Let me, however, not be misunderstood. I agree with Mr. Williams that these things are desirable, but not for the reason for which he desires them. By him they are put forward as devices to help to stave off the impending ruin of the country. For that purpose they are not needed, for there is not the slightest real evidence that ruin is impending. On the contrary, we are progressing rapidly in trade abroad and in prosperity at home. It is solely because I believe that we are capable of making even more rapid progress, and because I realise how great is the mass of misery still to be removed, that I support Mr. Williams’s demand for technical education, for metric weights and measures, for the more careful study of foreign languages, and generally for a greater readiness to receive new ideas, and a greater promptitude to meet new wants. THE CRY OF “WOLF!” One word more—Mr. Williams’s book has been defended, by himself and by others, on the ground that it is a useful warning, that the nation requires to be stirred up, and so on. Has Mr. Williams forgotten the story of the little boy who cried “Wolf! Wolf!” when there was no wolf? It is one thing to warn the country of a problematic danger in the dim future; it is another to scream in the market-place that the danger is at our doors. Mr. Williams’s book is one long scream—a literary scream, I admit, and therefore in some measure harmonious, but still a scream in the sense that there is no reason behind the noise that is made. The danger is not at our doors, our industrial glory is not departing from us, our trade is not being ruined by Germany. On the contrary, in spite of the remarkable progress of Germany in a few limited directions, the general figures show that we are fully maintaining our splendid lead, if indeed we are not actually bettering it. I cannot, therefore, admit this attempted justification of the character of Mr. Williams’s book. To quote _Mr. Punch’s_ admirable picture, Mr. Williams, like his pupil Lord Rosebery, has been trying to make our flesh creep. There is more harm than humour in such a pastime. That the motives of both these disturbers of our nerves were patriotic I do not for a moment doubt; but their conduct is neither patriotic nor wise. It does us no manner of good to be for ever cheapening ourselves in the eyes of the world. A great nation should have dignity enough to be silent about her own greatness, neither on the one hand perpetually boasting of her pre-eminent virtue, nor on the other fretfully asking how her credit stands with other countries. We are what we are—what our forefathers and our own brains and arms have made us. Let us be content to possess our souls in peace, and to get on with our work. APPENDIX. MR. WILLIAMS’S REPLY.[3]