We must not forget that industrial wars, like other wars, however just and necessary, give birth to men whose trade is war, and who, for the purpose of their trade are always inflaming the passions which lead to war. Such men I have seen on both sides of the Atlantic, and most hateful pests of industry and society they are. Nor must we forget that Trade Unions, like other communities, whatever their legal constitutions may be, are apt practically to fall into the hands of a small minority of active spirits, or even into those of a single astute and ambitious man.

Murder, maiming and vitriol throwing are offences punishable by law. So are, or ought to be, rattening and intimidation. But there are ways less openly criminal of interfering with the liberty of non-union men. The liberty of non-union men, however, must be protected. Freedom of contract is the only security which the community has against systematic extortion; and extortion, practised on the community by a Trade Union, is just as bad as extortion practised by a feudal baron in his robber hold. If the unions are not voluntary they are tyrannies, and all tyrannies in the end will be overthrown.

The same doom awaits all monopolies and attempts to interfere with the free exercise of any lawful trade or calling, for the advantage of a ring of any kind, whether it be a great East India Company, shutting the gates of Eastern commerce on mankind, or a little Bricklayers' Union, limiting the number of bricks to be carried in a hod. All attempts to restrain or cripple production in the interest of a privileged set of producers; all trade rules preventing work from being done in the best, cheapest and most expeditious way; all interference with a man's free use of his strength and skill on pretence that he is beating his mates, or on any other pretence, all exclusions of people from lawful callings for which they are qualified; all apprenticeships not honestly intended for the instruction of the apprentice, are unjust and contrary to the manifest interests of the community, including the misguided monopolists themselves. All alike will, in the end, be resisted and put down. In feudal times the lord of the manor used to compel all the people to use his ferry, sell on his fair ground, and grind their corn at his mill. By long and costly effort humanity has broken the yoke of old Privilege, and it is not likely to bow its neck to the yoke of the new.

Those who in England demanded the suffrage for the working man, who urged, in the name of public safety, as well as in that of justice, that he should be brought within the pale of the constitution, have no reason to be ashamed of the result. Instead of voting for anarchy and public pillage, the working man has voted for economy, administrative reform, army reform, justice to Ireland, public education. But no body of men ever found political power in their hands without being tempted to make a selfish use of it. Feudal legislatures, as we have seen, passed laws compelling workmen to give more work, or work that was worth more, for the same wages. Working men's legislatures are now disposed to pass laws compelling employers, that is, the community, to give the same wages for less work. Some day, perhaps, the bakers will get power into their hands and make laws compelling us to give the same price for a smaller loaf. What would the Rochdale pioneers, or the owners of any other co- operative store, with a staff of servants say if a law were passed compelling them to give the same wages for less service? This is not right, and it cannot stand. Demagogues who want your votes will tell you that it can stand, but those who are not in that line must pay you the best homage in their power by speaking the truth. And if I may venture to offer advice never let the cause of labour be mixed up with the game of politicians. Before you allow a man to lead you in trade questions be sure that he has no eye to your votes. We have a pleasing variety of political rogues but perhaps, there is hardly a greater rogue among them than the working man's friend.

Perhaps you will say as much or more work is done with the short hours. There is reason to hope that it in some cases it may be so. But then the employer will see his own interest, free contract will produce the desired result, there will be no need of compulsory law.

I sympathize heartily with the general object of the nine hours movement, of the early closing movement, and all movements of that kind. Leisure well spent is a condition of civilization, and now we want all to be civilized, not only a few. But I do not believe it possible to regulate the hours of work by law with any approach to reason or justice. One kind of work is more exhausting than another, one is carried on in a hot room, another in a cool room, one amidst noise wearing to the nerves, another in stillness. Time is not a common measure of them all. The difficulty is increased if you attempt to make one rule for all nations disregarding differences of race and climate. Besides how in the name of justice, can we say that the man with a wife and children to support, shall not work more if he pleases than the unmarried man who chooses to be content with less pay and to have more time for enjoyment? Medical science pronounces, we are told, that it is not good for a man to work more than eight hours. But supposing this to be true and true of all kinds of work, this as has been said before is an imperfect world and it is to be feared that we cannot guarantee any man against having more to do than his doctor would recommend. The small tradesman, whose case receives no consideration because he forms no union, often perhaps generally has more than is good for him of anxiety, struggling and care as well as longer business hours, than medical science would prescribe. Pressure on the weary brain is, at least, as painful as pressure on the weary muscle; many a suicide proves it; yet brains must be pressed or the wheels of industry and society would stand still. Let us all, I repeat, get as much leisure as we fairly and honestly can; but with all due respect for those who hold the opposite opinion, I believe that the leisure must be obtained by free arrangement in each ease, as it has already in the case of early closing, not by general law.

I cannot help regarding industrial war in this new world, rather as an importation than as a native growth. The spirit of it is brought over by British workmen, who have been fighting the master class in their former home. In old England, the land of class distinctions, the masters are a class, economically as well as socially, and they are closely allied with a political class, which till lately engrossed power and made laws in the interest of the employer. Seldom does a man in England rise from the ranks, and when he does, his position in an aristocratic society is equivocal, and he never feels perfectly at home. Caste runs from the peerage all down the social scale. The bulk of the land has been engrossed by wealthy families, and the comfort and dignity of freehold proprietorship are rarely attainable by any but the rich. Everything down to the railway carriages, is regulated by aristocracy; street cars cannot run because they would interfere with carriages, a city cannot be drained because a park is in the way. The labourer has to bear a heavy load of taxation, laid on by the class wars of former days. In this new world of ours, the heel taps of old-world flunkeyism are sometimes poured upon us, no doubt; as, on the other hand, we feel the reaction from the old-world servility in a rudeness of self assertion on the part of the democracy which is sometimes rather discomposing, and which we should be glad to see exchanged for the courtesy of settled self- respect. But on the whole, class distinctions are very faint. Half, perhaps two-thirds, of the rich men you meet here have risen from the ranks, and they are socially quite on a level with the rest. Everything is really open to industry. Every man can at once invest his savings in a freehold. Everything is arranged for the convenience of the masses. Political power is completely in the hands of the people. There are no fiscal legacies of an oligarchic past. If I were one of our emigration agents, I should not dwell so much on wages, which in fact are being rapidly equalized, as on what wages will buy in Canada—the general improvement of condition, the brighter hopes, the better social position, the enlarged share of all the benefits which the community affords. I should show that we have made a step here at all events towards being a community indeed. In such a land I can see that there may still be need of occasional combinations among the working men to make better bargains with their employers, but I can see no need for the perpetual arraying of class against class or for a standing apparatus of industrial war.

There is one more point which must be touched with tenderness but which cannot be honestly passed over in silence. It could nowhere be mentioned less invidiously than under the roof of an institution which is at once an effort to create high tastes in working men and a proof that such tastes can be created. The period of transition from high to low wages and from incessant toil to comparative leisure must be one of peril to masses whom no Mechanics Institute or Literary Society as yet counts among its members. It is the more so because there is abroad in all classes a passion for sensual enjoyment and excitement produced by the vast development of wealth and at the same time as I suspect by the temporary failure of those beliefs which combat the sensual appetites and sustain our spiritual life. Colliers drinking champagne. The world stands aghast. Well, I see no reason why a collier should not drink champagne if he can afford it as well as a Duke. The collier wants and perhaps deserves it more if he has been working all the week underground and at risk of his life. Hard labour naturally produces a craving for animal enjoyment and so does the monotony of the factory unrelieved by interest in the work. But what if the collier cannot afford the champagne or if the whole of his increase of wages is wasted on it while his habitation remains a hovel, everything about him is still as filthy, comfortless and barbarous as ever and (saddest of all) his wife and children are no better off, perhaps are worse off than before? What if his powers of work are being impaired by debauchery and he is thus surely losing the footing which he has won on the higher round of the industrial ladder and lapsing back into penury and despair? What if instead of gaining he is really losing in manhood and real independence? I see nothing shocking in the fact that a mechanic's wages are now equal to those of a clergyman, or an officer in the army who has spent perhaps thousands of dollars on his education. Every man has a right to whatever his labour will fetch. But I do see something shocking in the appearance of the highly paid mechanic, whenever hard times come, as a mendicant at the door of a man really poorer than himself. Not only that English poor-law, of which we spoke, but all poor-laws, formal or informal, must cease when the labourer has the means, with proper self-control and prudence, of providing for winter as well as summer, for hard times as well as good times, for his family as well as for himself. The tradition of a by-gone state of society must be broken. The nominally rich must no longer be expected to take care of the nominally poor. The labourer has ceased to be in any sense a slave. He must learn to be, in every sense, a man.

It is much easier to recommend our neighbours to change their habits than to change our own, yet we must never forget, in discussing the question between the working man and his employer, or the community, that a slight change in the habits of the working men, in England at least, would add more to their wealth, their happiness and their hopes, than has been added by all the strikes, or by conflicts of any kind. In the life of Mr. Brassey, we are told that the British workman in Australia has great advantages, but wastes them all in drink. He does this not in Australia alone. I hate legislative interference with private habits, and I have no fancies about diet. A citizen of Maine, who has eaten too much pork, is just as great a transgressor against medical rules, and probably just as unamiable, as if he had drunk too much whisky. But when I have seen the havoc—the ever increasing havoc— which drink makes with the industry, the vigour, the character of the British workman, I have sometimes asked myself whether in that case extraordinary measures might not be justified by the extremity of its dangers.

The subject is boundless. I might touch upon perils distinct from Unionism, which threaten industry, especially that growing dislike of manual labour which prevails to an alarming extent in the United States, and which some eminent economists are inclined to attribute to errors in the system of education in the common schools. I might speak of the duties of government in relation to these disturbances, and of the necessity, for this as well as other purposes, of giving ourselves a government of all and for all, capable of arbitrating impartially between conflicting interests as the recognised organ of the common good. I might speak, too, of the expediency of introducing into popular education a more social element, of teaching less rivalry and discontent, more knowledge of the mutual duties of different members of the community and of the connection of those duties with our happiness. But I must conclude. If I have thrown no new light upon the subject, I trust that I have at least tried to speak the truth impartially, and that I have said nothing which can add to the bitterness of the industrial conflict, or lead any of my hearers to forget that above all Trade Unions, and above all combinations of every kind, there is the great union of Humanity.



"WHAT IS CULPABLE LUXURY?"

A phrase in a lecture on "The Labour Movement," published in the Canadian Monthly, has been the inconsiderable cause of a considerable controversy in the English press and notably of a paper by the eminent economist and moralist Mr. W.R. Greg, entitled "What is Culpable Luxury?" in the Contemporary Review.

The passage of the lecture in which the phrase occurred was: "Wealth, real wealth, has hardly as yet much reason to complain of any encroachment of the Labour Movement on its rights. When did it command such means and appliances of pleasure, such satisfaction for every appetite and every fancy, as it commands now? When did it rear such enchanted palaces of luxury as it is rearing in England at the present day? Well do I remember one of those palaces, the most conspicuous object for miles round. Its lord was I dare say consuming the income of some six hundred of the poor labouring families round him. The thought that you are spending on yourself annually the income of six hundred labouring families seems to me about as much as a man with a heart and a brain can bear. Whatever the rich man desires, the finest house, the biggest diamond, the reigning beauty for his wife, social homage, public honour, political power, is ready at his command" &c, &c.

The words in italics have been separated from the context and taken as an attack on wealth. But the whole passage is a defence of labour against the charge of encroachment brought against it by wealth. I argue that, if the labouring man gets rather more than he did, the inequalities of fortune and the privileges of the rich are still great enough. In the next paragraph I say that "wealth well made and well spent is as pure as the rill that runs from the mountain side." An invidious turn has also been given to the expression "the income of six hundred labouring families," as though it meant that the wealthy idler is robbing six hundred labouring families of their income. It means no more than that the income which he is spending on himself is as large as six hundred of their incomes put together.

Mr. Greg begins with what he calls a retort courteous. He says that if the man with L30 000 is doing this sad thing so is the man with L3000 or L300 and everyone who allows himself anything beyond the necessaries of life; nay, that the labouring man when he lights his pipe or drinks his dram is as well as the rest consuming the substance of one poorer than himself. This argument appears to its framer irrefutable and a retort to which there can be no rejoinder. I confess my difficulty is not so much in refuting it as in seeing any point in it at all. What parallel can there be between an enormous and a very moderate expenditure or between prodigious luxury and ordinary comfort? If a man taxes me with having squandered fifty dollars on a repast is it an irrefutable retort to tell him that he has spent fifty cents? The limited and rational expenditure of an industrious man produces no evils economical, social or moral. I contend in the lecture that the unlimited and irrational expenditure of idle millionaires does; that it wastes labour, breeds luxury, creates unhappiness by propagating factitious wants, too often engenders vice and is injurious for the most part to real civilization. I have observed and I think with truth that the most malignant feelings which enter into the present struggle between classes have been generated by the ostentation of idle wealth in contrast with surrounding poverty. It would of course be absurd to say this of a man living on a small income in a modest house and in a plain way.

If I had said that property or all property beyond a mere sustenance is theft there would be force in Mr. Greg's retort, but as I have said or implied nothing more than that extravagant luxury is waste and contrasted with surrounding poverty grates on the feelings, especially when those who waste are idle and those who want are the hardest working labourers in the world, I repeat that I can see no force in the retort at all.

Mr. Greg proceeds to analyse the expenditure of the millionaire and to maintain that its several items are laudable.

First he defends pleasure grounds, gardens, shrubberies and deer parks. But he defends them on the ground that they are good things for the community and thereby admits my principle. It is only against wasteful self indulgence that I have anything to say. No doubt, says Mr. Greg, if the land of a country is all occupied and cultivated, and if no more land is easily accessible, and if the produce of other lands is not procurable in return for manufactured articles of exchange, then a proprietor who shall employ a hundred acres in growing wine for his own drinking, which might or would otherwise be employed in growing wheat or other food for twenty poor families who can find no other field for their labour, may fairly be said to be consuming, spending on himself, the sustenance of those families. If, again, he, in the midst of a swarming population unable to find productive or remunerative occupation, insists upon keeping a considerable extent of ground in merely ornamental walks and gardens, and, therefore, useless as far as the support of human life is concerned, he may be held liable to the same imputation—even though the wages he pays to the gardeners in the one case, and the vine-dressers in the other, be pleaded in mitigation of the charge. Let the writer of this only allow, as he must, that the moral, social and political consequences of expenditure are to be taken into account as well as the economical consequences, and he will be entirely at one with the writer whom he supposes himself to be confuting. I have never said, or imagined, that "all land ought to be producing food." I hold that no land in England is better employed than that of the London parks and the gardens of the Crystal Palace, though I could not speak so confidently with regard to a vast park from which all are excluded but its owner. Mr. Greg here again takes up what seems to me the strange position that to condemn excess is to condemn moderation. He says that whatever is said against the great parks and gardens of the most luxurious millionaire may equally be said against a tradesman's little flower-garden, or the plot of ornamental ground before the cottage windows of a peasant. I must again say that, so far from regarding this argument as irrefutable, I altogether fail to discover its cogency. The tradesman's little bit of green, the peasant's flower- bed, are real necessities of a human soul. Can the same thing be said of a pleasure-ground which consumes the labour of twenty men, and of which the object is not to refresh the weariness of labour but to distract the vacancy of idleness?

Mr. Greg specially undertakes the defence of deer-parks. But his ground is that the deer-forests which were denounced as unproductive have been proved to be the only mode of raising the condition and securing the well-being of the ill-fed population. If so, "humanitarians" are ready to hold up both hands in favour of deer-forests. Nay, we are ready to do the same if the pleasure yielded by the deer-forests bears any reasonable proportion to the expense and the agricultural sacrifice, especially if the sportsman is a worker recruiting his exhausted brain, not a sybarite killing time.

From parks and pleasure-grounds Mr. Greg goes on to horses; and here it is the same thing over again. The apologist first sneers at those who object to the millionaire's stud, then lets in the interest of the community as a limiting principle, and ends by saying: "We may then allow frankly and without demur, that if he (the millionaire) maintains more horses than he needs or can use, his expenditure thereon is strictly pernicious and indefensible, precisely in the same way as it would be if he burnt so much hay and threw so many bushels of oats into the fire. He is destroying human food." Now Mr. Greg has only to determine whether a man who is keeping a score or more of carriage and saddle horses, is "using" them or not. If he is, "humanitarians" are perfectly satisfied.

Finally Mr. Greg comes to the case of large establishments of servants. And here, having set out with intentions most adverse to my theory, he "blesses it altogether." "Perhaps," he says, "of all the branches of a wealthy nobleman's expenditure, that which will be condemned with most unanimity, and defended with most difficulty, is the number of ostentatious and unnecessary servants it is customary to maintain. For this practice I have not a word to say. It is directly and indirectly bad. It is bad for all parties. Its reflex action on the masters themselves is noxious; it is mischievous to the flunkies who are maintained in idleness, and in enervating and demoralizing luxury; it is pernicious to the community at large, and especially to the middle and upper middle classes, whose inevitable expenditure in procuring fit domestic service—already burdensomely great—is thereby oppressively enhanced, till it has become difficult not only to find good household servants at moderate wages, but to find servants who will work diligently and faithfully for any wages at all."

How will Mr. Greg keep up the palaces, parks, and studs, when he has taken away the retinues of servants? If he does not take care, he will find himself wielding the bosom of sumptuary reform in the most sweeping manner before he is aware of it. But let me respectfully ask him, who can he suppose objects to any expenditure except on the ground that it is directly and indirectly bad; bad for all parties, noxious to the voluptuary himself, noxious to all about him, and noxious to the community? So long as a man does no harm to himself or to anyone else, I for one see no objection to his supping like a Roman Emperor, on pheasants' tongues, or making shirt-studs of Koh-i-noors.

"It is charity," says Mr. Greg, hurling at the system of great establishments his last and bitterest anathema—"It is charity, and charity of the bastard sort—charity disguised as ostentation. It feeds, clothes, and houses a number of people in strenuous and pretentious laziness. If almshouses are noxious and offensive to the economic mind, then, by parity of reasoning, superfluous domestics are noxious also." And so it would seem, by parity of reasoning, or rather a fortiori, as being fed, clothed, and housed far more expensively, and in far more strenuous and pretentious laziness, are the superfluous masters of flunkeys. The flunkey does some work, at all events enough to prevent him from becoming a mere fattened animal. If he is required to grease and powder his head, he does work, as it seems to me, for which he may fairly claim a high remuneration.

As I have said already, let Mr. Greg take in the moral, political, and social evils of luxury, as well as the material waste, and I flatter myself that there will be no real difference between his general view of the responsibilities of wealth and mine. He seems to be as convinced as I am that there is no happiness in living in strenuous and pretentious laziness by the sweat of other men's brows.

Nor do I believe that even the particular phrase which has been deemed so fraught with treason to plutocracy would, if my critic examined it closely, seem to him so very objectionable. His own doctrine, it is true, sounds severely economical. He holds that "the natural man and the Christian" who should be moved by his natural folly and Christianity to forego a bottle of champagne in order to relieve a neighbour in want of actual food, would do a thing "distinctly criminal and pernicious." Still I presume he would allow, theoretically, as I am very sure he would practically, a place to natural sympathy. He would not applaud a banquet given in the midst of a famine, although it might be clearly proved that the money spent by the banqueters was their own, that those who were perishing of famine had not been robbed of it, that their bellies were none the emptier because those of the banqueters were full, and that the cookery gave a stimulus to gastronomic art. He would not, even, think it wholly irrational that the gloom of the work-house should cast a momentary shadow on the enjoyments of the palace. I should also expect him to understand the impression that a man of "brain," even one free from any excessive tenderness of "heart," would not like to see a vast apparatus of luxury, and a great train of flunkeys devoted to his own material enjoyment—that he would feel it as a slur on his good sense, as an impeachment of his mental resources, and of his command of nobler elements of happiness, and even as a degradation of his manhood. There was surely something respectable in the sentiment which made Mr. Brassey refuse, however much his riches might increase, to add to his establishment. There is surely something natural in the tendency, which we generally find coupled with greatness, to simplicity of life. A person whom I knew had dined with a millionaire tete-a-tete, with six flunkeys standing round the table. I suspect that a man of Mr. Greg's intellect and character, in spite of his half-ascetic hatred of plush, would rather have been one of the six than one of the two.

While, however, I hope that my view of these matters coincides practically with that of Mr. Greg far more than he supposes, I must admit that there may be a certain difference of sentiment behind. Mr. Greg describes the impressions to which I have given currency as a confused compound of natural sympathy, vague Christianity, and dim economic science. Of the confusion, vagueness and dimness of our views, of course we cannot be expected to be conscious; but I own that I defer, in these matters, not only to natural feeling, but to the ethics of rational Christianity. I still adhere to the Christian code for want of a better, the Utilitarian system of morality being, so far as I can see, no morality at all, in the ordinary sense of the term, as it makes no appeal to our moral nature, our conscience, or whatever philosophers choose to call the deepest part of humanity. Of course, therefore, I accept as the fundamental principle of human relations, and of all science concerning them, the great Christian doctrine that "we are every one members one of another" As a consequence of this doctrine I hold that the wealth of mankind is morally a common store; that we are morally bound to increase it as much, and to waste it as little, as we can, that of the two it is happier to be underpaid than to be overpaid; and that we shall all find it so in the sum of things. There is nothing in such a view in the least degree subversive of the legal rights of property, which the founders of Christianity distinctly recognised in their teaching, and strengthened practically by raising the standard of integrity; nothing adverse to active industry or good business habits; nothing opposed to economic science as the study of the laws regulating the production and distribution of wealth; nothing condemnatory of pleasure, provided it be pleasure which opens the heart, as I suppose was the case with the marriage feast at Cana, not the pleasure which closes the heart, as I fear was the case with the "refined luxury" of the Marquis of Steyne.

If this is superstition, all that I can say is that I have read Strauss, Renan, Mr. Greg on the "Creed of Christendom," and all the eminent writers I could hear of on that side, and that I am not conscious of any bias to the side of orthodoxy, at least I have not given satisfaction to the orthodox classes.

Christianity, of course, in common with other systems, craves a reasonable construction. Plato cannot afford to have his apologues treated as histories. In "Joshua Davidson," a good man is made to turn away from Christianity because he finds that his faith will not literally remove a mountain and cast it into the sea. But he had omitted an indispensable preliminary. He ought first to have exactly compared the bulk of his faith with that of a grain of Palestinian mustard seed. Mr. Greg makes sport of the text "He that hath two coats let him impart to him that hath none," which he says he heard in his youth, but without ever considering its present applicability. Yet in the next paragraph but one he gives it a precise and a very important application by pronouncing that a man is not at liberty to grow wine for himself on land which other people need for food. I fail to see how the principle involved in this passage, and others of a similar tendency which I have quoted from Mr. Greg's paper, differ from that involved in Gospel texts which, if I were to quote them would grate strangely upon his ear. The texts comprise a moral sanction; but Mr. Greg must have some moral sanction when he forbids a man to do that which he is permitted to do by law. Christianity, whatever its source and authority, was addressed at first to childlike minds, and what its antagonists have to prove is not that its forms of expression or even of thought are adapted to such minds, but that its principles, when rationally applied to a more advanced state of society, are unsound. Rightly understood it does not seem to me to enjoin anything eccentric or spasmodic, to bid you enact primitive Orientalism in the streets of London, thrust fraternity upon writers in the Pall Mall Gazette, or behave generally as if the "Kingdom of God" were already come. Your duty as a Christian is done if you help its coming according to the circumstances of your place in society and the age in which you live.

Of course, in subscribing to the Christian code of ethics, one lays oneself open to "retorts corteous" without limit. But so one does in subscribing to any code, or accepting any standard, whether moral or of any other kind.

I do not see on what principle Mr. Greg would justify, if he does justify, any sort of charitable benefactions. Did not Mr. Peabody give his glass of champagne to a man in need? He might have spent all his money on himself if he had been driven to building Chatsworths, and hanging their walls with Raffaelles. How will he escape the reproach of having done what was criminal and pernicious? And what are we to say of the conduct of London plutocrats who abetted his proceedings by their applause though they abstained from following his example? Is there any apology for them at all but one essentially Christian? Not that Christianity makes any great fuss over munificence, or gives political economy reasonable ground for apprehension on that score. Plutocracy deifies Mr. Peabody; Christianity measures him and pronounces his millions worth less than the widow's mite.

In my lecture I have applied my principles, or tried to apply them, fairly to the mechanic as well as to the millionaire. I have deprecated, as immoral, a resort to strikes solely in the interest of the strikers, without regard to the general interests of industry and of the community at large. What has my critic to say, from the moral point of view, to the gas stokers who leave London in the dark, or the colliers who, in struggling to raise their own wages, condemn the ironworkers to "clamm" for want of coal?

I would venture to suggest that Mr. Greg somewhat overrates in his paper the beneficence of luxury as an agent in the advancement of civilization. "Artificial wants," he says, "what may be termed extravagant wants, the wish to possess something beyond the bare necessaries of existence; the taste for superfluities and luxuries first, the desire for refinements and embellishments next; the craving for the higher enjoyments of intellect and art as the final stage—these are the sources and stimulants of advancing civilization. It is these desires, these needs, which raise mankind above mere animal existence, which, in time and gradually, transform the savage into the cultured citizen of intelligence and leisure. Ample food once obtained, he begins to long for better, more varied, more succulent food; the richer nutriment leads on to the well-stored larder and the well-filled cellar, and culminates in the French cook." The love of truth, the love of beauty, the effort to realize a high type of individual character, and a high social ideal, surely these are elements of progress distinct from gastronomy, and from that special chain of gradual improvement which culminates in the French cook. It may be doubted whether French cookery does always denote the acme of civilization. Perhaps in the case of the typical London Alderman, it denotes something like the acme of barbarism, for the barbarism of the elaborate and expensive glutton surely exceeds that of the child of nature who gorges himself on the flesh which he has taken in hunting: not to mention that the child of nature costs humanity nothing, whereas the gourmand devours the labour of the French cook and probably that of a good many assistants and purveyors.

The greatest service is obviously rendered by any one who can improve human food. "The man is what he eats," is a truth though somewhat too broadly stated. But then the improvement must be one ultimately if not immediately accessible to mankind in general. That which requires a French cook is accessible only to a few.

Again, in setting forth the civilizing effects of expenditure, Mr. Greg, I think, rather leaves out of sight those of frugality. The Florentines, certainly the leaders of civilization in their day, were frugal in their personal habits, and by that frugality accumulated the public wealth which produced Florentine art, and sustained a national policy eminently generous and beneficent for its time.

Moreover, in estimating the general influence of great fortunes, Mr. Greg seems to take a rather sanguine view of the probable character and conduct of their possessors. He admits that a broad-acred peer or opulent commoner "may spend his L30,000 a year in such a manner as to be a curse, a reproach, and an object of contempt to the community, demoralizing and disgusting all around him, doing no good to others, and bringing no real enjoyment to himself." But he appears to think that the normal case, and the one which should govern our general views and policy upon the subject, is that of a man "of refined taste and intellect expanded to the requirements of his position, managing his property with care and judgment, so as to set a feasible example to less wealthy neighbours; prompt to discern and to aid useful undertakings, to succour striving merit, unearned suffering, and overmatched energy." "Such a man," he says, in a concluding burst of eloquence, "if his establishment in horses and servants is not immoderate, although he surrounds himself with all that art can offer to render life beautiful and elegant though he gathers round him the best productions of the intellect of all countries and ages, though his gardens and his park are models of curiosity and beauty, though he lets his ancestral trees rot in their picturesque mutility instead of converting them into profitable timber, and disregards the fact that his park would be more productive if cut up into potato plots though, in fine he lives in the very height of elegant, refined and tasteful luxury—I should hesitate to denounce as consuming on himself the incomes of countless labouring families, and I should imagine that he might lead his life of temperate and thoughtful joy quietly conscious that his liberal expenditure enabled scores of these families as well as artists and others to exist in comfort and without either brain or heart giving way under the burdensome reflection."

It must be by a slip of the pen such as naturally occurs amidst the glow of an enthusiastic description that the writer speaks of people as enabling others to subsist by their expenditure. It is clear that people can furnish subsistence to themselves or others only by production. A rich idler may appear to give bread to an artist or opera girl but the bread really comes not from the idler but from the workers who pay his rents; the idler is at most the channel of distribution. The munificence of monarchs who generously lavish the money of the taxpayer is a familiar case of the same fallacy. This is the illusion of the Irish peasant whose respect for the spendthrift "gentleman" and contempt for the frugal "sneak" Mr. Greg honours with a place among the serious elements of an economical and social problem.

But not to dwell on what is so obvious how many let me ask, of the possessors of inherited wealth in England or in any other country, fulfil or approach Mr. Greg's ideal? I confess that, as regards the mass of the English squires the passage seems to me almost satire. Refined taste and expanded intellect, promptness to discern and aid striving merit and unearned suffering, life surrounded with all that art can do to render it beautiful and elegant, the best productions of intellect gathered from all intellects and ages—I do not deny that Mr. Greg has seen all this, but I can hardly believe that he has seen it often, and I suspect that there are probably people not unfamiliar with the abodes of great landowners who have never seen it at all. Not to speak of artists and art, what does landed wealth do for popular education? It appears from the Popular Education Report of 1861 (p. 77) that in a district taken as a fair specimen, the sum of L4,518, contributed by voluntary subscription towards the support of 168 schools, was derived from the following sources:

169 clergymen contributed L1,782 or L10 10 0 each 399 landowners " 2,127 " 5 6 0 " 2l7 occupiers " 200 " 18 6 " 102 householders " 181 " 1 15 6 " 141 other persons " 228 " 1 12 4 "

The rental of the 399 landowners was estimated at, L650,000 a year. Judging from the result of my own observations, I should not have been at all surprised if a further analysis of the return had shown that not only the contributions of the clergy but those of retired professional men and others with limited incomes were, in proportion, far greater than those of the leviathans of wealth.

To play the part of Mr. Greg's ideal millionaire, a man must have not only a large heart but a cultivated mind; and how often are educators successful in getting work out of boys or youths who know that they have not to make their own bread?

In my lecture I have drawn a strong distinction, though Mr. Greg has not observed it, between hereditary wealth and that which, however great, and even, compared with the wages of subordinate producers, excessive, is earned by industry. Wealth earned by industry is, for obvious reasons, generally much more wisely and beneficially spent than hereditary wealth. The self-made millionaire must at all events, have an active mind. The late Mr. Brassey was probably one man in a hundred even among self-made millionaires; among hereditary millionaires he would have been one in a thousand. Surely we always bestow especial praise on one who resists the evil influences of hereditary wealth, and surely our praise is deserved.

The good which private wealth has done in the way of patronizing literature and art is, I am convinced, greatly overrated. The beneficent patronage of Lorenzo di Medici is, like that of Louis XIV., a chronological and moral fallacy. What Lorenzo did was, in effect, to make literature and art servile and in some cases to taint them with the propensities of a magnificent debauchee. It was not Lorenzo, nor any number of Lorenzos, that made Florence, with her intellect and beauty, but the public spirit, the love of the community, the intensity of civic life, in which the interest of Florentine history lies. The decree of the Commune for the building of the Cathedral directs the architect to make a design "of such noble and extreme magnificence that the industry and skill of men shall be able to invent nothing grander or more beautiful," since it had been decided in Council that no plan should be accepted "unless the conception was such as to render the work worthy of an ambition which had become very great, inasmuch as it resulted from the continued desires of a great number of citizens united in one sole will."

I believe, too, that the munificence of a community is generally wiser and better directed than that of private benefactors. Nothing can be more admirable than the munificence of rich men in the United States. But the drawback in the way of personal fancies and crochets is so great that I sometimes doubt whether future generations will have reason to thank the present, especially as the reverence of the Americans for property is so intense that they would let a dead founder breed any pestilence rather than touch the letter of his will.

Politically, no one can have lived in the New World without knowing that a society in which wealth is distributed rests on an incomparably safer foundation than one in which it is concentrated in the hands of a few. British plutocracy has its cannoneer; but if the cannoneer happens to take fancies into his head the "whiff of grapeshot" goes the wrong way.

Socially, I do not know whether Mr. Greg has been led to consider the extent to which artificial desires, expensive fashions, and conventional necessities created by wealth, interfere with freedom of intercourse and general happiness. The Saturday Review says:

"All classes of Her Majesty's respectable subjects are always doing their best to keep up appearances, and a very hard struggle many of us make of it. Thus a mansion in Belgrave Square ought to mean a corpulent hall-porter, a couple of gigantic footmen, a butler and an under-butler at the very least, if the owner professes to live op to his social dignities. If our house is in Baker or Wimpole street, we must certainly have a manservant in sombre raiment to open our door, with a hobbledehoy or a buttons to run his superior's messages. In the smart, although somewhat dismal, small squares in South Kensington and the Western suburbs, the parlourmaid must wear the freshest of ribbons and trimmest of bows, and be resplendent in starch and clean coloured muslins. So it goes on, as we run down the gamut of the social scale; our ostentatious expenditure must be in harmony throughout with the stuccoed facade behind which we live, or the staff of domestics we parade. We are aware, of course, as our incomes for the most part are limited, and as we are all of us upon our mettle in the battle of life that we must pinch somewhere if appearances are to be kept up. We do what we can in secret towards balancing the budget. We retrench on our charities, save on our coals, screw on our cabs, drink the sourest of Bordeaux instead of more generous vintages, dispense with the cream which makes tea palatable, and systematically sacrifice substantial comforts that we may swagger successfully in the face of a critical and carping society. But with the most of us if our position is an anxious one; it is of our own making and if we dared to be eccentrically rational it might be very tolerable."

Nor is this the worst. The worst is the exclusion from society of the people who do not choose to torture and degrade themselves in order to keep up appearances and who are probably the best people of all. The interference of wealth and its exigencies with social enjoyment is I suspect a heavy set off against squirearchical patronage of intellect and art.

Those who believe that the distribution of wealth is more favourable to happiness and more civilizing than its concentration will of course vote against laws which tend to artificial concentration of wealth such as those of primogeniture and entail. This they may do without advocating public plunder though it suits plutocratic writers to confound the two. For my own part I do not feel bound to pay to British plutocracy a respect which British plutocracy does not pay to humanity. Some of its organs are beginning to preach doctrines revolting to a Christian and to any man who has not banished from his heart the love of his kind and we have seen it when its class passions were excited show a temper as cruel as that of any Maratist or Petroleuse. But so far from attacking the institution of property [Footnote: The Saturday Review some time ago charged me with proposing to confiscate the increase in the value of land. I never said anything of the kind nor anything I believe that could easily be mistaken for it.] I have as great a respect for it as any millionaire can have and as sincerely accept and uphold it as the condition of our civilization. There is nothing inconsistent with this in the belief that among the better part of the race property is being gradually modified by duty or in the surmise that before humanity reaches its distant goal property and duty will alike be merged in affection.



A TRUE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY.

The vast works of the railway and steamboat age called into existence, besides the race of great engineers, a race of great organizers and directors of industry, who may be generally termed Contractor. Among these no figure was more conspicuous than that of Mr. Brassey, a life of whom has just been published by Messrs. Bell and Daldy. Its author is Mr. Helps, whose name is a guarantee for the worthy execution of the work. And worthily executed it is, in spite of a little Privy Council solemnity in the reflections, and a little "State Paper" in the style. The materials were collected in an unusual way—by examining the persons who had acted under Mr. Brassey, or knew him well, and taking down their evidence in shorthand. The examination was conducted by Mr. Brassey, jun., who prudently declined to write the biography himself, feeling that a son could not speak impartially of his father. The result is that we have materials for a portrait, which not only is very interesting in itself but, by presenting the image of beneficence in an employer, may help to mediate between capital and labour in a time of industrial war.

Mr. Helps had been acquainted with Mr. Brassey, and had once received a visit from him on official business of difficulty and importance. He expected, he says, to see a hard, stern, soldierly sort of person, accustomed to sway armies of working-men in an imperious fashion. Instead of this he saw an elderly gentleman of very dignified appearance and singularly graceful manners—"a gentleman of the old school." "He stated his case, no, I express myself wrongly; he did not state his case, he understated it; and there are few things more attractive in a man than that he should be inclined to understate rather than overstate his own case." Mr. Brassey was also very brief, and when he went away, Mr. Helps, knowing well the matter in respect to which his visitor had a grievance, thought that, if it had been his own case, he should hardly have been able to restrain himself so well, and speak with so little regard to self-interest, as Mr. Brassey had done. Of all the persons whom Mr. Helps had known, he thought Mr. Brassey most resembled that perfect gentleman and excellent public man, Lord Herbert of Lea.

Mr. Helps commences his work with a general portrait. According to this portrait, the most striking feature in Mr. Brassey's character was trustfulness, which he carried to what might appear an extreme. He chose his agents with care, but, having chosen them, placed implicit confidence in them, trusting them for all details, and judging by results. He was very liberal in the conduct of business. His temperament was singularly calm and equable, not to be discomposed by success or failure, easily throwing off the burden of care, and, when all had been done that could be done, awaiting the result with perfect equanimity. He was very delicate in blaming, his censure being always of the gentlest kind, evidently reluctant, and on that account going more to the heart. His generosity made him exceedingly popular with his subordinates and work-men, who looked forward to his coming among them as a festive event; and, when any disaster occurred in the works, the usual parts of employer and employed were reversed—the employer it was who framed the excuses and comforted the employed. He was singularly courteous, and listened to everybody with respect; so that it was a marked thing when he went so far as to say of a voluble and empty chatterer, that "the peas were overgrowing the stick." His presence of mind was great; he had in an eminent degree, as his biographer remarks, what Napoleon called "two o'clock in the morning courage," being always ready, if called up in the middle of the night, to meet any urgent peril; and his faculties were stimulated, not overcome, by danger. He had a perfect hatred of contention, and would not only refuse to take any questionable advantage, but would rather even submit to be taken advantage of—a generosity which turned to his account. In the execution of any undertaking, his anxiety was that the work should be done quickly and done well. Minor questions, unprovided for by specific contract, he left to be settled afterwards. In his life he had only one regular law-suit. It was in Spain, about the Mataro line, and into this he was drawn by his partner against his will. He declared that he would never have another, "for in nineteen cases out of twenty you either gain nothing at all, or what you do gain does not compensate you for the worry and anxiety the lawsuit occasions you." In case of disputes between his agents and the engineers, he quietly settled the question by reference to the "gangers."

In order to find the key to Mr. Brassey's character, his biographer took care to ascertain what was his "ruling passion." He had none of the ordinary ambitions for rank, title, or social position. "His great ambition—his ruling passion—was to win a high reputation for skill, integrity, and success in the difficult vocation of a contractor for public works; to give large employment to his fellow-countrymen; by means of British labour and British skill to knit together foreign countries; and to promote civilization, according to his view of it, throughout the world." "Mr. Brassey," continues Mr. Helps, "was, in brief, a singularly trustful, generous, large-hearted, dexterous, ruling kind of personage; blessed with a felicitous temperament for bearing the responsibility of great affairs." In the military age he might have been a great soldier, a Turenne or a Marlborough, if he could have broken through the aristocratic barrier which confined high command to the privileged few; in the industrial age he found a more beneficent road to distinction, and one not limited to the members of a caste.

Mr. Brassey's family is stated by his biographer to have come over with the Conqueror. If Mr. Brassey attached any importance to his pedigree (of which there is no appearance) it is to be hoped that he was able to make it out more clearly than most of those who claim descent from companions of the Conqueror. Long after the Conquest—so long, indeed, as England and Normandy remained united under one crown—there was a constant flow of Norman immigration into England, and England swarms with people bearing Norman or French names, whose ancestors were perfectly guiltless of the bloodshed of Hastings, and made their entrance into the country as peaceful traders, and, perhaps, in even humbler capacities. What is certain is that the great contractor sprang from a line of those small landed proprietors, once the pillars of England's strength, virtue and freedom, who, in the old country have been "improved off the face of the earth" by the great landowners, while they live again on the happier side of the Atlantic. A sound morality, freedom from luxury, and a moderate degree of culture, are the heritage of the scion of such a stock. Mr. Brassey was brought up at home till he was twelve years old, when he was sent to school at Chester. At sixteen he was articled to a surveyor, and as an initiation into great works, he helped, as a pupil, to make the surveys for the then famous Holyhead road. His master, Mr. Lawton, saw his worth, and ultimately took him into partnership. The firm set up at Birkenhead, then a very small place, but destined to a greatness which, it seems, Mr. Lawton had the shrewdness to discern. At Birkenhead Mr. Brassey did well, of course; and there, after a time, he was brought into contact with George Stephenson, and by him at once appreciated and induced to engage in railways. The first contract which he obtained was for the Pembridge Viaduct, between Stafford and Wolverhampton, and for this he was enabled to tender by the liberality of his bankers, whose confidence, like that of all with whom he came into contact, he had won. Railway-making was at that time a new business, and a contractor was required to meet great demands upon his organizing power; the system of sub-contracts, which so much facilitates the work, being then only in its infancy. From George Stephenson Mr. Brassey passed to Mr. Locke, whose great coadjutor he speedily became. And now the question arose whether he should venture to leave his moorings at Birkenhead and launch upon the wide sea of railroad enterprise. His wife is said, by a happy inspiration, to have decided him in favour of the more important and ambitious sphere. She did so at the sacrifice of her domestic comfort; for in the prosecution of her husband's multifarious enterprises they changed their residence eleven times in the next thirteen years, several times to places abroad; and little during those years did his wife and family see of Mr. Brassey.

A high place in Mr. Brassey's calling had now been won, and it had been won not by going into rings or making corners, but by treading steadily the steep path of honour. Mr. Locke was accused of unduly favouring Mr. Brassey. Mr. Helps replies that the partiality of a man like Mr. Locke must have been based on business grounds. It was found that when Mr. Brassey had undertaken a contract, the engineer-in-chief had little to do in the way of supervision. Mr. Locke felt assured that the bargain would be not only exactly but handsomely fulfilled, and that no excuse would be pleaded for alteration or delay. After the fall of a great viaduct it was suggested to Mr. Brassey that, by representing his case, he might obtain a reduction of his loss. "No," was his reply, "I have contracted to make and maintain the road, and nothing shall prevent Thomas Brassey from being as good as his word."

As a contractor on a large scale, and especially as a contractor for foreign railroads, Mr. Brassey was led rapidly to develop the system of sub-contracting. His mode of dealing with his sub-contractors, however, was peculiar. They did not regularly contract with him, but he appointed them their work, telling them what price he should give for it. They were ready to take his word, knowing that they would not suffer by so doing. The sub-contractor who had made a bad bargain, and found himself in a scrape, anxiously looked for the coming of Mr. Brassey. "Mr. Brassey," says one of the witnesses examined for this biography, "came, saw how matters stood, and invariably satisfied the man. If a cutting taken to be clay turned out after a very short time to be rock, the sub- contractor would be getting disheartened, yet he still persevered, looking to the time when Mr. Brassey should come. He came, walking along the line as usual with a number of followers, and on coming to the cutting he looked round, counted the number of waggons at the work, scanned the cutting, and took stock of the nature of the stuff. "This is very hard," said he to the sub-contractor. "Yes, it is a pretty deal harder than I bargained for." Mr. Brassey would linger behind, allowing the others to go on, and then commence the following conversation: "What is your price for this cutting?" "So much a yard, Sir." "It is very evident you are not getting it out for that price. Have you asked for any advance to be made to you for this rock?" "Yes, sir, but I can make no sense of them." "If you say that your price is so much, it is quite clear that you do not do it for that. I am glad that you have persevered with it; but I shall not alter your price, it must remain as it is; but the rock must be measured for you twice. Will that do for you?" "Yes, very well indeed, and I am very much obliged to you, Sir." "Very well, go on; you have done very well in persevering, and I shall look to you again." One of these tours of inspection would often cost Mr. Brassey a thousand pounds."

Mr. Brassey, like all men who have done great things in the practical world, knew his way to men's hearts. In his tours along the line he remembered even the navvies, and saluted them by their names.

He understood the value of the co-operative principle as a guarantee for hearty work. His agents were made partakers in his success, and he favoured the butty-gang system—that of letting work to a gang of a dozen men, who divide the pay, allowing something extra to the head of the gang.

Throughout his life it was a prime object with him to collect around him a good staff of well-tried and capable men. He chose well, and adhered to his choice. If a man failed in one line, he did not cast him off, but tried him in another. It was well known in the labour market that be would never give a man up if he could help it. He did not even give men up when they had gone to law with him. In the appendix is a letter written by him to provide employment for a person who "had by some means got into a suit or reference against him," but whom he described as "knowing his work well." In hard times he still kept his staff together by subdividing the employment.

Those social philosophers who delight in imagining that there is no engineering skill, or skill of any kind, in England, have to account for the fact that a large proportion of the foreign railways are of British construction. The lines built by Mr. Brassey form an imposing figure not only on the map of England, but on those of Europe, North and South America, and Australia. The Paris and Rouen Railway was the first of the series. In passing to the foreign scene of action new difficulties had to be encountered, including that of carrying over, managing and housing large bodies of British navvies; and Mr. Brassey's administrative powers were further tried and more conspicuously developed. The railway army, under its commander-in-chief, was now fully organized. "If," says Mr. Helps, "we look at the several persons and classes engaged, they may be enumerated thus:—There were the engineers of the company or of the government who were promoters of the line. There were the principal contractors, whose work had to satisfy these engineers; and there were the agents of the contractors to whom were apportioned the several lengths of the line. These agents had the duties, in some respects, of a commissary-general in an army; and for the work to go on well, it was necessary that they should be men of much intelligence and force of character. Then there were the various artizans, such as bricklayers and masons, whose work, of course, was principally that of constructing the culverts, bridges, stations, tunnels and viaducts, to which points of the work the attention of the agents had to be carefully directed. Again, there were the sub-contractors, whose duties I have enumerated, and under them were the gangers, the corporals, as it were, in this great army, being the persons who had the control of small bodies of workmen, say twenty or more. Then came the great body of navvies, the privates of the army, upon whose endurance and valour so much depended."

There is a striking passage in one of the Erckmann-Chatrian novels, depicting the French army going into action, with its vast bodies of troops of all arms moving over the whole field, marshalled by perfect discipline and wielded by the single will of Napoleon. The army of industry when in action also presented a striking appearance in its way. I think, says one of Mr. Brassey's time keepers with professional enthusiasm, as fine a spectacle as any man could witness who is accustomed to look at work is to see a cutting in full operation with about twenty waggons being filled, every man at his post, and every man with his shirt open working in the heat of the day, the ganger walking about and everything going like clockwork. Such an exhibition of physical power attracted many French gentlemen who came on to the cuttings at Paris and Rouen and looking at the English workmen with astonishment said Mon Dieu, les Anglais comme ils travaillent! Another thing that called forth remark was the complete silence that prevailed amongst the men. It was a fine sight to see the Englishmen that were there with their muscular arms and hands hairy and brown.

The army was composed of elements as motley as ever met under any commander. On the Paris and Rouen Railway eleven languages were spoken— English, Erse, Gaelic, Welsh, French, German, Belgian (Flemish), Dutch, Piedmontese, Spanish, and Polish. A common lingo naturally sprang up like the Pigeon English of China. But in the end it seems many of the navvies learnt to speak French pretty well. We are told that at first the mode in which the English instructed the French was of a very original character. They pointed to the earth to be moved or the waggon to be filled said the word d—n emphatically, stamped their feet and somehow or other their instructions thus conveyed were generally comprehended by the foreigners. It is added however that this form of instruction was only applicable in very simple cases.

The English navvy was found to be the first workman in the world. Some navvies utterly distanced in working power the labourers of all other countries. The French at first earned only two francs a day to the Englishman's four and a half, but with better living, more instruction, and improved tools (for the French tools were very poor at first) the Frenchmen came to earn four francs. In the severe and dangerous work of mining, however the Englishman maintained his superiority in nerve and steadiness. The Piedmontese were very good hands especially for cutting rock and at the same time well conducted, sober and saving. The Neapolitans would not take any heavy work, but they seem to have been temperate and thrifty. The men from Lucca ranked midway between the Piedmontese and the Neapolitans. The Germans proved less enduring than the French; those employed, however, were mostly Bavarians. The Belgians were good labourers. In the mode of working, the foreign labourers had of course much to learn from the English, whose experience in railway- making had taught them the most compendious processes for moving earth.

Mr. Hawkshaw, the engineer, however says, as to the relative cost of unskilled labour in different countries: "I have come to the conclusion that its cost is much the same in all. I have had personal experience in South America, in Russia, and in Holland, as well as in my own country, and, as consulting engineer to some of the Indian and other foreign railways. I am pretty well acquainted with the value of Hindoo and other labour; and though an English labourer will do a larger amount of work than a Creole or a Hindoo, yet you have to pay them proportionately higher wages. Dutch labourers are, I think, as good as English, or nearly so; and Russian workmen are docile and easily taught, and readily adopt every method shown to them to be better than their own."

The "navvies," though rough, seem not to have been unmanageable. There are no trades' unions among them, and they seldom strike. Brandy being cheap in France, they were given to drink, which was not the French habit: but their good nature, and the freedom with which they spent their money, made them popular, and even the gendarmes soon found out the best way of managing them. They sometimes, but not generally, got unruly on pay day. They came to their foreign work without wife or family. The unmarried often took foreign wives. It is pleasant to hear that those who had wives and families in England sent home money periodically to them; and that they all sent money often to their parents. They sturdily kept their English habits and their English dress, with the high-low boots laced up, if they could possibly get them made.

The multiplicity of schemes now submitted to Mr. Brassey brought out his powers of calculation and mental arithmetic, which appear to have been very great. After listening to a multitude of complicated details, he would arrive mentally in a few seconds at the approximate cost of a line. He made little use of notes, trusting to his memory, which, naturally strong, was strengthened by habit. Dealing with hundreds of people, he kept their affairs in his head and at every halt in his journeys even for a quarter of an hour at a railway station he would sit down and write letters of the clearest kind. His biographer says that he was one of the greatest letter writers ever known.

If he ever got into serious difficulties it was not from miscalculation but from financial embarrassment which in 1866 pressed upon him in such a manner and with such severity that his property of all kinds was largely committed and he weathered the storm only by the aid of the staunch friends whom his high qualities and honourable conduct had wedded to his person and his fortunes. In the midst of his difficulties he pushed on his works to their conclusion with his characteristic rapidity. His perseverance supported his reputation and turned the wavering balance in his favour. The daring and vigorous completion of the Lemberg and Czarnovitz works especially had this good effect and an incident in connection with them showed the zeal and devotion which Mr. Brassey's character inspired. The works were chiefly going on at Lemberg five hundred miles from Vienna and the difficulty was, how to get the money to pay the men from Vienna to Lemberg, the intervening country being occupied by the Austrian and Prussian armies. Mr. Brassey's coadjutor and devoted friend Mr. Ofenheim, Director General of the Company, undertook to do it. He was told there was no engine but he found an old engine in a shed. Next he wanted an engine driver and he found one but the man said that he had a wife and children and that he would not go. His reluctance was overcome by the promise of a high reward for himself and a provision in case of death for his wife and family. The two jumped on the old engine and got up steam. They then started and ran at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour between the sentinels of the opposing armies who were so surprised, Mr. Ofenheim says, that they had not time to shoot him. His only fear was that there might be a rail up somewhere. But he got to Lemberg and paid the men who would otherwise have gone home, leaving the line unfinished for the winter. The Emperor of Austria might well ask, Who is this Mr. Brassey, the English contractor for whom men are to be found who work with such zeal and risk their lives? In recognition of a power which the Emperor had reason to envy he sent Mr. Brassey the Cross of the Iron Crown.

It was only in Spain, the land where two and two make five, that Mr. Brassey's powers of calculation failed him. He and his partners lost largely upon the Bilbao railway. It seems that there was a mistake as to the nature of the soil, and that the climate proved wetter than was expected. But the firm also forgot to allow for the ecclesiastical calendar, and the stoppage of work on the numberless fete days. There were, however, other difficulties peculiarly Spanish,—antediluvian finance, antediluvian currency, the necessity of sending pay under a guard of clerks armed with revolvers, and the strange nature of the people whom it was requisite to employ—one of them, a Carlist chief, living in defiance of the Government with a tail of ruffians like himself, who, when you would not transact business as he wished, "bivouacked" with his tail round your office and threatened to "kill you as he would a fly." Mr. Brassey managed notwithstanding to illustrate the civilizing power of railways by teaching the Basques the use of paper money.

Minor misfortunes of course occurred, such as the fall of the Barentin Viaduct on the Rouen and Havre railway, a brick structure one hundred feet high and a third of a mile in length, which had just elicited the praise of the Minister of Public Works. Rapid execution in bad weather, and inferior mortar, were the principal causes of this accident. By extraordinary effort the viaduct was built in less than six months, a display of energy and resource which the company acknowledged by an allowance of L1,000. On the Bilbao railway some of the works were destroyed by very heavy rains. The agent telegraphed to Mr. Brassey to come at once, as a bridge had been washed down. There hours afterwards came a telegraph announcing that a large bank was carried away, and next morning another saying that the rain continued and more damage had been done. Mr. Brassey, turning to a friend, said, laughing: "I think I had better wait till I hear that the wind has ceased, so that when I do go I may see what is left of the works, and estimate all the disasters at once, and so save a second journey."

Mr. Brassey's business rapidly developed to an immense extent, and, instead of being contractor for one or two lines, he became a sort of contractor-in-chief, and a man to be consulted by all railway proprietors. In thirty-six years be executed no less than one hundred and seventy railway and other contracts. In his residence, as in his enterprises, he now became cosmopolitan, and lived a good deal on the rail. He had the physical power to bear this life. His brother-in-law says, "I have known him come direct from France to Rugby having left Havre the night before—he would have been engaged in the office the whole day." He would then come down to Rugby by the mail train at twelve o'clock, and it was his common practice to be on the works by six o'clock the next morning. He would frequently walk from Rugby to Nuneaton, a distance of sixteen miles. Having arrived at Nuneaton in the afternoon he would proceed the same night by road to Tamworth, and the next morning he would be out on the road so soon that he had the reputation among his staff of being the first man on the works. He used to proceed over the works from Tamworth to Stafford, walking the greater part of the distance, and would frequently proceed that same evening to Lancaster in order to inspect the works there in progress, under the contract which he had for the execution of the railway from Lancaster to Carlisle.

In constructing the Great Northern Railway the difficulties of the Fen Country were met and surmounted. Mr. Brassey's chief agent in this was Mr. Ballard, a man self raised from the ranks of labour but indebted for the eminence which he ultimately attained to Mr. Brassey's discrimination in selecting him for the arduous undertaking. He has borne interesting testimony to his superior's comprehensiveness and rapidity of view, the directness with which he went to the important point, disregarding secondary matters and economizing his time and thought.

The Italian Railway enterprises of Mr. Brassey owed their origin to the economical genius of Count Cavour and their execution drew from the Count the declaration that Mr. Brassey was one of the most remarkable men he knew; clear-headed, cautious, yet very enterprising and fulfilling his engagements faithfully. "We never," said the Count, "had a difficulty with him." And he added that Mr. Brassey would make a splendid minister of public works. Mr. Brassey took shares gallantly, and, when their value had risen most generously resigned them with a view to enabling the government to interest Piedmontese investors in the undertaking. So far was he from being a maker of corners. It is justly remarked that these Piedmontese railroads constructed by English enterprise were a most important link in the chain of events which brought about the emancipation and unification of Italy.

Mr. Brassey has left on record the notable remark that the railway from Turin to Novara was completed for about the same money as was spent in obtaining the Bill for the railway from London to York. If the history of railway bills in the British Parliament, of which this statement gives us an inkling, could be disclosed, it would probably be one of the most scandalous revelations in commercial history. The contests which led to such ruinous expense and to so much demoralization, both of Parliament and of the commercial world, were a consequence of adopting the system of uncontrolled competition in place of that of government control. Mr. Brassey was in favour of the system of government control. "He was of opinion that the French policy, which did not admit the principle of free competition, was not only more calculated to serve the interests of the shareholders, but more favourable to the public. He moreover considered that a multiplicity of parallel lines of communication between the same termini, and the uncontrolled competition in regard to the service of trains, such as exists in England, did not secure so efficient a service for the public as the system adopted in France." Mr. Thomas Brassey says that he remembers that his father, when travelling in France, would constantly point out the superiority of the arrangements, and express his regret that the French policy had not been adopted in England. "He thought that all the advantage of cheap service and of sufficiently frequent communication, which were intended to be secured for the British public under a system of free competition, would have been equally well secured by adopting the foreign system, and giving a monopoly to the interest of railway communication in a given district to one company; and then limiting the exercise of that monopoly by watchful supervision on the part of the State in the interests of the public." With regard to extensions, he thought that the government might have secured sufficient compulsory powers. There can be no sort of doubt that this sort of policy would have saved England an enormous amount of pecuniary loss, personal distress and public demoralization. It is a policy, it will be observed, of government regulation, not of government subsidies or construction by government. It of course implies the existence of an administration capable of regulating a railway system, and placed above the influence of jobbery and corruption.

For the adoption of the policy of free competition Sir Robert Peel was especially responsible. He said, in his own defence, that he had not at his command power to control those undertakings. Mr. Helps assumes rather characteristically that he meant official power, and draws a moral in favour of the extension of the civil service. But there is no doubt that Peel really meant Parliamentary power. The railway men in the Parliament were too strong for him and compelled him to throw overboard the scheme of government control framed by his own committee under the presidency of Lord Dalhousie. The moral to be drawn therefore is not that of civil service extension, but that of the necessity of guarding against Parliamentary rings in legislation concerning public works.

Of all Mr. Brassey's undertakings not one was superior in importance to that with which Canadians are best acquainted—the Grand Trunk Railway, with the Victoria Bridge. It is needless here to describe this enterprise, or to recount the tragic annals of the loss brought on thousands of shareholders, which financially speaking was its calamitous sequel. The severest part of the undertaking was the Victoria Bridge. "The first working season there," says one of the chief agents, "was a period of difficulty, trouble and disaster." The agents of the contractors had no experience of the climate. There were numerous strikes among the workmen. The cholera committed dreadful ravages in the neighbourhood. In one case, out of a gang of two hundred men, sixty were sick at one time, many of whom ultimately died. The shortness of the working season in this country involved much loss of time. It was seldom that the setting of the masonry was fairly commenced before the middle of August, and it was certain that all work must cease at the end of November. Then there were the shoving of the ice at the beginning and breaking up of the frosts, and the collisions between floating rafts 250 feet long and the staging erected for putting together the tubes. Great financial difficulties were experienced in consequence of the Crimean war. The mechanical difficulties were also immense, and called for extraordinary efforts both of energy and invention. The bridge, however, was completed, as had been intended, in December, 1859 and formally opened by the Prince of Wales in the following year. "The devotion and energy of the large number of workmen employed," says Mr. Hodges, "can hardly be praised too highly. Once brought into proper discipline, they worked as we alone can work against difficulties. They have left behind them in Canada an imperishable monument of British skill, pluck, science and perseverance in this bridge, which they not only designed, but constructed."

The whole of the iron for the tubes was prepared at Birkenhead, but so well prepared that, in the centre tube, consisting of no less than 10,309 pieces, in which nearly half a million of holes were punched, not one plate required alteration, neither was there a plate punched wrong. The faculty of invention, however, was developed in the British engineers and workmen by the air of the New World. A steam-traveller was made and sent out by one of the most eminent firms in England, after two years of experiments and an outlay of some thousands of pounds, which would never do much more than move itself about, and at last had to be laid aside as useless. But the same descriptions and drawings having been shown to Mr. Chaffey, one of the sub-contractors, who "had been in Canada a sufficient length of time to free his genius from the cramped ideas of early life," a rough and ugly machine was constructed, which was soon working well. The same increase of inventiveness, according to Mr. Hodges, was visible in the ordinary workman, when transferred from the perfect but mechanical and cramping routine of British industry, to a country where he has to mix trades and turn his hands to all kinds of work. "In England he is a machine, but as soon as he gets out to the United States he becomes an intellectual being." Comparing the German with the British mechanic, Mr. Hodges says, "I do not think that a German is a better man than an Englishman; but I draw this distinction between them, that when a German leaves school he begins to educate himself, but the Englishman does not, for, as soon as he casts off the thraldom of school, he learns nothing more unless he is forced to do it, and if he is forced to do it, he will then beat the German. An Englishman acts well when he is put under compulsion by circumstances."

Labour being scarce, a number of French-Canadians were, at Mr. Brassey's suggestion, brought up in organized gangs, each having an Englishman or an American as their leader. We are told, however, that they proved useless except for very light work. "They could ballast, but they could not excavate. They could not even ballast as the English navvy does, continuously working at filling for the whole day. The only way in which they could be useful was by allowing them to fill the waggons, and then ride out with the ballast train to the place where the ballast was tipped, giving them an opportunity of resting. Then the empty waggon went back again to be filled and so alternately resting during the work; in that way, they did very much more. They would work fast for ten minutes and then they were 'done.' This was not through idleness but physical weakness. They are small men, and they are a class who are not well fed. They live entirely on vegetable food, and they scarcely ever taste meat." It is natural to suppose that the want of meat is the cause of their inefficiency. Yet the common farm labourer in England, who does a very hard and long day's work, hardly tastes meat, in many counties, the year round.

In the case of the Crimean railway, private enterprise came, in a memorable manner, to the assistance of a government overwhelmed by administrative difficulties. A forty years peace had rusted the machinery of the war department, while the machinery of railway construction was in the highest working order. Sir John Burgoyne, the chief of the engineering staff, testified that it was impossible to overrate the services rendered by the railway, or its effects in shortening the time of the siege, and alleviating the fatigues and sufferings of the troops. The disorganization of the government department was accidental and temporary, as was subsequently proved by the success of the Abyssinian expedition, and, indeed, by the closing period of the Crimean war itself, when the British army was well supplied, while the French administration broke down. On the other hand the resources of private industry, on which the embarrassed government drew, are always there; and their immense auxiliary power would be at once manifested if England should become involved in a dangerous war. It should be remembered, too, that the crushing war expenditure in time of peace, which alarmists always advocate, would prevent the growth of those resources, and deprive England of the "sinews of war."

The Danish railways brought the British navvy again into comparison with his foreign rivals. Mr. Rowan, the agent of Messrs. Peto and Brassey, was greatly pleased with his Danish labourers, but, on being pressed, said, "No man is equal to the British navvy; but the Dane, from his steady, constant labour, is a good workman, and a first-class one will do nearly as much work in a day as an Englishman." The Dane takes time: his habit is in summer to begin work at four in the morning, and continue till eight in the evening, taking five intervals of rest.

The Danish engineers, in Mr. Rowan's judgment, are over-educated, and, as a consequence, wanting in decisiveness. "They have been in the habit of applying to their masters for everything, finding out nothing for themselves; the consequence is that they are children, and cannot form a judgment. It is the same in the North of Germany; the great difficulty is that you cannot get them to come to a decision. They want always to inquire and to investigate, and they never come to a result." This evidence must have been given some years ago, for of late it has been made pretty apparent that the investigations and inquiries of the North Germans do not prevent their coming to a decision, or that decision from leading to a result. Mr. Helps seizes the opportunity for a thrust at the system of competitive examination, which has taken from the heads of departments the power of "personal selection." The answer to him is Sedan. A bullet through your heart is the strongest proof which logic can afford that the German, from whose rifle it comes, was not prevented by his knowledge of the theory of projectiles from marking his man with promptness and taking a steady aim. That over-exertion of the intellect in youth does a man harm, is a true though not a very fruitful proposition; but knowledge does not destroy decisiveness: it only turns it from the decisiveness of a bull into the decisiveness of a man. Which nations do the great works? The educated nations, or Mexico and Spain?

The Australian railways brought out two facts, one gratifying, the other the reverse. The gratifying fact was that the unlimited confidence which Mr. Brassey reposed in his agents was repaid by their zeal and fidelity in his service. The fact which was the reverse of gratifying was, that the great advantage which the English Labourer gains in Australia, from the higher wages and comparative cheapness of living, is counteracted by his love of drink.

The Argentine Railway had special importance and interest, in opening up a vast and most fruitful and salubrious region to European emigration. Those territories offer room and food for myriads. "The population of Russia, that hard-featured country, is about 75,000,000, the population of the Argentine Republic, to which nature has been so bountiful, and in which she is so beautiful, is about 1,000,000." If ever government in the South American States becomes more settled, we shall find them formidable rivals.

The Indian Railways are also likely to be a landmark in the history of civilization. They unite that vast country and its people, both materially and morally, break down caste, bring the natives from all parts to the centres of instruction, and distribute the produce of the soil evenly and rapidly, so as to mitigate famines. The Orissa famine would never have occurred, had Mr. Brassey's works been there. What effect the railways will ultimately have on British rule is another question. They multiply the army by increasing the rapidity of transport, but, on the other hand, they are likely to diminish that division among the native powers on which the Empire is partly based. Rebellion may run along the railway line as well as command.

There were periods in Mr. Brassey's career during which he and his partners were giving employment to 80,000 persons, upon works requiring seventeen millions of capital for their completion. It is also satisfactory to know, that in the foreign countries and colonies over which his operations extended, he was instrumental in raising the wages and condition of the working class, as well as in affording to the elite of that class opportunities for rising to higher positions.

His remuneration for all this, though in the aggregate very large, was by no means excessive. Upon seventy-eight millions of money laid out in the enterprises which he conducted, he retained two millions and a half, that is as nearly as possible three per cent. The rest of his fortune consisted of accumulations. Three per cent. was not more than a fair payment for the brain-work, the anxiety and the risk. The risk, it must be recollected, was constant, and there were moments at which, if Mr. Brassey had died, he would have been found comparatively poor. His fortune was made, not by immoderate gains upon any one transaction, but by reasonable profits in a business which was of vast extent, and owed its vast extent to a reputation, fairly earned by probity, energy and skill. We do not learn that he figured in any lobby, or formed a member of any ring. Whether he was a Norman or not, he was too much a gentleman, in the best sense of the term, to crawl to opulence by low and petty ways. He left no stain on the escutcheon of a captain of industry.

Nor when riches increased did he set his heart upon them. His heart was set on the work rather than on the pay. The monuments and enterprise of his skill were more to him than the millions. He seems even to have been rather careless in keeping his accounts. He gave away freely—as much as L200,000, it is believed—in the course of his life. His accumulations arose not from parsimony but from the smallness of his personal expenses. He hated show and luxury, and kept a moderate establishment, which the increase of his wealth never induced him to extend. He seems to have felt a singular diffidence as to his capacity for aristocratic expenditure. The conversation turning one day on the immense fortunes of certain noblemen, he said, "I understand it is easy and natural enough for those who are born and brought up to it, to spend L50,000 or even L150,000 a year; but I should be very sorry to have to undergo the fatigue of even spending L30,000 a year. I believe such a job as that would drive me mad." He felt an equally strange misgiving as to his capacity for aristocratic idleness. "It requires a special education," he said, "to be idle, or to employ the twenty-four hours, in a rational way, without any calling or occupation. To live the life of a gentleman, one must have been brought up to it. It is impossible for a man who has been engaged in business pursuits the greater part of his life to retire; if he does so, he soon discovers that he has made a great mistake. I shall not retire, but if for some good reason, I should be obliged to do so, it would be to a farm. There I would bring up stock which I would cause to be weighed every day, ascertaining at the same time their daily cost, as against the increasing weight. I should then know when to sell and start again with another lot."

Of tinsel, which sometimes is as corrupting to vulgar souls as money, this man seems to have been as regardless as he was of pelf. He received the Cross of the Iron Crown from the Emperor of Austria. He accepted what was graciously offered, but he said that, as an Englishman, he did not know what good Crosses were to him. The circumstance reminded him that he had received other Crosses, but he had to ask his agent what they were, and where they were. He was told that they were the Legion of Honour of France, and the Chevaliership of Italy; but the Crosses could not be found. Duplicates were procured to be taken to Mrs. Brassey, who, her husband remarked, would be glad to possess them all.

Such millionaires would do unmixed good in the world; but unfortunately they are apt to die and leave their millions, and the social influence which the millions confer, to "that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son." This is by no means said with a personal reference. On the contrary, it is evident that Mr. Brassey was especially fortunate in his heir. We find some indication of this in a chapter towards the close of Mr. Helps' volume, in which are thrown together the son's miscellaneous recollections of the father. The chapter affords further proof that the great contractor was not made of the same clay as the Fisks and Vanderbilts—that he was not a mere market-rigger and money-grubber—but a really great man, devoted to a special calling. He is represented by his son as having taken a lively interest in a wide and varied range of subjects—engineering subjects especially as a matter of course, but not engineering subjects alone. He studied countries and their people, evincing the utmost interest in Chicago, speculating on the future industrial prosperity of Canada, and imparting the results of his observations admirably when he got home. Like all great men, he had a poetic element in his character. He loved the beauties of nature, and delighted in mountain scenery. He was a great sight-seer, and when he visited a city on business, went through its churches, public buildings, and picture-galleries, as assiduously as a tourist. For half an hour he stood gazing with delight on the Maison Carree, at Nismes. For sculpture and painting he had a strong taste, and the Venus of Milo "was a joy to him." He had a keen eye for beauty, shapeliness and comeliness everywhere, in porcelain, in furniture, in dress, in a well built yacht, in a well appointed regiment of horse. Society, too, he liked, in spite of his simplicity of habits; loved to gather his friends around his board, and was always a genial host. For literature he had no time, but he enjoyed oratory, and liked to hear good reading. He used to test his son's progress in reading, at the close of each half year, by making him read aloud a chapter of the Bible. His good sense confined his ambition to his proper sphere, and prevented him from giving ear to any solicitations to go into politics, which he had not leisure to study, and which he knew ought not to be handled by ignorance. His own leanings were Conservative; but his son, who is a Liberal, testifies that his father never offered him advice on political matters, or remonstrated with him on a single vote which he gave in the House of Commons. It is little to the discredit of a man so immersed in business that he should have been fascinated, as he was, by the outward appearance of perfect order presented by the French Empire and by the brilliancy of its visible edifice, not discerning the explosive forces which its policy was all the time accumulating in the dark social realms below; though the fact that he, with all his natural sagacity, did fall into this tremendous error, is a warning to railway and steamboat politicians.