854 EEPOBT — 1893. 



and of the community also. In matters of economic doctrine the Doctor advo- 

 cates views both in regard to tlie effect of the debased currency on prices and to 

 the importance of the balance of trade which were not current in his time, though 

 they subsequently won general acceptance. He also anticipates the policy of a 

 later time by his practical suggestvms for agriculture and industry, as well as by 

 his recommendations for the amendment of the coinage. The Doctor, in the original 

 form of the dialogue, did not, however, recognise the effect on prices of the influx 

 of American silver. The remarkable passage in the printed copies which calls 

 attention to this phenomenon was interpolated by ' W. S.,' and does not appear in 

 the MSS. Miss Lamond's edition adds immensely to the value of the dialogue as 

 historical evidence, while it brings to light elements of personal interest which had 

 hitherto been obscured. By her work on this Discowse,e\en more than by her edi- 

 tion of ' Walter of Henley,' Miss Lamond has succeeded, despite the difficulties 

 with which she had to contend, in making additions of permanent value to our 

 knowledge of English Economic History. 



SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16. 

 The Section did not meet. 



MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. On Nottingham Lace and Fashion. By J. B. FiRTH. 



Nottingham no longer holds a complete monopoly of the lace trade, as she did 

 thirty years ago, but she still has a monopoly in the manufacture of fine cotton 

 lace, and it is upon the accident of this being in fashion that her prosperity depends. 

 The ordinary constant yearly trade in lace is not sufficient to keep one-half of her 

 lace machines employed ; and as, roughly speaking, lace only becomes the pre- 

 dominant fashion once in ten years, it follows that for the trade to be depressed is 

 the rule, for it to be prosperous the exception. The history of the trade shows 

 that the fashion has usually lasted three seasons — one in which it is coming to its 

 height, another in which it is paramount, and a third in which it gradually dies 

 away. During these three years the manufacture of lace has been enormously 

 profitable, and fortunes have been piled up with almost a dangerous ease ; and 

 they have dwindled away with the same ease during the periods of seven years' 

 depression which have always followed the shorter bursts of prosperity. What is 

 true of the profits of the master is also true of the wages of the workman ; and the 

 consequence has been that Xottingham has been forced to introduce other and 

 more constant industries into the town to provide work for the men who are 

 inevitably thrown out of employment by the bad times of the lace trade. The 

 conditions of the industry are thus radically unsound, although they cannot be 

 altered because the control of the fashion-books does not lie in the lace manufac- 

 turer's hands. He has to keep up his manufactory as if the normal condition of 

 the trade were prosperity and not depression, for he never can be certain when the 

 change will come, and he has to devote himself to precipitating the change by the 

 beauty of his designs. Lace being a luxury, the taste of the public being capricious, 

 the lace-making machines being excessively costly, and the processes of its manu- 

 facture necessitating its passage through so many hands, the result is that the 

 flush of good trade is only obtained after years of patient loss, in which the manu- 

 facturers' energies are devoted to keeping down their losses rather than makmg 

 profits ; and the influence on the town has been both good and bad : good because 

 the artistic properties of lace have insensibly improved the taste of all connected 

 with its manufacture ; bad because the character of the industry, dependent for 



