The spirit manifested in gatherings such as this is the best antidote for those conflicts between labour and capital which have proved so detrimental to both. Yet, as will be seen by a letter addressed less than four years later to his former traveller, Mr. James Campbell, he had evidence that a perfect solution of this great social problem has yet to be devised. The letter is dated from Dunkeld, where he had been spending a holiday with his family. In 1851 he had married Miss Catherine Inglis of Kirkmay, Crail; and at the date of the letter he was surrounded by a happy family, consisting of his son Frederick and four daughters, to whom he thus alludes: “The children have enjoyed their stay immensely, and none more than Master Fred, who got capital trout-fishing in the Braan, a tributary of the Tay, and in the Butterstone, a stream about six miles distant.” His greatest happiness was in his own family circle, and surrounded by the friends whom he welcomed to his hospitable home. But the cares inseparable from his extensive commercial transactions could not always be so exorcised; and now a succession of inclement seasons and bad harvests was clouding the prospects of all. “We have had,” he writes, “a most miserable time of it for many months past, as far as weather is concerned. I don’t remember of such a long continuance of wet weather as there has been this year. It has lasted, I may almost say, all summer, up to within the last few days; and the result is that the crops have suffered terribly. As to the potatoes, the disease is everywhere, and potato starch-mills will have full employment this winter. It is a time calling for sympathy and forbearance on all hands. But, in addition, strikes for shorter hours and increase of wages are the order of the day; and it looks as if the words of the song, ‘Hard times come again no more,’ were ere long, as a general rule, not to be suitable for this country, as such times cannot be far distant for both masters and men, if there be not a cessation soon to this war between capital and labour. Things are all quiet at present in the trades of printing and bookbinding, but it is rumoured that heavy demands for both shorter hours and higher wages will be made by the men next month; and it is known that they have been preparing for a struggle by subscribing largely to a strike-fund ever since the beginning of the year, so that there is no doubt coming events are casting their shadows before.