outstripped by less favoured nations; you, who are the descendants or fellow-countrymen of those men who first applied pit coal in the blast furnace, who first suggested the puddling furnace, invented the rolling mill, and discovered the immense value of heated air to the smelting of iron-four, indeed it may be said the four steps in advance' which have given you ships of iron instead of wood, and roads of metal instead of stone-rendering the present age truly one

of iron ?"

'Against these services rendered to the manufacture of iron by English ironmasters, what have we to enumerate as the contribution of foreign nations? In number they are two-viz., the washing of coal otherwise unfit for the coking process, and the use of the waste gases from the blast furnaces-both inventions of undoubtedly great value, but taking no rank in point of importance with those previously referred to.

'Where, we may ask, is there any evidence of our indifference to improvement, or want of intelligence in the management of our furnaces? Within fifteen years we have learnt to utilise the gases formerly wasted, and we have succeeded in reducing the consumption of coke per ton of iron to something like one-half what it was previous to the period spoken of. We have our blast heated to a point never dreamt of abroad, and we have furnaces, the dimensions of which have excited the astonishment of Continental ironmasters, whose opinions are in strict confirmation of the superiority now maintained, and which opinions I have upon a previous occasion made public.

'M. de Wendel writes: "I hear that a Mr. Plimsoll has recently drawn public attention to the defective state of the pig-iron manufacture in your country compared with that of France and Belgium. The two visits I paid to your works enable me to state that, so far as Cleveland is concerned, the assertion is without any foundation whatever. The high temperature of the blast you use, and the dimensions of your furnaces, hitherto unknown in France, have secured for your neighbourhood a superiority which I shall at once set about imitating."

'M. Judey states: "We and others in France have still a margin for economy in the manufacture of pigiron, by avoiding the present heavy charges for transport in bringing coal and ore to our works. We must try to improve our method of working, and thus seek to consume more of the minerals found nearer home. Cleveland, on the other hand, by the excellent results obtained in furnaces of recent construction, and by the great care taken to avoid unnecessary labour, appears to have reached almost the minimum cost of production."-Vide "Pall Mall Gazette," Feb. 20, 1868. Reply to Mr. Samuel Plimsoll's letter to the editor of the "Times."

'So far as the possession of the ordinary education taught in schools is concerned, I do not apprehend there is the slightest reason for supposing that French workmen enjoy any superiority over our fellowcountrymen in a similar position; and to imagine that there exists any knowledge whatever among them of those higher branches of science, as has been pre

tended by some of our advocates for what they term technical education, is a pure and simple fallacy, without any ground whatever whereupon to rest the assertion. I do believe, however, that among the higher officers engaged in French mines and ironworks, you will find more frequently than is the case with ourselves gentlemen of considerable attainments in the physical sciences.'

ments in

blast fur

naces.

Mr. Lowthian Bell has pointed out, in his more Improverecent notes on the progress of the iron trade of Cleveland, the valuable improvements in the manufacture of iron, which have been made in that district: Nothing had been ascertained prior to 1850, which indicated that any advantage was to be derived by materially departing from the shape or dimensions of blast furnaces, in common use in other localities.'

To Middlesborough belongs the credit not only of demonstrating the great advantage arising from the use of furnaces of large dimensions, driven with highly heated air, but of proving the extreme limit to which, in the matter of fuel consumption, these two changes can be carried.

of the

condition

trade.

I believe the general condition of the iron trade to Summary be fairly and faithfully summed up in the language of general the Statist: Foreign competition, though it has of the sharpened the struggle, has not gained largely upon us.' We have unrivalled resources in respect of capital, undeniable superiority in machine-making, an expensive but highly skilled body of workmen, endued with matchless powers for sustained effort. In our coal and iron trades great and sudden profits have invariably

led to over-production. This is an inevitable consequence in a country so remarkable for enterprise as our own. A trade carried on under such conditions is of necessity subject to wide fluctuations, and commands an average rate of profit considerably lower than one of a more stable character.

Labour is not responsible for the frequent perturbations in the trade; although the workmen are compelled to bear their share of the losses sustained by their employers, and to submit to a proportionate reduction of wages.

107

CHAPTER V.

THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST.

tion of bad

and low

prices.

THE depressed condition of agriculture has been a Conjuneprominent cause of the falling off in the demand for harvests goods for the home market. The agricultural interest has suffered from two causes, which had never before been combined. The bad harvests of 1875-76-77 were followed by an exceptionally low price of wheat in 187879. In his paper on the Fall in Prices, Mr. Giffen quotes the estimate of Mr. Caird, according to which, taking the average yield of the last thirty years to be 100, the yield of 1875, 1876, and 1877 was respectively 78, 76, and 74. Our wheat harvest was deficient by one-fourth as compared with the average, and much more of course as compared with a good year. In March last the Gazette' average for wheat was 39s. 7d. against 49s. 6d. at the corresponding date in 1878, and 51s. 3d. in the previous year. The fall in the price of wheat in England is American the result of the heavy importations from America. Our tions of annual consumption is estimated at twenty-two to twentythree millions of quarters, while the importation for 1877 was 12,310,957 quarters, and for 1876 10,069,050 quarters. The increased growth of wheat in the United States was caused partly by the panic of 1873, which

importa

wheat.