THE ROYAL ARTILLERY INSTITUTION. 
221 
consumer. Thus, in the case of great commercial undertakings, when 
these latter have attained a certain development suited to the require¬ 
ments of the surrounding district,, the proprietors do not still further 
increase their establishments with a view of attracting customers to their 
business from more remote places. On the contrary, they proceed to 
decentralise, by establishing branches in other parts of the country, so 
as to tap fresh sources of consumption. In fact, it is a great principle 
of trade that you must bring the article within reach of the consumer 
in order to create a demand for it, and not attempt to attract the con¬ 
sumer to the article. It may not be uninstructive to draw a slight 
parallel between the manufacture of ordinary articles and that of war 
materiel. In the first, the three elements are the proprietors, the people 
employed in the undertaking, and the consumers, who are the general 
public; in the second, it is the state which is the owner, and which 
derives the sole profit arising from the efficiency of the naval and mili¬ 
tary services, the workmen employed are drawn from identical classes, 
and lastly it is the army and navy who are the consumers of the manu¬ 
factured article. As regards the Government establishments, the wants 
of the navy and forces abroad parallel the requirements of the foreign 
customers of a private house; while the supply of the army at home 
may be compared to that of the population at large. We have seen 
that in either case the first essentials of success are the same—the 
presence of the raw material, the supply of skilled labour, and the 
facilities for distribution of the manufactured article. Nor is the 
parallel incomplete as regards strategical considerations; for as points of 
strategical importance are those spots in which many communications 
—such as roads, railways, rivers, and canals—meet together, so these 
junctions are always to be found in the centres of the greatest commer¬ 
cial activity. 
Out Existing Establishments. 
In 1716 the cannon foundry then existing at Moorfields, was removed 
to Woolwich. The chief reason assigned for the transfer was the 
presence of beds of loam in the neighbourhood, which afforded an 
admirable material for constructing the moulds required in casting; 
but it is probable that many other reasons concurred in the selection— 
such as the presence of the head-quarters of the artillery, and the facili¬ 
ties of water communication afforded by the river Thames. From an 
insignificant commencement, made little more than a century and a half 
ago, Woolwich has now attained its present enormous extension and 
importance. The following extract from a paper read before the 
Military Club at Versailles, and entitled “ ITArmee Anglaise avant sa 
reorganisation,” by M. le Baron de Mandat Grancey, the present French 
Military Attache in London, may not be uninteresting, as being a 
foreign sketch of our great arsenal, and shewing the estimate of our 
military and naval manufacturing resources formed by one whose official 
position has given him ample opportunity of investigating them :— 
“ England only possesses one arsenal, and moreover, in principle, this 
arsenal suffices for the requirements of both the army and navy. The 
