ADDRESS. 17 



that firm employed 5,000 workmen, 160 chemists, 260 engineers and 

 mechanics, and 680 clerks. For many years past it has regularly paid 

 18 per cent, on the ordinary shares, which this year has risen to 20 per 

 cent. ; and in addition, in common with other and even larger concerns 

 in the same industry, has paid out of profits for immense extensions 

 usually charged to capital account. There is one of these factories, the 

 works and plant of which stand in the books at 1,500,000^., while the 

 money actually sunk in them approaches to 5,000,000^. In other words, 

 the practical monopoly enjoyed by the German manufacturers enables 

 them to exact huge profits from the rest of the world, and to establish a 

 position which, financially as well as scientifically, is almost unassailable. 

 I must repeat that the fundamental discoveries upon which this gigantic 

 industry is built were made in this country, and were practically 

 •developed to a certain extent by their authors. But in spite of the 

 abundance and cheapness of the raw material, and in spite of the evi- 

 dence that it could be most remuneratively worked up, these men founded 

 no school and had practically no successors. The colours they made were 

 driven out of the field by newer and better colours made from their stuff 

 by the development of their ideas, but these improved colours were made 

 in Germany and not in England. Now what is the explanation of this 

 extraordinary and disastrous phenomenon 1 I give it in a word — want 

 of education. We had the material in abundance when other nations 

 had comparatively little. We had the capital, and we had the brains, for 

 we originated the whole thing. But we did not possess the diff'used edu- 

 cation without which the ideas of men of genius cannot fructify beyond 

 the limited scope of an individual. I am aware that our patent laws are 

 sometimes held responsible. Well, they are a contributory cause ; but it 

 must be remembered that other nations with patent laws as protective as 

 could be desired have not developed the colour industry. The patent laws 

 have only contributed in a secondary degree, and if the patent laws have 

 been bad the reason for their badness is again want of education. Make 

 them as bad as you choose, and you only prove that the men who made 

 them, and the public whom these men try to please, were misled by 

 theories instead of being conversant with fact and logic. But the root of 

 the mischief is not in the patent laws or in any legislation whatever. 

 It is in the want of education among our so-called educated classes, and 

 secondarily among the workmen on whom these depend. It is in the 

 abundance of men of ordinary plodding ability, thoroughly ti-ained and 

 methodically directed, that Germany at present has so commanding an 

 advantage. It is the failure of our schools to turn out, and of our manu- 

 facturers to demand, men of this kind, which explains our loss of some 

 valuable industries and our precarious hold upon others. Let no one 

 imagine for a moment that this deficiency can be remedied by any amount 

 of that technical training which is now the fashionable nostrum. It is 

 an excellent thing, no doubt, but it must rest upon a foundation of 

 general training. Mental habits are formed for good or evil long l)efore 

 1902. c 



