xvii TECHNICAL EDUCATION 447 



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 

 commodities which we can exchange with food- 

 growing 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 them- 

 selves 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 which neither knowledge nor 

 skill can be of any permanent avail. This is what 

 I mean by a stable social condition, because any 



