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every town facilities shall be offered to them to attend appro- 
priate night schools, free if possible, but at least on such terms 
as will not exclude the poorest from all scholastic advantages 
of a helpful character. I desire to dispense with the superior 
skill of all the foreigners we employ in this and other countries, 
not by refusing to buy their productions, but by making better 
and more artistic productions, and by the superior training of our 
men and women at home. I am willing to admit that the 
improved scholastic training of our people and the building of 
efficient technical schools for the purpose, would cost a large sum 
of money ; but already, as I have shown, we are paying for the 
technical schools of every country, and the only way by which 
we can escape paying for these schools and for the useful 
instruction of the foreigner, is to pay liberally for the useful 
instruction of the Englishman. This useful education is after 
all no foreign invention or discovery. Most of those present 
could testify to the useful services rendered to the country by 
Mechanics’ Institutions and kindred societies, and by the schools 
of art and science classes under the Department at South 
Kensington. After much agitation a Technical Instruction Bill 
has at last been passed, which though very faulty in some of its 
provisions, yet gave power to ratepayers through certain local 
bodies to establish and maintain or contribute to the maintenance 
of technical schools and classes, and I hope Burnley will 
take advantage of the Act and put it in operation. Some of the 
conditions attaching to the Act are very unsatisfactory, and at 
its best the powers which it give are very small, but taken in 
conjunction with means already existing, they make possible in 
many a district what is impossible at present, viz., the giving 
of superior technical instruction at such fees as may be reached 
by the poorest artisans. In the competition for trade which is 
going on in every factory and workshop in the world, we can 
not afford to wait indefinitely for better methods or machinery 
while the advantages are going to our rivals. If it be possible 
to secure any improvement in the training of our people let us 
seize it at once, and be equally ready to secure the next that 
may follow. 
Our real danger is not from the invasion of foreign soldiers, 
but from the products of skilled foreign workmen, who are as 
anxious for peace as ourselves. Useful education, and with it 
industrial efficiency, will bring wealth to the nation, and expen- 
diture upon its promotion, both public and private, would re-act 
upon the comfort and higher civilisation of all classes, for by the 
raising up of the poorest and the feeklest, and by developing 
talent wherever it might be found, our manufacturing industries 
would be improved in their equipment, our commercial supremacy 
as a whole would be maintained, and our influence in all move- 
ments for the good of mankind would be extended. 
