permanently incapacitated for work of any kind. The knobsticks must have been men of resolution; for many of them continued to attend their work after being threatened with vitriol, and, in one case at least, rejected the guard that the master offered to provide for safety. Finally-and this was probably the decisive reason— vitriol-throwing was at this time only a misdemeanour, and could not be punished as a serious offence. A man could be hanged for stealing 40s., but he could only be sentenced to a short imprisonment or a small fine for vitriol-throwing, whatever the results. It was a favourite weapon of the trade unions all over Great Britain. A few years after this, men on strike in Manchester actually employed vitriol against women acting as blacklegs in a cotton-mill.* The Glasgow spinners do not seem to have gone as far as this; but it was one of their favourite devices against men.

'If you do not attend to this we will serve you like Kenzie Phillips this we swear by the living God,' said an anonymous letter to Gavin Wilson, an Irish knobstick,' in August 1823. We have heard before of Kenzie Phillips. He worked for Henry Houldsworth, the greatest cotton-manufacturer of the district, and he seems to have offended the Union in some unusually serious manner, so perhaps he had acted as informer as well as blackleg, though of this there is no record. He was twice shot at through the window of his own house, and on the second occasion the bullet, breaking the window, scattered broken glass over the terrified children crouching in the bed inside. Then he was waylaid on his return from work, and vitriol was thrown upon him. Face, hand, and arm were burnt to the bone, and the sight of the left eye entirely destroyed. After months of illness, he was discharged from hospital, and Houldsworth took him on again as a spinner. 'Since my misfortune Mr Houldsworth has been very kind to me,' the wretched man says in his statement of his case. Shortly after his return to work, he was shot at through the factory window, but again escaped unhurt. Finally, the Union men presented to Mr Houldsworth the memorial quoted earlier in this article, in which the dismissal of

Home Office Records, H.O. 40. 26. Sir Henry Bouverie to Secretary Sir Robert Peel, Oct. 30, 1830.

John Mackenzie Phillips is demanded as an 'indifferent character.'

So alarming had the prevalence of vitriol-throwing become, that the magistrates of Glasgow considered it necessary to take special measures against it. On Sept. 26, 1823, they issued a notice to all chemists, advising them to take the names and addresses of all persons having the appearance of operatives who purchased oil of vitriol in small quantities; and they offered a reward of fifty guineas for information in each case of this kind that came before them. But these steps were quite ineffective. The chemists apparently did not rise to the occasion; no one claimed the fifty guineas reward; and the practice of vitriol-throwing continued unabated.

The growing lawlessness, the complete failure of the police to deal with it, and the repeated and successful strikes, at last showed the master-manufacturers of Renfrew the necessity of joint action. The time, too, offered a rare opportunity. The cotton-spinners in the adjoining county of Lanark-members of the same Union-were on strike. The Renfrew men had been obliged to contribute largely to their support, and were therefore in no condition to face a general struggle. The masters had already petitioned the Home Office under the leadership of Henry Houldsworth; and we may guess that his was the chief influence in the events which now took place.

On Jan. 3, 1824, the cotton-spinners, on repairing to work, found the gates of every mill locked against them, and were confronted with a notice to this effect:

'The Master Cotton-Spinners of Renfrewshire,

'CONSIDERING that, on the night between the 2 and 3 of May last, the cotton-mill of Messrs Robert Freeland and Coy., at Bridge of Weir, was wilfully set fire to: That on the night of the 9 of September last, Robert Todd, cotton-spinner at Arthurlie, was barbarously shot at when in his own house and severely wounded: That on the 26 of November last William Kerr, cotton-spinner at Bridge-of-Weir, was waylaid on his return home and severely wounded by the discharge of a pistol; and that on the morning of the 13 of December last, an attempt was made to set fire to the cotton-mill of Mr William Arrol, at Houston; and considering that anonymous letters have been sent to various operative spinners, and to several masters, threatening assassination if particular workmen remained in employment . . . and whereas it has

been ascertained that those atrocious crimes have been committed, and are intended, by incendiaries and assassins, hired and paid by an association of operative spinners in this county. ...

'Therefore, the master cotton-spinners feel themselves bound . . . to adopt the strongest measures for the suppression of a system of crime so degrading to the character of the operatives, so injurious to their true interests, and so dangerous to the public peace. Accordingly, notice is hereby given, that this mill has stopped work, and the whole operative spinners who were employed in it are dismissed.

'And notice is further given, that as the mill will remain idle until the existing conspiracy among the operatives is completely subverted, it is in like manner determined, that hereafter, so soon and so often as any symptom of the renewal of such a system of conspiracy and contribution shall be discovered the whole mills of the county will instantly be again thrown idle, and work shall be suspended until the complete suppression of such renewed conspiracy and the detection of its principal instigators. The masters being resolved, that no consideration will induce them to prosecute their business while their servants are concerned in designs so criminal and alarming.' *

This measure was completely successful. Within a few weeks, the men were at work on the masters' terms, those known to be Union leaders were dismissed, and the Renfrew division of the Union had collapsed. The action of the masters was of course illegal, for the law condemned a combination of masters as much as a combination of men; but in this case one can hardly blame the magistrates for not interfering.

In the following year, 1825, the whole of the Combination Laws were repealed, and trade unions were completely legalised. Even this failed to revive the Cotton-Spinners' Union in Renfrew; but in Lanark the Union still existed, and it took a new lease of life, embittered, perhaps, by the late events in the neighbouring county. A conspiracy was discovered among the cotton-workers there to assassinate five unpopular masters. One, Mr Graham, was seriously wounded; and the witnesses summoned to the trial of his assassin were shot at on the road, the bullets passing through the coat of one of them. John Kean, the criminal, made a full confession, admitting that he had been employed with several others by the Union leaders to assassinate

* Report of the Committee of 1825, pp. 327 ff.

Graham and fre mors, and that he and his companions were so have been paŭf 106 for doing so. The chief WITHPH LIkast him. Bell & workman, bad seized Kean with he two hands and beld him cotil he could be arrested Eels He was known to be in danger, and a #beripnica was raised in the neighbourhood to send him away to a place of safety.

These events in Glasgow, a series of Union murders in Dublin and strikes and Escriers over the United Kingdom determined the Home Secretary, Mr Robert Peel to bring the Combination Laws again before Parlament Chiedy by his infuence, the Act of 1825 was repealed, and though ecmbinations for the regulation of boars and wages of labour remained under the protection of the law, combinations for other purposes were excluded, and pitketing and intimidation expressly condemned. In 1925 and 1929. Acts were passed making the throwing of vitriol with intent to murder, maim, or disfigure, a capital offence, punishable with death, but leaving the prosecutor power to restrict the pains of the law.

The collapse of the Cotton-Spinners' Union after 1826, however, was not due to these measures so much as to the general depression of trade that ensued, which made strikes, or indeed any resistance to the masters' requirements, hopeless for the time being. When the Union did at length revive, there was no proportionate revival of terrorism. This was in part due to the legalisation of the trade unions: the bitterness and violence of the workmen grew less, as they understood that they were, in part at least, under the protection of the law; and at the same time the position of the non-union, independent hand was correspondingly weakened. Much more important, however, was the establishment of a reliable and efficient police force (again owing to Mr Secretary Peel) which could crush disorder before it reached dangerous proportions. Happiest of all in its effect was the spread of education, and the growth of a sense of responsibility for their men's welfare on the part of the masters; so that a better understanding and a greater sympathy arose between the two classes that had lately been divided by so fierce an enmity.

A. A. W. RAMSAY.

Art. 9.-THOUGHTS ON THE NATION'S EDUCATION. 1. On Education. By Bertrand Russell. Allen and Unwin, 1926.

2. The Nation's Schools. Their Task and their Importance. By H. Bompas Smith. Longmans, Green and Co., 1927. THOUGH the need for economising expenditure has called a temporary halt in the extension and development of our education, it must be obvious that the halt is temporary only, and that on the basis of a reorganised and improved primary education the range of secondary and University education will certainly be still further widened in the next generation. Few realise how rapid has been the growth since the War. In the summer which followed the Armistice about twenty thousand boys and girls sat for their school certificate; in July last the number had passed the total of fifty thousand after a space of only seven years. The Consultative Committee has just presented a report on the education of the adolescent, in which it contemplates an organisation by which primary education will end with the eleventh year, and a four-year course of post primary, or virtually secondary, education will follow for all normal children. Their proposal has been temporarily laid aside by the Government; but few doubt that these will be the lines of the next advance, and that at no distant date. Meantime books on education, and books on schools, pour from the printers, and discussions on education are warmly sustained in any ordinary society. In face of the present growth, and the certainty of future extension of our schools, it may be worth while to take advantage of the present pause, and inquire into the direction to which we are moving. General Smuts told the world after the War that humanity had struck its tents, and was everywhere upon the march. It is perhaps as true of education as of any other form of human activity; but it would be comforting to know more clearly what bourne, if any, we are striving to reach.

As a nation we have the peculiarity of making fun of all that we achieve; we take as the target for our epigrams our commerce and our empire, our art, and our religion. Our education has been no exception to this