28. 8d. per 1000 accurately struck coins, and when the Mint was not at work they received a small payment amounting to from 68. to 10s. per week. The objections to this system are obvious. When the department was in full work, the men received an average of £2 158. per week, and during the remainder of the year they received allowances insufficient to maintain them, or to prevent their forming other engagements. The result was, on the one hand, that the more improvident among them contracted liabilities and returned to work in debt, and, on the other hand, that the more skilful workmen were induced to accept employment elsewhere, and the Mint lost their services. The rate paid for piecework was therefore slightly reduced, and a uniform payment of £1 per week for the men, and 10s. to 158. per week for the boys, as "subsistence money" as it is termed, was set on foot. There can be no doubt that the system of premiums renders it possible to retain the services of good workmen, as well as to stimulate and encourage their intelligence. It is the best method of enabling him to share in the profits, and at the same time it indirectly augments those of the employer.

We now come to a question that has been discussed with much interest in recent years. Certain economists and philanthropists urge that it would entirely remove antagonism between capital and labour, if the operatives directly participated in the profits of an undertaking. Others contend that this sharing of profits, far from effecting a better understanding between capital and labour, would only give rise to further troubles. In one shape or another participation of profits has found a good deal of favour on the Continent, where many works have adopted it with generally very beneficial results to all parties concerned. This has notably been the case at the ironworks of Godin, at Guise, France.*

M. P. Leroy-Beaulieu, editor of L'Economiste française, states that the system of participation in profits, viewed as a general method of organising labour, is both deceptive and dangerous. It may be possible to admit superior workmen and foremen to participation in profits; but in this country, at least, workmen are not ready for the change. Everything goes well as long as the works are carried on at a profit; but in bad times discontent soon breaks out. The system is not viewed with favour by the workmen themselves. They are perfectly willing to share in the profits, but they object to be answerable for their share of loss, and are even reluctant to contribute to a reserve fund

* Journ. Iron and Steel Inst. 1888, No. I. p. 102.

to cover the losses of future bad years. A workman cannot either wait for better times, or turn out products at a loss in order to retain his employment. Moreover, the final participation appears too remote; the workman cannot appreciate the relation that exists between his work and the annual profit.

Among the methods that have been adopted for giving the men a permanent interest in the works, the following may be enumerated::

1. The method of paying over to the workmen a share in an annual cash bonus.

2. Retention of the share for an assigned period, in order ultimately to apply it, together with its accumulated interest, for the workman's benefit.

3. An annual distribution of a portion of the workmen's share and an investment of the remainder. This third method is adopted at the La Vieille Montagne zinc works, where the results have been found to be most beneficial, and have entirely prevented strikes.

Whatever method be adopted, no effort should be spared to induce the men to exercise the utmost care in the conduct of their ordinary occupations. To illustrate this, Mr. Kenward, the manager of Messrs. Chance's works, near Birmingham, states that in such an apparently routine occupation as superintending a machine punching holes in a metal plate, a thoroughly active workman could realise a surplus wage three times as great as that obtained, under identical conditions, by a less strenuous but not less skilful fellow workman. With due care, a large amount of the waste that occurs in every trade could be avoided. In metallurgical industries, this waste is often apparent, and in some cases the dimensions of the scrap-heaps are a source of wonderment to foreigners who visit this country.

Those who are not engaged in active constructive work can form no adequate conception of the enormous waste caused by inaccurate or bad workmanship, and this is well shown by the fact to which attention has recently been directed by Mr. R. Caird, of the well-known firm of engineers and shipbuilders at Greenock. He estimates that iron and steel to the value of £5,000,000 are annually wasted as "scantlings," or are employed in excess of actual requirements in shipbuilding, and he states that over £200,000 are spent per annum in propelling excessive and unnecessary material.

Quite apart from the methods of remunerating labour, much will depend upon the personal relations between employer and employed, and more especially upon the moral example set by the heads of the firm, and upon the amount of care and interest

they display in providing for the wants of their people in the way of schools, gardens, savings banks, libraries, and hospitals. In this country the provision made in this respect at such works as Crewe, Elswick, and Dowlais deserves especial commendation. At Crewe there is a well-organised institute, in which competent teachers prepare the younger operatives for the various technological examinations throughout the country. Similar institutes have been founded at many other works.

No doubt where, as in the Royal Mint and other Government establishments, pensions can be given, they afford the most powerful inducements to industry and fidelity.

It is not necessary here to dwell upon the importance of technical education. The advantages that craftsmanship constantly reaps from scientific knowledge are standing proofs of the necessity for special training. All may be summed up in a few words borrowed from the writings of a former French Minister of Finance, Jules Simon :

"The practised eye and the sure hand are much, but they do not replace Science. The smith who knows the drawbacks of too rapid oxidation, who knows why throwing water on the surface of fuel increases the heat at the centre of the mass, the puddler who takes into account the effect of an oxidising or reducing flame, and who exposes metals to one or the other at the right moment-such are evidently the best workmen, more skilful for current needs, less disconcerted by an accident, less embarrassed by having to describe an observation, less slaves to routine, and quicker to adopt new processes." He points to the fact that so many of the modern inventions are due to workmen, and justly urges that the more intelligent the workman becomes, the better he will understand the skill possessed by those who direct him, and the more he will appreciate work that differs from his own.

In spite of all the advantages that technical education offers, it must be remembered that many metallurgical works in this country are successfully conducted by so-called practical men; not the kind of man so forcibly described by Sir Frederick Bramwell, as one "whose wisdom consists in standing by, seeing, but not investigating, the new discoveries which are taking place around him, the aim and object of such a man being to ensure that he should never make a mistake by embarking his capital or his time in that which has not been proved by men of large hearts and large intelligence;" nor the man who accepts no rule but the rule of thumb, but practical men possessing technical knowledge of a high order, whose careful observations enable

Brit. Assoc, Rep. 1872, p. 238.

them to use the results of past experience in dealing with circumstances and conditions analogous to those they have met with before, and with which long practice has made them familiar. It would be difficult to overrate the value and importance of such knowledge as theirs, and, when we remember the scale on which smelting operations are carried on, it will be obvious that this kind of knowledge can only be gained in the works, and not in the laboratory or lecture-room, for, however careful metallur gical teaching in a school may be, it is only practical in a limited sense. At the same time, it must be borne in mind that a man trained to scientific methods starts with the enormous advantage of being able to deal with circumstances and conditions that are new to him, and with which, therefore, he cannot be said to be familiar. The technical skill that time and opportunity can alone give him will then rest on a solid basis. It is necessary, however, to guard against undervaluing the teaching of experience unaided by reasoning that we should recognise as scientific, for it is only necessary to witness such operations as the roasting of a large mass of ore on the bed of a furnace, or the forging of many tons of iron under a steam hammer, to appreciate the value of the subtle skill of sight and touch on which success depends.

The relation between scientific and technical men is thus traced, as hitherto there have been misunderstandings on both sides, or, as Dr. Williamson* well observed, " Men of detail do not sufficiently appreciate the value of usefulness of ideas or of general principles; and men of science, who learn to understand and control things more and more by the aid of the laws of Nature, are apt to expect that all improvements will result from the development and extension of their scientific methods of research, and not to do justice to the empirical considerations of practical expediency which are so essential to the realisation of industrial success in the imperfect state of our scientific knowledge."

While it is no longer necessary to justify the scientific teaching of metallurgy, it is as important as ever that the true relation of Theory and Practice should be clearly understood. It rarely happens that a process can be transferred from the laboratory to the works without important modifications; and it must be remembered that metallurgy is a manufacturing art, and that, when the truth of a theory has been demonstrated, a dividend has to be earned. This would, indeed, often be difficult without the aid of the practical man. Practical men have, however, ceased to undervalue science, and the most practical body of men in the world, in the best sense of the term, the ironmasters of

* Inaugural Lecture, University College, London, 1870.

this country, on whom its prosperity so largely depends, formed themselves, in 1870, into an Iron and Steel Institute, of which many of the members possess high scientific attainments, and are distinguished for scientific research.

Turn, then, to the advice given by those who are accustomed to deal with metals on a large scale. In 1873 Sir Lowthian Bell stated: "If we would avoid the failure of what may be designated unscientific practice, or the failure of impracticable science, we must seek to combine commercial intelligence with a knowledge of those natural laws which form the only trustworthy groundwork of the complicated processes in which we are engaged."

Again, Sir W. Siemens,† in 1877, said, "It is not many years since practical knowledge was regarded as the one thing requisite in an iron smelter, whilst theoretical knowledge of the chemical and mechanical principles involved in the operations was viewed with considerable suspicion."

As regards the preliminary training in metallurgy, the utmost efforts of the student should be devoted to securing a thorough acquaintance with scientific methods and metallurgical principles, and, at the same time, to gathering as many well-ascertained facts as possible, remembering that applied science is nothing but the application of pure science to particular classes of problems. It consists of deductions from the general principles, established by reasoning and observation, which constitute pure science. No one can safely make these deductions until he has a firm grasp of the principles, and he can obtain that grasp only by personal experience of the processes of observation and of reasoning on which they are founded.

Production of Metals.-According to a diagram prepared by order of the French Minister of Public Works, and shown at the Paris Exhibition of 1889, the world's production of metals in 1887 was as follows: