting. 
 
 Far be it from me to underrate the pleasure and 
 interest of collecting. Such a collection as the 
 present is most useful. Indeed collections are in many 
 branches of nature -knowledge almost a necessary 
 preliminary to study. But a collection is a means 
 to an end, not an end in itself. It is like a library, 
 necessary for study, but useless unless studied, 
 unless the books are read. Moreover, we have all 
 access to the great National Museum. Still, private 
 collections are in many ways useful, but not ol 
 course unless they are used. Moreover, if I confine
 
 266 Essays and Addresses 
 
 my remarks to natural history, plants lose half their 
 interest when they are gathered, animals when they 
 are killed. 
 
 In the streets and toyshops many ingenious 
 puzzles are sold in which children, and even grown-up 
 people, seem to find great interest and amusement. 
 What are they to the puzzles and problems which 
 Nature offers us without charging even a penny ? 
 These are innumerable. 
 
 Take geography and biology alone : 
 
 Why are there mountains in A\'ales and the Lake district? 
 
 What determined the course of the Thames 1 
 
 Why are the Cotswolds steep on the north-west and with a 
 gentle slope on the north-east ? 
 
 What are the relations between tlie North and South 
 Downs ? 
 
 How did the Thames cut the Goring Gap, and the Medway 
 that through the Chalk ridge 1 
 
 What is the age of the English Channel ? 
 
 Why are so many of our Midland m*'adows thrown into 
 ridges and furrows ? 
 
 Why is Scotland intersected by lines at right angles 1 
 
 Why are some Scotch lochs so deep 1 
 
 Why have beeches triangular seeds and sycamores spherical 
 seeds ? 
 
 Why ar(; 1)cech leases oval and pointed, and sycamore leaves 
 palmate 1 
 
 Why are beech leaves entii'e and oak leaves cut into rounded 
 l)ays ? 
 
 Why has the Spanish cliesttuit long, sword-shaped leaves 1 
 
 Why have some willows l)road leaves, and others narrow 
 leaves ? 
 
 Wiiy do some flowers sleep by day and others by night ! 
 
 W hy do flowers sleej) at all ? 
 
 Why have so manv flowers fi\e petals, and wliv ai'C so many 
 tubul.ii'^
 
 The Study of Nature 267 
 
 Why are white and light-yellow flowers so generally sweet 
 scented ? 
 
 Why are tigers striped, leopards spotted, lions brown, sheep 
 grey, and so many caterpillars green ? 
 
 Why are some caterpillars so brightly coloured ? 
 
 Why are fish dark above and pale below ? 
 
 Why do soles have both eyes on one side ? 
 
 Why are gulls' eggs more or less pointed and owls' eggs 
 round ? 
 
 Nature suggests thousands of similar enquiries to 
 those who have eyes to see. Some few we can 
 answer, but the vast majority still remain un- 
 explained. 
 
 May I indicate a few subjects of enquiry, confining 
 my suggestions to points which require no elaborate 
 instruments, no appreciable expenditure ? 
 
 Many people keep pets, but how few study them ? 
 Descartes regarded all animals as unconscious auto- 
 mata ; Huxley thought the matter doubtful ; my 
 own experiments and observations have led me to 
 the conclusion that they have glimmerings of reason, 
 but the subject is still obscure. I have often been 
 told that dogs are as intelligent as human beings, 
 but when I have asked whether any dogs yet realised 
 that 2 and 2 make 4, the answer is doubtful. The 
 whole question of the consciousness and intelligence 
 of animals requires careful study. 
 
 Take again the life-history of animals. There is 
 scarcely one which is fully known to us. Really I 
 might say not one, for some of the most interesting 
 discoveries of recent years have been made in respect 
 to some of our commonest animals.
 
 2 68 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Coming now to plants. Any one who has given 
 a thought to the subject will admit how many prob- 
 lems are opened up by flowers. But leaves and 
 seeds are almost equally interesting. There is a 
 reason for everything in this world, and there must 
 be some cause for the different forms of leaves. In 
 Ruskin's vivid words, " they take all kinds of strange 
 shapes, as if to invite us to examine them. Star- 
 shaped, heart-shaped, spear -shaped, arrow-shaped, 
 fretted, fringed, cleft, furrowed, serrated, sinuated, in 
 whorls, in tufts, in spires, in wreaths, endlessly ex- 
 pressive, deceptive, fantastic, never the same from 
 foot-stalk to blossom, they seem perpetually to tempt 
 our watchfulness and take delight in outstepping our 
 wonder." 
 
 Some of these indeed have been explained, l)ut for 
 the differences in the leaves of ferns, for instance, sea- 
 weeds, and many others, no satisfactory suggestion, 
 so far as I know, has yet been offered. 
 
 Look again at fruits and seeds, wiiat beauty both 
 of form and colour, and what infinite variety I Even 
 in nearly allied species, in our common wild geraniums, 
 veronicas, forget-me-nots, etc., no two species have 
 seeds which are identical in size, form, or texture of 
 surface. In fact, the problems which every field and 
 wood, every common and hedgerow, every pond and 
 stream, offer us ai'c endless and most interesting. 
 
 But tlic scit'iitiiic and intellectual interests are 
 only a part of the charm of Nature. 
 
 The aesthetic advantages are inestimable. How 
 much our life owes to the beauty of fiowers !
 
 The Study of Nature 269 
 
 Flowers, says Ruskin, " seem intended for the 
 solace of ordinary liumanity. Children love them ; 
 quiet, tender, contented, ordinary people love them 
 as they grow ; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice 
 in them gathered. They are the cottager's treasure, 
 and in the crowded town mark, as with a little broken 
 fragment of rainbow, the windows of the workers in 
 whose heart rests the covenant of peace." But in the 
 crowded streets, or even in the formal garden, flowers 
 always seem, to me at least, as if they were pining 
 for the freedom of the woods and fields, where they 
 can live and grow as they list. 
 
 In times of trouble or anxiety the lover of trees 
 will often feel with Tennyson that 
 
 The woods were filled so full of song 
 There seemed no room for sense of wrong. 
 
 I feel with Jefferies that, "by day or by night, 
 summer or winter, beneath trees the heart feels nearer 
 to that depth of life which the far sky means. The 
 rest of spirit found only in beauty, ideal and pure, 
 comes there because the distance seems within touch 
 of thought." 
 
 The open air is not a cure for the body only, but 
 for the mind also. 
 
 We seem to be on the threshold of great discoveries. 
 
 There is no single substance in Nature the ])r()- 
 perties of which are fully known to us. There is no 
 animal or plant which would not well repay, I do not 
 say merely the attention of an hour, but even iho 
 devotion of a lifetime. I often grieve to think how
 
 270 Essays and Addresses 
 
 much happiness our fellow - countrymen lose from 
 their ignorance of science. Man, we know, is born to 
 sorrow and suffering, but he is not born to be dull, 
 and no one with any knowledge of science could ever 
 be. If any one is ever dull it is his own fault. Every 
 wood, every field, every garden, every stream, every 
 pond, is full of interest for those who have eyes to see. 
 No one would sit and drink in a public-house, if he 
 knew how delisjhtful it was to sit and think in a field ; 
 no one would seek excitement in ojambling and bettino-, 
 if he knew how much more interesting science is ; that 
 science never ruined any one, but is a sort of fairy 
 godmother ready to shower on us all manner of good 
 gifts if we will only let her. In media3val fairy tales 
 the nature spirits occasionally fell in love with some 
 peculiarly attractive mortals, and endowed their 
 favourites with splendid presents. But Nature will 
 do all this, and more, for any one who loves lier. 
 
 If any one, says Seneca, "gave you a few acres, 
 you would say that you had received a benefit ; can 
 you deny that the boundless extent of the earth is a 
 benefit ? If a house were given you, bright with 
 marble, its roof beautifully painted with colours and 
 gilding, you would call it nu small benefit. God has 
 built for you a mansion tliat fears no fire or ruin . . . 
 covered with a roof which glitters in one fashion by 
 day, and in another by night. Whence comes the 
 breath which you draw ; the light by which you per- 
 form the actions of your lite? the blood by which 
 your life is maintained { the meat by which Nour 
 hiinircr is appeased? . . . The true God has planted
 
 The Study of Nature 271 
 
 not a few oxen, but all the herds on their pastures 
 through the world, and furnished food to all the 
 flocks ; He has ordained the alternation of summer 
 and winter . . . He has invented so many arts and 
 varieties of voice, so many notes to make music. . . . 
 We have implanted in us the seeds of all ages, of all 
 arts ; and God our Master brings forth our intellects 
 from obscurity." 
 
 Lastly, in the troubles and sorrows of life science 
 will do much to soothe, comfort, and console. If we 
 contemplate the immeasurable lapse of time indicated 
 by geology, the almost infinitely small, and quite 
 infinitely complex and beautiful structures rendered 
 visible by the microscope, or the depths of space 
 revealed by the telescope, we cannot but be carried 
 out of ourselves. 
 
 A man, said Seneca, " can hardly lift up his eyes 
 towards the heavens without wonder and veneration 
 to see so many millions of radiant lights, and to 
 observe their courses and revolutions." The stars, 
 indeed, if we study them, will not only guide us over 
 the wide waters of the ocean, but what is even more 
 important, light us through the dark hours which all 
 must expect. The study of Nature indeed is not only 
 most important from a practical and material point of 
 view, and not only most interesting, but will also do 
 much to lift us above the petty trouljles and help us 
 to bear the areater sorrows of life.
 
 XIV 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE LONDON COUNTY 
 COUNCIL SCHOLARS^ 
 
 The followino- scholars were summoned to receive 
 their certificates : 
 
 Senior county scholars, elected in July 1901 . 5 
 
 Intermetliate county scholars, elected in July 
 
 1!)01 (including commercial intermediate 
 
 scholars) 100 
 
 Junior county scholars, elected in December 
 
 1900 L'GT 
 
 Junior county scholars, elected in July 1901 . 32 i 
 Junior scholars in practical gardening, elected 
 
 in July 1901 7 
 
 Total . . . 70;5 
 
 Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen In the few 
 but wise and weighty words which we have just 
 heard from the Chairman and from Mr. Sidney Webb, 
 they have tersely but correctly laid before you what 
 has IxM'ii done of latt; for the hiirhcr education of this 
 great metro[)olis of ours, and 1 am isure that 1 shall 
 be expressing the general feeling of the people of 
 
 ' At the C,)uci'ii'n lUli, I,:umli;im I'l.i.i', Ijuii'lou, Mapli -Jl, I'.'U'J, Mr. A. 
 M. ToriMiice, Cliaiiimui of llir (N)iunil. in thu chair. From 7'A' Lo>u/h
 
 Address to London Scholars 273 
 
 London when I say how much we are indebted to 
 the London County Council and to the Technical 
 Education Board for the great work which they have 
 done of late years for the higher education of London, 
 evidence of which is shown by this magnificent 
 meeting, which could not possibly have been held in 
 this metropolis until within the last few years. 
 
 I have accepted with pleasure the honour of being 
 allowed to deliver the prizes this evening to those 
 who are about to have the honour of receiving 
 them ; and I am sure that in your name I may 
 congratulate them on now having, as Huxley well 
 expressed it, placed their feet firmly upon the first 
 rung of that great ladder which leads up from the 
 primary schools to the universities of our country. 
 I trust for many years they will look back upon 
 those prizes with pleasure that they will be reminded 
 of their schools, of their schoolmasters and school- 
 mistresses, to whom they owe so much, and that the 
 memory will inspire them to fresh exertions. But 
 they will, I am sure, also realise that the prizes which 
 I am just about to have the pleasure of presenting to 
 them are not the real, or at least the main, benefits 
 which they have gained by their school career. 
 What they really have gained have been the habits 
 of application and the funds of knowledge which they 
 have stored up. I congratulate them on their prizes, 
 and I congratulate them still more on their youth, 
 health, and strength, and on the application and 
 ability which have enabled them to carry ofl' these 
 prizes.
 
 2 74 Essays and Addresses 
 
 Life is, indeed, a great prize in itself ; but let me ask 
 them what are they about to do with that glorious 
 inheritance upon which they are now entering. The 
 ability which has enabled them to carry off these 
 prizes is also a responsibility. It is a talent which 
 they are bound to use, not only for themselves or 
 for their own advantaore. A distinoruished writer has 
 
 o o 
 
 said that there are two classes of men in the world. 
 Some men make trouble, and some men take trouble. 
 Those who make trouble are unhappy in after-life, 
 and a source of unhappiness to others, while those 
 who take trouble are not only a source of happiness 
 to others, but to themselves also. 
 
 You have, I dare say all of you, read the beautiful 
 story of Nelson's signal to his fleet at the battle of 
 Trafalgar tliat " England expects every man to do 
 his duty." Yes, and not only every man, but every 
 boy and girl too. Perhaps you will say, We are still 
 young what can we do ? You can do a great deal ; 
 indeed, if you are to grow up to be worthy English- 
 men and Englishwomen, you must do a great deal. 
 Some people seem to think that every boy grows up 
 into a man. That is a great mistake. Man is man, 
 and is master of his fate, and we are all what we 
 make ourselves. We may make this world either a 
 palace or a prison either a triumphal mar(;h or a 
 funeral procession. Many people, it has l)een truly 
 said, spend much of tlieir lives in making the rest 
 miserable, and, in tiio words of Sir Thomas Pirowne, 
 ' buy the merry madness of a moment with the long 
 penitence of after-years."
 
 Address to London Scholars 275 
 
 Some people are always grumbling. If they had 
 been born in the Garden of Eden, they would certainly 
 have found a great deal to complain of. Happiness 
 depends much more upon what is within us than on 
 what is without us. As Ruskin has well said, "To 
 read, to think, to love, to pray, these are the things 
 that make a man happy." In the words of Milton 
 
 The mind is its own place, and in itself 
 Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. 
 
 Or, as Shakespeare puts it 
 
 All places that the eye of heaven visits 
 
 Are to the wise man ports and happy havens. 
 
 If you look at the world through a red glass, all seems 
 red and rosy ; if through a blue, all blue ; if through 
 a smoked one, all dull and dingy. Always try, then, 
 to look at the bright side of things ; and almost 
 everything in the world has a bright side. There are 
 some people whose smile, the sound of whose voice 
 whose very presence, seem like a ray of sunshine to 
 brighten a whole room. Greet everybody with a 
 bright smile, kind words, and a pleasant welcome. 
 It is not enough to love those who are near and dear 
 to US. We must show them that we do so. 
 
 All these are things that every boy and girl may 
 do for themselves. The great question which you 
 will have to ask yourselves is : How can you arrange 
 your time now that you are entering upon life so as 
 to make it useful and happy? Well, in the first 
 place, it is very important that you should keep your- 
 selves in good health. We all know that we can
 
 276 Essays and Addresses 
 
 make ourselves ill ; but I do not think we all realise 
 how much we can do to keep ourselves well. And 
 yet the requisites of health are plain enough regular 
 habits, daily exercise, personal cleanliness, simple diet, 
 and moderation both in eating and drinking, these 
 will keep most people perfectly well through life. I 
 need not, I hope, impress upon you the terrible evil 
 of drunkenness. Honest water never made any one 
 a sinner, but most of the sin and misery in England 
 is due to alcohol. There is an old Jewish proverl*, 
 " Where the devil cannot go himself, he sends spirits." 
 Moderation in eating is also of great importance. 
 
 We live in a very beautiful world ; but few good 
 thinijs are to be had in it without hard work. It is 
 not a world in which any one can expect to be pros- 
 perous if he is easily discouraged. Perseverance 
 earnest, steady perseverance is necessary to success. 
 This is no drawback. Good, solid work is as necessary 
 to peace of mind as it is for the health of the body ; 
 in fact the two are inseparable. 
 
 Passing from the body to the mind, do not suppose 
 that your education is finished wlien you are leaving 
 school. As the Chairman very justly observed, it is 
 then only just beginning and will go on through life. 
 Tlie question is whether you will learn what is good 
 or whetlior you will learn what is bad. Tiy to learn 
 something every day something that is good and 
 useful and to avoid all evil like poison. 
 
 And here may f make an appeal to my old friends 
 and colleagues of the London County Council, 
 especially those who now occupy such important
 
 Address to London Scholars 277 
 
 positions, and have such large funds to administer, 
 on behalf of the old colleges which have done so 
 much for the higher education of London in the past. 
 As Mr. Sidney Webb has just told us, important 
 technical institutions have been founded throughout 
 London, to the great advantage of this metropolis, by 
 help of funds from the City Parochial charities and 
 liberal endowments from several of the City Com- 
 panies, and from other sources. These institutions 
 are doing a good and noble work. But I am sorry 
 to say that some of our older colleges, which were 
 the first to lead in this good work, University Col- 
 lege, King's College, the City of London College, the 
 Working Men's College, and several others, are all 
 in great need of funds, and any sums granted to them 
 would, I am sure, be most usefully bestowed. Many 
 of you, I hope, will carry on your education in these 
 and similar institutions, and the further you go the 
 more you will be repaid. When people are young 
 they sometimes look upon their lessons as being 
 rather a matter of duty ; but the more you learn the 
 more you will wish to know, and the more you read 
 the more you will enjoy reading. 
 
 Lord Macaulay seemed to have almost all that this 
 world could give wealth and fame, rank and power, 
 and yet he has told us that he derived his greatest 
 happiness from books books which are open to every 
 one of you. 
 
 A library, indeed, is a true fairyland, a very pahice of 
 delight, a haven of refuge from the storms and troubles 
 of the world. Rich and poor can enjoy it equally, for
 
 278 Essays and Addresses 
 
 here, at least, wealth gives no advantage. We may make 
 a library, if we do but use it rightly, a true paradise 
 on earth, a Garden of Eden, without its one draw- 
 back ; for all is open to us, including, and especially, 
 the fruit of the tree of knowledge, for which we are 
 told that our first mother sacrificed all the pleasure 
 of paradise. Here we may read the most important 
 histories, the most exciting volumes of travels and 
 adventures, the most beautiful poems ; w^e may meet 
 the most eminent statesmen, poets and philosophers, 
 benefit by the ideas of the greatest thinkers, and 
 enjoy the grandest creations of human genius. 
 
 A well known proverb teaches us, " Waste not, 
 want not " ; but above all, never waste time. There 
 is a Turkish saying that " The devil tempts a busy 
 man, but an idle man tempts the devil." " Keep 
 your shop," says an old proverb, " and your shop will 
 keep you." 
 
 But though I would earnestly press upon our 
 young friends never to waste a minute, I hope it will 
 not be supposed that I am suggesting to them that 
 they should lead a life of drudgery. On the contrary, 
 time given to the fresh air, to walks abroad in the 
 country and to games, which do so much to iin])rove 
 the liealth, is certainly never time which is wasted. 
 
 Last, but not least, comes the all - important 
 question of character. Some young people seem to 
 think that they are l)orn with a certain character 
 which they inherit. AVell, no doubt there is some 
 amount of truth in that. But it is still more true 
 that our character is what we choose to make it. In
 
 Address to London Scholars 279 
 
 the words of a great German writer, Jean Paul Richter, 
 " What you wish to be that you will be ; for such is 
 the force of our will, joined to the Supreme, that 
 whatever we wish to be seriously and with a true 
 intention, that we become." But to do so you must 
 be careful. Temptations enough will come to you 
 in life, but do not you go to them. Be masters 
 of yourselves. " He that ruleth his spirit," said 
 Solomon long ago, " is better than he that taketh 
 a city." Finally, when you have done your best, do 
 not be anxious. Above all, never despair. 
 
 Trouble and sorrow are sometimes friends in 
 disguise. We all enjoy the warm air and bright 
 sunshine of summer, but nature owes much to the 
 snows and storms of winter. As George Macdonald 
 beautifully says 
 
 For things can never go badly wrong, 
 If the love be true and the heart be strong ; 
 For the mist, if it comes, and the driving rain, 
 Will be changed by love into sunshine again. 
 
 And yet there are many especially girls, I think 
 who make themselves miserable on entering life by 
 theological doubts and difficulties. But these have 
 reference, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, not 
 so much to what they should do as to what they 
 should think. As regards action, conscience is 
 generally a safe guide ; and the great difficulty is 
 to follow it as we ought. Be careful how you choose 
 your thoughts. " Peace of mind," says Ruskin and 
 I think it is one of the most beautiful of all his 
 beautiful passages '-'Peace of mind must come in its
 
 2 8o Essays and Addresses 
 
 own time, as the waters settle themselves into clear- 
 ness as well as quietness ; you can no more filter your 
 mind into purity than you can compress it into calm- 
 ness ; you must keep it pure, if you will have it pure, 
 and throw no stones into it, if you would have it quiet." 
 I am sure and I know that my friends around me 
 will agree that you have now in your lives a glorious 
 inheritance if you will only make the best of them. 
 But you have also a great responsibility. To-night 
 you are going to receive prizes ; but let us hope that 
 some day you, in your turn, will do honour to the 
 schools to which you owe so much. Let us 
 hope that many of you will add something to 
 the sum of human knowledge. Do not suppose, 
 however much your schoolmasters know, that they 
 know everything. The fact is, that what we know, 
 great as it is and wonderful as are the discoveries 
 that have been made, is almost nothing compared 
 with that which we still have to discover. There is 
 not a single substance in Nature of which the whole 
 of the properties are known to us. There is an 
 immense field for future discoveries, many of which 
 will certainly be of great importance ; and it is very 
 encouraging, I think, to see that discoveries in scienct; 
 have not been confined to men of great wealth and 
 of great genius. On the contrary, some of the most 
 important discoveries some of those which have 
 conferred the greatest blessings upon mankind have 
 been made by men who have had fewer advantages 
 than you yourselves have enjoyed. 
 
 Let me give you the names of a few of these great
 
 Address to London Scholars 281 
 
 men, and tell you how they began life. The great 
 naturalist Ray was the son of a blacksmith, Watt of 
 a shipwright, Franklin of a tallow-chandler, Dalton 
 of a hand-loom weaver, Fraunhofer of a glazier, Laplace 
 of a farmer, Linnaeus of a poor curate, Faraday of a 
 blacksmith. George Stephenson, who did so much 
 for our railways, more perhaps than anybody else, 
 was a working collier, and worked a long while at 2d. a 
 day, and could not read till he was eighteen years of 
 age ; Davy was an apothecary's assistant ; Wheatstone 
 was a musical instrument maker ; Boulton, who has 
 been called "the father of Birmingham," because he did 
 so much for the development of that great city, w^as 
 the son of a buttonmaker ; Galileo, Kepler, Sprengel, 
 Cuvier, Sir W. Herschel, and many others, were all 
 children of poor parents, and had nothing like the 
 advantages in their education that you have had. 
 Therefore, it is only reasonable to hope that many of 
 you may take part in the great and triumphal march 
 of science and in the increase of human knowledge. 
 And, in conclusion, I am sure I am expressing the 
 feeling of this great meeting in congratulating you 
 in their name upon the prizes that I am now to have 
 the pleasure of presenting to you, and in expressing 
 the hope that this fortunate commencement of your 
 career may be the prelude to happy, successful, and, 
 above all, useful lives.
 
 XV 
 ADDBESS TO THE CHURCHMEN'S UNION ' 
 
 I RISE to move the adoption of the Report. I must 
 confess I had some misgivings about doing so, be- 
 cause I fear I cannot rank myself as an orthodox 
 member of the Church of England, though, for reasons 
 which I will shortly mention, I felt justified in join- 
 ins the Union at its foundation. 
 
 With the spirit of the Report I cordially concur. 
 The Union offers a platform for the free and reverent 
 expression of opinion and conviction in the wide field 
 of theology, and it is encouraging to find that, as the 
 Report states, " the movement in favour of a liberal 
 and progressive interpretation of the Christian Creed 
 is world-wide." 
 
 Jowett once urged Stanley to give us a work on 
 theology, reconciling the old and the new. Sir i\l. 
 Grant Dufi" in his interesting Out of the Past has 
 expressed the opinion that it is too soon. Very 
 likely, but I wish he had tried. 
 
 One great difticulty, for instance, is the Athanasian 
 Creed, and I am very ghid to hear that in Westminster 
 Abbey a modified version is now read. I say nothing 
 
 ' AiiTiiKil Meeting, U03. rrinted at the rciiuest of the Cliurclinien's Union. 
 
 282
 
 Address to Churchmen's Union 283 
 
 about the descriptive part. It seems to me self-con- 
 tradictory indeed, and in many places unintelligible, 
 but the real repugnance we many of us feel is to the 
 last verse. 
 
 "This is the Catholic faith, which except a man 
 believe faithfully, he cannot be saved." 
 
 This I not only do not believe, but I disbelieve. 
 I cannot believe that it is Christian teaching ; indeed 
 it seems to me quite contrary to the teaching of 
 Christ. 
 
 A great many persons are deterred from coming to 
 Church, and others who do come feel perplexed, pained, 
 and harassed by some of the theological dogmas, and 
 philosophical, or unphilosophical, opinions which they 
 are expected to approve, and by what seems to them 
 unworthy descriptions given of, and motives attri- 
 buted to, the Divine Nature. I do not, however, 
 wish to-day to assert any views of my own, but 
 rather to indicate difficulties which many feel. 
 
 Many, no doubt, regard creeds, dogmas and 
 miracles as the foundation and bulwarks of religion. 
 To others they constitute, on the contrary, the great 
 difficulty, and undoubtedly they divide us into con- 
 fficting and hostile camps. 
 
 In ancient times the improbability of miracles was 
 not realised. Hence it is only in recent years that 
 they have been regarded as a proof of authority. 
 When Moses performed his miracles before Pharaoh 
 we are told that "the magicians of Egypt also did 
 in like manner by their enchantments." 
 
 Christ also is represented as believing that others
 
 284 Essays and Addresses 
 
 besides Himself, and without divine authority, could 
 work miracles. "If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, 
 by whom do your children cast them out?" And 
 aofain : " Then shall arise false Christs and false 
 prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders" 
 (Matthew xxiv.). In fact we were to test the 
 miracles by the doctrine not the doctrine by the 
 miracles. This is expressly enjoined in the thir- 
 teenth chapter of Deuteronomy : "If there ariseth 
 among you a prophet, and giveth thee a sign or a 
 wonder, and the sign or wonder cometh to pass, 
 whereof he spoke unto thee saying, Let us go 
 after other Gods. . . . Thou shalt not hearken . . . 
 and that prophet shall be put to death ; because 
 he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord 
 your God." 
 
 In the service for the Ordering of Deacons the 
 candidate is asked whether he unfeignedly believes 
 all the canonical scriptures of the Old Testament. 
 Is not the word " believe " misleading in this con- 
 text 1 That the Old Testament is a marvellous and 
 important work, that every one would do well to read, 
 mark, learn, and inwardly digest it, T for one would 
 f-ertainly not deny. " J have been," said Huxley, 
 "seriously perplexed to know by what practical meas- 
 ures the relifjious feelinfj which is the essential basis of 
 conduct, was to be kept up, in the present utterly 
 chaotic state of opinion on tliese matters, without 
 the use of the Bible. Take the Bible as a whole : 
 make the severest deductions which fair criticism can 
 dictate for short coinini^^s-- -positive errors; eliminate,
 
 Address to Churchmen's Union 285 
 
 as a sensible lay teacher would do if left to him- 
 self, all that it is not desirable for children to occupy 
 themselves with, and there still remains in this 
 old literature a vast residuum of moral beauty and 
 grandeur. And then consider the great historical 
 fact that for so many centuries this book has been 
 woven into the life of all that is best and noblest 
 in English history ; that it has become the national 
 epic of Britain, and is as familiar to noble and simple 
 from John o' Groat's House to Land's End, as Dante 
 and Tasso were once to Italians ; that it is written 
 in the noblest and purest English, and abounds in 
 exquisite beauties of mere literary form ; and finally 
 that it forbids the veriest hind who never left his 
 village to be ignorant of the existence of other 
 countries and other civilisations, and of a great past, 
 stretching back to the farthest limits of the oldest 
 nations in the world. By the study of what other 
 book could children be so much humanised and made 
 to feel that each figure in that vast historical pro- 
 cession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space 
 in the interval between two eternities, and earns the 
 blessings or the curses of all time, according to its 
 effort to do good and hate evil, even as they also are 
 earning their payment for their work." 
 
 But it must be read remembering the circumstances 
 under which it was written. Really to understand 
 the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, we must 
 read it from an eastern, not a western, point of view. 
 The eastern mind does not look at things as we do 
 does not take things literally as we do. The Oriental
 
 2 86 Essays and Addresses 
 
 speaks iu poetry and metaphor. He attributes di- 
 rectly to Divine action and inspiration much of what 
 we should refer to human action and natural laws 
 at any rate, in the first instance. Moveover, he is a 
 firm believer in evil demons, in genii, and witchcraft. 
 
 As Mr. Sully says,^ " To the uncultivated mind a 
 sudden thought seems like an audible announcement 
 from without. The superstitious man talks of being 
 led by some good or evil spirit when new ideas arise 
 in his mind or new resolutions shape themselves. To 
 the simple intelligence of the boor every thought 
 presents itself as an analogue of an audible voice, 
 and he commonly describes his rough musings as 
 saying this and that to himself." 
 
 In reading eastern works we too often see the letter 
 only and miss the spirit. It is often assumed that a 
 book which is inspired must be absolutely correct ; 
 that there is a hard and fast line between a book 
 which is inspired and one which is not inspired. 
 Yet that is not, I believe, any authoritative doctrine 
 of the Church of England. As the Emperor AVilliam 
 said the other day in his interesting letter to Admiral 
 JloUmann 
 
 There is to iny mind nol the slightest doubt that (rod con- 
 stantly and continually reveals Himself in the human race, which 
 is Mis own, and which He has ci'eated. He has "Itieathed His 
 Itreath " into man that is to say, He has given man a part of 
 Himself, a soul. He follows with fatherly love and interest the 
 development of the human I'ace : in order to lead it and to 
 advance it further, He "reveals" Himself now in this, now in 
 that great sage, whether it i>e pi-i(!st oi- kin^. whether it l)e 
 
 ' J. Sully's IUii.-<i"ii'^, \y ^'^-
 
 Address to Churchmen's Union 287 
 
 among heathens, Jews, or Christians. Hammurabi was one of 
 these, and so were Moses, Abraham, Homer, Charlemagne, 
 Luther, Shakespeare, Goethe, Kant, and the Emperor AViUiam 
 the Great. 
 
 It is to me self-evident that the Old Testament contains a 
 number of passages Avhich are of the nature of purely human 
 history, and are not "God's revealed word." There are purely 
 historical descriptions of events of every kind which are ac 
 complished in the political, religious, moral, and spiritual life of 
 the people of Israel. For example, the act of the giving of the 
 law on Mount Sinai can only symbolically be regarded as in- 
 spired by God, inasmuch as Moses was obliged to resort to the 
 revival of laws Avhich perhaps had long been known (possibly 
 they originated in the codex of Hammurabi), in order to draw 
 and bind together the structure of his people, which in its com- 
 position was loose and hardly capable of offering any resistance 
 to outside pressure. 
 
 A still stronger illustration is perhaps the Collect 
 for the 5th Sunday after Easter : "0 Lord, from 
 whom all good things do come ; Grant to us, Thy 
 humble servants (that is to say, each and every one 
 of us) that by Thy holy inspiration we may think 
 those things that be good, and by Thy merciful 
 guiding may perform the same." 
 
 From this point of view every good thought is an 
 inspiration, and every good man is inspired in a higher 
 or lower degree. 
 
 We are Christians and not Jews, and yet the 
 Old Testament is constantly quoted as if it were 
 binding on us, and we were bound to accept every 
 word and statement, and obey every injunction con- 
 tained in it. 
 
 Every student knows, however, that the accounts, 
 for instance, of the Deluge differ from one another ;
 
 2 88 Essays and Addresses 
 
 that the records of the same events iii Kiiio;s and 
 Chronicles differ in some cases from one another ; 
 that there are many arithmetical contradictious. 
 
 Moreover, do those who think they believe that 
 every injunction is binding on us act up to their pro- 
 fession ? 
 
 In Leviticus it is strictly forbidden to eat the hare 
 or pork and bacon ; ^ linen and wool are not to be 
 mixed in one oarment.'- Who resrards these com- 
 mands as binding on us ? Perhaps it will be said 
 that they are not applicable to us. No doubt that 
 is so, but under the theory I am referring to, it is 
 not for us to pick and choose. 
 
 In Exodus we are continually told that the Lord 
 hardened " Pharaoh's heart " . . . " that I may lay 
 my hand upon Egypt," and terrible sufferings fell 
 indeed upon that unfortunate people. 
 
 Afjain, in 1 Kino;s xxii. we are told that the 
 Almighty sent a lying spirit to deceive Ahab in 
 order that he miorht be deceived and lured to de- 
 struction at Ramoth-Gilead. 
 
 When Ahab and Jehoshaphat were considering 
 whether it would be wise to attack the Syrians, 
 and what the result of the war would be, Micaiah 
 tells them ^ : 
 
 And iho Lord siiid, Who sh.ill persu;i<le Ahal), tluiL he may 
 go up and fall at Kamoth-Gilead ? And one said on this 
 manner, and another said on that manner. 
 
 And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, 
 and said, I will persuade him. 
 
 * xi. - xix. I'J. 1 Kiiic's xxii. '20.
 
 Address to Churchmtn's Union 289 
 
 And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith ? And he said, I 
 will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all 
 his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and 
 prevail also ; go forth, and do so. 
 
 Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in 
 the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken 
 evil concerning thee. 
 
 But look a little further. Take the moral teachins: 
 of Moses, and what did Christ say ? The Jews asked 
 Him if it was lawful "for a man to put away his 
 wife, tempting Him," and what did He say ? " For 
 the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept ; 
 but / say," etc. And again He quoted Moses' law 
 " an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." " But, 
 I say unto you that ye resist not evil." 
 
 The injunctions of Moses, derived, as we now 
 know, from more ancient Babylonian laws, were 
 adapted to the circumstances of the time and the 
 condition of the Jews, but surely the mission of 
 Christ was to replace them by a new and higher 
 religion. 
 
 Matthew Arnold tells us that his Litei-ature and 
 Dogma had " altogether for its object to show the 
 truth and necessity of Christianity, and its power 
 and charm for the heart, mind, and imagination of 
 man, even though the preternatural, which is now 
 its popular sanction, should have to be given up." 
 
 Another distinguished countryman of ours, Sir 
 M. E. Grant Duff, has recently said that the more 
 religion "draws into itself all that is best in our 
 nature, the more it calls to its assistance uU that is 
 sublime or tender in art, all that is most exquisite in
 
 290 Essays and Addresses 
 
 poetry, all that is most elevating in the contempla- 
 tion of the material universe and the human micro- 
 cosm, the better will be its effect upon conduct. 
 To ask, however, from theological speculation the 
 same sort of certainties which we get amidst the 
 lower order of facts with which our limited intelli- 
 gence is amply sufficient to deal, is to ask from it 
 what, in this world, it cannot give." 
 
 In any case, if the Church is to retain her hold 
 over the thinking part of our people, she must be 
 progressive. The Creeds and Dogmas must, as the 
 report says, " be restated from time to time to bring 
 them into harmony " with our reason. No doubt 
 this is a supremely difficult task. 
 
 Every new discovery in science requires new terms 
 for its expression, and I doubt very much wliether 
 we have in English, or indeed in any language, the 
 words which would adequately express the real truths 
 of the Universe. We must, I think, be satisfied on 
 innumerable questions to suspend our judgment ; 
 but if we are still in doubt what it is right to think, 
 we are seldom in doubt what it is right to do. 
 
 Theologians sometimes speak as if it were possible 
 to believe something which one cannot understand 
 as if the belief were a matter of will ; that there was 
 some merit in believing what you cannot prove, and 
 that if a statem(3nt of fact is put before you, you 
 must either believe or di.sl)olieve it. Snrely, how- 
 ever, we should demaiid clear proof, or what seems 
 to us clear ])roof, before we accept any conclusion on 
 such important questions. No doul)t we may often
 
 Address to Churchmen's Union 291 
 
 accept a statement which we cannot explain, but 
 surely it is misleading to say that you believe what 
 you do not understand. In such a case the word 
 "belief " seems an unfortunate misnomer. Surely it 
 is wrong, and not right, to profess to believe any- 
 thing for which you know that there is no sufficient 
 evidence ; and, on the other hand, if it is proved you 
 cannot help believing it ; but as regards many 
 matters, the true position is not one either of belief 
 or of disbelief, but of suspense. 
 
 Moreover, the great differences of opinion render 
 it impossible to devise any church service with which, 
 so far as theoretical opinion is concerned, all could 
 concur. I might wish it were otherwise, but wc 
 must face the fact. 
 
 Kecognising, then, the great mystery of existence, 
 admitting, if only for the sake of argument, the im- 
 probability that Man is the highest existence in the 
 Universe, it seems to me that we may join in religious 
 sympathy, even if we differ in theological views. 
 
 It is remarkable and significant that there is no 
 Creed and very little Dogma either in the Old or 
 New Testament. The commandments are mainly 
 moral. Our Creeds and Dogmas are inferences. In 
 the Bible, religion is constantly presented as an affair 
 of the heart and of conduct. Theology, too, often kills 
 religion by attempting to dissect it and lay it open. 
 
 The Commandments also relate to conduct, and if 
 it is said that the Jews in pre-Christian times were 
 not ripe for fuller instruction, at any rate the passage 
 in Micah is clear and complete.
 
 292 Essays and Addresses 
 
 For what, he says, " doth the Lord require of 
 thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to 
 walk humbly with thy God." ^ 
 
 When Christ described the Great Day and the causes 
 which determined the future of men, what were they ? 
 Not questions of race or creed ; not whether they were 
 Jews or Gentiles : there was no question of Dogma ; 
 it did not depend on men's religion, not on what they 
 thought or believed, but on what they had done. 
 
 The Son of man [he said] shall come in his glory, and all 
 the holy angels with him . . . and separate the good and evil as 
 shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats : 
 
 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats 
 on the left. 
 
 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, 
 ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
 from the foundation of the world : 
 
 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, 
 and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in : 
 
 Naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I 
 was in prison, and ye came unto me. 
 
 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying. Lord, when 
 saw we thee an hungi'ed, and fed thee ? or thirsty, and gave 
 thee drink ? 
 
 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or naked, 
 and clothed thee ] 
 
 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto 
 thee? 
 
 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say 
 unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
 tliese my brethren, ye have done it unto me. 
 
 I might quote other passages to the same effect. 
 Renan used to say " that his criticism had done 
 more to support religion than all the apologies." 
 
 ' Micah vi. 8.
 
 Address to Churchmen's Union 293 
 
 We cannot improve, and should be careful in 
 attempting to add to, the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 " Theology," said Jowett, " is full of undefined 
 terms which have distracted the human mind for ages. 
 Mankind have reasoned from them but not to them ; 
 they have drawn out the conclusions without prov- 
 ing the premises ; they have asserted the premises 
 without examining the terms. The passions of reli- 
 gious parties have been roused to the utmost about 
 words of which they could have given no explana- 
 tion, and which had really no distinct meaning." 
 
 ** Les Religions," says Renan,^ " comme les Philo- 
 sophies, sont toutes vaines ; mais la Religion, pa 
 plus que la Philosophic, n'est vaine." 
 
 To attempt to add to, or improve on, the teaching 
 of Christ seems vain and even arrogant. The dis- 
 cussions of theology are intensely interesting, no doubt ; 
 they are the science, but they are not the essence of 
 religion. Theology is a branch of science : it is not 
 religion. It is an exercise of the mind religion of 
 the heart. To confuse the two seems to me a vital 
 error and has led to terrible results. Theological 
 Dogmas are responsible for devastating wars, for the 
 massacre of St. Bartholomew, for the terrors of the 
 Inquisition. The victims may or may not have been 
 Christians the Inquisitors certainly were not. Who 
 can imagine that Jesus w^ould have sanctioned any of 
 these horrors? horrors perpetrated in the name of 
 religion. 
 
 Even in our own country the misuse of theology 
 
 ^ His. du Peuple D' Israel.
 
 294 Essays and Addresses 
 
 divides religion into sects one says I am of Paul 
 and another I am of Apollos, We remember the 
 outcry about Bishop Colenso which was like 
 attacking the multiplication table ; we remember the 
 prosecution of the authors of Essays and Reviews ; 
 but we lived to see one of them Master of Balliol and 
 another Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 Intensely interesting as it would be to know more 
 of the constitution of the universe, we must be 
 content to wait. I feel with St. Augustine : " Let 
 others argue, I will wonder," at any rate till we 
 have more light. 
 
 But the craving for dogmatic theology as a basis 
 for religion exists, and we must recognise it. Now 
 among all the Churches none seems to me to be wider, 
 more tolerant, more progressive, more truly Catholic 
 and Christian, than the Church of England. 
 
 " I could conceive," said Huxley, " the existence 
 of an Established Church which should be a blessing 
 to the community. A Church in which, week by 
 week, services should be devoted, not to the iteration 
 of abstract propositions in theology, but to the setting 
 before men's minds of an ideal of true, just, and pure 
 living ; a })lace in which those who are weary of the 
 burden of daily cares should find a moment's rest in 
 the contemplation of the higher life which is possible 
 for all, though attained by so few ; a place in which 
 the man of strife and of business should have to think 
 how small, after all, are the rewards he covets compared 
 with peace and charity. Depend upon it, if such a 
 Church existed, no one would seek to disestablish it."
 
 Address to Churchmen's Union 295 
 
 It seems to me that he has here very nearly 
 described the Church of Stanley and Jowett, of 
 Kingsley and Temple. 
 
 Apart from theology, it would be difficult, I think, 
 to over-estimate the services rendered to the country 
 by the Church of England never perhaps more 
 usefully or more devotedly than at the present time. 
 
 Alike in the seethino: slums of our great cities, 
 and in the remote and isolated parishes of country 
 districts, the presence of a cultivated family for it 
 would be ungrateful indeed to forget how the clergy- 
 man is generally aided by his wife, and often by his 
 daughters is a centre of light and warmth and 
 sympathy. The church services and cottage visits 
 brighten many a humble home, and give dignity, 
 variety, and hope to lives often of monotony, suffer- 
 ing, and hardship.^ 
 
 Nor would I under-estimate the services rendered 
 by Nonconformist bodies. I sympathise, and intel- 
 lectually in some respects agree, with them. 
 
 For an Englishman there is a profound distinction 
 between the National Church and theological sects. A 
 sect represents an opinion : the Church a duty. Wc must 
 differ, but why need we separate 1 Within the Churcli 
 itself the differences are greater than those between 
 some of the sects and the Church. The Church is 
 the national recognition of the great mystery of exist- 
 ence. Must it not be a satisfaction to meet one's 
 countrymen in reverent recognition of that mystery, 
 
 1 I speak here, of course, of England only, and by iio means forget tlie 
 similar Churches in Scotland and Ireland.
 
 2()6 Essays and Addresses 
 
 and in gratitude for the great gift of life, without 
 allowing ourselves to be separated by metaphysical 
 differences. 
 
 If we differ, let us at least remember that, as 
 Milton said, " Error is but truth in the making." 
 
 It has been well said that, " Teach a child what 
 is wise that is morality. Teach him what is wise 
 and beautiful that is religion ! " 
 
 I hope and believe with Kuskin that " the charities 
 of more and more widely extended peace are preparing 
 the way for a Church which shall depend neither on 
 ignorance for its continuance, nor on controversy for 
 its progress, but shall reign at once in light and 
 love ; " and that Stanley did something to carry out 
 Jowett's suggestion to which I have already referred, 
 when he said of Faith, Hope, and Charity, that 
 " Faith founded the Church ; Hope has sustained it. 
 I cannot help thinking that it is reserved for Love to 
 reform it." 
 
 THE END 
 
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