The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1875-11-20
IRON MANUFACTURE.


turer, who was for twenty years a member of
one the largest and most successful manu-
featuring and jobbing firms in the United
States, dealing with every State in the
Union and who for the past ten years has
been manager of several mining and manu-
featuring corporations, publishes in the
New York NAL some unusually Interesting
statements concerning the rivalry between
our own manufacturers and those of Great
Britain, from which country he has Just
returned. He says that the comparative
quiet of the works which have largely or
wholly depended on American orders and
the groans over our tariff showed him that
the future had little of promise to the Eng
lish iron or steel maker, so far as trade
with the United States is concerned. His
experience with friends there, and nearly
all with whom he was compelled to talk
tariff, was the same as has been told by
every American. 1t is our objectionable
offense, over, through, or down with which
heavy, complacent John Bull has been
vainly trying for nearly half 4 century to
get. Even now, he states, there are iron
and steel makers in England who harp on
the hope of seeing our tariff on iron and
steel and their products entirely removed.
AS regards the future of the iron and steel
interest in this country, he ventures the
prediction that it will far exceed the esti-
mate of Hon. A. S. Hewitt in his remarka-
BILE address of welcome to the members of
the American Institute of Mining Engin-
GERS, at Cooper Institute, New York, sew
eral years since, when his prophesy of
twenty five years ago as to the production
of iron in that time was compared with the
actual results, and showed scarcely five per
cent variation. He says:
"1n 1873 nearly every coal and iron ore
mine, furnace, bloomery, forge, foundry
mill and shop was worked to nearly the
maximum capacity to the demand for iron,
steel, ETC., and yet in the fiscal year ending
June 80, we imported 100000, 900 gold
value of iron, steel, and manufactures
thereof. In the fiscal year ending June
80, 1915, the imports fell off to $4,000
900, and l predict that the year ending
June 30, 1876, will show a reduction to
100000 900 or less; hence, when the full
at hand in my view than many older and
more experienced heads think 1.-THE pro-
ducing capacity of the country must not
only take on the business it was doing, but
in i yph at eaSt
large proportion of the amount found in
deductng the estimated imports of 1876
from those of 1878, say $45, 100000 Bear
in mind that for two years the business has
been marked by absence of all specula-
tions, by the greatest caution on the part
of consumer, from little to large, notably
of the latter class, the railway corporations.
The revival will come with high stocks in
the supply rooms of all consumers. Thou
sands of miles of railways begun before
the panic of 1878 will be finished by new,
if not by original owners. And what have
we not learned in these two years in max
ing iron and steel and in learning lessons
which will not soon be forgotten? Science
and practice are now joining hands, and to-
gether are producing results never achieved
by practice only"
He adds the remarkable declaration that
should the agents of English iron and steel
exporters again attempt to secure the abol-
ton or reduction of the duties, they would
be met, outnumbered and beaten at every
turn in the halls of Congress by English
men who will have invested heavily in the
business of this country; who will be as
ardent for production to American indus
try as when, at home, they cried Justify
for " free trade" and that England will lay
on protective tariff in less than ten years,
or see half &C her iron and steel making
places closed.