But my own love for everything British is so deep and hearty that I should like to see British handicraft, British art, British work of all kinds at the head of creation. And I do most distinctly think it the duty of every British employer of labour to provide work for British workers first. Let the men who live in the land find means to live. It is surely the right of the British working man to have the first chance with a British employer. But this does not always happen. It is a “consummation devoutly to be wished,” but it is not to be at once realized even by schemes of fiscal policy. It is only to be attained by the British working people themselves,--by the quality of the work they do and the spirit in which they do it. We talk a great deal about Education, technical and otherwise. What are the results? The fact seems to be that when there was no compulsory Education much better work was done. Houses were better built,--furniture was more strongly made. Compare the brick-and-a-half “modern villa” architecture, with its lath and plaster doors and window-frames, with the warm thick walls and stout oak timbers of a farm or manor-house of the sixteenth century! Put side by side the flimsy modern chair, and the serviceable oak one, hand made in the time of our forefathers! Connoisseurs and collectors of bric-à-brac are supposed to have a craze for “old” things, merely because they _are_ “old.” This is not altogether true. Old things are appreciated because they are good,--because they show evidences of painstaking and careful Work. An old oak staircase in a house is valued as a treasure, not only for its age, but for its artistic construction, which our best workers can only imitate and never surpass. It must, I think, be conceded that our forefathers had better conceptions of the fitting and the beautiful in some ways of work than we have. We have only to compare the Cathedrals which they built for the worship of God, with our uninspired ugly modern Churches and chapels. We know that they appreciated the beauties of the landscape, and that they loved the grand old English trees, which our short-sighted County Councils are destroying every year. Nothing can be more pitiful to see than the ruthless and stupid cutting down of noble trees all over the country, under the rule that their branches shall not hang over the road. Thus, every grateful place of shade is ruined, as well as much natural beauty. Our ancestors, more individually free, showed finer taste. The roofs of their houses were picturesquely thatched or tiled, and gabled,--their eyes were never affronted by the dull appearance of cheap slate and corrugated iron. They left us a heritage of many lovely and lasting things; but it is greatly to be feared that we shall not do likewise to those that come after us. We are destroying far more than we are creating.