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of you as were wise might submit to, and teach their children to obey. And if any of the laws thus deter mined appeared to be inconsistent with the present ci cumstances or customs of trade, do not make a noise about them, nor try to enforce them suddenly on others, nor embroider them on flags, nor call meetings in parks about them, in spite of railings and police; but keep them in your thoughts and sight, as objects of patient purpose, and future achievement by peaceful strength.

For you need not think that even if you obtained a majority of representatives in the existing parliament, you could immediately compel any system of business, broadly contrary to that now established by custom. If you could pass laws to-morrow, wholly favourable to yourselves, as you might think, because unfavourable to your masters, and to the upper classes of society,-the only result would be, that the riches of the country would at once leave it, and you would perish in riot and famine. Be assured that no great change for the better can ever be easily accomplished, nor quickly; nor by impulsive, ill-regulated effort, nor by bad men; nor even by good men, without much suffering. The suffering must, indeed, come, one way or another, in all greatly critical periods; the only question, for us, is whether we will reach our ends (if we ever reach them) through a chain

of involuntary miseries, many of them useless, and all ignoble; or whether we will know the worst at once, and deal with it by the wisely sharp methods of God-sped

courage.

This, I repeat to you, it is wholly in your own power to do, but it is in your power on one condition only, that of steadfast truth to yourselves, and to all men. If there is not, in the sum of it, honesty enough among you to teach you to frame, and strengthen you to obey, just laws of trade, there is no hope left for you. No political constitution can ennoble knaves; no privileges can assist them; no possessions enrich them. Their gains are occult curses; comfortless loss their truest blessing; failure and pain Nature's only mercy to them. Look to it, therefore, first, that you get some wholesome honesty for the foundation of all things. Without the resolution in your hearts to do good work, so long as your right hands have motion in them; and to do it whether the issue be that you die or live, no life worthy the name will ever be possible to you, while, in once forming the resolution that your work is to be well done, life is really won, here and for ever. And to make And to make your children capable of such resolution, is the beginning of all true education,

of which I have more to say in a future letter.

Letter 4.

The Expenses for Art and for War.

February 19, 1867.

In the Pall Mall Gazette of yesterday, second column of second page, you will find, close to each other, two sentences which bear closely on matters in hand. The first of these is the statement, that in the debate on the grant for the Blacas collection, "Mr. Bernal Osborne got an assenting cheer, when he said that 'whenever science and art were mentioned it was a sign to look after the national pockets."" I want you to notice this fact, i. e. (the debate in question being on a total grant of 164,000l. of which 48,000l. only were truly for art's sake, and the rest for shop's sake), in illustration of a passage in my Sesame and Lilies, pp. 81 and 82,* to which I shall have again to refer you, with some further comments, in the sequel of these letters.. The second passage is to the effect that "The Trades' Union Bill was read a second time, after a claim from Mr. Hadfield, Mr. Osborne, and Mr. Sam uelson, to admit working men into the commission; to

* Appendix 1.

which Mr. Watkins answered 'that the working men's friend was too conspicuous in the body;' and Mr. Roe back, 'that when a butcher was tried for murder it was not necessary to have butchers on the jury.""

Note this second passage with respect to what I said in my last letter, as to the impossibility of the laws of work being investigated in the House of Commons. What admixture of elements, think you, would avail to obtain so much as decent hearing (how should we then speak of impartial judgment?) of the cause of working men, in an assembly which permits to one of its principal members this insolent discourtesy of language, in dealing with a preliminary question of the highest importance; and permits it as so far expressive of the whole colour and tone of its own thoughts, that the sentence is quoted by one of the most temperate and accurate of our daily journals, as representing the total answer of the opposite side in the debate? No; be assured you can do nothing yet at Westminster. You must have your own parliament, and if you cannot detect enough honesty among you'to constitute a justly-minded one, for the present matters must take their course, and that will be, yet awhile, to the

worse.

I meant to have continued this subject, but I see two other statements in the Pall Mall Gazette of to-day, with

which, and a single remark upon them, I think it will be well to close my present letter.

1. "The total sum asked for in the army estimates, published this morning, is 14,752,2007., being an increase of 412,000l. over the previous year."

2. "Yesterday the annual account of the navy receipts and expenditure for the year ending 31st March, 1866, was issued from the Admiralty. The expenditure was 10,268,2157. 78."

Omitting the seven shillings, and even the odd hundred thousands of pounds, the net annual expendi ture for army and navy appears to be twenty-four millions.

The "grant in science and art," two-thirds of which was not in reality for either, but for amusement and shop interests in the Paris Exhibition-the grant which the House of Commons feels to be indicative of general danger to the national pockets-is, as above stated, 164,000l. Now, I believe the three additional ciphers which turn thousands into millions produce on the intelligent English mind usually, the effect of-three ciphers. But calculate the proportion of these two sums, and then imagine to yourself the beautiful state of rationality of any private gentleman, who, having regretfully spent 1647. on pictures for his walls, paid willingly 24,000l. annually to the