The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1880-05-18
AMERICAN MANUFACTURES.

Exhibition in 1876. Markets in which Amer
lean manufactures had previously been UNI
known are now open to American enterprise,
with a steadily increasing demand for our
products. Such for instance is the Japan trade
of which the English had enjoyed a monopoly
up to the date of our Centennial. Until then
America exported no goods worth mention
ing, to Japan, but to-day the best of all Gus
toners among the sharp-sighted, progress.
sive Japs-the government itself-has trans
ferred its patronage from British to American
workshops. Mining and engineering tools
and instruments, machinery, locomotives, in
fact articles of every description made of iron
or steel, are now exported from the United
States to Japan in immense quantities. This
trade ives its origin to the favorable report
submitted to their government by the Japan
csc experts who visited our International Ex-
hibition; and very similar, it is observed, is
the effect exerted upon American manufac-
lures, by the International exhibitions of
other countries. In the Australian, for in
stance, as mentioned in our dispatches of
yesterday, the exhibitors from the United
States were the most successful among the
competitors. In all cases where our lead
ing manufacturers have sent their goods for
competition, they have either excelled all
others or stood in the first rank says the
dispatch a report coinciding with numberless
others to the same effect.
The verdict in our favor so uniformly rem
dered by such reports points to an unmistak-
able superiority of American manufactures,
but why this sup riority Does it arse from
a better quality of the raw material from
which they are made, or from the greater skill
possessed by the hands making them, as COM
pared with fabrics of European marts? The
coal, the metal, the wood are the same, the
wool and the cotton are very much the same
in the one instance as the other. The super
iority of our fabric then must be ascribed to
the superior skill of American artisans but
how are we to account for their superiority,
supposing it granted? How are we to ex-
plain the seeming paradox that a new cour-
try like ours, whose domain is not yet fully re-
deemed from savagery, and whose civilization
is yet in great measure in the raw state of
ueFelOplEtIlI ueScTlDeu as 'DaCkW O)uS, -
how are we to justify the claims of such a
country when it declares its ~artizans to be
more skillful than those produced by the
hoary civilization of Europe? To answer
thisq~ question We must accept the doctrines Of
Gallon and OF Darwin concerning the develop
mcnt through exercise, as well as the heredi-
liability of mental traits. Those doctrines
furnish a natural explanation of the pre- emil
hence Of Yankee mgenuity,'' and again, if
the ingenuity Of Americans did not possess this
pre- emincnce its failure so to excel would be
all evidence tending very strongly to disprove
the doctrines in question. America was peo-
pied by colonists coming from old and high
ly civilized countries, countries in which the
division Of labor was carried out to such an
extent that in earning his daily bread each
or even to one br2nr}. Of one trade to the dis
regard of all oth erS # which lie knew moth
ing. This trade he learned in an apprentice
ship to a mastel, and in learning it the imita-
tive not the inventive faculties of the mind
were brought principally into play. His task
dS " tIudl ~ lllodCl pSiclH hiIi, Alpl l "
improve upon it; or, more difficult still, to
provide without any model, the means for the
accomplishment of any given end. How diff
fcrent the condition of he American c%olonist.
Here there was no division of labor. How
ever much a man might be master Of his own
trade he had to be - jack of all trades y in
providing for his daily wants, if they We're to
be provided for at all. In the new country
the forces of nature were on a gigantic scale,
and with them he had to srapple relying only
on his own ingenuity. lie had not at hand
the aids and appliances Of all cid and highly
developed civilization. There was no minute
Classification of labor; no experts to furnish
whatever might be wanted in any department
Of industry. Every man had to provide fol
himself, and in consequence the experience
in America Of people of European descent
has been one continuous appeal to the inven
tive faculty from the very beginning. Thii
constant exercise of the inventive powers ha.
its legitimate result in the " Yankee ingenui
ty " of to-day, an entity of positive existence
not a mere by-word Of "idicule, as it is some
times employed. The American mind, b.
right of inheritance, is more inventive, NOR
ingenious, than the European mind. Blu
with the progress Of civilization has come
minute division of labor in America as wei
as in Europe. This division insures skill G
handiwork, which, when reinforced by til
. superior inventiveness We have endeavore
> to account for, insures for American manu-
facturers their proud pre-eminence over thos
l of all other porti ons of the civilized world.
1 Danger is the most powerful ally of di: