XVII TECHNICAL EDUCATION 447 



acted, which has been at the bottom of half the 

 catastrophes which have ruined States. We are 

 at present in the swim of one of those vast move- 

 ments in which, with a population far in excess of 

 that which we can feed, we are saved from a 

 catastrophe, through the impossibility of feeding 

 them, solely by our possession of a fair share of 

 the markets of the world. And in order that 

 that fair share may be retained, it is absolutely 

 necessary that we should be able to produce com- 

 modities which we can exchange with food-grow- 

 ing people, and which they will take, rather than 

 those of our rivals, on the ground of their 

 greater cheapness or of their greater excellence. 

 That is the whole story. And our course, 

 let me say, is not actuated by mere motives 

 of ambition or by mere motives of greed. Those 

 doubtless are visible enough on the surface of these 

 great movements, but the movements themselves 

 have far deeper sources. If there were no such 

 things as ambition and greed in this world, the 

 struggle for existence would arise from the same 

 causes. 



Our sole chance of succeeding in a competition, 

 which must constantly become more and more 

 severe, is that our people shall not only have the 

 knowledge and the skill which are required, but 

 that they shall have the will and the energy and 

 the honesty, without wliich neither knowledge nor 

 skill can be of any permanent avail. This is what 



