TECHNICAL INFORMATION.

The third meeting of the Grand Committee of Inquest, commissioned under the Privy Seal of Great Britain and Ireland and the Dominions beyond the Seas, met at Downing Street this week to further explore—we mean, to explore further—the Fiscal Conditions of this Realm of England.

The late arrival of the members of the Committee gave rise to some anxious talk in the passage which corresponds to the Lobby of the House in Downing Street. The wildest rumours were afloat. Some said that Mr. Chamberlain had resigned; others that he had committed suicide. The more sober would have it that the inquest was indefinitely postponed, and that the whole scheme for protecting or not protecting native industries, or food, or what-not, as the Inquiry might or might not have shown to be necessary, or unnecessary, or either, was to be dropped. Among the adherents of the latter (or former) opinion were several journalists, a bishop, four diplomats, and an economist.

All doubts were set at rest by the arrival at 3.35 or thereabouts of the first members of the Committee and two members of theBirmingham “gang.” Three-quarters of an hour later Mr. Balfour was towed up in his motor-car, and the Court opened.

The business before the Court this morning was to receive the testimony of some fifty-eight witnesses on the technical details of our chief industries, and to hear their views on special points; especially on the inroads made by foreign competition in matters of construction.

A definition having been asked of where “technical detail” began, the Prime Minister refused to define the matter, but he ventured so far as to ask a question—whether there were not foreigners in the habit of substituting in small but essential parts of machinery patterns to which we, being of a superior race, could not stoop without changing the very conditions of our psychology? It was more or less upon these lines (said the Prime Minister) that the questions—if they could be called questions—were, so to speak, to proceed; and he hoped that the answers they should receive, using the word “answers” in its most general sense, would on the whole conform to some such conception of the duties more or less before them. (Applause.)

The first witness to be called was theTimeseconomist, who refused to reveal his real name. Being threatened with the torture, he confessed to several aliases. He admitted to having signed many letters before this above the pseudonym of “Verax,” and, more lately, above those of “A Conservative Working-Man” and “A DisgustedLiberal.” He was not specially paid for these articles: it was all in the day’s work.

Cross-examined: He admitted to having written for theDaily Telegraph; he was not “Maude” ofChit-Chat. Asked whether he were the “Revenue Officer” of pious memory, he denied the imputation—or, as he called it, the “soft impeachment”—with the utmost violence. He also denied any connection, direct or indirect, with the “TimesEncyclopædia,” the “TimesSystem of Payment by Instalments,” the “Parnell Letters,” the “Hawkesley Letters,” the “Jameson Raid,” the “Argument upon the Mortality in the Concentration Camps,” the recent “Roman Correspondence,” theTimes“Dramatic Criticism,” and “The Industrial Freedom League,” and, indeed, everything else connected with that journal. The witness here sworewith some heat, the ingenuous colour mounting to his cheeks, that he had never changed a date, nor forged nor garbled a letter, nor taken South African shares, nor suppressed evidence, nor done any of these things.

Counsel(suavely): My dear Mr. (I really do not know your name), when has there been a bare suggestion of anything of the kind?

Witness(hotly): I could see very well where your questions were driving.

When this little scene had come to an end, the witness proceeded to give evidence that the great mass of imported manufactured goods were loaded with damnable contraptions, with the undoubted object of destroying our own industry, and of supplanting them by that of the foreigner. He quoted statistics to show that the iron trade, the textile trade of Lancashire, the plain chair and kitchen table trade of High Wycombe, the boot, shoe, and slipper trade, the cork trade, the shipbuilding trade, the glue and gum trade, the fishbone manure trade, and the manufacture of cheese had declined during the last fifteen years from 10 to 30 per cent. He ascribed this deplorable breakdown partly to the ignorance of technical detail prevalent among politicians, but more to the devilish contrivances which gave foreign machinery a specious appearance of superiority to our own. He thought it couldbe proved that no one of these trades would have declined or disappeared had not Britain suffered from this most unjust and tricky form of competition. He was confident of one thing—that unless the greatest attention was given by the Committee to what he called “Spade-work,” uninteresting but essential matters of fact, it was all up with the Empire.

Mr.Balfour(with some hesitation): All this is mere assertion.

Witness(calmly): Upon assertion every great religion has been built.

Mr.Balfour(seraphically): You are quite right. I have always maintained that the analytical function, and even the quasi-postulated phenomena of the senses⸺

“I have always maintained”

A Voice: Shut up!

Lord Lansdowne(smartly): If any further expressions of private opinion are delivered from the well of the Court, I, for one, shall protest.

Mr.Chamberlain(to the unknown person): Ked!

The Court then proceeded to call further witnesses.

Mr.Henderson, Gentleman-Agriculturalist, deposed that it was the habit of foreigners, principally Frenchmen and Dutchmen, to arrive in his district of Norfolk every summer with great masses of vegetables, principally onions, which they had grown at least three weeks earlier than they could honestly be produced. There was less infamy of this kind in agriculture perhaps than in other trades—but it was there all the same. The witness mentioned melons and giant earlies, and alluded in passing to yellow kidneys, mammoths, Reading prides, and other vegetables, in proof of his contention. But the chief example was Hessian fly.

Cross-examined: Witness could not see what all this had to do with machinery. Perhaps he had mistaken the day.... Anyhow he was a practical man.

(Here followed a short and awkward pause.)

The witness then stood down with an inconclusive frown.

Mr.Lutworthy, of 236, Eton Square, and “The Knoll,” Birmingham, deposed that for the last fifteen years German hardware of all kinds had been flung at his head, and that it was not in human nature to withstand it. To give an example. Iron king-bolts with flange attachments selling in Newcastle at 35s.the imperial gross in 1897, by discount, wererebated on the margin—(here the Duke of Marlborough started violently, recovered himself, gazed wildly at the witness, and then began taking notes)—on the margin, he repeated, at a cover of 10 to 8 according to the higgling of the market. In 1898 the margin had risen to the minimum fifth, in spite of heavy buying from Russia. In 1899⸺

LordHalsbury: Was not that before the little trouble in South Africa?

Mr.Lutworthy: Yes, my lord, but it was late in the year. Towards Septemberfutureswere quoted at less than the old “Charles Henry Agreement” rate—excluding freights. In 1900⸺

Mr.Gerald Balfour(anxiously): Would you mind repeating that last sentence?

Mr.Lutworthy(pleasantly): Let me make it perfectly clear. (The whole Committee here leant forward with the utmost attention.) Let us suppose this (taking up the Book on which he had been sworn) to be a king-bolt. Each king-bolt has at the centre what is known as aflange attachment, as might be this. (The witness then constructed a complicated thing out of a piece of paper lying near, and stuck it all round the Book.) Now, to attach the flange attachment so as to be attachable and detachable, it is necessary to—(here the witness looked allround the table anxiously)—Oh! yes. There; that will do!—(picking up a pencil)—to affix either to it or to its bevel a catch, as might be this pencil, so. (The witness here suited the action to the word.) Now, the Germans, instead ofthat, which is the right way, they drop the counter, lift the main-ratch, and so get all the head-gear into one piece. (Here the witness paused with a set, angry face; several people in the well of the Court cried “Shame!” and Mr. Balfour’s hand trembled. Then Mr. Lutworthy added in a shaking voice): One can do nothing against that kind of hitting below the belt.

Mr.Chamberlain: And you took that lying down!

Mr.Lutworthy(despairingly): I had to. What could I do? If the bevel had been galvanised or plated, or even treated with mercury in the original patent, I might have shifted the catch myself. But as it was—(fiercely)—Oh! how I have struggled!

LordLansdowne(in a deep voice): It is not for long!

The witness here stood down with a bowed head.

Mr.Chamberlain(briskly): Next!

SirCharles Castlegate, introduced between two policemen,deposed that: As the results of his bankruptcy were still at issue, he must speak guardedly.

“Between two policemen.”

LordHalsbury(sympathetically): We quite understand, Sir Charles ... pray continue.

SirCharles(hurriedly): I have been concerned, as a company-promoter and member of the Carlton Club, with gyroscopes, penny-in-the-slot machines, atmospheric double-gear brakes, man-lifting kites, clenched carrying chains, and many other labour-saving devices. I will deal first with the auto-motor-sheaf-binder. It was originally all British. (At this point Mr. Balfour handed a note marked “Urgent” to a messenger, who rushed from the room.) It was originally all British. Now, what happened? I will make myself clear. In every sheaf-binding machine the essential parts are a “binder” and a “clutch.” Now, the binder is familiar to you all ... (Here some clamour seemed to rise from the street) the clutch is more complicated. You must consider these in the clutch. Either the pick and the main-nut or (which is much the same) the spring, the oil-pan, and the “dagger.”I will draw a rough sketch.... (As the prisoner leant over the paper a loud cry of“Fire!”was raised without, several fire engines were heard ringing their bells and shouting down Whitehall. Immediately afterwards a four-inch stream of water burst into the room and played upon the Court.

The Committee rose in the utmost trepidation and alarm, and the whole Court poured down the historic staircase. Several young gentlemen were crushed, one beyond recovery, and a grave tragedy was only averted by the presence of mind of Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain, who escaped with dignity and composure by another entry, and so relieved the pressure. Nevertheless, the fruits of the day were, it is feared, wholly lost, and no conclusion was arrived at.)

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