The St. Johns herald., 1893-07-06
AHEAD OF EUROPE.
Tho United States in tho Lead as
 a Manufacturing Country.
Our Industrial and Commercial Progress as Compared with That of Foreign Nations A Splendid
 ShOWing.

R. H. Edmonds, journalist of Balti- more, one of the most eminent author ities on the conditions of recent prog ress in the United States, contributes to the Engineering Magazine an inter- esting and valuable paper entitled: "A Decade of Marvellous Progress" from which a few conclusions are extracted:
 The United States i5 now the leading manufacturing country of the world. We have far outstripped all other na- tions in the magnitude of our indus trial operations. It is almost incOm- prehensible that in ten years the in- crease in capital invested in manufac- lures should exceed the total invested only twenty years ago. The value of our manufactured products increased about 60 per cent; add 60 per cent. to the output of 1890 and we would have S13, TOO, GOO GOO in 1G00-but that is too much to expect.
 The same rate of growth in mining interests in this decade as in the last would make our mineral output in 1900 nearly S1,200, 900, ,O0O, while a smaller percentage of grain, only equaling in volume the total increase in 1890 over 1880, would bring the figures to over $95O, 900, 600. If our coal miners add to the output of 1890 as many tons as they added to that of 1880, ignoring in this the percentage of growth, PIT, 600, 900 tons will be the production of 1900. No other country in the world ever advanced in pOpula- ton and wealth as the United States is doing. The progress of the past shows no signs of halting. Tn fact, the development of our foreign and domes- tic trade and commerce and of our in- dustrial interests is steadily broaden ing out.
 Contrast our position and condition with Europe, with resources surpass- ing those of all Europe, with wealth creating possibilities in soil, minerals, timber and climate unequaled by Europe and practically without limit to their profitable utilization, with homogeneous population of 65,OO0,0O0 people unvexed by the arbitrary regu- lations of hal& a dozen different gov ernments and free from the drain of standing armies, the United States justly commands the wonder and ad- miration of the world.
 Great Britain is no longer the manu- featuring center of the world, for we have taken the foremost position in that line. It's vast iron and steel busi- ness is yearly increasing in cost of pro- duction, while ours is decreasing. It cannot meet the worlds growing de- mand for iron and steel because it can- not increase it's production to any great extent. It produces less pig iron now than it did ten years ago. Much of it's ore it imports from distant countries. Its cotton is all imported. It spends about 2750, ,O00 a year for foreign food stuffs.
 On the continent every nation is bur dened with debt, and none of them ever can hope to pay off it's obligations. Measured by their natural resources and advantages for continued growth against their debts and the many dis advantages under which they labor they are practically bankrupt. h all of them the cost Of production and liv- ing must steadily increase. In the United States we have scarcely laid the foundation for our future great ness. Tn natural resources we are richer than all of Europe; we are pay ing off our debts faster than they are due; we have barely scratched the ground in the development of our min eral wealth, and our agricultural growth can scarcely be limited.