1887 THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE 163 



about colonial industry and the colonist about home industry; 

 as a sort of neutral ground on which the capitalist and the 

 artisan would be equally welcome ; as a centre of intercommuni- 

 cation in which they might enter into friendly discussion of 

 the problems at issue between them, and, perchance, arrive at 

 a friendly solution of them. I imagined it a place in which 

 the fullest stores of industrial knowledge would be made acces- 

 sible to the public; in which the higher questions of commerce 

 and industry would be systematically studied and elucidated ; 

 and where, as in an industrial university, the whole technical 

 education of the country might find its centre and crown. If 

 I earnestly desire to see such an institution created, it is not 

 because I think that or anything else will put an end to pauper- 

 ism and want — as somebody has absurdly suggested, — but be- 

 cause I believe it will supply a foundation for that scientific 

 organisation of our industries which the changed conditions of 

 the times render indispensable to their prosperity. I do not 

 think I am far wrong in assuming that we are entering, indeed, 

 have already entered, upon the most serious struggle for exist- 

 ence to which this country has ever been committed. The latter 

 years of the century promise to see us embarked in an industrial 

 war of far more serious import than the military wars of its 

 opening years. On the east, the most systematically instructed 

 and best-informed people in Europe are our competitors ; on the 

 west, an energetic off-shoot of our own stock, grown bigger than 

 its parent, enters upon the struggle possessed of natural re- 

 sources to which we can make no pretension, and with every 

 prospect of soon possessing that cheap labour by which they 

 may be effectually utilised. Many circumstances tend to justify 

 the hope that we may hold our own if we are careful to " organ- 

 ise victory." But to those who reflect seriously on the prospects 

 of the population of Lancashire and Yorkshire — should the 

 time ever arrive when the goods which are produced by their 

 labour and their skill are to be had cheaper elsewhere — to 

 those who remember the cotton famine and reflect how much 

 worse a customer famine would be, the situation appears very 

 grave. 



On February 19 and 22, he wrote again to the Times 

 declaring against the South Kensington site. It was too 

 far from the heart of commercial organisation in the city, 

 and the city people were preparing to found a similar in- 

 stitution of their own. He therefore wished to prevent the 



