and adopted for the relief of the poor, together with Parochial Reports relative to the administration of Workhouses, and Houses of Industry; the state of Friendly Societies, and other public institutions, in several agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing districts, with a large appendix, ... 1797. A translation of the less detailed parts of this work is published in Duquesnoy's Recueil de Mémoires sur les Etablissements d'Humanité, No. 21, 1799; and also separately, 1800. There is an analysis of Eden's work by Cabanis, in the Mercure Français, Nos. 29, 30, 32, an. vi. (1798). Eden is also the author of (1) Porto-Bello, or a Plan for the Improvement of the Port and City of London, 1798.-(2) An Estimate of the Number of Inhabitants in Great Britain and Ireland, 1800, written on the eve of the first census, and estimating, by means of the number of baptisms, the population of Great Britain and Ireland (inclusive of sailors and soldiers) as 10,710,000. (The real number, according to the census, was, in round figures, 14,991,000).-(3) Eight Letters on the Peace and on the Commerce and Manufactures of Great Britain, 1802, defending the peace with France, and illustrating the economical position of England by statistics and interesting reflections.(4) Address on the Maritime Rights of Great Britain, 1808 (first edition 1807), commending the orders in council of 1807, and "offering some suggestions on the measures necessary to render the United Kingdom independent of other countries for the most indispensable articles now supplied by foreign The suggestions comprehend a plan for the encouragement of Anglo-Merino sheep, which the author defends against "Adam Smith, the great enemy of bounties," having regard to "what, on the whole, in pecuniary or political advantage, will be the gain to the country when the measure is carried into full effect." Eden is stated (in Walford's Insurance Cyclopædia), to have privately printed a considerable pamphlet On the Policy and Expediency of granting Insurance Charters, 1806, to which M'Culloch refers in his Literature. There is among the Bentham MSS. (Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS., 31,235) a letter from Eden to Vansittart, containing observations on Bentham's scheme of annuity notes. F. Y. E.

commerce.

EDGEWORTH, MARIA (1767-1849), daughter of R. L. Edgeworth, owing to the great popularity of her moral tales for children, has had considerable influence on the attitude of thought in England regarding economic questions. An intimate friend of Malthus, Richard Jones, and Ricardo, and well acquainted with their works, her writings evince considerable power of applying economic principles successfully in everyday life. Her novels and tales were directly written to inculcate a utilitarian morality, and the virtues which she specially exalts are those assumed to exist in the economic man of abstract theory-intelligence, honesty, love of truth, industry, prudence, and judgment; she excelled in her truthful portraits of the stupid, the wilfully ignorant, the extravagant, and the sentimental, against whom she directed a keen wit and

"

satire, the more deadly because good-humoured. Her books for children dwelt on the pains of idleness and the pleasures of industry, an aspect of the labour question now too little regarded. Her pictures of life among the Irish peasantry and the English working classes contain frequent reference to the lucrative employment of young children; but although she believed that work was pleasurable even when remunerated, and goes so far as to make four orphans under thirteen years of age support themselves (see Parent's Assistant:-The Orphans), the children in her stories always seek and receive facilities for educating themselves. Numerous instances of generous and yet discriminating relief of the distressed, to be found both in her fiction and in her life, show her to have been in advance of her time in her views on almsgiving; her stories, Rosamond and Egerton Abbey, exemplify this. (See also article in Charity Organisation Review, Nov. 1889). To the economist the most valuable of her writings are the novels dealing with the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland. The land agent, middleman, or "journeyman gentleman' is presented in all his aspects, good, bad, and indifferent. Castle Rackrent is a delightful history of three generations of Irish spendthrift and absentee landlords, written from the point of view of an old family retainer. The hero of The Absentee, whose parents have deserted their Irish estates for London society, travels incognito to inspect the condition and treatment of their tenantry; and the account of his adventures, given by one who had herself acted as land agent on her father's estate and who was entirely free from party spirit, is well worth studying apart from its artistic merits. The nearest approach to definite exposition of economic theories is to be found in Ennui, in the criticism of the well-meant actions of an Irish landlord by his Scotch agent. M'Leod "doubted whether the best way of encouraging the industrious was to give premiums to the idle." "He was told that some Indian Brahmins were so very compassionate that they hired beggars to let fleas feed upon them. He doubted whether it might not be better to let the fleas starve." "He doubted whether long leases alone would make improving tenants. "He doubted whether, if a farm could support but ten people, it were wise to encourage the birth of twenty. It might be doubted whether it were not better for ten to live and be well fed than for twenty to be born and be half starved." "He doubted whether it would not encourage the manufacturers to make bad stuffs and bad linen, since they were sure of a sale and without danger of competition," and "he doubted whether it would not be better for a man to buy shoes if he could buy them cheaper than he could make them." The admirable portrait of King Corny in Ormond elicited warm praise from Macaulay.

Mr.

C. E. C.

[Helen Zimmern's Maria Edgeworth, 1883. The books for children still widely read are: Frank, Rosamond, Harry and Lucy, The Parent's Assistant, Moral Tales, and Popular Tales. See also article in International Journal of Ethics for April 1892, where the writer has treated this subject at greater length.] EDMONDS, THOMAS ROWE (1803-1889), born at Penzance, educated at Cambridge (B. A., 1826), was actuary of the Legal and General Life Assurance Society from 1832 to 1866. He wrote Life Tables, 1832; Inquiry into the Principles of Population, 1832; Laws regulating Human Mortality, 1866; and contributed many papers on the same subject to the Lancet. He also published :

Practical, Moral, and Political Economy, or the Government, Religion, and Institutions most conducive to Individual Happiness and to National Power, London, 1828, 8vo. ("The social system is the limit towards which all governments tend, and at which they cannot fail to arrive sooner or later," p. 283. The author considers that labourers should work six hours a day, and proposes a tax on marriage.)

[Walford, Insurance Cyclopædia, ii. 470-74.— F. Boase, Modern English Biography, i. 961.Marx, Misère de la Philos., pp. 49-50.] H. R. T.

EDUCATION, ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF. Trade and industry may be affected by education in two ways. In the first place, their progress may be assisted by General Education, which, though developed without any immediate or particular reference to their wellbeing, must necessarily promote it by quickening the intelligence and calling into play the latent capacities of the people of any country. In the second place, a particular industry will be advanced by means of Technical Education, which renders those employed or likely to be employed in any industry more fully acquainted with the nature of its processes and with such branches of general education as may be deemed to have a direct and immediate bearing on these. It is education directed to an end, and a particular end. General Education, in its early stages, may be the same for all classes, notwithstanding their differences of calling; in its later or specialised stages it will direct attention to certain cognate branches of study with the view of inducing students to concentrate their powers on the problems presented by these studies. Should these problems coincide with or resemble those involved in the profession or trade they may adopt, they will be additionally benefited. Technical Education, on the other hand, will have regard to the special requirements of the profession or trade in which the students in question are, or are likely to be employed. It will be evident that the term Technical Education, though usually employed as above, may be expanded so as to include or imply an education more fitly described as specialised education.

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General Education.-In order that the advantages of such education may be fully felt it is necessary that it should (1) in its primary stages be national; (2) in its later or specialised stages be open to all those fitted to avail themselves of it. The first of these conditions has it has, so far at least as a certain minimum, been recognised by civilised nations. As a rule been made compulsory. There is overwhelming testimony to the benefits conferred on industry by such a state of things. The second condition is less fully regarded, little provision being made in many countries, among which we must include England, where the higher education is costly. The advantages of a high standard of General Education may be seen from many examples, as for instance the position of America and in some degree that of Germany. England, where in industry the standard of workmanship is high, owes her position to causes somewhat different. She owes much to her political condition, and much also to the free and fair intercourse of life common to her.

Technical Education.-The early recognition of the desirability of such training may be gathered from the evidence before Royal Commissions, etc. (see especially "Royal Commission to inquire into condition of the Handloom Weavers," Parl. Paper, 1841, vol. x.), in which the difference in artistic merit between English and French work is instanced and the demand made for the establishment of schools of design, etc. But England made much less rapid advance in this respect than most of the chief foreign countries, where highly-organised systems of technical instruction have been adopted (see L'Enseignment Commercial, par Eugène Leautey). In this country, on the contrary, little was achieved till 1890.

[The "economic value" of the intelligence of the population is borne witness to by all our leading economic authorities. See e.g. Marshall, Principles of Economics, 1st ed. pp. 264-276.]

E. C. K. G.

EDWARDS, BRYAN (1743-1800) was born at Westbury. In 1759 he went out to Jamaica to the house of his uncle, a merchant in that island. On his uncle's death he succeeded to the business and other property. His chief interests lay in the West Indies, and though shortly before his death he returned to England and sat in parliament as member for Grampound, he continued to act chiefly in the interest of the West Indies. His principal work is The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies, published in 1793; a third edition of this work appeared in 1807 in an enlarged form, containing a brief autobiography and chapters on the French colonies in the West Indies. These were first published in 1797 as A Historical Survey of the French Colony in the Island of San Domingo. The economic importance of the book which

plentiful diet and adequate or inadequate repose. A mountain stock has more grit than the average, even though it has been more poorly fed; and Mr. Jones, one of Mr. Brassey's managers, always preferred mountaineers for railway-making when he could obtain them. English workmen enjoy better fare and shorter hours than other workmen, and they are noted for their physical strength, their endurance, and their rapidity at work. Mr. Brassey found English navvies able to do heavier work, to do more work in the day, and to remain afterwards fresher for an extra spurt if required, than any other navvies in the world. In constructing the Paris and Rouen railway, in which he employed 4000 Englishmen and 6000 Frenchmen, he took great pains to ascertain the relative industrial capacity of the two nations, and he came to the general conclusion that three Englishmen did the work of four Frenchmen. In "shifting" materials the English navvy was found to do twice as much work in the day as the French, though he worked two hours less, and he received twice the wages, and a half-franc more, because he could be counted on for additional speed under pressure; while for the hard work of mining and tunnelling, Mr. Brassey employed none but Englishmen; and even in Italy, where he found the Piedmontese excellent workers-in some respects better than the English-and employed them in tunnelling in dry rock, he still reserved the more arduous labour of tunnelling in clay for English limbs (Brassey, Work and Wages, pp. 118, 146). For mere strength Englishmen excel even their better-fed but longer-worked American kinsmen. "When we want physical force combined with skill," says the well-known American ironmaster, Mr. A. Hewitt, "we get Englishmen" (Trade Union Commission Report, qu. 6980). In girder rolling he said the Americans were more active and better rollers, but when it came to puddling the heavy bars there were no workmen like the English; and the reason was, what he thought every observer must remark, that the English were superior to the Americans in physical development. I. L. Bell, in a comparison of five American furnaces with those of Cleveland, calculates that the workers in an English furnace, with a shorter working day, move 2400 tons of fuel, ore, and limestone in the week, while the same number of Americans move only 2100 tons (Iron Trade of United Kingdom, p. 137). Luxemburg ironstone, again, is not harder to work than Cleveland ironstone, but two Cleveland miners turn out 10 tons of stone in an eight hours' day, whereas two Luxemburg miners turn out only 10 tons in a twelve hours' one (ib. 86). In continental textile mills Mr. Mundella always found five hands doing work that was done in England by three. During the eight hours strike in Melbourne in

Sir

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1859, it was ascertained for a wager that an English bricklayer laid half as many bricks again in the day as a German. Then in England itself, the well-fed Midland labourer will do twice the work of the ill-fed Dorset hind; whilst the Australians, the best-fed and shortestworked race of work-people in the world, strike even English eyes for the extraordinary vigour and "go" they put into their work. Lord Brassey praises the "remarkable physique" of the Australian navvy, and Captain Henderson, R.N., said Australian dockers coaled a ship three times as fast as English ones (Proceedings · of Royal Colonial Institute, xix. 122). More specific proof still exists of the connection between work and feeding. Mr. Brassey often employed agricultural labourers for navvy work, and when they first came they would lie down utterly exhausted about three in the afternoon, but after twelve months of good wages and better diet than they enjoyed before, they became quite fit to do their work without any difficulty. Irishmen in their own country are the poorest of workmen, mainly because of their poor fare. Arthur Young said, in his time, that an Essex labourer at half-a-crown a day was cheaper than a Tipperary labourer at fivepence; and Mr. J. Fox said to the Trade Depression Commission that, though he paid the hands in his Manchester mill 20 per cent higher wages than the hands in his Cork mill, the real cost of the work was the same in both. But when the Irish come over to England and get better diet their working power soon improves; Sir I. L. Bell says, many young Irishmen come to Cleveland ironworks, and though not worth much at first, yet "as soon as their improved style of living permits it," they become equal to any workman in Cleveland, both for ability and will to work. M. Chevalier mentions that when Messrs. Manby and Wilson started their French foundry at Charenton in 1820, they brought over a few of their English hands with them, and found these did far more work than the French labourers. Suspecting the reason to be better nourishment, they took steps to get the French work-people to eat as much meat as the English; and the result was, that in a short time they did nearly as much work as the English too. The effect of shortening hours of labour in improving industrial energy will be treated separately, but even the minor changes in the sanitary conditions of work, effected by the Factory Acts, have caused such a perceptible increase in productive capacity that Dr. J. Watts says Lancashire cotton operatives care far more about being employed in a good mill, with plenty of air and light, than about the exact price per lb. they get for spinning or per piece for weaving, because "they know practically what is the effect of these conditions upon the weekly wages" (Facts about the Cotton Famine, p. 44). The same sound

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physical conditions which enlarge productive capacity at the time also extend the term of efficient working life.

(2) Skill is a compound of general mental intelligence, special technical culture, and acquired manual dexterity. All work involves head work. The good workman must be a thinking and planning being, and according to his general intelligence will be his share of the supreme industrial qualities of resourcefulness, versatility, and precision. The intelligent man needs a shorter apprenticeship and less superintendence, and is less wasteful of materials, all simply because he understands better than the ignorant man the nature of the stuff he handles, the working of the tools and machinery he uses, and the end and object of the commodity he is making. Hence the immense industrial value of general education. The want of education has hitherto been the chief industrial defect of the English workman. Escher, a Swiss manufacturer, who employed about 2000 hands of all nationalities, said, in 1840, that while the English workmen were the best in what they had actually learnt, they were of less value outside their own specific work than the Swiss or the Scotch, because of their inferior education (Mill, Political Economy, bk. i. ch. vii. § 5). But on the other hand, a later Swiss manufacturer, Herr Wunderley, who also employed men of all European nationalities in his mills, stated to the Technical Instruction Commission that there was a certain practicality and method in English labour-a mechanical genius, he termed it which seemed to enable it to do, without much knowledge, what continental labour did with it (Technical Instruction Commission Report, p. 269). Mr. Mundella, too, thinks that English labourers naturally more inventive than foreigners, more apt in devising means for ends, but this is probably due in some degree to their greater physical energy, their greater determination not to be mastered by a difficulty; for Mr. E. Rose, in 1832, stated one of the chief differences between French and English work-people to be that the French got much sooner bewildered with a difficulty and gave in, while the English still kept on trying to find a way out until the thing was done (Senior, Political Economy, p. 150). But all are agreed that this and other industrial capacities would be greatly developed by better education. Mr. E. Peshine Smith states that the Massachusetts Board of Education procured from the owners of factories in that state, some fifty years ago, a report of the different rates of wages paid and the education of the recipients, and the amount of wages varied exactly as the education, the lowest being foreigners who signed their name with a mark, and the highest the girls who went to school in winter and worked in the mills in summer. He adds that it was estimated that popular

education gave an advantage of 20 per cent to the American manufacturer in competition with foreigners (Manual of Political Economy, 151). American manufacturers used to say that, from their better education, two American mill hands would do the work of three English ones, and Mr. Harris Gastrell, in his report to the English Foreign Office in 1873, admits that this may be so still in the mills-now apparently a minority-where American has not been superseded by foreign labour (p. 682). Sir W. Fairbairn said, that for difficult engineering work they always looked out for the best-educated workmen; and when Mr. Mundella asked a Swiss manufacturer how his countrymen had taken the ribbon trade from the French, he was answered, "We beat them by means of an educated people."

Special dexterities are, generally speaking, the result of special training and practice. No doubt cunning of hand may be inherited like other faculties, but even then greater facility still comes from repetition. This is the source of the increment of production obtained through division of labour. The jack-of-all-trades never has the chance of becoming master of any; but when every man confines himself to a separate trade, the sum of their total work is improved, both in quality and quantity, through the greater perfection each man acquires in the performance of his special branch of work by means of constant repetition. On the other hand, an extreme sub-division of labour may involve a certain monotony which is not favourable to efficiency even in the special branch of work concerned, and is certainly adverse to general efficiency. Marx, however, exaggerates the ill effects of specialisation when he calls the modern "detail workman" a mutilated and crippled monstrosity, a mere bit of the machine he sits and watches. Mr. Nasmyth, with much more practical experience, says he has often been struck to observe how this process of watching the beautiful and precise working of machinery exercised a positively intellectualising effect upon the labourer which was not unfavourable to versatility. Another essential for good work, hardly behind manual facility, is visual accuracy, and Mr. Nasmyth thinks the average workman comes far short in this quality; he found that his own men in general spent most of their time in applying the rule and straightedge, while the dexterous workman seldom used these tools at all; his eye was enough.

Intermediate between this cunning of eye and hand, and general mental intelligence, stand certain special mental capacities, such as artistic taste and mastery of sciences cognate to the workman's trade, which are of great importance for good work, though some authorities contend they are less the concern of the manual labourer who executes the work than of the designers and