TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 147 
rally failed of success, and that the best plan is to improve education generally, 
giving it a higher tone, both in the primary and secondary schools, and makin 
science more a part of the general study, but with special application of it for the 
pupils of more advanced ages. 
he evidence in the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons 
on the subject, which has recently appeared, gives an encouraging view of the 
practical skill of our workmen in nearly all branches of industry, leaving no reason 
to fear the rivalry of foreigners in mere handicraft. But the competition in com- 
merce and manufactures is so close in the markets of the world, that the superior 
technical education of the continental workman, enabling him to adopt so readily 
any new processes or improvements, gives him manifest advantages over the 
English workman. It is essential for our industrial classes to be better instructed 
in science and its applications, and be less liable to fail by clumsy inventions and 
costly errors. 
On the whole it would seem that the action of the Government will be most 
beneficially exerted in the first instance by extending the system of grants in 
aid of local exertions, by adding to the emoluments of teachers who produce 
evidence of the higher class of instruction having been efficiently imparted, and by 
aiding in the cost of building where new schools of a special scientific character 
are needed. Aboye all, the stimulus of endowments or exhibitions of adequate 
value, or the offer of Government appointments in such departments as science can 
be most usefully applied in, will probably produce the most profitable results fora 
national expenditure. 
Labour and Capital.—Another subject, vitally connected with maintaining th 
position of this country in its competition abroad, as well as with its peace and 
prosperity at home, is the relation of wages to capital. For many years the most 
violent discussion has been going on; but it really appears as if some progress has 
been made during the past year in an amicable solution of the difficulty. The 
opinion that labour and capital must be in antagonism, each trying to subdue the 
_ other to its own terms—an opinion which can only be entertained in complete ig- 
norance of their relative functions—is becoming gradually undermined, and the 
_ earnest efforts of some of the most practical and enlightened employers of labour, 
aided by the increased intelligence and better feeling produced by conciliation on 
the Dorking classes, have allowed some important experiments to be fairly tried to 
reconcile the two opposing foes, and to bring them into harmonious working to- 
gether. It is true the beginning is feeble, and what is accomplished small, com- 
Saee with what remains to be done. It is now generally admitted that a better 
owledge of the principles of political economy, and of the laws which regulate 
wages and capital, the production and distribution of wealth, would be beneficial 
to all parties. A most influential general committee has been formed under the 
auspices of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science. In an 
evening meeting, at which the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone presided, the question 
was debated, and certain general principles laid down for the course of proceeding. 
_ But the work to be accomplished is of the most laborious character. The mass of 
prejudice to be overcome on both sides is the growth of years, and it yet remains 
to be seen how the interference of a third party, though professing to represent im- 
poeally the interests of the public and the true principles of economic science, will 
received by either. It is to be hoped, at any rate, that the clumsy and barba- 
rous system of strikes and locks-out, which destroy both the small savings of the 
workmen and the capital out of which he hopes to increase his wages, and which 
keep up a perpetual source of irritation and ill-feeling, will be abolished as an in- 
sensate and reckless process. Trades’ Unions are contended for by some as useful 
and effective, if not carried on to the injury of the trade, or to the detriment of the 
nation, and provided the members pursue their own objects without undue coercion 
of others. But without coercion and oppression how can they fulfil their objects? 
_ Phe limitation of times of labour, the depression of the sober, industrious, and most 
_ skilful workman to an average level of the more idle and unskilful, the exclusion 
_ of apprentices, and the dive effects in other branches of the trade or manufacture in 
which, without wishing to strike themselves, the workmen are dependent on the 
continued labour of others, who will not work, naturally drive capital away into 
LO* 
