Mr Gladstone on Industrial Progress.

Evening Star, Issue 8399, 27 December 1890, Page 1 (Supplement)

Mr Gladstone on Industrial Progress.

Mr Gladstone recently visited the Dee Ironworks, and in the evening addressed a large gathering in the Saltney Institute. He spoke as follows : THE PROGRESS OF THE ENGLISH WORKING MAN. A WARNING TO PARENTS. When I was here two yearß ago I gave you a very rough outline, as far as my memory would enable me to bring the facts together. I gave you a very rough outline of the progress that had been made within my recollection in the position of the working men of this country and the conditions of their life. It is an extraordinary progress, and I have no reason to recede from anything that I said on that occasion ; but the reason I refer to it is this ; whereas my account of the case was a summary account, roughly put together, and a very imperfect and inartistic account, I have since read an admirable lecture upon the same subject, put together with the greatest pains by my friend Mr Roundel], who was lately a member of Parliament, and will, I hope, again very shortly be a member of Parliament, and who, I think, in the district of Skipton—l am not sure whether it was at Skipton or whether it was near Nantwich, where he now usually resides—delivered a lecture on the progress of the working classes, and the improvement of the conditions of their labor. I recommend that lecture to the attention of the members of the Institute here, and to those interested in the subject. There is only one other matter I will veuturo to say to you, and I should not be prepared without an examination of the matter to enter into the details of it, but it is to express a reiterated expression of a very strong opinion I entertain as to the mistake into which parents of the laboring classes and interests of this country are sometimes apt to fall. It is a long time ago since I ventured at a lime when I represented Greenwich in Parliament, that I made an address to my constituents subject of this mistake, or which 1 consider to be a mistake. It is that they are apt, some of them, in the education of their children to suppose that, if they can only get their children out of the region of exertion in which they perform what is called hand labor, if they can only get a pen into their hands, that then they start soon afresh in a new and superior sphere of life. It is a very critical matter that often leads to a very dangerous mistake in two ways. First of all I am very doubtful whether there is any class of people among whom competition for employment is so hopelessly great as the lower class of laborers with the pen—what we call the lower class of clerks. They are subject to a very severe foreign competition; there is a very stiff competition from Germany. It is felt in London, where it often happens that a German, who knows two languages besides his own, namely, French and English, will come over and will in a counting-house do the lower work of the counting-house, the lower pen work of the counting-house, for half the sum for which it would be done by an Eaglishman, who knows no language except his own. That is a very stirT competition, and upon the whole it is no doubt a tremendous competition. And then having escaped from the region of hand labor they have got into a class of life where more is expected of them. They expect to be better dressed, to be better lodged, and they are expected, or they expect themselves to feel better (laughter)—and of course a most bitter disappointment is experienced.

THE POTENTIALITIES OF HAND LABOE. That is one reason for avoiding the mistake I speak of, but the other reason is this: that the mistake produces a faise estimation of hand labor, depend upon it. Not perhaps in every branch, but m the great majority of branches, hand labor admits of being raised to a very high degree of excellence indeed. It may seem ridiculous to connect the man who is a house painter, a man who handles the paint-brush on the outside or the iDside of any dwelling, with the name of any man like Sir John Millais, or a man like Mr Watts, at the head of his profession; but at the same time painting is the use of the brash, and it is band Tabor. A man may get forward from the lowest branoh of art, which is represented no doubt by the mammon painter, to a branch whioh is higher than that—l do not say that he will get to the height of Mr Watts or Sir John Millais, that is an enormous elevation—but he may get at something in which he may produce beautifying forms with a great beauty, if he sets himself to work for the purpose, simply by the use of his brush. Now, in Itily at this moment, it is notorious that that description of labor, namely, refined hand labor, in the use of the brush in gilding and in painting, abounds to a degree that we are qiite ignorant of, and numbers of Italians are brought over to this country accordingly. Wby should not that be done I by our own countrymen ? God Almighty has I not placed them underanynaturalincapacity; if they will apply their minds to it, there are now, I am glad to say, many means of instruction they did not possess before. They can see in almost every part of the country works of art which will'serve to guide Bnd to train any infant faculty that there may be in their minds. I do hot want to shut out the Italians by placing protective

duties upon them—(laughter)—that I think would be a very great mistake. It has been thought of in some countries, but I am happy to say that old England is not amongat those, and is yet faithful to her belief in in the freedom of commerce.—(Cheer*.) She has seen the enormous and blessed results which it has produoed in this country, and ■he does not mean to abandon it, even if the rest of the world should become apostates.— (Cheers.) It will not be the first time she has taught mankind a useful lesson in order to put down the busy tribes of selfish interests that are always at work to delude the public on this subject. I rejoice to_ think that perseverance—we even sometimes call it obstinacy, but I call it perseverance and persistence, are qualities that are not unknown in this country, and are a good deal valued here. TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND ITS MISSION. Now, we look to what is oalled the technical education of the artisan classes. I rejoice in tb at fact. It is of great importance because it means the avoidance of the danger on which I have said a few words. Technical education means—taken in a broad and comprehensive sense—technioal education means the exaltation of manual labor; the bringing of manual labor, I am speaking generally of manual labor, to the highest excellence of which it is susceptible. I heartily wish well to that movement, but in order that it may succeed it will not be enough that the Government should propose, and the House of Commons should accept, the devotion of pnblio money for the purpose. Public money may do something, but public money cannot do everything. What is requisite is that the public, the nation at large', should obtain a true conception of the subject, and that Irue conception is this : that every man who is engaged in manual production should study not merely to get his living out of that production. No doubt thit is a vital and essential purpose, which it is his duty and his interestto pursue, but he should raise every description of manual production to the highest excellence of which it is capable. There is a story of Dr Johnson—we all know more or less of Dr Johnson—it is a name very dear to the hearts of the people of this country and very justly so, because he was a grand specimen of the old English character. He had a most extraordinary faculty of conversation, perhaps he was the greatest conversationalist that ever lived. Somebody said to Dr Johnson one day : "Dr Johnson, how would you acquire this extraordinary degree of excellence in conversation that you have ?" and Dr JohnsoD, I believe, replied : " I am not aware of any method by which I acquired any excellence of that kind if I possess it, except it is that when I Lave had anything to say, I have always tried to say it in the very best manner that I could."—(Laughter and cheer?.) There is a true principle of technical education; there is the pi inciple that will elevate and glorify labor ; there is the principle that will raise the working men of the country in the best sense, and in the best manner, viz., by means of the power and of the energy springing up within themselves, and devoted by themselves to the improvement of their condition by the improvement of their work.—(Cheers.) THE " SCAMPING " OF WORK.

It is sometimes said there is a great deal of scamping of work in this country ; it used to be bo in olden times.—(Laughter.) But I have great doubts whether it is as bad now at in olden times. Well, there is some scamp : ng of work, but no doubt, if we don't intend to be flatterers of the English artisan and liborer, and tell him only what he likes to hear and what may not be useful for him, we ought to make it known and understood that there is such a thing aa scamping of work ; and perhaps there is as much excuse for it in the case of the man living by his daily wage 3 as there is in the higher ranks of life, where there is also a great deal of scamping of work.—(Laughter and cheers.) It is bad altogether, but it is bad in the case of the working man becauec it is a kind of fraud upon his employer, and consequently a fraud upon himself; but you may depend upon it that in the lo»g run the interest of the working man is to do his work in the best manner possible—not ODly to do it so that it shall pass the inspection of the employers—perhaps of a cursory or hasty character—but that it shall be done as well as the need of the case permits it to be done. The gifts of the people of this country are abundant; the Almighty has not been penurious to them in giving them great faculties and great powers, which it is their business to develop. But what I wish and hope—l will not say to see—but to prepare for, bo far as depends upon me, is that there may be a long growth of our commerce and capital, and with the growth and bulk and mass and extent of the labor of the people of the country, that there may be a constant and upward effort in the nature and character of that labor itself, and that the habit may be rooted in an enlightened sense of interest.—(Choers.) Yet, 1 do not except that there must be a great power, a legitimate power, when the fathers of families in this country, and especially of the laboring classes, shall begin more and more to understand that there is such a thing as excellence which is valuable in itself, and that a thing may be done in a Blovenly habit of mind when it is tried to get it done in the quickest and most superficial manner, or that it may be done upon the exactly opposite principle, that of endeavoring to give digoity to the labor even of the human hand, and to develop the powers they possess under the guidance of the human mind for inducing both beauty and utility, both of them of the highest degree—the one wedded to the other, and to the instruments acd implements of human convenience aD(I human comfort, in all the different stages of industry for all the different pursuits of life.—(Loud cheers.)