The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-08-29
American Competition.

A little more than month ago, we
intimated that some Sheffield firms en-
gagged in the steel trade found that the
| high price of Goals and of labor placed
them at serious disadvantage, and that
these firms found that orders were be-
ing "placed" In America which, in the
natural course of business, as hitherto
conducted, would certainly have come
to Sheffield. That our information was
accurate, and that the remarks we made
| thereon were abundantly justified, is
| apparent from many statements which
have since appeared, and notably from
some remarks made by the American
correspondent of the leading business
\ newspaper of Birmingham. Written
! from New York, under date June 5th,
| this correspondence states that the
hardware merchants of New York are
| all agreed that the day for the sale of
English hardwares in the United States
| has almost departed. In some few
special articles, such as pliers, ETC., the
Germans will probably always be able
to undersell all competitors; some Eng
lish manufactures of long established
repute, such as Rodgers cutlery, will
| also continue to be in demand, but for
| the rest, foreign made hardware will
soon be unknown in this market, unless
some unexpected turn of affairs changes
i for awhile the course of trade. And
| not only in this country, now competent
| to supply its own needs, but every year
it is gradually increasing its exports of
| hardware to Canada, to the South
American states, and to the British
| American states, and to the British
| common boast that in very short time
| the superiority of Yankee skill and in
genuity will force a market in England
itself for many articles of American
hardware. Yankee cutlery will appear
on English dinner tables, and Yankee
saws, augers, and chisels, be preferred
| by the carpenters of Birmingham and
Sheffield" We are quite willing to
mako all the due allowance for that
habit of exaggeration which comes
naturally to tour Yankee cousins" and
affect at times even the more sober
minded English correspondents who
live among them; but it is impossible,
in face of the facts, to doubt that the
course which coal masters and workmen
alike have recently pursued is driving
| trade from the country. In specialities,
such as the best Sheffield cutlery, we
may, no doubt, continue to hold our
own; but there are several things be-
| sides the abundance of their natural
| supplies of iron which tell in favor of
manufactures in the United States.
| The wages earned by the workmen look
| large when stated in dollars, but when
| judged by their purchasing power they
are probably not so large as those
earned by superior workmen in Eng
| land. And it has been frequently
stated, on respectable authority, that in
| the United States workmen stick to
| their tasks q good deal more closely
than in England. They cannot afford
! to spend one or two days of the week in
drinking or in handicapping nor do
they dawdle over their tasks as it has
been to much the fashion for some
| English artizans to dawdle. $50 ahead
is the watchword In an American work
| shop; the "All right" about which
some very Indifferent English workmen
are so particular, is taken for granted.
Another point of great Importance has
also to be taken into account. There
has never been cheap labor in American
manufactures, and employers have thus
been saved from a good deal of tempta-
ton and embarrassment. They have
been saved from the temptation to en-
ploy men to do what could easily be
done by machines, and from the embar-
rassment of finding, when they got
their machines, that their employees
would not allow them to be put to work.
| The visitor to an American workshop is,
in almost every case, struck by the
skillful adaptation of automatic appli-
| ances to the performance of functions
which in England, even up to this date,
have usually been left to the workman.
| This is an advantage which it would be
difficult to over estimate; for machines
are not only less expensive, but much
more easily kept up to their full power
of production than is the modern work
man, whose head has been flied with
the absurd notions by the stump orator
champions of the rights of labor. The
short and the long of the matter seems
to be that our artizans are making q
mistake about the length to which they
can push their demands. The power OF
striking is not in itself mine of wealth.
Even the best conducted trades unions
do not create anything by which work,
men can be kept in food and clothing.
It would, therefore, be we'll that oul
workmen should take the lesson which
the recent tendency of commerce tC
leave the country lays before them. The
pre-eminence of England in manufac-
lures was gained by hard and persever,
ing work, and only by the same means
is itpossible to retain that pre-eminence.
If our manufacturers are to be harrassed
on the one hand by "rings" of coal
owners who are bent on making the
best of the present, quite regardless Ct
what may happen in the future, and on
the other hand by workmen who dc
their best to initiate the coal owners,
then it need be no wonder if trade
should, to serious extent, be driven
from England to the continent of Eu-
rope and to the United States of Amer
Sheffield Telegraph.