Mr. Bryce on Tuesday made a speech at the dinner
of the Associated Chambers of Commerce in which he prophesied tolerably cheerful things. Cycles of depression, he said, never lasted in this country more than six years, and we had already passed through five of them. The movement of business in the City was brisker, though the hard frost would injure the returns for February, and there were signs of reviving trade with the greatest market, that of the United States. This was distinctly felt in Yorkshire, and the im- provement there would spread to other districts. The depres- sion was universal in trading countries, and therefore not due to faults here, and he thought that with our able merchants and stable institutions and comparatively contented people, we should in the coming century enter on an era of honour and prosperity. Possibly ; possibly also not. Mr. Bryce judi- ciously said nothing of our increase of expenditure, national and municipal, of the great currency difficulty caused by the fall in silver, or of the Asiatic competition, which the French Pro- fessor Dubose says will in a short time extinguish the textile industries of Europe. He was altogether optimist, as it is his nature to be, and, considering how pessimist the world grows, he was probably right in being so. Somebody must state the pleasant side, or we shall all grow lazy from melancholy.
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