Genre:

Regular Feature, Editorial, News-Commentary

Subjects:

Museums, Commerce, Industry, Invention, Imperialism, Declinism, Railways

    Recommends 'establishing a great industrial museum at Peking, a kind of International South Kensington, in which the Chinese can see with their own eyes all the best inventions and all the triumphs of our applied art and science' as a way of helping to 'develop our trade with China'. In fact, it would 'be well for our own people to realise the advantage of having such a sample of exhibits. We have in this country nothing at all corresponding to the Commercial Museum which exists at Philadelphia' (414), and 'In this respect as in many others, we shall find ourselves hopelessly left behind in the race by our ingenious and enterprising cousins across the water' (414–15). Also complains that Charles T Ritchie's 'Railway Regulation Bill, in which it was proposed to lessen railway slaughter by introducing automatic couplings, has been dropped like a hot potato' by the Government, after vigorous objections to such 'interference' were made by the 'powerful vested interest' of the railway companies, who were represented in Parliament by Claud J Hamilton (416).