6 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



had more wages to spend on hia wife and children, he was obeying a 

 universal and natural impulse. Hargreaves' neighbours being left behind 

 in the competition for wages, pulled his house about his ears. But in the 

 end, they, too, found themselves to be turning many spinning wheels 

 where formerly they had only handled one. Then they, too, had more 

 money to spend. What other turn could things have taken under the 

 circumstances ? What happened in this isolated incident is repeated 

 again and again in every craft, and in sequence change and change marks 

 the road that stretches far from its beginnings. 



Quite apart from all considerations as to whether the new is better or 

 worse than the old, more beautiful or less beautiful, whether it calls out 

 the best in man as well as the older ways, or whether it fails to do so, 

 apart from all comparisons of this kind stands the fact that the change is 

 due to natural impulses which will not be gainsaid. The results have to 

 be accepted. We cannot put the clock back. We cannot, let us say, 

 wipe away the great steelworks of the world and replace them by 

 thousands of individuals each with his single anvil and single hammer. 

 We cannot replace the great ships of Glasgow by a multitude of little 

 sailing boats. The plain truth is that modern craftsmanship with all its 

 noise and ugliness is giving food and clothing, warmth and interest to 

 millions who otherwise must die. It is ungrateful to find fault except with 

 sympathy. Let us try in all possible ways to mend its offences and soften 

 its hardships, but in all honesty let us recognise that we live on modern 

 craftsmanship in its modern form. We are each and every one of us 

 responsible for the present conditions as long as we insist on spending 

 money to the best advantage. 



At this point it is convenient to refer to a matter which would be of 

 little importance if it did not seem sometimes to put modern craftsmanship 

 in a wrong light. We are continually discovering instances of the 

 marvellous skill of the craftsman of thousands of years ago. There is 

 here, however, no disheartening implication, as has sometimes been 

 asserted, that men can no longer do what was once in their power. To 

 those who look into what goes on in a factory or a mine, in the field or on 

 the sea, there are innumerable instances of beautiful craft work, beautiful 

 because of their fitness for their purpose, their balance of design, their 

 ingenuity, their history, their growth under human perseverance and 

 thought. Every one of us can bring to mind instances of technical skill 

 demanding imagination and intelligence as well as manipulative power 

 which could be set alongside any instance in history. Let me name only 



