TECHNICAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND TRADE EDUCATION. A MANUAL OF RECENT AND EXISTING FROM THE YEAR 1789 TO 1872. SHOWING THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY AT HOME AND THE PROTECTIONIST POLICY, AND THE ERA OF FREE TRADE. "Una fides, pondus, mensura, moneta sit una, Et status illaesus totius orbis erit." "One faith, one weight, one measure, and one coin, BUDELIUS. BY JOHN YEATS, LL.D., ETC. ASSISTED BY SEVERAL GENTLEMEN. LONDON: VIRTUE & CO., 26, IVY LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1872. All Rights Reserved. INDUSTRY, INTELLIGENCE, PEACE, AND GOOD-WILL AMONG ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH, IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY Peckham, 1872. JOHN YEATS, LL.D. SPEECH OF H.R.H. THE PRINCE CONSORT, AT THE LORD MAYOR'S BANQUET IN LONDON, MARCH 21ST, 1850,-IN ANTICIPATION OF THE GREAT INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION. "I conceive it to be the duty of every educated person closely to watch and study the time in which he lives, and, as far as in him lies, to add his humble mite of individual exertion to further the accomplishment of what he believes Providence to have ordained. Nobody, however, who has paid any attention to the peculiar features of our present era, will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end to which, indeed, all history points, the realisation of the Unity of Mankind! Not a unity which breaks down the limits, and levels the peculiar characteristics of the different nations of the earth, but rather a unity, the result and product of those very national varieties, and antagonistic qualities. Let them be careful, however, to avoid any dictatorial interference with labour and employment, which frightens away capital, destroys that freedom of thought and independence of action which must remain to every one if he has to work out his own happiness, and impairs that confidence under which alone engagements for mutual benefit are possible. God has created man imperfect, and left him with many wants, as it were, to stimulate each to individual exertion, and to make all feel that it is only by united exertions and combined action that these imperfections can be supplied, and these wants satisfied. This pre-supposes self-reliance and confidence in each other." Econ. Hist. Sotheran 11-8-26 13639 PREFACE. THIS manual is one of a series treating of the Distribution and Uses of Raw Materials, the Development of Skilled Labour, the Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce, &c., and as such should be judged. The writer's aim has not been to describe " a day's business in the port of London," or to detail a day's transactions in any mercantile house; but to present in the briefest form, and based upon official returns, a comparative view of the commercial activity of the principal states of the civilised world. As a means of preparation for the higher departments of commerce, or as affording matter for reflection during intervals of repose, the work will, it is believed, be found equally useful; for it will assist an intelligent reader in arriving at sound conclusions with regard to the credit of any single state, and also aid him especially in a study of the present or prospective position of our own country. Should it be thought that through exhibitions, local and international, the truth has been arrived at already, with sufficient clearness, the author ventures to assert that these are neither permanent exponents of national progress, nor do they leave behind them, as standards of excellence, tests so sure and so satisfactory, as is the recorded judgment of buyers in the different markets of the world. As a companion or sequel to any of the ordinary British histories, the manual may be advantageously used. Few of these are industrial or commercial in character, and fewer still |