The vast works of the railway and steamboat age called into existence, besides the race of great engineers, a race of great organizers and directors of industry, who may be generally termed Contractor. Among these no figure was more conspicuous than that of Mr. Brassey, a life of whom has just been published by Messrs. Bell and Daldy. Its author is Mr. Helps, whose name is a guarantee for the worthy execution of the work. And worthily executed it is, in spite of a little Privy Council solemnity in the reflections, and a little "State Paper" in the style. The materials were collected in an unusual way--by examining the persons who had acted under Mr. Brassey, or knew him well, and taking down their evidence in shorthand. The examination was conducted by Mr. Brassey, jun., who prudently declined to write the biography himself, feeling that a son could not speak impartially of his father. The result is that we have materials for a portrait, which not only is very interesting in itself but, by presenting the image of beneficence in an employer, may help to mediate between capital and labour in a time of industrial war.
Mr. Helps had been acquainted with Mr. Brassey, and had once received a visit from him on official business of difficulty and importance. He expected, he says, to see a hard, stern, soldierly sort of person, accustomed to sway armies of working-men in an imperious fashion. Instead of this he saw an elderly gentleman of very dignified appearance and singularly graceful manners--"a gentleman of the old school." "He stated his case, no, I express myself wrongly; he did _not_ state his case, he _understated_ it; and there are few things more attractive in a man than that he should be inclined to understate rather than overstate his own case." Mr. Brassey was also very brief, and when he went away, Mr. Helps, knowing well the matter in respect to which his visitor had a grievance, thought that, if it had been his own case, he should hardly have been able to restrain himself so well, and speak with so little regard to self-interest, as Mr. Brassey had done. Of all the persons whom Mr. Helps had known, he thought Mr. Brassey most resembled that perfect gentleman and excellent public man, Lord Herbert of Lea.
Mr. Helps commences his work with a general portrait. According to this portrait, the most striking feature in Mr. Brassey's character was trustfulness, which he carried to what might appear an extreme. He chose his agents with care, but, having chosen them, placed implicit confidence in them, trusting them for all details, and judging by results. He was very liberal in the conduct of business. His temperament was singularly calm and equable, not to be discomposed by success or failure, easily throwing off the burden of care, and, when all had been done that could be done, awaiting the result with perfect equanimity. He was very delicate in blaming, his censure being always of the gentlest kind, evidently reluctant, and on that account going more to the heart. His generosity made him exceedingly popular with his subordinates and work-men, who looked forward to his coming among them as a festive event; and, when any disaster occurred in the works, the usual parts of employer and employed were reversed--the employer it was who framed the excuses and comforted the employed. He was singularly courteous, and listened to everybody with respect; so that it was a marked thing when he went so far as to say of a voluble and empty chatterer, that "the peas were overgrowing the stick." His presence of mind was great; he had in an eminent degree, as his biographer remarks, what Napoleon called "two o'clock in the morning courage," being always ready, if called up in the middle of the night, to meet any urgent peril; and his faculties were stimulated, not overcome, by danger. He had a perfect hatred of contention, and would not only refuse to take any questionable advantage, but would rather even submit to be taken advantage of--a generosity which turned to his account. In the execution of any undertaking, his anxiety was that the work should be done quickly and done well. Minor questions, unprovided for by specific contract, he left to be settled afterwards. In his life he had only one regular law-suit. It was in Spain, about the Mataro line, and into this he was drawn by his partner against his will. He declared that he would never have another, "for in nineteen cases out of twenty you either gain nothing at all, or what you do gain does not compensate you for the worry and anxiety the lawsuit occasions you." In case of disputes between his agents and the engineers, he quietly settled the question by reference to the "gangers."
In order to find the key to Mr. Brassey's character, his biographer took care to ascertain what was his "ruling passion." He had none of the ordinary ambitions for rank, title, or social position. "His great ambition--his ruling passion--was to win a high reputation for skill, integrity, and success in the difficult vocation of a contractor for public works; to give large employment to his fellow-countrymen; by means of British labour and British skill to knit together foreign countries; and to promote civilization, according to his view of it, throughout the world." "Mr. Brassey," continues Mr. Helps, "was, in brief, a singularly trustful, generous, large-hearted, dexterous, ruling kind of personage; blessed with a felicitous temperament for bearing the responsibility of great affairs." In the military age he might have been a great soldier, a Turenne or a Marlborough, if he could have broken through the aristocratic barrier which confined high command to the privileged few; in the industrial age he found a more beneficent road to distinction, and one not limited to the members of a caste.
Mr. Brassey's family is stated by his biographer to have come over with the Conqueror. If Mr. Brassey attached any importance to his pedigree (of which there is no appearance) it is to be hoped that he was able to make it out more clearly than most of those who claim descent from companions of the Conqueror. Long after the Conquest--so long, indeed, as England and Normandy remained united under one crown--there was a constant flow of Norman immigration into England, and England swarms with people bearing Norman or French names, whose ancestors were perfectly guiltless of the bloodshed of Hastings, and made their entrance into the country as peaceful traders, and, perhaps, in even humbler capacities. What is certain is that the great contractor sprang from a line of those small landed proprietors, once the pillars of England's strength, virtue and freedom, who, in the old country have been "improved off the face of the earth" by the great landowners, while they live again on the happier side of the Atlantic. A sound morality, freedom from luxury, and a moderate degree of culture, are the heritage of the scion of such a stock. Mr. Brassey was brought up at home till he was twelve years old, when he was sent to school at Chester. At sixteen he was articled to a surveyor, and as an initiation into great works, he helped, as a pupil, to make the surveys for the then famous Holyhead road. His master, Mr. Lawton, saw his worth, and ultimately took him into partnership. The firm set up at Birkenhead, then a very small place, but destined to a greatness which, it seems, Mr. Lawton had the shrewdness to discern. At Birkenhead Mr. Brassey did well, of course; and there, after a time, he was brought into contact with George Stephenson, and by him at once appreciated and induced to engage in railways. The first contract which he obtained was for the Pembridge Viaduct, between Stafford and Wolverhampton, and for this he was enabled to tender by the liberality of his bankers, whose confidence, like that of all with whom he came into contact, he had won. Railway-making was at that time a new business, and a contractor was required to meet great demands upon his organizing power; the system of sub-contracts, which so much facilitates the work, being then only in its infancy. From George Stephenson Mr. Brassey passed to Mr. Locke, whose great coadjutor he speedily became. And now the question arose whether he should venture to leave his moorings at Birkenhead and launch upon the wide sea of railroad enterprise. His wife is said, by a happy inspiration, to have decided him in favour of the more important and ambitious sphere. She did so at the sacrifice of her domestic comfort; for in the prosecution of her husband's multifarious enterprises they changed their residence eleven times in the next thirteen years, several times to places abroad; and little during those years did his wife and family see of Mr. Brassey.
A high place in Mr. Brassey's calling had now been won, and it had been won not by going into rings or making corners, but by treading steadily the steep path of honour. Mr. Locke was accused of unduly favouring Mr. Brassey. Mr. Helps replies that the partiality of a man like Mr. Locke must have been based on business grounds. It was found that when Mr. Brassey had undertaken a contract, the engineer-in-chief had little to do in the way of supervision. Mr. Locke felt assured that the bargain would be not only exactly but handsomely fulfilled, and that no excuse would be pleaded for alteration or delay. After the fall of a great viaduct it was suggested to Mr. Brassey that, by representing his case, he might obtain a reduction of his loss. "No," was his reply, "I have contracted to make and maintain the road, and nothing shall prevent Thomas Brassey from being as good as his word."
As a contractor on a large scale, and especially as a contractor for foreign railroads, Mr. Brassey was led rapidly to develop the system of sub-contracting. His mode of dealing with his sub-contractors, however, was peculiar. They did not regularly contract with him, but he appointed them their work, telling them what price he should give for it. They were ready to take his word, knowing that they would not suffer by so doing. The sub-contractor who had made a bad bargain, and found himself in a scrape, anxiously looked for the coming of Mr. Brassey. "Mr. Brassey," says one of the witnesses examined for this biography, "came, saw how matters stood, and invariably satisfied the man. If a cutting taken to be clay turned out after a very short time to be rock, the sub- contractor would be getting disheartened, yet he still persevered, looking to the time when Mr. Brassey should come. He came, walking along the line as usual with a number of followers, and on coming to the cutting he looked round, counted the number of waggons at the work, scanned the cutting, and took stock of the nature of the stuff. "This is very hard," said he to the sub-contractor. "Yes, it is a pretty deal harder than I bargained for." Mr. Brassey would linger behind, allowing the others to go on, and then commence the following conversation: "What is your price for this cutting?" "So much a yard, Sir." "It is very evident you are not getting it out for that price. Have you asked for any advance to be made to you for this rock?" "Yes, sir, but I can make no sense of them." "If you say that your price is so much, it is quite clear that you do not do it for that. I am glad that you have persevered with it; but I shall not alter your price, it must remain as it is; but the rock must be measured for you twice. Will that do for you?" "Yes, very well indeed, and I am very much obliged to you, Sir." "Very well, go on; you have done very well in persevering, and I shall look to you again." One of these tours of inspection would often cost Mr. Brassey a thousand pounds."
Mr. Brassey, like all men who have done great things in the practical world, knew his way to men's hearts. In his tours along the line he remembered even the navvies, and saluted them by their names.
He understood the value of the co-operative principle as a guarantee for hearty work. His agents were made partakers in his success, and he favoured the butty-gang system--that of letting work to a gang of a dozen men, who divide the pay, allowing something extra to the head of the gang.
Throughout his life it was a prime object with him to collect around him a good staff of well-tried and capable men. He chose well, and adhered to his choice. If a man failed in one line, he did not cast him off, but tried him in another. It was well known in the labour market that be would never give a man up if he could help it. He did not even give men up when they had gone to law with him. In the appendix is a letter written by him to provide employment for a person who "had by some means got into a suit or reference against him," but whom he described as "knowing his work well." In hard times he still kept his staff together by subdividing the employment.
Those social philosophers who delight in imagining that there is no engineering skill, or skill of any kind, in England, have to account for the fact that a large proportion of the foreign railways are of British construction. The lines built by Mr. Brassey form an imposing figure not only on the map of England, but on those of Europe, North and South America, and Australia. The Paris and Rouen Railway was the first of the series. In passing to the foreign scene of action new difficulties had to be encountered, including that of carrying over, managing and housing large bodies of British navvies; and Mr. Brassey's administrative powers were further tried and more conspicuously developed. The railway army, under its commander-in-chief, was now fully organized. "If," says Mr. Helps, "we look at the several persons and classes engaged, they may be enumerated thus:--There were the engineers of the company or of the government who were promoters of the line. There were the principal contractors, whose work had to satisfy these engineers; and there were the agents of the contractors to whom were apportioned the several lengths of the line. These agents had the duties, in some respects, of a commissary-general in an army; and for the work to go on well, it was necessary that they should be men of much intelligence and force of character. Then there were the various artizans, such as bricklayers and masons, whose work, of course, was principally that of constructing the culverts, bridges, stations, tunnels and viaducts, to which points of the work the attention of the agents had to be carefully directed. Again, there were the sub-contractors, whose duties I have enumerated, and under them were the gangers, the corporals, as it were, in this great army, being the persons who had the control of small bodies of workmen, say twenty or more. Then came the great body of navvies, the privates of the army, upon whose endurance and valour so much depended."
There is a striking passage in one of the Erckmann-Chatrian novels, depicting the French army going into action, with its vast bodies of troops of all arms moving over the whole field, marshalled by perfect discipline and wielded by the single will of Napoleon. The army of industry when in action also presented a striking appearance in its way. I think, says one of Mr. Brassey's time keepers with professional enthusiasm, as fine a spectacle as any man could witness who is accustomed to look at work is to see a cutting in full operation with about twenty waggons being filled, every man at his post, and every man with his shirt open working in the heat of the day, the ganger walking about and everything going like clockwork. Such an exhibition of physical power attracted many French gentlemen who came on to the cuttings at Paris and Rouen and looking at the English workmen with astonishment said _Mon Dieu, les Anglais comme ils travaillent!_ Another thing that called forth remark was the complete silence that prevailed amongst the men. It was a fine sight to see the Englishmen that were there with their muscular arms and hands hairy and brown.
The army was composed of elements as motley as ever met under any commander. On the Paris and Rouen Railway eleven languages were spoken-- English, Erse, Gaelic, Welsh, French, German, Belgian (Flemish), Dutch, Piedmontese, Spanish, and Polish. A common lingo naturally sprang up like the Pigeon English of China. But in the end it seems many of the navvies learnt to speak French pretty well. We are told that at first the mode in which the English instructed the French was of a very original character. They pointed to the earth to be moved or the waggon to be filled said the word d--n emphatically, stamped their feet and somehow or other their instructions thus conveyed were generally comprehended by the foreigners. It is added however that this form of instruction was only applicable in very simple cases.
The English navvy was found to be the first workman in the world. Some navvies utterly distanced in working power the labourers of all other countries. The French at first earned only two francs a day to the Englishman's four and a half, but with better living, more instruction, and improved tools (for the French tools were very poor at first) the Frenchmen came to earn four francs. In the severe and dangerous work of mining, however the Englishman maintained his superiority in nerve and steadiness. The Piedmontese were very good hands especially for cutting rock and at the same time well conducted, sober and saving. The Neapolitans would not take any heavy work, but they seem to have been temperate and thrifty. The men from Lucca ranked midway between the Piedmontese and the Neapolitans. The Germans proved less enduring than the French; those employed, however, were mostly Bavarians. The Belgians were good labourers. In the mode of working, the foreign labourers had of course much to learn from the English, whose experience in railway- making had taught them the most compendious processes for moving earth.
Mr. Hawkshaw, the engineer, however says, as to the relative cost of unskilled labour in different countries: "I have come to the conclusion that its cost is much the same in all. I have had personal experience in South America, in Russia, and in Holland, as well as in my own country, and, as consulting engineer to some of the Indian and other foreign railways. I am pretty well acquainted with the value of Hindoo and other labour; and though an English labourer will do a larger amount of work than a Creole or a Hindoo, yet you have to pay them proportionately higher wages. Dutch labourers are, I think, as good as English, or nearly so; and Russian workmen are docile and easily taught, and readily adopt every method shown to them to be better than their own."
The "navvies," though rough, seem not to have been unmanageable. There are no trades' unions among them, and they seldom strike. Brandy being cheap in France, they were given to drink, which was not the French habit: but their good nature, and the freedom with which they spent their money, made them popular, and even the _gendarmes_ soon found out the best way of managing them. They sometimes, but not generally, got unruly on pay day. They came to their foreign work without wife or family. The unmarried often took foreign wives. It is pleasant to hear that those who had wives and families in England sent home money periodically to them; and that they all sent money often to their parents. They sturdily kept their English habits and their English dress, with the high-low boots laced up, if they could possibly get them made.
The multiplicity of schemes now submitted to Mr. Brassey brought out his powers of calculation and mental arithmetic, which appear to have been very great. After listening to a multitude of complicated details, he would arrive mentally in a few seconds at the approximate cost of a line. He made little use of notes, trusting to his memory, which, naturally strong, was strengthened by habit. Dealing with hundreds of people, he kept their affairs in his head and at every halt in his journeys even for a quarter of an hour at a railway station he would sit down and write letters of the clearest kind. His biographer says that he was one of the greatest letter writers ever known.
If he ever got into serious difficulties it was not from miscalculation but from financial embarrassment which in 1866 pressed upon him in such a manner and with such severity that his property of all kinds was largely committed and he weathered the storm only by the aid of the staunch friends whom his high qualities and honourable conduct had wedded to his person and his fortunes. In the midst of his difficulties he pushed on his works to their conclusion with his characteristic rapidity. His perseverance supported his reputation and turned the wavering balance in his favour. The daring and vigorous completion of the Lemberg and Czarnovitz works especially had this good effect and an incident in connection with them showed the zeal and devotion which Mr. Brassey's character inspired. The works were chiefly going on at Lemberg five hundred miles from Vienna and the difficulty was, how to get the money to pay the men from Vienna to Lemberg, the intervening country being occupied by the Austrian and Prussian armies. Mr. Brassey's coadjutor and devoted friend Mr. Ofenheim, Director General of the Company, undertook to do it. He was told there was no engine but he found an old engine in a shed. Next he wanted an engine driver and he found one but the man said that he had a wife and children and that he would not go. His reluctance was overcome by the promise of a high reward for himself and a provision in case of death for his wife and family. The two jumped on the old engine and got up steam. They then started and ran at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour between the sentinels of the opposing armies who were so surprised, Mr. Ofenheim says, that they had not time to shoot him. His only fear was that there might be a rail up somewhere. But he got to Lemberg and paid the men who would otherwise have gone home, leaving the line unfinished for the winter. The Emperor of Austria might well ask, Who is this Mr. Brassey, the English contractor for whom men are to be found who work with such zeal and risk their lives? In recognition of a power which the Emperor had reason to envy he sent Mr. Brassey the Cross of the Iron Crown.
It was only in Spain, the land where two and two make five, that Mr. Brassey's powers of calculation failed him. He and his partners lost largely upon the Bilbao railway. It seems that there was a mistake as to the nature of the soil, and that the climate proved wetter than was expected. But the firm also forgot to allow for the ecclesiastical calendar, and the stoppage of work on the numberless fete days. There were, however, other difficulties peculiarly Spanish,--antediluvian finance, antediluvian currency, the necessity of sending pay under a guard of clerks armed with revolvers, and the strange nature of the people whom it was requisite to employ--one of them, a Carlist chief, living in defiance of the Government with a tail of ruffians like himself, who, when you would not transact business as he wished, "bivouacked" with his tail round your office and threatened to "kill you as he would a fly." Mr. Brassey managed notwithstanding to illustrate the civilizing power of railways by teaching the Basques the use of paper money.
Minor misfortunes of course occurred, such as the fall of the Barentin Viaduct on the Rouen and Havre railway, a brick structure one hundred feet high and a third of a mile in length, which had just elicited the praise of the Minister of Public Works. Rapid execution in bad weather, and inferior mortar, were the principal causes of this accident. By extraordinary effort the viaduct was built in less than six months, a display of energy and resource which the company acknowledged by an allowance of L1,000. On the Bilbao railway some of the works were destroyed by very heavy rains. The agent telegraphed to Mr. Brassey to come at once, as a bridge had been washed down. There hours afterwards came a telegraph announcing that a large bank was carried away, and next morning another saying that the rain continued and more damage had been done. Mr. Brassey, turning to a friend, said, laughing: "I think I had better wait till I hear that the wind has ceased, so that when I do go I may see what is _left_ of the works, and estimate all the disasters at once, and so save a second journey."
Mr. Brassey's business rapidly developed to an immense extent, and, instead of being contractor for one or two lines, he became a sort of contractor-in-chief, and a man to be consulted by all railway proprietors. In thirty-six years be executed no less than one hundred and seventy railway and other contracts. In his residence, as in his enterprises, he now became cosmopolitan, and lived a good deal on the rail. He had the physical power to bear this life. His brother-in-law says, "I have known him come direct from France to Rugby having left Havre the night before--he would have been engaged in the office the whole day." He would then come down to Rugby by the mail train at twelve o'clock, and it was his common practice to be on the works by six o'clock the next morning. He would frequently walk from Rugby to Nuneaton, a distance of sixteen miles. Having arrived at Nuneaton in the afternoon he would proceed the same night by road to Tamworth, and the next morning he would be out on the road so soon that he had the reputation among his staff of being the first man on the works. He used to proceed over the works from Tamworth to Stafford, walking the greater part of the distance, and would frequently proceed that same evening to Lancaster in order to inspect the works there in progress, under the contract which he had for the execution of the railway from Lancaster to Carlisle.
In constructing the Great Northern Railway the difficulties of the Fen Country were met and surmounted. Mr. Brassey's chief agent in this was Mr. Ballard, a man self raised from the ranks of labour but indebted for the eminence which he ultimately attained to Mr. Brassey's discrimination in selecting him for the arduous undertaking. He has borne interesting testimony to his superior's comprehensiveness and rapidity of view, the directness with which he went to the important point, disregarding secondary matters and economizing his time and thought.
The Italian Railway enterprises of Mr. Brassey owed their origin to the economical genius of Count Cavour and their execution drew from the Count the declaration that Mr. Brassey was one of the most remarkable men he knew; clear-headed, cautious, yet very enterprising and fulfilling his engagements faithfully. "We never," said the Count, "had a difficulty with him." And he added that Mr. Brassey would make a splendid minister of public works. Mr. Brassey took shares gallantly, and, when their value had risen most generously resigned them with a view to enabling the government to interest Piedmontese investors in the undertaking. So far was he from being a maker of corners. It is justly remarked that these Piedmontese railroads constructed by English enterprise were a most important link in the chain of events which brought about the emancipation and unification of Italy.
Mr. Brassey has left on record the notable remark that the railway from Turin to Novara was completed for about the same money as was spent in obtaining the Bill for the railway from London to York. If the history of railway bills in the British Parliament, of which this statement gives us an inkling, could be disclosed, it would probably be one of the most scandalous revelations in commercial history. The contests which led to such ruinous expense and to so much demoralization, both of Parliament and of the commercial world, were a consequence of adopting the system of uncontrolled competition in place of that of government control. Mr. Brassey was in favour of the system of government control. "He was of opinion that the French policy, which did not admit the principle of free competition, was not only more calculated to serve the interests of the shareholders, but more favourable to the public. He moreover considered that a multiplicity of parallel lines of communication between the same termini, and the uncontrolled competition in regard to the service of trains, such as exists in England, did not secure so efficient a service for the public as the system adopted in France." Mr. Thomas Brassey says that he remembers that his father, when travelling in France, would constantly point out the superiority of the arrangements, and express his regret that the French policy had not been adopted in England. "He thought that all the advantage of cheap service and of sufficiently frequent communication, which were intended to be secured for the British public under a system of free competition, would have been equally well secured by adopting the foreign system, and giving a monopoly to the interest of railway communication in a given district to one company; and then limiting the exercise of that monopoly by watchful supervision on the part of the State in the interests of the public." With regard to extensions, he thought that the government might have secured sufficient compulsory powers. There can be no sort of doubt that this sort of policy would have saved England an enormous amount of pecuniary loss, personal distress and public demoralization. It is a policy, it will be observed, of government regulation, not of government subsidies or construction by government. It of course implies the existence of an administration capable of regulating a railway system, and placed above the influence of jobbery and corruption.
For the adoption of the policy of free competition Sir Robert Peel was especially responsible. He said, in his own defence, that he had not at his command power to control those undertakings. Mr. Helps assumes rather characteristically that he meant official power, and draws a moral in favour of the extension of the civil service. But there is no doubt that Peel really meant Parliamentary power. The railway men in the Parliament were too strong for him and compelled him to throw overboard the scheme of government control framed by his own committee under the presidency of Lord Dalhousie. The moral to be drawn therefore is not that of civil service extension, but that of the necessity of guarding against Parliamentary rings in legislation concerning public works.
Of all Mr. Brassey's undertakings not one was superior in importance to that with which Canadians are best acquainted--the Grand Trunk Railway, with the Victoria Bridge. It is needless here to describe this enterprise, or to recount the tragic annals of the loss brought on thousands of shareholders, which financially speaking was its calamitous sequel. The severest part of the undertaking was the Victoria Bridge. "The first working season there," says one of the chief agents, "was a period of difficulty, trouble and disaster." The agents of the contractors had no experience of the climate. There were numerous strikes among the workmen. The cholera committed dreadful ravages in the neighbourhood. In one case, out of a gang of two hundred men, sixty were sick at one time, many of whom ultimately died. The shortness of the working season in this country involved much loss of time. It was seldom that the setting of the masonry was fairly commenced before the middle of August, and it was certain that all work must cease at the end of November. Then there were the shoving of the ice at the beginning and breaking up of the frosts, and the collisions between floating rafts 250 feet long and the staging erected for putting together the tubes. Great financial difficulties were experienced in consequence of the Crimean war. The mechanical difficulties were also immense, and called for extraordinary efforts both of energy and invention. The bridge, however, was completed, as had been intended, in December, 1859 and formally opened by the Prince of Wales in the following year. "The devotion and energy of the large number of workmen employed," says Mr. Hodges, "can hardly be praised too highly. Once brought into proper discipline, they worked as we alone can work against difficulties. They have left behind them in Canada an imperishable monument of British skill, pluck, science and perseverance in this bridge, which they not only designed, but constructed."
The whole of the iron for the tubes was prepared at Birkenhead, but so well prepared that, in the centre tube, consisting of no less than 10,309 pieces, in which nearly half a million of holes were punched, not one plate required alteration, neither was there a plate punched wrong. The faculty of invention, however, was developed in the British engineers and workmen by the air of the New World. A steam-traveller was made and sent out by one of the most eminent firms in England, after two years of experiments and an outlay of some thousands of pounds, which would never do much more than move itself about, and at last had to be laid aside as useless. But the same descriptions and drawings having been shown to Mr. Chaffey, one of the sub-contractors, who "had been in Canada a sufficient length of time to free his genius from the cramped ideas of early life," a rough and ugly machine was constructed, which was soon working well. The same increase of inventiveness, according to Mr. Hodges, was visible in the ordinary workman, when transferred from the perfect but mechanical and cramping routine of British industry, to a country where he has to mix trades and turn his hands to all kinds of work. "In England he is a machine, but as soon as he gets out to the United States he becomes an intellectual being." Comparing the German with the British mechanic, Mr. Hodges says, "I do not think that a German is a better man than an Englishman; but I draw this distinction between them, that when a German leaves school he begins to educate himself, but the Englishman does not, for, as soon as he casts off the thraldom of school, he learns nothing more unless he is forced to do it, and if he is forced to do it, he will then beat the German. An Englishman acts well when he is put under compulsion by circumstances."
Labour being scarce, a number of French-Canadians were, at Mr. Brassey's suggestion, brought up in organized gangs, each having an Englishman or an American as their leader. We are told, however, that they proved useless except for very light work. "They could ballast, but they could not excavate. They could not even ballast as the English navvy does, continuously working at filling for the whole day. The only way in which they could be useful was by allowing them to fill the waggons, and then ride out with the ballast train to the place where the ballast was tipped, giving them an opportunity of resting. Then the empty waggon went back again to be filled and so alternately resting during the work; in that way, they did very much more. They would work fast for ten minutes and then they were 'done.' This was not through idleness but physical weakness. They are small men, and they are a class who are not well fed. They live entirely on vegetable food, and they scarcely ever taste meat." It is natural to suppose that the want of meat is the cause of their inefficiency. Yet the common farm labourer in England, who does a very hard and long day's work, hardly tastes meat, in many counties, the year round.
In the case of the Crimean railway, private enterprise came, in a memorable manner, to the assistance of a government overwhelmed by administrative difficulties. A forty years peace had rusted the machinery of the war department, while the machinery of railway construction was in the highest working order. Sir John Burgoyne, the chief of the engineering staff, testified that it was impossible to overrate the services rendered by the railway, or its effects in shortening the time of the siege, and alleviating the fatigues and sufferings of the troops. The disorganization of the government department was accidental and temporary, as was subsequently proved by the success of the Abyssinian expedition, and, indeed, by the closing period of the Crimean war itself, when the British army was well supplied, while the French administration broke down. On the other hand the resources of private industry, on which the embarrassed government drew, are always there; and their immense auxiliary power would be at once manifested if England should become involved in a dangerous war. It should be remembered, too, that the crushing war expenditure in time of peace, which alarmists always advocate, would prevent the growth of those resources, and deprive England of the "sinews of war."
The Danish railways brought the British navvy again into comparison with his foreign rivals. Mr. Rowan, the agent of Messrs. Peto and Brassey, was greatly pleased with his Danish labourers, but, on being pressed, said, "No man is equal to the British navvy; but the Dane, from his steady, constant labour, is a good workman, and a first-class one will do nearly as much work in a day as an Englishman." The Dane takes time: his habit is in summer to begin work at four in the morning, and continue till eight in the evening, taking five intervals of rest.
The Danish engineers, in Mr. Rowan's judgment, are over-educated, and, as a consequence, wanting in decisiveness. "They have been in the habit of applying to their masters for everything, finding out nothing for themselves; the consequence is that they are children, and cannot form a judgment. It is the same in the North of Germany; the great difficulty is that you cannot get them to come to a decision. They want always to inquire and to investigate, and they never come to a result." This evidence must have been given some years ago, for of late it has been made pretty apparent that the investigations and inquiries of the North Germans do not prevent their coming to a decision, or that decision from leading to a result. Mr. Helps seizes the opportunity for a thrust at the system of competitive examination, which has taken from the heads of departments the power of "personal selection." The answer to him is Sedan. A bullet through your heart is the strongest proof which logic can afford that the German, from whose rifle it comes, was not prevented by his knowledge of the theory of projectiles from marking his man with promptness and taking a steady aim. That over-exertion of the intellect in youth does a man harm, is a true though not a very fruitful proposition; but knowledge does not destroy decisiveness: it only turns it from the decisiveness of a bull into the decisiveness of a man. Which nations do the great works? The educated nations, or Mexico and Spain?
The Australian railways brought out two facts, one gratifying, the other the reverse. The gratifying fact was that the unlimited confidence which Mr. Brassey reposed in his agents was repaid by their zeal and fidelity in his service. The fact which was the reverse of gratifying was, that the great advantage which the English Labourer gains in Australia, from the higher wages and comparative cheapness of living, is counteracted by his love of drink.
The Argentine Railway had special importance and interest, in opening up a vast and most fruitful and salubrious region to European emigration. Those territories offer room and food for myriads. "The population of Russia, that hard-featured country, is about 75,000,000, the population of the Argentine Republic, to which nature has been so bountiful, and in which she is so beautiful, is about 1,000,000." If ever government in the South American States becomes more settled, we shall find them formidable rivals.
The Indian Railways are also likely to be a landmark in the history of civilization. They unite that vast country and its people, both materially and morally, break down caste, bring the natives from all parts to the centres of instruction, and distribute the produce of the soil evenly and rapidly, so as to mitigate famines. The Orissa famine would never have occurred, had Mr. Brassey's works been there. What effect the railways will ultimately have on British rule is another question. They multiply the army by increasing the rapidity of transport, but, on the other hand, they are likely to diminish that division among the native powers on which the Empire is partly based. Rebellion may run along the railway line as well as command.
There were periods in Mr. Brassey's career during which he and his partners were giving employment to 80,000 persons, upon works requiring seventeen millions of capital for their completion. It is also satisfactory to know, that in the foreign countries and colonies over which his operations extended, he was instrumental in raising the wages and condition of the working class, as well as in affording to the _elite_ of that class opportunities for rising to higher positions.
His remuneration for all this, though in the aggregate very large, was by no means excessive. Upon seventy-eight millions of money laid out in the enterprises which he conducted, he retained two millions and a half, that is as nearly as possible three per cent. The rest of his fortune consisted of accumulations. Three per cent. was not more than a fair payment for the brain-work, the anxiety and the risk. The risk, it must be recollected, was constant, and there were moments at which, if Mr. Brassey had died, he would have been found comparatively poor. His fortune was made, not by immoderate gains upon any one transaction, but by reasonable profits in a business which was of vast extent, and owed its vast extent to a reputation, fairly earned by probity, energy and skill. We do not learn that he figured in any lobby, or formed a member of any ring. Whether he was a Norman or not, he was too much a gentleman, in the best sense of the term, to crawl to opulence by low and petty ways. He left no stain on the escutcheon of a captain of industry.
Nor when riches increased did he set his heart upon them. His heart was set on the work rather than on the pay. The monuments and enterprise of his skill were more to him than the millions. He seems even to have been rather careless in keeping his accounts. He gave away freely--as much as L200,000, it is believed--in the course of his life. His accumulations arose not from parsimony but from the smallness of his personal expenses. He hated show and luxury, and kept a moderate establishment, which the increase of his wealth never induced him to extend. He seems to have felt a singular diffidence as to his capacity for aristocratic expenditure. The conversation turning one day on the immense fortunes of certain noblemen, he said, "I understand it is easy and natural enough for those who are born and brought up to it, to spend L50,000 or even L150,000 a year; but I should be very sorry to have to undergo the fatigue of even spending L30,000 a year. I believe such a job as that would drive me mad." He felt an equally strange misgiving as to his capacity for aristocratic idleness. "It requires a special education," he said, "to be idle, or to employ the twenty-four hours, in a rational way, without any calling or occupation. To live the life of a gentleman, one must have been brought up to it. It is impossible for a man who has been engaged in business pursuits the greater part of his life to retire; if he does so, he soon discovers that he has made a great mistake. I shall not retire, but if for some good reason, I should be obliged to do so, it would be to a farm. There I would bring up stock which I would cause to be weighed every day, ascertaining at the same time their daily cost, as against the increasing weight. I should then know when to sell and start again with another lot."
Of tinsel, which sometimes is as corrupting to vulgar souls as money, this man seems to have been as regardless as he was of pelf. He received the Cross of the Iron Crown from the Emperor of Austria. He accepted what was graciously offered, but he said that, as an Englishman, he did not know what good Crosses were to him. The circumstance reminded him that he had received other Crosses, but he had to ask his agent what they were, and where they were. He was told that they were the Legion of Honour of France, and the Chevaliership of Italy; but the Crosses could not be found. Duplicates were procured to be taken to Mrs. Brassey, who, her husband remarked, would be glad to possess them all.
Such millionaires would do unmixed good in the world; but unfortunately they are apt to die and leave their millions, and the social influence which the millions confer, to "that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son." This is by no means said with a personal reference. On the contrary, it is evident that Mr. Brassey was especially fortunate in his heir. We find some indication of this in a chapter towards the close of Mr. Helps' volume, in which are thrown together the son's miscellaneous recollections of the father. The chapter affords further proof that the great contractor was not made of the same clay as the Fisks and Vanderbilts--that he was not a mere market-rigger and money-grubber--but a really great man, devoted to a special calling. He is represented by his son as having taken a lively interest in a wide and varied range of subjects--engineering subjects especially as a matter of course, but not engineering subjects alone. He studied countries and their people, evincing the utmost interest in Chicago, speculating on the future industrial prosperity of Canada, and imparting the results of his observations admirably when he got home. Like all great men, he had a poetic element in his character. He loved the beauties of nature, and delighted in mountain scenery. He was a great sight-seer, and when he visited a city on business, went through its churches, public buildings, and picture-galleries, as assiduously as a tourist. For half an hour he stood gazing with delight on the Maison Carree, at Nismes. For sculpture and painting he had a strong taste, and the Venus of Milo "was a joy to him." He had a keen eye for beauty, shapeliness and comeliness everywhere, in porcelain, in furniture, in dress, in a well built yacht, in a well appointed regiment of horse. Society, too, he liked, in spite of his simplicity of habits; loved to gather his friends around his board, and was always a genial host. For literature he had no time, but he enjoyed oratory, and liked to hear good reading. He used to test his son's progress in reading, at the close of each half year, by making him read aloud a chapter of the Bible. His good sense confined his ambition to his proper sphere, and prevented him from giving ear to any solicitations to go into politics, which he had not leisure to study, and which he knew ought not to be handled by ignorance. His own leanings were Conservative; but his son, who is a Liberal, testifies that his father never offered him advice on political matters, or remonstrated with him on a single vote which he gave in the House of Commons. It is little to the discredit of a man so immersed in business that he should have been fascinated, as he was, by the outward appearance of perfect order presented by the French Empire and by the brilliancy of its visible edifice, not discerning the explosive forces which its policy was all the time accumulating in the dark social realms below; though the fact that he, with all his natural sagacity, did fall into this tremendous error, is a warning to railway and steamboat politicians.
Mr. Brassey's advice was often sought by parents who had sons to start in the world. "As usual, a disposition was shewn to prefer a career which did not involve the apparent degradation of learning a trade practically, side by side with operatives in a workshop. But my father, who had known, by his wide experience, the immense value of a technical knowledge of a trade or business as compared with general educational advantages of the second order, and who knew how much more easy it is to earn a living as a skilful artisan than as a clerk, possessing a mere general education, always urged those who sought his advice to begin by giving to their sons a practical knowledge of a trade."
"My father," says Mr. Brassey, junior, "ever mindful of his own struggles and efforts in early life, evinced at all times the most anxious disposition to assist young men to enter upon a career. The small loans which he advanced for this purpose, and the innumerable letters which he wrote in the hope of obtaining for his young clients help or employment in other quarters, constitute a bright and most honourable feature in his life." His powers of letter-writing were enormous, and, it seems to us, were exercised even to excess. So much writing would, at least, in the case of any ordinary man, have consumed too much of the energy which should be devoted to thought. His correspondence was brought with his luncheon basket when he was shooting on the moors. After a long day's journey he sat down in the coffee room of the hotel, and wrote thirty-two letters before he went to bed. He never allowed a letter, even a begging letter, to remain unanswered; and, says his son, "the same benignity and courtesy which marked his conduct in every relation of life, pervaded his whole correspondence." "In the many volumes of his letters which are preserved, I venture to affirm that there is not the faintest indication of an ungenerous or unkindly sentiment--not a sentence which is not inspired by the spirit of equity and justice, and by universal charity to mankind."
By the same authority we are assured that "Mr. Brassey was of a singularly patient disposition in dealing with all ordinary affairs of life. We know how, whenever a hitch occurs in a railway journey, a great number of passengers become irritated, almost to a kind of foolish frenzy. He always took these matters most patiently. He well knew that no persons are so anxious to avoid such detentions as the officials themselves, and never allowed himself to altercate with a helpless guard or distracted station-master."
The only blemish which the son can recollect in the father's character, is a want of firmness in blaming when blame was due, and an incapacity of refusing a request or rejecting a proposal strongly urged by others. The latter defect was, in his son's judgment, the cause of the greatest disasters which he experienced as a man of business. Both defects were closely allied to virtues--extreme tenderness of heart and consideration for the feelings of others.
"He was graceful," says Mr. Brassey, junior, in conclusion, "in every movement, always intelligent in observation, with an excellent command of language, and only here and there betrayed, by some slight provincialisms, in how small a degree he had in early life enjoyed the educational advantages of those with whom his high commercial position in later years placed him in constant communication. But these things are small in comparison to the greater points of character by which he seemed to me to be distinguished. In all he said or did, he showed himself to be inspired by that chivalry of heart and mind which must truly ennoble him who possesses it, and without which one cannot be a perfect gentleman."
Mention has been made of his great generosity. One of his old agents having lost all his earnings, Mr. Brassey gave him several new missions, that be might have a chance of recovering himself. But the agent died suddenly, and his wife nearly at the same time, leaving six orphan children without provision. Mr. Brassey gave up, in their favour, a policy of insurance which he held as security for several thousands, and, in addition, headed a subscription list for them with a large sum. It seems that his delicacy in giving was equal to his generosity; that of his numberless benefactions, very few were published in subscription lists, and that his right hand seldom knew what his left hand did.
His refinement was of the truly moral kind, and of the kind that tells on others. Not only was coarse and indecent language checked in his presence, but the pain he evinced at all outbreaks of unkind feeling, and at manifestation of petty jealousies, operated strongly in preventing any such displays from taking place before him. As one who was the most intimate with him observed, "his people seemed to enter into a higher atmosphere when they were in his presence, conscious, no doubt, of the intense dislike which he had of everything that was mean, petty, or contentious."
Mr. Helps tells us that the tender-heartedness which pervaded Mr. Brassey's character was never more manifested than on the occasion of any illness of his friends. At the busiest period of his life he would travel hundreds of miles to be at the bedside of a sick or dying friend. In his turn he experienced, in his own last illness, similar manifestations of affectionate solicitude. Many of the persons, we are told, who had served him in foreign countries and at home, came from great distances solely for the chance of seeing once more their old master whom they loved so much. They were men of all classes, humble navvies as well as trusted agents. They would not intrude upon his illness, but would wait for hours in the hall, in the hope of seeing him borne to his carriage, and getting a shake of the hand or a sign of friendly recognition. "The world," remarks Mr. Helps, "is after all not so ungrateful as it is sometimes supposed to be; those who deserve to be loved generally are loved, having elicited the faculty of loving which exists to a great extent in all of us."
"Mr. Brassey," we are told, "had ever been a very religious man. His religion was of that kind which most of us would desire for ourselves-- utterly undisturbed by doubts of any sort, entirely tolerant, not built upon small or even upon great differences of belief. He clung resolutely and with entire hopefulness to that creed, and abode by that form of worship, in which he had been brought up as a child." The religious element in his character was no doubt strong, and lay at the root of his tender-heartedness and his charity as well as of the calm resignation with which he met disaster, and his indifference to gain. At the time of a great panic, when things were at the worst, he only said: "Never mind, we must be content with a little less, that is all." This was when he supposed himself to have lost a million. The duty of religious inquiry, which he could not perform himself, he would no doubt have recognised in those to whose lot it falls to give their fellow-men assurance of religious truth.
Mr. Brassey's wife said of him that "he was a most unworldly man." This may seem a strange thing to say of a great contractor and a millionaire. Yet, in the highest sense, it was true. Mr. Brassey was not a monk; his life was passed in the world, and in the world's most engrossing, and, as it proves in too many cases, most contaminating business. Yet, if the picture of him presented to us be true, he kept himself "unspotted from the world."
His character is reflected in the portrait which forms the frontispiece to the biography, and on which those who pursue his calling will do well sometimes to look.
[The end]
Goldwin Smith's essay: A True Captain Of Industry