On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
The success that has recently attended American competition in those markets of the world which have been hitherto exclusively controlled by the English manufacturers has awakened a reasonable expectation that we would in the course of time obtain a foothold in Great Britain itself. It now appears on the statement of no less an authority than The Engineer, of London, that the invasion of British markets has not only commenced, but is in very active and aggressive operation. Under the title American Progress in English Industries our contemporary gives a very candid review of the situation, which opens with the significant admission that British Industry is pressed harder by this country than by Germany--a fact which will be surprising to those who are aware of the inroads which German competition has been making on the British industries. The article carries special weight appearing in the columns, of a conservative journal which has all along professed to make light of the bugaboo of foreign competition, and has endeavored to allay the fears of the manufacturers, which, as it now appears, were only too well founded. We publish the article in full in the current issue of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT, and must be content to mention here a few of the leading facts adduced in proof of the reality and threatening character of our competition. A Sheffield manufacturer is quoted as saying that it is best for Englishmen to realize that America is sending over in the regular way of business heavy .consign-ments of steel. American steel is being sent to London and in large quantities to Birmingham. It is preferred for anything that can be made in large quantities by automatic machinery. The manufacturer finds it lower in price, and the workman likes it because its uniform temper renders it easy to be worked smoothly right through and with less wear on the tools. The writer of the article was shown, in Sheffield, a consignment of American files, just received by a local manufacturer, which cost considerably less delivered in Sheffield (the home, by the way, of the British file industry) than those of domestic make. Moreover, many of the workmen prefer the American files for certain classes of work, and the quantity received in London and Birmingham is stated to be much greater than it! generallysupposed. In Birmingham the British manufacturer is using American made brass, because it is drawn so much truer than the English that it can be worked in auto-matic machinery with less trouble and greater economy. To these advantages is added that of cost, the American product being from 15 to 20 per cent cheaper. Steam India rubber hose piping, according to another manufacturer, is laid down on his premises from 20 to 25 per cent cheaper than it can be bought in the English markets. It seems, moreover, that in the smaller sizes of malleable castings we are in a fair way to capture the trade, for not orily can they be laid down in Sheffield at fully 30 per cent below the local prices, but (more significant than their cheapness) the workmen themselves openly confess their preference for the American production, on account of its truer and more uniform quality. The large industrial establishments, moreover, unable to obtain what they want in England, are adopting American labor-saving machines in large quantities, and admit that they would not be without them. Our contemporary is correct in the assumption that the business of supplying these American inventions to British industries is only just beginning. It frankly admits that there is no denying the advance of the American, both in his methods of production, his application of those methods in the use of the machinery by which they are applied and the men by whom they are worked. This remarkable article concludes with the suggestion that a healthy discussion of the subject would be seasonable. We think that the first act of self-preservation on the part of British manufacturers should be to teach the average British workman that labor-saving machinery is worthless without a labor-saving workman to run it. The great struggle of last year, known as the engineers' strike, was fought out over this question, and the principle was established by the collapse of the trade unions in their attempt to limit the output. of machinery. It will be interesting to see whether the British workman has yet grasped one of the chief, if not the chief, secrets of our industrial pre-eminence.
