the first instance, and not after the trouble had become chronic or resulted in open disaffection. I know, from my own observation, that the lack of useful machinery is a frequent source of enhanced cost in production; and, although it is not one which can fairly be laid at the workman's door, he has often to bear the brunt of it. As an example of the justice of this view I will give an illustration, for the bona fides of which I can vouch, and as it is an extreme case it will more readily point the moral. Some years ago I was employed at a small workshop a few miles away from a large town: at the time six workmen were employed, not reckoning the master. The workshops were fitted up with an engine and boiler, and various machines for the conversion of timber. The employer was one of those strict economists who watch a penny while twopence flies out behind them; he would not provide sufficient coal for the generation of steam, but eked out the supply with wood from the scrap heap, and often I have seen work for the machines accumulating for days together until there was enough, as he considered, to justify him in lighting the boiler fire. The outcome of this economy was, as may be expected, that the men had got into the way of nantling over their work, while the lads brought up at such a workshop were well-nigh useless as journeymen. Still, the wonder of it all is, he could never understand why the work did not pay, and thought and said that his workmen did not do their duty.

But the crisis in British industry,' which we all deplore, is not altogether the masters' fault: the workpeople, both men and women, cannot be allowed to get off scot-free. There are several ways in which working people can make their work more profitable without any changes in the conditions of labour. For instance, I daresay the workman who frequently absents himself until breakfast time in the morning does not imagine that his action is a direct loss to his employer, inasmuch as the power which would have turned his machine along with others has in a measure been running to waste in his absence. And further, this loss is greatly intensified by the absence for days together of men who, in a busy time, cannot always be dispensed with, taking this unfair advantage of their employer's urgent necessities, such action often tending to loss of work which might otherwise have been ours but for the uncertainty which it causes in the time of delivery. Again, when owing to press of work it is absolutely necessary to work overtime, the thoughtful workman will see to it, and the careless one should do, that the overtime he puts in at night at an enhanced rate of wages is not discounted by his absence in the morning to his employer's disadvantage at both ends. One word as regards the working of overtime. Although I know it is really essential at times to run over hours in our workshops, it is a moot point with me, considering the large percentage of leakage from broken time, whether it would not be cheaper in the

end for our employers to extend their workshops to obviate the working of anything like systematic overtime, which I believe in the long run benefits neither employer nor employed.

There are other matters, such as the prodigal use and waste of material of various kinds, &c., which might be enlarged upon, but this article is already so long that I will forbear at this time.

I have spoken out plainly in this paper because I feel strongly. I know full well that the British workman is not all that he should be, nor what I wish him to be: but we are not, taking us as a body, so shiftless and undesirable as our detractors make us out. I know this: were I put upon my mettle I could gather around me to-day a staff of men-artisans in the building trade-who could do as good a class of work, and do it as well and at as little an expenditure of time and money, as ever was known in the world's history.

JAMES G. HUTCHINSON.

MUSIC VERSUS THE OPERA

THAT Opera is not an art in itself, but a compromise between two other arts, is a truth so self-evident as to require no proof. It has lately been set in a stronger light than ever before by the universal acceptance of the doctrines and the works of Wagner, the man who did more than anyone else to weld the two arts of music and drama into one organic whole. Even in regard to Wagner's own creations, however, the two arts have been practically opposed to one another in the years that have passed since his death. One set of students or enthusiasts treat his music as quite a secondary thing to the marvellous dramas in which, according to them, he has embodied a system of philosophy that is to turn the world upside down; while others, caring little for the dramatic import of his works, lull themselves into day-dreams over the selections that are so dear to every English heart just now. These know little of the dramatic situations which even their favourite extracts illustrate, but listen with a sort of bemused attention that is supposed by them to be as satisfactory an attitude as that taken by educated musicians in regard to abstract music. At the centre of the Wagnerian cult itself, in the very heart of Bayreuth, it becomes increasingly evident, as the years go on, that the dramatic setting of the works is at least as important as the musical performances; and the result is that every year musical people become more and more conscious of the sad shortcomings of the manner in which it is the fashion at Bayreuth to present the master's musicdramas.

It is not of Wagner or of Bayreuth that I would speak; the music-dramas, owing to certain inevitable conditions, must be treated as it shall please the authorities at Bayreuth, who will of course be imitated all over Europe, until a day shall come when some one of authority and discrimination shall undertake the work of presenting them once more according to the composer's own ideas. Here in England we run no immediate danger of losing sight of the Wagner part of each year's programme; the danger at present is rather in the other direction, that everything except Wagner will be swept aside. A few years ago I ventured to point out in the pages of the Nineteenth Century the crying demand for a national opera

for England, founded on a wide artistic basis; the hope of getting from government, municipal or otherwise, any practical help in the matter seems to be doomed to disappointment, although the state of public feeling was unexpectedly in favour of some such scheme as was there advocated. Things are back at their old level, and Covent Garden conditions, which are perhaps best described by the word 'happy-go-lucky,' are taken as inevitable even by those who do not consider them ideally perfect. The members of the syndicate which succeeded, on Sir Augustus Harris's death, to the direction of the opera, do not appear to excel in either musical taste, theatrical instinct, or even in the ordinary skill required to gauge the taste of the public; they are proficient, it is true, in the difficult management of the various prime donne whom they employ, and are adepts in the art of shifting their responsibilities to the shoulders of some one not present. The plan adopted by Messrs. Spenlow and Jorkins had no doubt some practical utility, and when no one is in authority, and 'I didn't do it, but somebody else did' is held to be a valid excuse for any shortcomings whatever, it is perhaps best to lay the blame impersonally, and to speak of the theatre as if it were responsible for the vagaries of the members of the syndicate. Every year, before the opera begins, we are told that many thousand pounds have been spent in making the stage a little more like those of the inferior Continental theatres. The result of this expenditure is seen in the fact that most scenes take at least twenty minutes, and several volleys of bad language audible to stalls and gallery, to change; that the simplest changement à vue, be it only the dropping of one scene in front of another, is seldom accomplished without part of the scenery sticking, getting hooked in some awkward position, or hanging in graceful but undesigned festoons during a great part of the ensuing scene. An admirably realistic snowstorm, which began in a performance of La Bohème on a certain Thursday night, raged with scarcely abated force through every opera given throughout the following week, often in scenes intended to represent a balmy summer day. One is constantly reminded of the famous cry from a provincial gallery, 'We don't expect you to sing in tune, but you might jine yer flats'; for even so familiar a set as the church scene in Faust was so arranged on many nights this year that all illusion was hopelessly lost. Now, if the managers think that to devote little or no attention to the scenic part of their business is a way of indueing the audience to concentrate their attention on the music alone, well and good; but in this case, have we not a right to expect that due regard will be paid to general musical considerations? Here I may as well say that I do not intend to devote much space to criticism of individual singers, or the performances of such operas as are given; the old 'star' system is practically dead, so that the cast of many operas is as good as could possibly be found anywhere in Europe,

VOL. LI-No. 299

I

and the whole presentation of many of the works is such as ought to please whatever musical people there may be in the house. That the musical people of London do not go to Covent Garden in any great numbers-apart from the critics and that part of the musical profession which has its free admissions-is obvious to anyone who takes the trouble to compare the audience on any ordinary night with that of the Queen's Hall symphony concerts, or the Richter concerts, even in the present decadent condition of that great institution. Why is it that the musical aristocracy, as it may be called, stays away from the opera, as it undoubtedly does? It is often said that opera prices are too high; but while we may admit this as a general rule, and may sigh for opera at the rate of the ordinary theatre, it stands to reason that there must be many who pay their fifteen shillings for a stall at a Richter concert who would be ready with their guinea if an opera were given which would attract them, and which they could feel sure of hearing adequately done. They know only too well that the two conditions in combination are seldom, if ever, realised. It would be rather too much to say that the manner of presenting the operas is in inverse ratio to their musical merit; but when we remember the gorgeous mounting, the admirable performance, and the careful preparation of that piece of indecent imbecility, Messaline, in which the management reached its highest point of efficiency, there is some excuse for that statement. Supposing it to be true, there would be some reason in the system, for the enchantment of Mozart or Beethoven might be trusted to be powerful enough to make the hearers forget the shabbiness of the scenes in Figaro or Fidelio, and there would be no room for complaint on this score if there were signs of real musicianly reverence in regard to the treatment of such masterpieces as these. Be it granted that the end of Don Giovanni, as formerly played, with trapdoors, devils, and red fire, is calculated to wound the susceptibilities of many in the audience, who are so constantly engaged in the devil's service that they naturally feel a delicacy about seeing him on the stage— a quieter tableau, and one giving better opportunities to a good actor, is to let the Don fall dead at the statue's feet; but that these two figures should monopolise the spectator's attention is surely proved by the universal custom of letting Leporello get under the table. Covent Garden, wishing to prove that it can be highly moral on occasions in spite of Messaline, chooses to show us a hideous group of the defunct victims of the Don's proclivities, as though to aggravate the sufferings of those unknowing musical people who may have supposed that the work would be given with its proper ending in the most beautiful vocal sextet in existence. As lately as last season, two ladies of my acquaintance, who live in the world of music as fully as anyone need wish to do, were observed after the great duet in Les Huguenots remaining in their stalls, fondly imagining that the last