25 OCTOBER 1902, Page 3

We are glad to note, however, that Mr. Carnegie at

the end of his address gave proper recognition to the fact that what makes a nation great, and keeps it so, is, after all, not a Steel Trust or a Beef Trust, but the spirit of the people:—" What mattered what part of the world made the most steel, iron, cloth, or ships if they produced the highest poets, historians, philosophers, statesmen, inventors, teachers P There was an ascendency of the world, and that the highest, where neither unbounded territory, immense store of minerals, nor numbers were of value, where megalo- mania reigneth not. For the crown of this realm they had no cause to struggle—that was already theirs ; that had never been lost; it remained here in the old home; nor had the blast yet been blown of any challenge from either of the four winds of heaven. The crown of the material world physical reasons prevented their wearing, although man- for man they might remain the equal or superior of any. There was no reason why they should lose the other. See to it that they did their best to guard it well against all corners, men of St. Andrews: For precious it was beyond- all others, and blessed amongst and beyond all other nations was she whose brow it adorned." Mr. Carnegie's rhetoric is a little too exuberant, but that passage has the root of the 'matter in it.