has overspread a very considerable part of the sky, the prevalent prosperity of 1872 has been replaced by heavy losses and by distress at once wide-spread and severe; commercial activity has been succeeded by commercial stagnation, disaster and alarm; and, speaking generally, the spirit of sanguine self-confidence and self-satisfaction characteristic of Englishmen in their periods of sunshine, is giving way to a tone of depression and uneasiness not perhaps more dignified, but at least of more hopeful augury for the future, and indicative of a mood of mind in which warnings are more likely to be listened to. Sweet"-not are, but may be " the uses of adversity"; and assuredly the lessons of the last two or three years, harsh enough, no doubt, have neither been few, nor trivial, nor conveyed in language difficult to read. On the deplorable and unsuspected unsoundness in certain circles of the mercantile and monetary world, revealed by the disasters of 1878, I am not going to dwell, nor do I wish to enter on the unprofitable and irritating field of mere party politics, though both might furnish texts for sermons more than ordinarily impressive. But I think I am justified, by the bearing of the facts upon two of my former warnings, in reminding my readers, first, that we have been under the management of Ministers, who, rightfully or wrongfully, wisely or unwisely, have changed the spirit of British policy; who, in doing this, and by their mode of doing it, have given great offence and, as far as can be yet discovered, have achieved no

beneficent aims, but have created or exasperated bitter enmities in three quarters of the globe; who, in the pursuit of this course of action, have increased expenditure heavily and enhanced taxation somewhat, though how much no one can predict and few have the courage honestly to calculate, but enough at least to change a surplus into a deficit ;-and who (which is to our more immediate purpose) in acting thus and entailing these consequences on the country, have been supported, cheered, hounded on, and glorified, not only by the "residuum," but by a majority of those electors whose ignorance, thoughtlessness, and excitable temperament I ventured to point out as valid reasons against too hastily endowing them with that electoral franchise which, in the judgment of all Liberals, they have so sadly misused.

The second point relates to the various dangers which I enumerated as threatening the economic and productive supremacy of Great Britain, unless our artisan classes could be warned and moralised in time. These warnings were unhappily disregarded for the most part by those classes themselves, and made light of, or absolutely denied by too many not only of their professional leaders, but of their more sanguine advocates and advisers among philanthropic natures. The probability of foreign rivalry was not believed in, or was treated as at least distant and problematic; the alleged deterioration of British labour was stoutly contested; in the undeniably unfortunate disputes between the workmen and their employers, it was

maintained that the former were generally right and the objects they aimed at were at all events desirable and probably attainable; while it was confidently urged that the artisans might be trusted to understand and manage their own interests better than their masters could do for them. The experience of the last two years, and more especially the disastrous proceedings of 1878, have lowered the confident tone of the soberer among the workmen's friends, and brought about, more speedily than I had hoped, and far more painfully than I could wish, a recognition of many facts once noisily denied, and justified assuredly nearly all the neglected warnings of Cassandra. The state of trade has been stagnant, gloomy, and disastrous in the extreme, and it cannot be denied that much of its deplorable condition has not been immediately traceable to the specific causes which I pointed out as so ominous in the approaching times. But still less can it be controverted-indeed it is almost universally admitted that this condition has been enormously aggravated by the almost incredible blunders and perversity of the working classes themselves, all the more disheartening because the true facts and bearings of the case have been fairly and anxiously laid before them by friends whose sincere and well-proved sympathy should have secured at least a patient hearing.

It has been shown by practical proofs and special instances that the possibility and even imminence of foreign competition in more than two or three of

our established industries, which we asserted some years ago, has turned out anything but unreal or exaggerated. It is needless, and would perhaps be tedious, to cite examples or to go into details; they are notorious to all who have followed the disturbances and conflicts which led to such ruinous losses and so much ill-blood during the last year. Orders and contracts, which might have given adequate, and possibly even profitable, occupation to our artisans, had over and over again to be declined by capitalists here, and were taken up in continental countries, simply because the men, while fully recognising the disastrous state of trade, obstinately refused to accept any reduction in the rate of wages which were legitimate and possible only in prosperous times, and virtually insisted on a selfish and unjust exemption from sharing in the misfortunes of their employers. It has proved ineffectual to remind them that losses of orders and contracts, thus caused and thus begun, mean in the end, and probably an early end, the loss of the entire trade thus rashly played with; and that foreign rivals, thus gratuitously despised, will not readily give up what our folly has once thrown into their hands.

Similar incomprehensible and suicidal errors have pervaded the proceedings of nearly the whole of the artisan classes during the past year, and curiously enough of many of the best paid miscellaneous labourers as well. Some of their most energetic friends have endeavoured to persuade and enlighten

them, but hitherto almost entirely without success. Strikes have been all but universal; at least, they have been the rule rather than the exemption. They have been attended by two peculiar features, both condemnable, but one certainly, though not quite unprecedental, never so general or so prominent or so uncontrovertible as of late. The first is, the extent to which the funds of the Unions have been lavished on "strike-pay,” I might say unwarrantably lavished, because the original intention of these funds was to lay up resources for interrupted employment, or "bad times," or failure of capacity of earnings during sickness or accident, though often no doubt, of late especially, levies from wages have been made ostensibly and avowedly collected distinctly for the purpose of supporting trade disputes and strikes. The amount of these funds thus wasted must be reckoned by hundreds of thousands of pounds-taking in the whole perhaps by millions.1 To this extent have

1 We have no reliable means of knowing the aggregate amount of the funds collected by these Unions, nor the mode of their expenditure. One of their principal defenders, however, has given some figures which show how large they must be. Mr George Howell states in a recent article in Fraser's Magazine, that the expenditure of four of the greatest of these associations in 1877 reached £215,664, "exclusive of strike-pay " he says. Of this £126,000 or more than one-half was distributed to men "out of work." The accumulated "funds in hand" of these four societies he states to be £446,323. The payments which produce these funds are said to be only 1s. a week per head, and the strike-pay to vary from 10s. to 15s. Fraser's Magazine, January 1879. The great masons' strike in London, which collapsed after a conflict of thirty weeks, began, it is reported, with