about colonial industry and the colonist about home industry; as a sort
of neutral ground on which the capitalist and the artisan would be
equally welcome; as a centre of intercommunication in which they might
enter into friendly discussion of the problems at issue between them,
and, perchance, arrive at a friendly solution of them. I imagined it a
place in which the fullest stores of industrial knowledge would be made
accessible to the public; in which the higher questions of commerce and
industry would be systematically studied and elucidated; and where, as
in an industrial university, the whole technical education of the
country might find its centre and crown. If I earnestly desire to see
such an institution created, it is not because I think that or anything
else will put an end to pauperism and want--as somebody has absurdly
suggested,--but because I believe it will supply a foundation for that
scientific organisation of our industries which the changed conditions
of the times render indispensable to their prosperity. I do not think I
am far wrong in assuming that we are entering, indeed, have already
entered, upon the most serious struggle for existence to which this
country has ever been committed. The latter years of the century
promise to see us embarked in an industrial war of far more serious
import than the military wars of its opening years. On the east, the
most systematically instructed and best-informed people in Europe are
our competitors; on the west, an energetic offshoot of our own stock,
grown bigger than its parent, enters upon the struggle possessed of
natural resources to which we can make no pretension, and with every
prospect of soon possessing that cheap labour by which they may be
effectually utilised. Many circumstances tend to justify the hope that
we may hold our own if we are careful to "organise victory." But to
those who reflect seriously on the prospects of the population of
Lancashire and Yorkshire--should the time ever arrive when the goods
which are produced by their labour and their skill are to be had