in the fourfold shape of food, fuel, clothes, and houses.
These necessaries are supplied in combination by agriculture, mining, the textile and clothing trades, and the building trade, the collective importance of which, in the national economy, can thus be understood.
Industrial strength may be measured, secondly, by the degree in which it facilitates transport. Transport is provided by the railway, the shipping, and the engineering trades, the latter co-operating with the first two. To warm and to transport is the main function of human industry.
It must at once be evident how distinguished, and even how leading a part England plays in these seven chief departments of material life. In five or six of them our artisans will be generally admitted to lead the world.
On the third great factor in our industrial strength, our capital, there is no need to dwell. As already made clear, England lacks food-supply, raw materials, and metals. Her capital is therefore ever necessarily directed to developing and mining these products abroad, and to bringing them by rail and ship to our shores. Every one recognises the unique energy and boldness with which for nearly a century our capital has been worked on these lines.
So far, we have considered coal, the basis upon which our industrial structure is built, and next, the three forces—our business men, our artisans,
