ous labour. I might have added largely to the opinions which Indigenhave been quoted, but I question whether I could have had recourse to more impartial authorities than those which I have laid under contribution. It was my father's conclusion, after a long and wide experience, that in fully peopled countries the cost of railways and other public works was nearly the same all over the world, and that for every country the native labour, when obtainable, was, with rare exceptions, the cheapest and the best. lish la abroad. For a task of exceptional difficulty, one requiring The Engall that dogged courage and determination to which bourer Mr. Mill refers, the British miner and navvy are unsurpassed. After a long residence abroad the Englishman adopts the diet and habits of the population around him. He lives as they live, and works as they work. Climate counts for much in the physical condition of the human frame. The preceding observations as to the uniformity observable in the cost of works do not apply to newly settled countries. Amid the sparse populations of the colonies labour is necessarily dearer than elsewhere. tages of climate I have referred to the invigorating effects of a cold Advanclimate. In my judgment the influence both of climate and race is abundantly displayed in the many admirable qualities of the British people. In ancient times the English commanders again and again attacked an enemy superior in numbers, trusting for victory to the ancestral prowess of their nation. It is to tradition and example that Shakespeare makes and race. British enterprise King Henry V. appeal in his stirring speech to the army which he had mustered at Barfleur. On, on, you nobless English, Whose blood is fet from fathers of war proof! Whose limbs were made in England, show us here That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not; Cry, 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George !' We live in happier times, when men have other opportunities of showing courage and spirit; when greater victories may be won, and more valuable annexations may be made, by the arts of peace than in the field of battle. It does not follow that the British nation has for ever lost the sterling qualities displayed by our stalwart soldiery in the middle ages. The enterprise of our colonists and our merchants in Cyprus. is irrepressible. During my visit to Cyprus I rode side by side with a man who had been driven only a few weeks before by the Kaffirs from his farm on the borders of Natal. He was then making a gallant effort to retrieve his fortunes in Cyprus by carrying parcels on horseback between Kyrenia and Larnaka, riding a distance of forty miles every day under a burning sun. On the following morning I purchased some Australian preserved meat from a merchant at Larnaka, who had just arrived from Vancouver's Island, where trade had been flagging ever since the island ceased to be a free port, and who had come to try his fortune in another outpost of the British Empire. If we turn from the merchant to the manufacturer, we recognise less brilliancy, perhaps, and less of that wise caution which distinguish the Frenchman, but we perceive an inexhaustible energy and admirable skill in administration. excellen British For the workman I contend that, with all his ad- Faults and mitted faults, and notwithstanding his incessant clamour ces of the for higher wages in prosperous seasons, and his hope- workman. less resistance to reductions in adverse times, he stands before all his rivals in many essential qualities. The faults of the British workmen seem inseparable from their characteristic national virtues. As M. Renan truly says, 'On a toujours les défauts de ses qualités.' Beaten we may be at last by the exhaustion of our natural resources, but I do not believe that we shall ever be beaten through the inferiority of the ironworkers, the spinners, and the weavers of the United Kingdom. Their habits of industry are derived by inheritance from their forefathers, confirmed by the example of their fellow-workmen, and stimulated by emulation. Their labours are wrought in the most favourable climate in the world for the development of the bodily and mental energy of man. of the seaman. My knowledge of the working qualities of our Character labouring population has been chiefly acquired afloat, British and my confidence in the British workman is strengthened by intimacy with our seafaring people. I find my own experience confirmed in a recent report from our Consul at Nantes, who gives a practical illustration of the distinguishing characteristics of the English and French seamen. An English vessel, manned by an English crew, will generally, he says, beat a French competitor out of the field, though in many ways the latter navigates his vessel more cheaply; and why? Because there is on board the French vessel a laxity of discipline unknown to us. Captain and crew naviguent en famille; both law and custom require the captain to consult his men in an emergency. It has often been said that the British seaman submits less readily to discipline than the Swede or the Dane, and that in the ordinary routine of a sea life he cannot always be relied upon to use his utmost energies; but when the trial comes of nerve, and strength, and skill, he is rarely found wanting. The character of the English mariner was admirably depicted by Shakespeare in 'The Tempest.' The boatswain, with his Heigh, my hearts; cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! Yare, yare! Take in the topsail; tend to the master's whistle. Down with the topmast! yare: lower, lower. Bring her to by the main course!' and his dauntless remonstrances with his craven passengers, 'Shall we give o'er and drown? Have you a mind to sink?' was a portrait drawn from nature by a master hand. 197 CHAPTER IX. TRADES UNIONS. side But TRADES UNIONS are equally dreaded and detested by a The relations between these associations were far from friendly, and a long and severe struggle took place of the greater folk' against the lesser folk,' or of the commune,' the general mass of the inhabitants, against the 'prudhommes.' |