Richland beacon. [volume] (Rayville, La.) 1869-1890, 1873-08-30
American Competition.

little more than mo, tin AGO. W
! animated that some Sheffield firms cI
gagged IN the steel trade found that tn
i, high price of Goals and of labor place
them at a serious Disadvantage. and tina
these firms found that orders were be
: ing "placed" in America which. in tn
natural course of business, as hithert
conducted. would certainly have com
to Sheffield. That our information wa
accurate, and that the remarks We mad
thereon Were abundantlv justified, i
apparent from many statements whicl
have since appeared, and notably iron
some remarks male by the American
correspondent Of the leading busin. $.
newspaper of Birmingham. Writer
from New York, under date June 9TH
this correspondence states that III,
hardware merchants of New York arc
all agreed that the day for the sale o
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
| llsh manufactures of long established
rcpute, such rs Rodgers cutlery, will
also continue to be IL demand, but for
! the rest, foreign made hardware will
soon be unkno Lin this market, unless
some unexpect Il turn of affairs changes
| tor awhile the course of trade. And
not only in this country, now competent
| TO supply It's own needs, but every wear
1t is gradually increasing its exports of
! hardware to Canada, TO the South
American states, and to the British
Australasian colonies. Indeed, it is a
common boast that in very short time
the superiority of Yankee skill and in
genuIty will force a market i'll 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
make all the due allowance for that
habit of exaggeration which comes
naturally to "onr 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 work men
alike have recently pursued is driving
trade from the G. untry. 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 good deal more closely
than in England. They cannot afford
TO spend one ortwo 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. "Go ahead"
IS the watclword In an American work
shop: the "All right about which
'ome very Indifferent English workmen
ire SO particular, is taken for granted.
Another point of great Importance has
llsO to be taken into account. There
las never been cheap labor in American
and employers have thus
,een saved from good deal of tempta-
ion and embarrassment. They have
,een saved from the temptation to en-
10y men to do what could easily he
lone by machines, and from the embar-
assment of finding, when they got
heir machines, that their employees {
vould not allow them to be put to work.
The visitor to an American workshop is, ;
q almost every case, struck by the !
killful adaptation of automatic appli- {
nces to- the performance of functions
,hich in England, even up to this date, {
ave usually been left to the workman.
his is an advantage which it would be I
ifficult to over estimate; for machines
re not only less expensive, but much '
1ore easily kept up to their full power '
{ production than is the modern work {
ian, whose head has been filled with !
he absurd notions by the stump orator '
of the rights of labor. The c
hort and the long of the matter seems I
} be that our artizans are making t
listake about the length to which tlRy I
IN push their demands. The power of t
;riking is not in itself mine of wealth. +
ven the best conducted trades unions t
0 not create anything by which work $
en can be kept in food and clothing. )
would, therefore, be well that our b
Orkmen should take the lesson which n
le recent tendency of commerce to L
ave the country lays before them. The :
-e-eminence of England in manufac- I
res was gained by hard and persever- fl
g work. and only by the same means
itpossible to retain that pre-eminence.
our manufacturers are to be harrassed
l the one hand by "rings" of coal
vners who are bent on making the Il
,st of the present, quite regardless cf ;: ;:
hat may happen in the future, and on I,
e other hand by workmen who do y
cir best to initiate the coal owners, Is
en- it need be no wonder if trade a.
ould, to a serious extent, be driven v
om England to the continent of Eu- a
pc and to the United States of Amer @
l.-Shetfeld Telegraph. !:
FooTE writes i'll his Con- =
1erate "reminiscences, published in the ~ ~