'IT should suffice each of us to know that, if we have laboured with purity of purpose in any good cause, we must have contributed to its success; that the degree in which we have contributed is a matter of infinitely small concern; and, still more, that the consciousness of having so contributed, however obscurely and unnoticed, should be our sufficient if our sole reward. Let us cherish this faith: it is a duty.' W. R. Greg. INTRODUCTION. THE following papers are the outcome of an engagement, made last winter, to deliver lectures at Edinburgh and Hull on the condition and prospects of trade. The most laborious investigator cannot fully exhaust a subject so difficult and important. Pursuing the inquiry amid many interruptions, but I hope in a spirit of unswerving fairness, I have been led step by step from the main question to various collateral topics, and from one source of information to another. The studies in which I have thus been engaged have been a formidable addition to other more urgent and indeed unavoidable duties. I am obliged to desist from the further prosecution of my task, and I present the result of my inquiry to the considerate examination of the com mercial world, with all the imperfections of which I am so deeply conscious. Not now for the first time I have had under consideration the expediency of retiring from Parliament, with the view of devoting an undivided attention to the elucidation of industrial problems, and the improvement of the relations between capital and labour. The |