[To THE EDITOR Or PHs "SPECTATOR."]
Si,—Thanks largely to your steady advocacy of Free-trade principles, the nation has now rightly decided that Protection in any of its forms is not the remedy for our industrial troubles. It would be a serious mistake, however, if the Free- trade party were to rest content with this, and not to endeavour to find out the real remedy, which is not, I think, far to seek. The nation wants to know why other nations are in many ways, especially in mechanical and chemical science, forging ahead of us, and even making it difficult for us to hold our own in our home market. I suppose it is generally admitted that England took the lead in industrial enterprise because she was the first nation to develop energetically her natural resources. In recent years some nations, especially America, Germany, and Switzerland, have forged ahead because they have developed a natural resource which we have to a great extent allowed to lie dormant, —viz., the brain-power of the nation. When we begin to realise, as these other
countries are doing, that every brain capable of development, and which is allowed to remain undeveloped, is a loss to the eountiy—a loss which in these times of highly skilled produc- tion we simply cannot afford—we shall stop playing with this question. I am well aware that there are many excellent scientific and technical Colleges in this country, but only a minute proportion of our capable youths have any chance whatever of entrance to them, and the intermediate education is, owing to financial reasons, mostly of an utterly inadequate nature. The Free-trade party have an opportunity now of investigating the whole question by Royal Commission or otherwise, and earning the gratitude of the whole nation.—
The two letters printed above have our sympathy, though we fear we could not undertake to initiate the movement desired by "E. P." We believe that technical education—i.e., education for the men who work at trade and industry as subordinates—is now very good in Britain, and compares favourably even with such education in Germany. Where we fail is in the education of the masters, of the heads of the industrial undertakings, not of the "hands." In Germany the young man who is going to inherit a great manufacturing business learns at the University in chemistry or some other department of science things which will make him understand his business, and will teach hint how to develop it. The young Briton in the same position does not as a rule learn these things. We do not want to make our Universities purely, or even mainly, utilitarian, but we do not see why they should not provide for the men who are going to work family businesses, and give them opportunities for supplementing the humanities by the acquisition of knowledge which will help them in the conduct of industrial concerns.—En. Spectator.]
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