what Australia is now. It supplied nearly the whole of Europe with
wool. As we have seen in the last lecture, the agriculture and the
pasture of Britain are still important, but now, of course, Britain’s
fame is chiefly as a mining, an industrial, and a commercial country.
Even in antiquity there was one part of the land which was important
on account of its mines. The oldest mines of Britain are tin mines,
and they are still worked, although the tin of the world is now
mainly got in the Malay Peninsula, and the neighbouring islands.
Singapore is now the great tin port of the world, but at no very
distant time tin was obtained almost exclusively in Britain--in that
part of it which forms the rocky peninsula of Cornwall stretching out
into the western seas. The Cornish miners, though they no longer find
much employment in Cornwall, are the most skilled miners of gold in
South Africa. So we find within the British Empire three districts
which are very closely related to one another by the bond of tin:
Cornwall in England, the Malay Peninsula, and the gold mines of South
Africa. Here is a group of Cornish miners, men from whose race have
come not a few leaders in other parts of the Empire. These are two of
them descending a shaft into the depths of the earth to work for tin.
One of the deepest mines in the world is in Cornwall. And here is a
passage in the depths of the earth with rails laid for trolleys to
run along, carrying the ore which is to be raised to the surface and
there treated, so that from rock is obtained shining metallic tin. In
this slide we see miners at work on the face of the rock, drilling
holes in the hard stone into which explosives are inserted with the
object of shattering the stone and splitting the ore into fragments
that can be handled. Observe with how little clothing they work, for
at these depths the temperature is high. Our final scene in a tin
mine is comparatively near to the surface.
[Sidenote: 6. Map showing Coalfields of United Kingdom.]
[Sidenote: 7. Map showing distribution of Population about the
Coalfields.]
But, although some tin is still got, tin mines are now relatively
unimportant in the life of the country. There has developed in
Britain in the last century and a-half a vast system of industries
based, not merely on the use of human muscles, but on power derived
from the burning of coal. Here is a map showing, in black, the
coalfields of Britain. They lie chiefly in South Wales, in the
Midlands, in the North of England, and in Central Scotland. Those
of Ireland produce but little. Compare this map with the next,
which shows, in red, all the districts of denser population. It is
obvious that of all the larger areas coloured red, only the London
district is devoid of coal, and coal can easily be brought to London
by sea. These facts tell us at once that in their modern growth the
activities of the British population are based chiefly upon coal.
Three-quarters of all the people in Britain live within the areas
coloured pink, which measure not more than about one-twentieth of the
British Isles. In the main, therefore, Britain is a country of town
and factory populations, and in lesser degree only of agricultural
and fishing people. A hundred years ago the population of the whole
British Islands was not more than 16 millions, and it was mainly
agricultural. To-day it numbers 43 millions, and is mainly industrial.
[Sidenote: 8. A seam at Glasgow dissected to show the origin of Coal.]
Coal is won from the depths of the earth, where it is laid in great
sheets, which are known as coal seams, and these are underlaid and
overlaid by the solid rock. Immediately under each coal seam there is
usually a layer of clay, and if you examine that clay you will often
find in it, here and there, threads of coal penetrating downward from
the seam above. These are obviously the blackened roots of trees.
Sometimes, in the coal itself, you will find complete stumps of trees
preserved. For, in fact, the coal seams are nothing more than the
buried, rotten forests of vastly ancient times. You know that in
our great tropical forests when the wood rots it turns brown, and
even black. Wherever wood grows old in the use of men it darkens.
So we see that though the climate of Britain is cold, and though
vegetation does not grow with the same colossal power as when driven
by tropical rain and heat, yet buried deep in the rocks of Britain
there is compensation in the shape of ancient timber called coal.
The sunshine and rain of far-off times are thus the chief bases of
British prosperity, just as the sunshine and rain of to-day are the
chief bases of our prosperity in the tropics.
Most of the industries of Britain are in the North or North Midlands.
In these parts, you will remember, we are mainly away from the better
agricultural districts. The smiling fertile cornfields and rich
lowland meadows are replaced by bleak uplands with stone walls and
few trees.
[Sidenote: 9. Colliers’ houses.]
Here is a row of cottages where dwell colliers of the north of
England. What a contrast with the homes of the agricultural labourers
which we saw in the last lecture! And yet the colliers who work in
the coal mines are much better paid than the labourers on the farms.
[Sidenote: 10. View of Colliery above ground.]
This is a coal mine, or, as it is called, a colliery. Here is the
chimney of the pumping station which lifts water from the mine, lest
it should be flooded by underground springs. The same engine is used
to raise the coal to the surface.
[Sidenote: 11. The Pit-mouth.]
Next we come into the yard of the colliery, to the pit-mouth itself.
These colliers have done their spell of work, and have just come to
the surface again, all blackened and grimy with coal dust. Each of
them holds a small lamp of a special kind. It is so made that the
flame cannot pass out, even though the lamp be upset. The object is
to prevent explosions of the coal gas which is often disengaged in
the mine. Occasionally the colliers are careless and open the lamps,
and as a consequence we sometimes hear of a terrible explosion with
great loss of life.
[Sidenote: 12. In the Cage.]
[Sidenote: 13. At work on a four-foot Seam.]
[Sidenote: 14. Levelling in a Coal Mine.]
This is the cage ascending to the surface, bringing miners begrimed
with coal dust, and each carrying his lamp and his can of liquid
needed for drink in the depths of the earth, because the heat is
there great, and there is much perspiration from labour. Next we see
the actual working of the mine. The roof is supported by timbers,
which are now brought to Britain from foreign countries in great
quantity, because Britain is so populous that men cannot afford
the space for the forests in which to grow the wood needed for the
mines. Note the vertical thickness of the coal. It is to this that
the towering forest of former times has been compressed in its ruin.
Here with his lamp hung to one of the posts is the miner, stripped to
his work, using his pickaxe to detach the lumps of coal. And here,
finally, with the seam of coal more plainly visible than in the
darker corner we have just left, are miners occupied in levelling,
and so guiding the course of the tunnel. The coal is taken in trucks
from the face where it is worked to the foot of the shaft, and thence
raised to the surface.
We must now consider the uses to which the coal of England is put. We
have already seen it exported to drive British ships in foreign seas.
We have also noted the chimneys to the houses in Britain, which are
warmed by coal fires. But the chief use is in the industries which
give employment to so many millions of the British people.
[Sidenote: 15. Rope making.]
Now, the industries are chiefly textile, or of iron and steel. Men
require clothing, and this is mostly woven or textile; and they
require tools with which to work, and these are chiefly of iron and
steel. Here is the simplest form of textile industry--the manufacture
of ropes and mats. All the textiles are made of fibres, which are
mostly got either from the stalks and other fibrous parts of plants,
or from the wool and hair of animals. In olden times men clothed
themselves with skins, and still do in some barbarous lands; but
in these days nearly all the world wears clothes that are woven,
that is to say, that are made of fibres laid across one another and
interlaced so that they form a sheet of material. The roughest fibres
are fit for the making of rope. By the weaving of rope, mats of one
sort or another are manufactured. Here we have a factory for rope and
mat making. The fibres are being laid straight, and side by side,
in the machinery. We notice that the machines are driven by endless
straps, worked from a long shaft running through the top of the shed.
The shaft is rotated by the action of a steam engine, which is, of
course, driven by the burning of coal. Now, since the machinery
was made with the help of coal-heat, it follows that coal has been
utilised twice over in this process--for the making and also for
the driving of the machinery. One other thing we notice, the number
of women employed to control the machinery. Women used formerly to
spin and weave cloth in their own homes. With the introduction of
machinery and steam-power they now have to perform the same work in
factories.
[Sidenote: 16. Linen Spinning Mill.]
[Sidenote: 17. Dobbie Loom.]
[Sidenote: 18. Jacquard Loom.]
There are two essential processes in all textile
manufacture--spinning and weaving. In its simplest form spinning
is the making of rope, and weaving is the interlacing of rope in
two directions for the purpose of making a mat. When the rope is a
delicate thread we call it yarn, and when the mat is a fine cotton or
linen fabric we call it cloth. Here we have a linen mill seen from
outside, and here a loom for the weaving of the spun flax. A power
loom driven by steam can do the work of very many pairs of hands. See
the spindles on which the yarn is wound, and the cloth coming from
the loom. In a hand loom there would be but a single spindle. So that
you can imagine the immense multiplication of power due to machinery.
Here is another kind of loom. Note, again, the endless straps and the
overhead shafting connected with the engine.
[Sidenote: 19. A Bradford Mill.]
[Sidenote: 20. Wool Spinning.]
[Sidenote: 21. Cotton Spinning.]
Let us glance for just a moment at this larger mill, at this
wool-spinning room, and at this cotton-spinning room. They require no
further description, for they merely differ in scale from those we
have already studied.
[Sidenote: 22. Glass Blowing.]
[Sidenote: 23. Glass Blowing.]
And now we will turn from the making of textiles, which employs
several millions of the inhabitants of Britain, and gives rise to
perhaps the largest single trade of Britain, the cotton trade. Let us
turn from that to consider the other great group of the industries,
those which are based essentially on the melting of metals by the
heat got from coal. One of the simplest and one of the oldest forms
of this is the making and blowing of glass. It is true that glass
is not a metal, but for industrial purposes it has many properties
somewhat similar to those of metals. It can be melted, for instance,
and worked while hot. Here we have a man engaged in blowing glass
which has been melted by the use of coal. And here, when he has
blown the bottle, he is shaping it with tools.
[Sidenote: 24. Pottery making.]
[Sidenote: 25. Pottery making.]
A somewhat similar industry, although not involving the melting of
the material in the first instance, is the making of pottery. Pottery
was formerly made in the homes of the people, and the potter’s wheel
was worked by the foot, as it still is in the East. But nowadays
the wheels upon which the pots are shaped are driven by steam.
Here we have women at work upon pottery. And in the next slide are
men engaged upon a similar process, but their tools are driven by
the foot. The pottery that is being made in this instance is of
the costly kind, which is produced in small quantity, and demands
artistic labour. It requires so little power that it is not worth
while to drive the machinery by steam. In large measure steam has not
replaced human skill for the very finest work.
But the most important by far of the industries which are based on
the use of coal for the melting of the raw material are those which
deal with iron and steel.
[Sidenote: 26. Blast Furnace.]
[Sidenote: 27. Rolling Steel.]
Here we have a group of blast furnaces, where the iron ore is mixed
with coal and burnt. The molten iron flows out from the bottom of
the furnace and cools into long blocks known as “pigs.” It would
be impossible to show all the processes through which the pig iron
is passed in the manufacture of the many wares made of iron and
steel. Let us glance at a very few. Here we have a man inserting a
white-hot, thick, short block of metal into a machine. He will lift
it from that plate with his pincers and will insert it under the
roller. The roller, crushing it, will reduce it in thickness and will
greatly elongate it to this hot flexible rope. When cold, a steel rod
will be the result.
[Sidenote: 28. Making an Armour Plate.]
Next we see a great sheet of steel coming out of the furnace, not
melted but white hot. This is to be used as an armour plate on a
battleship. We see how that the men are clothed and masked for the
purpose of standing the heat, and how that they are armed with tools
appropriate for the handling of the hot metal.
[Sidenote: 29. Steam Hammer.]
In this slide hot blocks of metal are being hammered under a steam
hammer. Again we notice that the man is clothed and masked in order
that the heat may not injure him. The hammer is descending rapidly
with repeated blows upon these two pieces of white hot metal, and,
striking them as a blacksmith will strike two pieces of iron on his
anvil, it forces them together and welds them into a single piece.
Now we must remember that coal is here used no less than four times.
It heats the metal to be forged, it raises the hammer, and beforehand
it was used in the smelting of the metal from its ore, and also in
the making of the hammer.
[Sidenote: 30. Boring a large Gun.]
[Sidenote: 31. Building an Ironclad.]
[Sidenote: 32. S.S. “Oceanic” in Dock.]
[Sidenote: 33. The launching of an Ironclad.]
But the rolling of plates and bars of steel, and the hammering
of blocks of hot metal together, are but the first and roughest
processes in the highly complicated industries whereby from rocks
of the earth are obtained those wonderful complicated tools of
civilization which we call railways, and bridges, and locomotive
engines, and mail steamers, and battleships, and guns, and--perhaps
most delicate of all--the machine-tools used in factories for the
making of machinery. Let us consider a few instances of these more
advanced processes. Here we see one of the finest exhibitions of
power--the boring of a steel gun while cold. Next we see the building
of a battleship, also made of steel. Then follows the sight of the
screws of a great ship. These screws are made of the most finely
tempered metal, lest they should break under the constant strain
to which they are exposed. Finally we have here the launching of a
battleship--an occasion of rejoicing and holiday at the close of
a year’s task. As she floats she displaces perhaps 15,000 tons of
water. The great ship is of steel from end to end. It is the product
of the work of thousands of people--the colliers who got the coal
from the colliery; the miners who got the iron ore from the mine; the
makers of iron who smelted the iron from the ore; the makers of steel
who converted the iron into steel; the rollers of bars and plates,
the builders of the ship and the builders of the engines. Presently
there will have to be added also the builders of the guns. Then we
must not forget the people who made the machinery wherewith these
people worked, and also the people who built the houses, and made the
clothes, and grew the food, which they needed for their living. Thus
a whole society of people is required to construct the ships which
defend the Empire of the King.
Let us turn for a moment to consider the large towns in which the
British industries are carried on. We have here a phase of the
national life very different from the quiet existence of the little
market towns which we saw in the last Lecture. Outside London, there
are some twenty very large towns in the British Isles. There are
three of them--Glasgow, Liverpool-Birkenhead, and Manchester-Salford,
each of which has a million people.
[Sidenote: 34. Men Leaving Works.]
[Sidenote: 35. A Hospital Interior.]
[Sidenote: 36. A School Interior.]
[Sidenote: 37. A Public Park.]
[Sidenote: 38. The Municipal Buildings, Glasgow.]
This is a crowd of workers, pouring out of a factory at the close
of their work. Do you note the tall chimneys of the factory in the
background? There are probably a hundred other factories in the
neighbourhood. You may imagine the organisation that is needed to
supply the wants of these great populations. Food must be gathered
from the country districts and from distant parts of the world, and
must be brought in daily to the crowded areas where millions of men
live and little or no food is grown. And all the wants of the people
must be attended to on a similar great scale. Here, for instance, is
a hospital, in which the workers who chance to be injured in the
pursuit of their daily duties are tended. Do you see the nurses
moving about between the beds? This is a school where the children
are taught. Every child is compelled by law to receive instruction.
And this is a park such as have been provided for recreation in the
great provincial towns--Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow,
and others. Here, finally, we have the Town Hall in the centre of one
of these towns, whence a million of people are governed, and where in
these times even the generation of electricity for the supply of the
factories is organized. Note the monuments erected to commemorate the
services of those citizens, who either locally in the town, or in the
Government in London, or in the parts of the Empire beyond the seas,
have deserved well of people and King.
One thing more remains to be considered. We have seen something of
the metropolis, something of the rural districts, the small country
towns, the fishing ports, and the great industrial towns. But, in
these days, the whole land of Britain is knit closely into a single
community by the facts that the greater part of its food and raw
material for manufacture must be distributed from the seaports,
that modern means of communication have so reduced space within the
islands that almost every village has a telegraph office, and that
the extreme ends of the island are not more than 24 hours apart by
express train. Let us look at a few aspects of these most recent
developments.
[Sidenote: 39. Corn Mill, exterior.]
[Sidenote: 40. Corn Mill, interior.]
[Sidenote: 41. Packing Biscuits at Reading.]
[Sidenote: 42. Locomotive Engine, Great Western Railway.]
[Sidenote: 43. Four-line Track with London and North Western Express.]
[Sidenote: 44. In a Travelling Post Office.]
Here is a large corn mill, and here the interior of such a mill. The
grain is lifted from the importing ship and carried on these straps,
running on rollers, to the place where it is to be stored. And here
is a scene of interest to all Britons who go to the remoter frontiers
of the Empire. It represents the packing of biscuits in tin boxes
for export. The food having been imported is carried into all the
land by railways. The British railways are, of course, relatively
short, but run through dense populations, and are probably the most
efficient in the world. Here is a recent express engine capable of
hauling a passenger train without stopping for 300 miles. Next we see
such an express running on a four-line track and picking up water for
its boiler from troughs laid between the rails. Time is very valuable
in Britain. Here, as an instance, is the interior of a travelling
post office, which runs on express trains. The letters are sorted on
the road, and the mail bags thrown out and caught up at fixed points
while the train runs.
[Sidenote: 45. The Forth Bridge.]
Perhaps the grandest feat of engineering in connection with the
British railways is the Forth Bridge. See how small the houses appear
when compared with it.
[Sidenote: 46. Electric Power Station, Chelsea.]
[Sidenote: 47. Electric Train on Metropolitan District Railway.]
But another revolution in all the conditions of British life is
now preparing. Electricity is being used to distribute power from
great fixed engines, and locomotive steam engines have already
been displaced on the shorter lines. Here is part of the interior
of the largest power station in the world, where is generated the
electricity for four railways which traverse London. This is the
boiler house, with automatic stokers. And last we have an electric
train. You note the absence of a locomotive.
Thus we see how the 43 million people of Britain co-operate in a
single vast complex machine. But we must remember that it is not only
the present generation which has made Britain such as we see it, but
many millions in the past, the results of whose work we of to-day
have inherited.
LECTURE VII.
THE DEFENCES OF THE EMPIRE.
Though we are so many miles away, I think you will agree that in the
past six Lectures we have seen something of the two islands which are
the centre of the British Empire. These islands are interesting to us
because the great Empire of which we are a part has grown from them.
Let us devote this last Lecture to the Empire as a whole. Let us
learn how it is held together, and how it is defended, so that there
may be peace and justice in all its parts.
[Sidenote: 1. Map of Empire with Naval Bases.]
In this map we see once more that the British Empire consists of a
large number of separate lands scattered over the world. We have
first of all the two British Islands set in the sea off the coast
of Europe. They are separated by water from the military powers of
Europe, and have no land frontier over which invasion may come. Then
we have in North America the great Dominion of Canada, encompassed
on the east and north and on most of the west by the ocean, with
land frontiers only towards the United States. Next we have the
Australasian Colonies, all of them islands, as in the case of the
Mother Country. There are four considerable islands in the South
Seas--Australia, Tasmania, and the North Island and the South Island
of New Zealand. Crossing the Indian Ocean we come to South Africa,
with water on three sides. Although South Africa appears to be
neighboured by other States on the north, yet it is wholly different
from India or Canada, or one of the great powers of Europe, because
the adjacent territories are only thinly peopled, mainly by savages.
South Africa is, therefore, isolated almost as effectively as is
Australia. Then we come to India with ocean to the south-east and to
the south-west, with the bleak tableland of Tibet to the north-east,
and with accessible neighbours only to the north-west. Even Egypt
and the Soudan, which appear to have great lengths of land frontier,
are in effect detached by the desert, and hardly less secure than
if they were surrounded by water. Lastly, we have on either side
of the Atlantic West Africa and the West India colonies. These are
the larger lands which form the British Empire, or are protected by
it. In addition, there are many islands--some of them wealthy and
important out of all proportion to their size, because they are trade
centres or are covered with tropical plantations.
[Sidenote: 2. The Cables of the Indian Ocean.]
But the mere enumeration of the lands of the British Empire gives
little idea of what that Empire really is. All these lands, severed
by ocean and mountain and desert, would be separate countries were
they not tied together by some 9,000 steamers and many thousand miles
of submarine electric cable. Therefore, the steamers upon the ocean
and the cables upon the bed of the ocean must be counted as important
elements in the material fabric of the Empire. It is they, and they
alone, which give it unity.
Now it is clear that for practical purposes the British Empire has
only two land frontiers--the one on the north-west of India, the
other on the south of Canada. It is therefore obvious that an attack
upon any other part of the Empire must be conducted over the water.
Even if there were attack upon the land frontiers, the enemy would
undoubtedly operate also upon the ocean for the purpose of breaking
the communications between the different parts of the Empire. He
would seek to destroy the steamers and cables, so that one part of
the Empire might not send help to another part. The first interest,
therefore, of every section of the British Empire, is that there
should be peace upon the ocean, so that the steamers may ply
regularly and that the cables may not be disturbed. If the British
Navy were defeated, the Empire could no longer exist.