from the soil of his fathers, so that gardens, allotments, and small holdings form the threefold stage of progress presented to his wondering or incurious eyes. Credit, the ligature of business and the lever of energy, is to be extended to him, and co-operation seeks to reach a friendly hand.
As against this, we live in an age of rising prices, and since the commencement of this century, and still more since 1896, values of food have increased seriously, not a pleasant thing for those wage-earners who spend over half of their money in that way. Perhaps, on the whole, there are reasons for thinking that the labourer's condition creeps slowly upward as compared with days gone by.
England, then, on the whole, is not only furnished by nature for the commercial struggle, but her people have raised upon this foundation an organism of industry unsurpassed in the world, and destined, assuredly, in spite of the fierce storms of competition, for a long and famous life. That is one aspect of the industrial future as it is opening before our eyes. But the other aspect of this future is disappointingly different. In spite of the mercy of nature, of all our triumphant organisation, and of all these human energies at full stretch, the hard and stern fact remains that the result is not what we might expect. Even our best industries are not specially satisfactory, measured by the only true test, the wealth drawn therefrom by the mass of those engaged in them.
